Montana Editorial Roundup

Missoulian, Jan. 27, on Montana no longer being able to turn a blind eye to problems at teen treatment centers:

Last week the Missoulian published a series of news stories about private residential treatment programs for children - mostly teenagers - in Montana.

As this series shows in tragic detail, it is long past time for the state to enact meaningful regulation of these programs. The experiment in which these programs were essentially allowed to regulate themselves has clearly failed.

It’s important to note that some of these treatment programs have helped a lot of troubled kids turn their lives around. Over the past week, the Missoulian has heard from a handful of these former students and parents wanting to share their personal stories and emphasize their very positive experiences.

Undeniably, there is a place for these programs in Montana. Their good work should be encouraged. But it would be irresponsible to ignore that there have also been some troubling practices that have resulted in very negative outcomes as well, from suicide and sexual assault to post-traumatic stress disorder and lasting trauma. Regardless of the methods used by any program in Montana, they are all allowed to operate with little to no transparency to the public or even to parents. That has to change.

The current system allows problematic residential treatment facilities to shut down when complaints pour in, only to open again in a new place under a new name. It allows serious problems to slip through the cracks, with no accountability, and ultimately tarnishes the reputation of all private treatment programs in Montana. This must stop.

The Montana Legislature is faced with two bills this session that would address two gaping loopholes in the state’s ability to oversee these programs. It’s up to Montana to tackle this issue on its own because there are virtually no federal regulations in place, despite repeated attempts to pass legislation through the U.S. Congress.

LC2664, requested by Rep. Denley Loge, R-St. Regis, is a draft bill aimed at protecting vulnerable people from sexual predators, specifically providing that participants in private alternative adolescent programs cannot consent to sex with program employees. This is important because under Montana law, the legal age of consent is 16. It should be against the law for any adult holding such a strong position of power and trust to have sex with a teen resident. Loge’s bill must advance through the Legislature and be signed into law. There is no good reason to oppose it.

Another proposal, House Bill 222, would eliminate the licensing exemptions for alternative adolescent treatment programs affiliated with religious organizations. The bill, requested by Rep. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, and sponsored by Rep. Zac Perry, D-Hungry Horse, is currently awaiting action in the House Judiciary Committee. Morigeau points out that his own grandmother was abused at a mission school in St. Ignatius where a lawsuit revealed clergy were routinely assigned after getting caught sexually abusing children.

The Montana Division of Child and Family Services has recorded multiple, ongoing, proven reports of abuse at religious treatment programs - but has no enforcement authority over them. In 2015, former CFS Director Sarah Corbally told state legislators the agency had tallied more than 30 reports of abuse and neglect at unlicensed facilities over the previous five years and could do nothing about it.

Despite this compelling testimony, Montana’s lawmakers chose not to do anything about it, either. Montanans must demand they act on this legislation at last. They can remind their representatives and senators of specific cases, such as Pinehaven Christian Ranch for Kids, which has opposed state oversight in previous legislative sessions, and which itself saw a former teacher sentenced to prison for sexual intercourse without consent in 2005 after assaulting two teenage girls in the program.

Montana should be able to discipline programs with lax procedures or loose policies that allow this to happen. There should be a process for students in these programs and their parents to file credible complaints, and have those complaints thoroughly and publicly investigated.

Montana does not yet have such a system. Right now, complaints are fielded by a board that is, inexplicably, housed under the state Department of Labor and Industry, which oversees no other enterprises even remotely similar to alternative residential treatment programs for adolescents. Indeed, the department has supported bills to transfer oversight to another agency, and the Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services has previously requested that it be given this responsibility.

Further, the board in charge of investigating any complaints is stacked with industry insiders - three of the five board members run treatment centers. Thus, the oversight board, called the Private Alternative Adolescent Residential or Outdoor Program (PAARP), has never meted out a sanction to any program throughout its dozen years of existence, despite having received nearly five dozen complaints.

