Last year, the Grand Traverse County court sent three children out of state for treatment at Missouri's Lakeland Behavioral Health — a facility facing allegations of sexual and physical abuse.
A Kingsley mother says she repeatedly warned the court about the facility, before her son was sent there anyway.
Cheryl Karpinski’s son was 15 when he was placed at Lakeland. While he was there, Karpinski’s son said, a staff member gave him marijuana, and a different staff member threatened to “snuff the life out of him.”
Under IPR policy, Karpinski's son is not being named as he is a minor.
The path that led to Lakeland was a painful one, Karpinski said. Her son had been abusing alcohol and marijuana and repeatedly running away from home. During one incident, he scratched her arm while trying to get his phone, before running away again.
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Karpinski said police told her then that her son could receive help if she pressed charges.
"You see these news stories where people always go, 'Well, why didn't the parents try?' Believe me, we're trying," said Karpinski. "My biggest regret [is] the day that I rolled the dice and said, 'Yeah, I'd like to press charges.'"
Because of the charges, her son entered the care of Grand Traverse County’s 13th Circuit Court, which decided he needed longer-term mental health treatment. The court then had four weeks to find a facility before his release from juvenile detention.
Karpinski says Lakeland appeared early as a possible destination, and that she had immediate concerns.
First, the facility was 800 miles from home, meaning she couldn’t see him while he was there. Then she looked up the facility online.
At the time, two former Lakeland staffers had faced criminal sex abuse cases — one being charged with rape and molestation offenses, while the other had already pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor.
Months after Karpinski’s son left the facility, two additional lawsuits were filed, involving more than 30 plaintiffs, which alleged abuse by staff and residents over a 14-year period.
My frustration as a parent is there was no transparency. If you're going to send a child to another state, I think the minimum you have to do is say, this is who we've spoken with [and] these are the facilities that we've considered.CHERYL KARPINSKI | Kingsley mom
Karpinski raised her concerns directly with the court, including during a January 22 hearing with Judge Jennifer Whitten.
In the court transcripts, Karpinski asked for more transparency in the placement process and said she had "grave concerns" about Lakeland receiving hundreds of one star reviews, which she said spoke of "overmedicating, a concrete room used for behavior modifications... and inadequate and untrained staff."
Her son's probation officer Matthew Ferguson responded in court saying that the "youth that we have down at Lakeland is doing well," and that he had not "heard any negative staffing issues like that from the facility." Ferguson also mentioned they had another youth at Lakeland in the acute care program that did well and that "there were no issues of overmedication... by any stretch of the imagination."
Karpinski also read from a letter from her son's psychologist, which said that while inpatient treatment was warranted, "the distance the facility is from his family will in effect cut [Cheryl's son's] ties from his family" and that the placement in Missouri would "cause further trauma to a child who has the need and love and support of his family."
While the court declined IPR's request for comment on how it selects facilities for children, paperwork in her son’s case listed several in-state placement attempts but only one out-of-state attempt: Lakeland Behavioral Health.
Also noted was that Acadia Healthcare — Lakeland's parent company and a national operator of residential treatment facilities — was used to help find treatment. According to reports from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), Grand Traverse County has sent children to Acadia facilities exclusively for the last three years.
Leading up to her son’s placement hearing, Karpinski contacted state officials, including Rep. John Roth.
In a separate interview with IPR, Roth said that out-of-state placements require an on-site review by the MDHHS. In a letter sent to the department, Roth asked to be provided with the date of MDHHS's on-site visit to Lakeland, along with "the name of the employee who was assigned the visit to the site, timeframe of the visit, and the MDHHS findings regarding the facility's records, licensing reports, and reports on the facility."
Roth said neither MDHHS or the Grand Traverse court had sent a representative to visit Lakeland.
"My frustration as a parent is there was no transparency," Karpinski said. "If you're going to send a child to another state, I think the minimum you have to do is say, this is who we've spoken with [and] these are the facilities that we've considered."
Karpinski’s son has since returned home after three months at Lakeland, which she said happened only after she spent around ten thousand dollars to hire a private attorney.
"I'm not rich, I don't have a bunch of money sitting in my bank account," she said, "but I was able to use two credit cards to come up with enough cash to pay for a lawyer, and that's how we were able to get an attorney on board that was actually fighting for him."
Karpinski still has another case with the court, this one appealing the court’s initial decision to remove her son from the home.
"I’m doing this because I’m worried about other kids," Karpinski said. "I'm worried about other families, and I don't want any other kid to have to go through this."
Her appeal is still open and waiting to be heard.
Lakeland's parent company, Acadia Healthcare, declined to comment on this story.
