A residential youth treatment facility in Youngstown that drew scrutiny from state regulators and advocates for people with disabilities and mental health conditions will relinquish its operating license before the end of March.

Disability Rights Ohio (DRO), which flagged issues at Youth Intensive Services (YIS) and released a public report calling on state regulators to take a harder line, said the saga illustrates the importance of its ability under law to visit such facilities and observe conditions.

DRO, a nonprofit legal and advocacy organization, is designated by the state to serve as Ohio’s protection and advocacy system (P&A) and client assistance program (CAP). Ohio must designate such an entity as a condition of receiving certain federal funding for disability and mental health services.

“I think it just helps illustrate why it’s important Congress created the protection and advocacy system,” Kerstin Sjoberg, executive director of DRO, told Hannah News in a phone interview.

State regulators like the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) can’t be everywhere at once, so DRO can be an extra set of eyes to spot problems. She said her organization first tries to work directly with facilities to address concerns, then turns to state regulators if that becomes necessary. “As long as we’re seeing efforts toward [improvement], action steps and then hopefully outcomes within a month or two … that’s what we’re looking for. We don’t expect perfect. We don’t expect it immediately,” she said.

In mid-February, YIS officials signed a form from OhioMHAS indicating its operator will relinquish its Class I facility license, effective Friday, March 28.

In May, DRO issued a public report on YIS raising concerns about dangerous restraint techniques and a pattern of youth walking off the grounds. The nonprofit said it went public because it was concerned OhioMHAS was not responding sufficiently to problems there. Several weeks later, OhioMHAS suspended admissions at the program. (See The Hannah Report, 5/31/24, 7/12/24.)

Sjoberg said YIS had appeared to alter its approach somewhat in the leadup to the announcement it would relinquish its license. “Our most recent contact with them was much more responsive than it had been previously,” she said.

Sjoberg said she is encouraged by OhioMHAS’s budget proposals to expand the availability of mobile response stabilization services (MRSS) for youth and young adults in crisis.

“Those investments to expand access to all 88 counties … should hopefully prevent kids even having to go to a place like YIS. No one really wants kids to end up in a youth residential treatment facility,” Sjoberg said.

The last couple budget cycles have highlighted tensions between DRO and some lawmakers and families in the developmental disabilities community. That led to a study committee and recommendation that Gov. Mike DeWine pick someone else to serve as P&A and CAP for Ohio. DeWine so far has not acted on that suggestion. DRO was created more than a dozen years ago to assume the CAP and P&A duties previously performed by Ohio Legal Rights Service, which was an arm of the state. (See The Hannah Report, 8/29/12.)

A budget amendment last cycle directed DRO to adopt a policy to acknowledge and support the rights of people to receive services in an intermediate care facility (ICF) for people with intellectual disabilities. DRO expressed concern about encroachment on its autonomy in response.

Sjoberg said Friday that DRO did update its goals and objectives to reference referring clients to “the whole spectrum of services,” including ICFs.

Sen. Mark Romanchuk (R-Ontario), one of the lawmakers who’d expressed concerns about DRO in the recent budget cycles, said he believed the change to DRO’s goals and objectives fulfilled the intent of the budget amendment. “I feel OK with what they did,” he said.

DRO is heavily dependent on federal funding. Sjoberg said so far the organization hasn’t seen any disruption from the Trump administration’s recent efforts to freeze or cancel spending in numerous areas.

“Our funding is usually fairly stable in the federal appropriations,” she said. “We’re more concerned about potential cuts to Medicaid, for example, or down the road cuts or elimination of the Department of Education.”