Worse, every one of those complaints is kept a secret. They remain unavailable for public review unless the board takes disciplinary action - and it has never taken significant action.

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry is the wrong agency to oversee these programs. And the board that investigates complaints should not consist of a majority of members who run the very businesses they are supposed to investigate. It should be expanded to include members with expertise in child education, adolescent behavioral problems and treatment.

The board also should not grant licenses to any program that has not passed a thorough inspection. Parents who pay great sums of money to send their children to these facilities may be lulled into a false sense of security by these licenses, when in reality, inspections are few and far between - and all too often, entirely perfunctory.

At a minimum, treatment programs should be required to share the results of criminal background checks of workers with the public. And unlicensed employees with no training should not be allowed to care for teens with sometimes serious disorders.

Montana can no longer turn a blind eye to these lapses. Too many children already have paid the price. It’s time, finally, to repair this troubled system for troubled kids.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2BaeKGa

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Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Jan. 29, on liquor licenses needing to go to highest bidder:

As long as the state is in the business of issuing liquor licenses, it should do it in a fair and equitable manner that yields the maximum benefit to the state.

This has not been the case in the past. The state has been issuing new licenses through a lottery with nominal fees charged to the winners. Some entered the lottery without real intentions of using the new licenses. Winners have been able to take those licenses into a virtual black market where licenses that could be used in prime markets can go for hundreds of thousands, even a million dollars or more.

That’s because those licenses are one hot commodity. One of them can make the difference between a restaurant that struggles to stay in business and one that is raking in the big bucks.

They go for top dollar because there are a limited number of licenses available. And the state only issues new ones based on population increases. There are arguments for and against the policy of limiting license availability at all. But what’s certain is that the state should not be letting these prized licenses go for less than what the market would bring.

A law passed in the November 2017 special legislative session temporarily switched the process of issuing new licenses from a lottery to a competitive bidding process. Now lawmakers have an opportunity to make the bidding process permanent.

They should do so without hesitation.

Just in the last fiscal year or so the bidding process has brought in $600,000 to the state and continuing this process is projected to bring in millions more.

House Bill 35, the legislation proposed in the current regular session, would also have the effect of eliminating the ability to move licenses between towns in the same market area. In the past, new licenses allotted for Belgrade were trotted down the road to Bozeman where they could rake in more money from tourist traffic. And that’s not good for the Belgrade local economy.

Montana is growing and things are changing fast. But the liquor-license allocation process has not kept up. This measure will get the state more of the money it should get from issuing new liquor licenses and will keep those licenses in the communities for which they were issued.

Making these changes in liquor licensing permanent just makes sense.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2Gbhoys

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Billings Gazette, Jan. 27, on how to keep Montana babies safe:

The leading cause of death for Montana children under age 1 is unsafe sleeping.

If babies were put to sleep every time on their backs, on a firm surface, with no pillows, blankets or toys in their own crib - not in bed with parents - more babies would celebrate their first birthday.

Exposure to alcohol, meth, opioids and other drugs in utero is another major risk factor for Montana babies.

What these infant mortality risks have in common is that they can be prevented or greatly reduced with widespread public education, effective communication and support for new parents.

So much of Montana’s focus on child welfare centers on the foster care system. But to prevent child abuse and neglect is so much better than trying to heal the hurts and reunite traumatized families. More proactive, holistic approaches are needed.

That’s according to recommendations from the state’s first Child Abuse and Neglect Review Commission Report, which covers fatalities and near fatalities that occurred between May 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018. The commission was created by the 2017 Legislature and Gov. Steve Bullock. The commission’s first report covers May 2017 through June 2018. During that period, the state’s child protection hotline received 34,723 calls, including 22,768 that generated reports and 12,135 investigations.

During those 14 months, 11 child fatality and near fatality cases were identified as being the result of maltreatment by a caregiver. Only two of those children had been the subject of previous abuse or neglect reports.

