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| Photo by Doug Wallick |
The child is identified only as C. We don’t know the child’s age or gender. We do know that C was institutionalized at a center in East Bethel, Minnesota, run by Nexus Family Healing. We also know that C was prone to self-harm. And, according to the child welfare trade journal The Imprint, the incidents occurred so often when C was in a bathroom that staff were supposed to have “near constant verbal checks” on the child whenever C was in a bathroom.
But on May 19, 2025, no one
checked when C was in a bathroom for 45 minutes – enough time for C to wrap
strips of cloth around her or his neck until C’s face turned blue.
The institution paid a price
for this failure. The price was $200. That’s how much Nexus was fined.
In fairness, the fines weren’t
always that low. For failing to maintain the required staff-to-resident ratio,
Nexus was fined $1,200 – which, presumably, is less than it would cost to
actually maintain the required staff-to-resident ratio.
Finally, the state suspended
the facility’s license – after piling up violations and incurring piddling
penalties almost from the day Nexus took the place over from a prior operator,
which also “ran into regulatory troubles.” But then, the state restored the license.
At least three other similar
Minnesota facilities have similarly ugly records, but none of them has been
ordered to close either.
In news accounts, there seems
to be far more handwringing about the prospect of not having enough places to
institutionalize children than about the abuse that children suffer when
institutionalized. And no one has confronted the most basic fact of all:
Institutionalization doesn’t work, and the institutions aren’t needed.
Sometimes parents place their
children in these places voluntarily; other times, the children are taken by
county child welfare agencies. Either way, we’ve all heard the residential
treatment industry’s sales pitch: These children have such severe behavioral
problems that no family can possibly handle them. The only option supposedly is
to institutionalize them.
So the Minnesota Star Tribune tells us that if institutions close
That could mean more kids
remain with family members who are unable to meet their serious needs, go to
day treatment instead of the more-intensive residential services, or are stuck
in emergency departments or juvenile detention. Others will be sent to out-of-state
facilities.
But none of that has to happen.
Because, as a comprehensive report
from the Senate Finance Committee and a mountain of research
makes clear, the whole residential treatment model is a failure. There is
nothing residential treatment supposedly does that can’t be done better and at
lower cost with community-based alternatives, such as Wraparound programs. Such
programs bring everything a family needs right into the family home or, when the
children truly can’t live with their parents, into a foster home – so family
members can “meet their serious needs.”
Think it can’t be done? If you
haven’t already seen it the many other times it’s appeared on this blog, watch
the late Karl Dennis, the father of Wraparound, describe
how he did it for a youth so difficult the
local jail couldn’t handle him.
The industry has a ready answer
for that, too: They say there’s a shortage of foster homes, so there’s no place else to
put the children except our institutions.
But the shortage is artificial.
Although the state has been
making progress, Minnesota still tears apart families at a rate nearly double the
national average, even when rates of child poverty are factored in. That’s not
because Minnesota is a cesspool of depravity with double the child abuse of the
nation as a whole. In 2025, of all the Minnesota children forced into foster
care, 79% did not involve
even an allegation of physical or sexual abuse. And 58% did not involve even an
allegation of any form of drug abuse. Far more common are cases in which
family poverty is confused with “neglect.”
Get the children who don’t need
to be in foster care back home, provide parents and foster parents with all the
Wraparound services they need, and there will be plenty of room in good, safe
foster homes for the children who really need to be there. And it all costs
less than institutionalization, which, in addition to being the worst form of
care, also is the most expensive.
Instead, this artificial
“shortage” becomes a reason to keep shoveling children into institutions and
allowing the abuses to pile up (with the occasional $200 fine and brief license
suspension).
Break the cycle, confront
Minnesota’s ugly history of needless family separation, and the system can be
rebuilt to the point where the state won’t hesitate to shut down institutions
and we can treat such closings for what they really are: cause for celebration.
