Committee recommends reauthorizing residential-treatment sleeping-arrangement language; asks sponsors to exclude two rules from reauthorization

At its meeting, the Administrative Rules and General Oversight Committee recommended that sponsors of the annual reauthorization bill reauthorize a clarified rule on alternate sleeping arrangements in youth residential treatment centers and separately recommended that two other rules be removed from reauthorization and subjected to further review.

Shannon Toman Black, director of the Division of Licensing and Background Checks at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, presented changes developed with providers to clarify when alternate sleep arrangements are permissible in residential treatment and congregate-care settings serving youth. "We brought together several provider organizations ... and we worked on amending some language just to make it really clear that we are not saying you can never have alternate sleep arrangements," Toman Black said. The staff-and-provider group identified language to require that any arrangement that separates a youth from peers be individualized, time-limited and…