“Boot Camp” Bill Introduced with P&A Role

· Representative George Miller, (D-CA) and Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008 (H.R. 5876) on April 23 rd. The bill currently has 15 co-sponsors and is available at http://edlabor.house.gov/bills/hr5876_text.pdf. It would set standards for private residential programs. It is estimated that tens of thousands of U.S. teenagers attend private residential programs – including therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps, boot camps, and behavior modification facilities – that are intended to help them with behavioral, emotional, or mental health problems. Depending on the state where they are located, some of these programs are regulated; some are not. As a result of this loose patchwork of regulations, reports of child abuse at the programs have frequently gone unchecked.

· Two recent Government Accountability Office studies found thousands of allegations of child abuse and neglect at private residential programs for teens between 1994 and 2007. These reports are Residential Treatment Programs: Concerns Regarding Abuse and Death in Certain Programs (October 2007) GAO-08-146T and Residential Facilities: State and Federal Oversight Gaps May Increase Risk to Youth Well Being (April 2008) GAO-08-696T. They can be found at www.gao.gov. For more background information, see Inside Washington 6-10.

· Knowing the interest of the P&A network in the prohibition of the use of restraint and seclusion and out-of-state placement matters (especially at so-called wilderness and boot camps), NDRN worked with Education and Labor Committee staff on this legislation. The legislation -- as currently written -- would mandate that reports of credible complaints of child abuse and neglect in the types of programs covered by the legislation be given to the protection and advocacy system. Additionally, the bill would make the P&A network part of the collaboration when the state is in the process of establishing standards and requirements for the covered programs.

· NDRN believes this legislation is a good first step to address the egregious behavior that the P&As have learned about at these types of programs. The inclusion of the P&As in this legislation will allow those P&As that have been working on these matters to have reports on the incidents of child abuse and neglect at these programs. Inclusion in this legislation provides the P&A network with a very strong additional argument for increasing the PAIMI appropriations.