There is an effort in the Maine Legislature to help prevent children’s residential behavioral treatment programs from closing in the future.There are only a handful of Maine organizations that provide children’s residential services. Sweetser chief program officer Kristie Worster said her organization operates two residential units for children and adolescents ages 10 to 17, one in Saco and the other in Winterport.Worster said Sweetser’s units provide individual, family and group therapy with a full-time therapist on staff, as well as a supervisor, coordinator, nurse and one behavioral health professional for every two children. The average length of stay in Sweetser’s programs is nine months.”The youth that come to this program traditionally have trauma in their history or other behavioral health challenges,” Worster said. “They often struggle with severe aggression and property destruction, and with some boundary challenges when they get to us. By the time they come to this service, generally speaking, they have had contact with crisis services, with emergency rooms and sometimes even law enforcement and inpatient facilities. They’ve tried all other levels of care, like outpatient therapy and home and community-based treatments, at this point.”Worster noted that in the last two years, Sweetser has been forced to close 16 of its 32 children’s residential beds and more than 100 beds have closed statewide within the past few years.”The system really is struggling,” she said.Worster said providers like Sweetser operated these programs at a financial loss totaling in the millions of dollars. According to Worster, those losses are driven by MaineCare reimbursement rates that do not reflect the true cost of 24/7 residential care, rapid wage inflation for a historically underpaid workforce and rising operating costs across food, utilities, insurance and regulatory compliance.”I think that if we can’t get this stabilized, I’m really concerned about being able to continue this service,” Worster said.Worster said the bill LD 2125, An Act to Sustain Access to Children’s Residential Care Services, represents an opportunity for Maine to stabilize a critical piece of its children’s behavioral health system in the short term while efforts to make residential services sustainable in the long term continue.The bill would provide a $1 million stabilization fund as a stopgap to prevent further irreversible losses and bed closures.”If more beds are closed, all that’s going to happen is we’re going to end up pushing the problem over to emergency rooms, juvenile justice and inpatient facilities, and possibly even more out-of-state beds,” Worster said. “We really want to see this get funded because once you close a residential bed, it’s very hard and costly to get it back open — and our children and families need this service.”Worster said if LD 2125 does not pass, she is deeply concerned that the remaining handful of providers will be forced to make the same decisions Sweetser already has, which would mean fewer in-state residential beds, longer waits for care, more children languishing in emergency departments without proper treatment and a greater overall cost to the state of Maine.People who are interested in helping can contact their state legislators to encourage them to pass funding for LD 2125.Worster said Sweetser appreciates the unanimous and bipartisan support from the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, but the bill needs to be funded as part of the supplemental budget process.
PORTLAND, Maine —
There is an effort in the Maine Legislature to help prevent children’s residential behavioral treatment programs from closing in the future.
There are only a handful of Maine organizations that provide children’s residential services. Sweetser chief program officer Kristie Worster said her organization operates two residential units for children and adolescents ages 10 to 17, one in Saco and the other in Winterport.
Worster said Sweetser’s units provide individual, family and group therapy with a full-time therapist on staff, as well as a supervisor, coordinator, nurse and one behavioral health professional for every two children. The average length of stay in Sweetser’s programs is nine months.
“The youth that come to this program traditionally have trauma in their history or other behavioral health challenges,” Worster said. “They often struggle with severe aggression and property destruction, and with some boundary challenges when they get to us. By the time they come to this service, generally speaking, they have had contact with crisis services, with emergency rooms and sometimes even law enforcement and inpatient facilities. They’ve tried all other levels of care, like outpatient therapy and home and community-based treatments, at this point.”
Worster noted that in the last two years, Sweetser has been forced to close 16 of its 32 children’s residential beds and more than 100 beds have closed statewide within the past few years.
“The system really is struggling,” she said.
Worster said providers like Sweetser operated these programs at a financial loss totaling in the millions of dollars. According to Worster, those losses are driven by MaineCare reimbursement rates that do not reflect the true cost of 24/7 residential care, rapid wage inflation for a historically underpaid workforce and rising operating costs across food, utilities, insurance and regulatory compliance.
“I think that if we can’t get this stabilized, I’m really concerned about being able to continue this service,” Worster said.
Worster said the bill LD 2125, An Act to Sustain Access to Children’s Residential Care Services, represents an opportunity for Maine to stabilize a critical piece of its children’s behavioral health system in the short term while efforts to make residential services sustainable in the long term continue.
The bill would provide a $1 million stabilization fund as a stopgap to prevent further irreversible losses and bed closures.
“If more beds are closed, all that’s going to happen is we’re going to end up pushing the problem over to emergency rooms, juvenile justice and inpatient facilities, and possibly even more out-of-state beds,” Worster said. “We really want to see this get funded because once you close a residential bed, it’s very hard and costly to get it back open — and our children and families need this service.”
Worster said if LD 2125 does not pass, she is deeply concerned that the remaining handful of providers will be forced to make the same decisions Sweetser already has, which would mean fewer in-state residential beds, longer waits for care, more children languishing in emergency departments without proper treatment and a greater overall cost to the state of Maine.
People who are interested in helping can contact their state legislators to encourage them to pass funding for LD 2125.
Worster said Sweetser appreciates the unanimous and bipartisan support from the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, but the bill needs to be funded as part of the supplemental budget process.