Maine over-institutionalized children with disabilities, Justice Department says

This story will be updated.

Maine was found to have violated the Americans with Disabilities Act for not making community-based services accessible enough to children with mental health and developmental disabilities, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Following a complaint filed by Disability Rights Maine, an investigation determined that the state violated the ADA as well as the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision, Olmstead v L.C., which holds that people with disabilities have a right to receive services in a setting appropriate to their needs — such as their homes and communities.

“Absent these services, Maine children with disabilities enter emergency rooms, come into contact with law enforcement, and remain in institutions when many of them could be at home if Maine put in place sufficient community-based services,” the department said.

An investigation found that there were a number of barriers in Maine that prevented such services such as lengthy waitlists, an insufficient provider network, inadequate crisis services and a lack of support for foster care parents which lead to children entering in- and out-of state facilities or Long Creek Youth Development Center to receive behavioral health services, according to the department.

Due to the pandemic, hospitals across Maine reached capacity and caused staff shortages, which resulted in people with mental and behavioral crises being put on waiting lists and kept in emergency rooms because there was no room for them elsewhere.

A Presque Isle mother told the Bangor Daily News earlier this month that the health care system couldn’t offer her son the long-term help he needed. He was later fatally shot by police.

Another Bangor mother told the BDN in November how her 8-year-old son with severe ADHD, impulse control issues and intermittent explosive disorder had been institutionalized for six months already because he was at risk of losing a residential bed if he left the hospital.

“Access to local community-based services for children with mental health and/or developmental disabilities is a critical need for families across Maine,” said U.S. Attorney Darcie N. McElwee for the District of Maine. “I hope that the violations identified by the Justice Department can be remedied so that these children and their families are able to obtain quality services in their own communities.”