A bipartisan bill on the abuse of youth who are placed into residential care, which has been publicly championed by celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, has cleared both chambers and is on to the desk of President Joe Biden.
The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, which was originally introduced in the spring of 2023, instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct “a study to examine the state of youth in youth residential programs and make recommendations.” The study is to be carried out within three years by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
This original study is to be followed by new reports to Congress produced every other year for a decade. The bill lists the parties that must be part of a working group consulted for the study, which includes people with lived experience in institutional care, parents, educators, child advocates and others.
“This moment is proof that our voices matter, that speaking out can spark change, and that no child should ever endure the horrors of abuse in silence,” said Hilton, in a tweet that followed the bill’s passage in the House of Representatives today. “I did this for the younger version of myself and the youth who were senselessly taken from us by the Troubled Teen Industry. To the countless survivors who shared their stories, to the families who stood with us, and to the coalition, thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing with me.”
The percentage of foster youth who reside in residential care programs has declined greatly in the past 15 years, but they remain a high percentage of the kids who end up in such places. Others are sent at the referral of juvenile justice or behavioral health systems, or, as was Hilton’s experience, directly by their parents or guardians.
Longstanding criticism of the quality of care in many residential facilities came to a head in 2020 when, during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, 16-year-old foster youth Cornelius Fredericks was killed at Lakeside Academy in Michigan. The facility, run by the for-profit company Sequel Youth & Family Services, came under harsh scrutiny after video footage revealed Cornelius was suffocated during a 12-minute face-down restraint involving seven staffers who piled on top of the boy. His misdeed was throwing a sandwich in the cafeteria.
The Senate Finance Committee recently held a hearing to release its own yearslong study of residential care, pointedly entitled Warehouses of Neglect.
“The findings are simply horrific. And the report shows a terrible pattern of mistreatment and abuse happening to kids — at facilities which now receive billions of dollars in federal funds,” said Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who chairs the committee.
Federal funding for residential care is among the 16 topics envisioned for this study. Among the others:
- Recommendations for improving the quality of and access to community-based services that can negate the need for residential care
- Identification of available data on the use of residential care, cases of abuse within them, and the use of restraints and seclusion
- Strategies for improving the training and development of workers in the lives of youth who are placed in residential care
A 2021 report by Think of Us, based on extensive interviews with current and former foster youth, called for an end to the use of group care.
Hilton was also successful in championing a law passed in California this year that would provide more transparency around the practices in the state’s residential care facilities for youth.
State Senator Shannon Grove, who wrote the bill, said it was inspired in part by a 2020 investigation by The Imprint and The San Francisco Chronicle, Far From Home, Far From Safe, which revealed rampant abuse in private, out-of-state residential facilities where California had long been sending its foster youth. The reporting resulted in a law banning child welfare departments from sending children across state lines, as well as a $100 million investment to create better treatment options in-state.
“We spent a lot of money bringing all these kids home and condemning those organizations outside of California,” Grove said in an interview with The Imprint. “We want to make sure that there’s transparency to make sure that these kids are getting the care they need.”