Yellowstone Deputy County Attorney Scott Pederson serves on the fatality review commission. His full-time job is handling civil child abuse and neglect cases and supervising the four other deputies who share this big job in Montana’s most populous county.

510 new abuse cases

In 2018, for the first time in several years, Yellowstone County saw a decline in new child abuse and neglect cases filed. The 2018 total was 510 children, compared with 579 in 2017. However, more than 200 children have been in the system since before Jan. 1, 2018, some who were returned to parents came back with new reports of neglect and abuse, and more children have been found to be in need of care since the start of 2019.

Pederson commended the other members of the commission as “committed, really smart people.”

“It is really hard subject matter, as hard as it gets,” Pederson said.

“We must ensure that parents have access to behavioral health care, parenting resources and community support,” the commission report says. “We must ensure the foster families who open their homes to kids in need have the resources and respite to serve children in times of crisis. Finally, we must prioritize and implement school programs that prevent abuse and neglect, including pre-kindergarten programming and after school programs.”

“The good news is that change is well underway in the majority of these areas,” the report says. “Knowledge is power, especially for new parents and caregivers.”

An example of good changes is the First Years Initiative launched by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. It includes a “Safe Sleep” campaign in partnership with the Children’s Trust Fund and the Montana Department of Justice. The partners will distribute safe cribs to parents of newborns identified as high risk. A new home visiting program involving local community partners is serving families in several communities. All the First Years Initiative programs are based on proven practices for keeping children safe and healthy.

“We identified really young children as the most vulnerable and most likely to suffer fatality or near fatality from child abuse,” said Katherine Curtis, a retired District Court judge in Kalispell, who co-chaired the commission.

Multi-generational child abuse is a big issue, said Curtis who founded the Court Appointed Special Advocate program in Flathead County 20 years ago. CASAs in that program and others around the state advocate for abused and neglected children, but the number of children needing advocates has grown faster than these volunteers can be recruited and trained.

“Most of us on the commission were already aware of the enormous caseloads and the vacancies among social workers and issues of recruiting and training” Curtis said. “Whatever we recommend has to be easy enough for them to do.”

3,900 kids in care

About 3,900 Montana children were in the foster care system in December, according Laura Smith, deputy director of the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, and co-chair of the review commission. That’s a slight decline from the number in care nine months ago. Fifty-three percent were placed with relatives.

Another January report on Montana child fatalities, this one produced by the Department of Justice, recommended changes in child protection processes.

“Child and Family Services just needs more resources,” Dana Toole, chief of the DOJ Children’s Justice Bureau, told The Gazette. “Caseworkers continue to have really, really high caseloads.”

High turnover remains a concern along with the antiquated computer systems in use. Last fall, the child protection intake unit and investigative staff moved to a new system, but ongoing caseworkers still must use a system that dates to the 1980s.

Toole’s office houses the child and family ombudsmen - two staffers who handle complaints about Child and Family Services Division. Last year, the top citizen concerns received by the ombudsmen were lack of response, followed by lack of services and child safety. Most complaints were filed by parents and grandparents.

“Child abuse is a community problem and it really does take the whole community to address it,” Toole said.

Adequate funding

Apparently, the only additional child protection staff in the new executive budget is the transfer of 18 full-time-equivalent positions from the Montana Developmental Center, which is in the process of downsizing and possibly closing. Concerned Montanans should ask: Is that enough?

Child and Family Services cannot keep doing more with less. When lawmakers set the Child and Family Services Division appropriation this session, they should keep in mind that the system has been overstretched for years as the number of abuse and neglect reports and the number of children in care has exploded. Overworked staffers - regardless of how dedicated they are - cannot do as good a job and get children what they need as quickly as a staff with manageable caseloads and technology that makes communication and documentation quick and simple.

We call on legislators who care about the safety and future of Montana’s most vulnerable children to ask what it will take to recruit and retain enough child protection workers and foster parents to give all children the attention and care they need to exit the system for a safe and loving home as soon as possible.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/2BaL9fA