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Associated PressHer lawsuit claims she was admitted, found not to need treatment - and held for 13 months.
WEST PALM BEACH - A teenager who says she was wrongly imprisoned in a mental health facility for 13 months sued her former caretakers Tuesday, saying they deprived her of schooling, friends and appropriate care.
Attorneys for the teen said state employees and mental health workers put the girl in a center meant to house suicidal patients for 72 hours and then failed to transfer her to a long-term treatment center or foster home. A state senator's intervention finally got her transferred.
During the girl's 396-day stay at the South County Mental Health Center, workers repeatedly subdued her with drugs, the lawsuit says, and on five occasions shackled her hand and foot.
"She was falsely imprisoned, and the sad tale is it's not just her. There are many other children just like this," attorney Theodore Babbitt said. The teen, identified as S.M., sued the mental health center, two of its employees and four former state child welfare employees.
She was taken from her mother at age 3 because of abuse, went through two failed adoptions and spent her 15th birthday in the center. She was recently released from state care when she turned 18 and now lives with friends while she works to complete her high school diploma.
Joe Speicher, director of the South County Mental Health Center, said that generally children are released from its crisis unit within a few days.
"But you can't discharge a child to the street, so if there's no placement you have to keep them," Speicher said. He could not comment specifically on the girl's case.
Officials at the state Department of Children and Families said in a statement that they try to provide the "least restrictive" care for children.
The agency has been under fire for a number of problems, including the deaths of children in DCF care and the unknown fate of a 5-year-old Miami girl, Rilya Wilson, who was missing for 15 months before DCF caseworkers learned she was gone from her foster home.
Although the lawsuit does not name DCF as a defendant, it names a former secretary, Edward Feaver, and three former administrators.
Roselyn Kruvant, the former deputy program administrator, said she was not aware of the lawsuit and could not recall details of the girl's case.
The teen was admitted to the mental health center in April 1998, after a foster parent called police to say she was threatening suicide. But an evaluation found that she was not suicidal and was alert and cooperative, which meant she never met the criteria to be held there, according to the lawsuit.
"This is a child who was given no education, who was chemically and physically restrained at times and had no interaction with other children," Babbitt said.
The girl was assigned an attorney who grew so frustrated with DCF and the mental health center that he called then-state Sen. Tom Rossin. Rossin said his aides made a few phone calls and secured a transfer for the girl within days.
"It got cleared up pretty quickly but I understand she had been in there over a year before they called us," Rossin said. "Unfortunately, we don't know how many others are out there like this."
Attorneys for the girl said she suffered through repeated promises that she would be discharged, which ultimately worsened her mental condition and will require that she have treatment the rest of her life.
Babbitt said they would seek millions of dollars.