Parents tell House panel state lacks beds and resources for children with severe behavioral health needs

Molly Dixon, an adoptive mother who testified before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Child Welfare System, described years of efforts to secure treatment and safe placements for two adopted children with severe behavioral and mental-health needs. Dixon said state and local agencies repeatedly failed to find appropriate placements in Michigan and that, in practice, families sometimes must relinquish parental rights to access residential services.

Dixon told the committee her family adopted two children after fostering them at ages 2 and 4; the adoption was finalized in February 2017. She said the children were later diagnosed with conditions including fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, reactive attachment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, disruptive mood disorder and autism. She said her son’s behavior escalated to repeated violent incidents and frequent emergency psychiatric evaluations.

The testimony highlights long-standing capacity and policy issues in the state's behavioral-health and child-placement systems: a shortage of residential beds for high-needs children, inconsistent eligibility for placements, and limits on what staff may do to keep children safe in some facilities.

Dixon described a pattern of hospitalizations followed by denials of placement: evaluators cited inconsistent reasons for refusing beds, including that a child was "too young," "too severe," "not severe enough," or that "no beds were available." She said her son began probation at age 9 and has been in and out of juvenile detention since. "He has spent over 600 days in detention," Dixon told the committee, and she said at one point he had spent more time in detention than in mental-health placements.

Dixon said that, in February, a residential bed was found in Arkansas and her son was transferred there after months of paperwork. She told lawmakers the out-of-state placement represented the only available option the system could find: "He had to leave the state of Michigan in order to get this done," she said.

Dixon criticized what she described as inconsistent oversight and weak security at some facilities. She said staff at one facility in Saginaw could not physically restrain children and that children easily left when an alarm or fire pull opened doors. She described a pattern of escapes, drug use and unsafe conditions at some residential providers and said she had learned of multiple allegations of staff misconduct at other facilities. When asked about safety practices at her son's current out-of-state facility, Dixon said staff there use restraints and small monitoring tethers to locate children who leave.

Committee members asked whether rules restricting restraints hampered staff ability to protect children and whether the state has enough beds. Dixon urged investment in training and higher pay for staff, stronger oversight of residential providers, earlier intervention for children with severe needs, and mechanisms that do not require parents to give up legal rights to access treatment.

Dixon also described the impact on the rest of the family. She said her other children have experienced trauma, reputational harms at school and repeated emergency responses to the home. She said one daughter has been in and out of detention and residential care and that agencies sometimes placed children in foster homes without fully disclosing the child's needs.

The committee thanked Dixon and said members would remain in contact; Dixon said she would keep working with her child's agency and the court to improve communication and care planning.