Regardless of an order by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banning a state youngster welfare company from contracting with Sequel Youth and Household Providers, courts have continued to ship youths to out-of-state services run by the troubled behavioral well being supplier, information present.
Whitmer ordered Michigan Division of Well being and Human Providers officers in June 2020 to cease putting kids in Sequel-run services after 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick died after he was restrained by employees on the Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo.
But information obtained by a federally appointed watchdog group via a Freedom of Data Act request present at the very least seven kids had been housed in services run by the corporate in Woodward, Iowa, and Goddard, Kansas, as of August.
“It’s greater than a yr after Cornelius was murdered — why are we nonetheless sending these youngsters to those services?” mentioned Rebecca Kasen, director of advocacy at Incapacity Rights Michigan, the federally appointed monitoring group.
Three staff had been charged with youngster abuse and involuntary manslaughter in reference to Frederick’s loss of life, which was dominated a murder. One acquired probation for pleading no contest to youngster abuse; the opposite two haven’t but entered pleas.
A couple of month after Frederick’s loss of life, Whitmer, a Democrat, ordered MDHHS “to take each step mandatory to make sure Sequel Youth and Household Providers … not gives providers for services licensed by the division.”
Along with Lakeside, Sequel ran the same residential behavioral well being program referred to as Starr Commonwealth in Albion, Michigan. Each had racked up dozens of regulatory and security violations within the years main as much as Frederick’s loss of life. Lakeside shut down utterly, and Starr ended its Sequel-run program following Whitmer’s directive.
MDHHS has not positioned any kids in a Sequel facility since then, and it “will proceed to make sure kids in its care should not positioned in services owned or operated by Sequel,” mentioned division spokesman Bob Wheaton. But when native courts determine to put a baby in an out-of-state facility — which Michigan companies don’t have any licensing authority over — they don’t want the division’s approval , even when it foots the invoice. Sequel prices authorities companies $275 or extra per day to care for a kid, information present, and Wheaton mentioned MDHHS covers 60 % of that value.
“State legislation requires the division to reimburse native courts for providers and doesn’t give the division authority to disclaim such reimbursements, nor does it require the court docket to tell MDHHS the place the kid is positioned,” Wheaton mentioned.
As of April, Sequel operated packages in 19 states, nevertheless it’s unclear what number of services the corporate continues to run. It closed operations at 12 services up to now two years and not publicly lists its packages. Sequel didn’t reply to requests for remark.
“This isn’t OK, and the general public must know,” Kasen mentioned. “If the governor mentioned we will’t do that, and we nonetheless proceed to do that utilizing a technicality, that’s outrageous.”
Robert Leddy, a spokesman for Whitmer’s workplace, deferred to MDHHS and native courts for remark.
A number of states — together with California, Oregon and Washington — mentioned they stopped putting kids in Sequel services since Frederick’s loss of life as further allegations of abuse and neglect of kids within the firm’s care got here to mild.
At a information convention final month, entertainer Paris Hilton evoked Frederick’s loss of life as she campaigned for brand new federal regulation of youth services, saying the patchwork strategy to oversight hasn’t been efficient.
Erin Einhorn and Hannah Rappleye contributed.
