Law gives runaways edge over treatment sta

Authority is limited

BY JENNIFER BROWN THE COLORADO SUN

Workers who care for kids in residential treatment centers say they feel powerless to prevent them from running away because of a Colorado law that limits their authority to restrain them.

Sta reported in a new study that they’re regularly confused and paralyzed by what’s known as the Colorado “Restraint and Seclusion Act,” which says they cannot physically prevent a child from leaving a residential treatment center unless the child is in imminent danger. Even police o cers who respond to a barrage of runaway calls often do not understand that treatment center sta cannot restrain or block kids from eeing, sta reported.

In one case, a worker watched helplessly as a 13-year-old boy ran from a center in the middle of a blizzard wearing only sweats and ip- ops. Instead of trying to catch him, she kept an eye on the boy from her car until, gratefully, the child returned to the facility on his own. She feared that he would freeze to death while she also wondered if she would lose her job if she touched him.

e study is part of legislation passed last year that set up a task force overseen by the state child protection ombudsman to determine why so many children and teens are running from foster care placements and residential treatment centers.

A 2021 joint Colorado Sun/9News investigation found that kids are running from the centers nearly every day and that two boys who ran away from di erent facilities were struck by cars and killed. e Sun investigation found that Denver police were called to Tennyson Center for Children about once per day and to Mount Saint Vincent center about twice per week.

Each year, 20-30 kids run away from foster care placements in Colorado and are not found. eir child welfare cases are closed.

e new study, by researchers from the University of Denver’s Evaluation and Action Lab, included interviews with 15 sta as well as 21 young people ages 12-17 who have run from placements.

A key reason they run is that they are looking for “connectedness,” the researchers found, often by run- ning to family members. Also, they are living in “ ght, ight or freeze” mode, a constant state of stress. Children are typically “dysregulated at the time of a run” and are “unable to access parts of their brain that allow them to make rational decisions and understand consequences,” according to the study. ey run when they are triggered by upsetting events. ey run because they are not connected to sta members and they’re seeking connection. ey feel ignored and unseen. Some run to nd drugs or alcohol. Many run to a place of familiarity, the study found.

Children are placed in residential treatment centers either because they are in foster care due to abuse and neglect, or because their behavioral and mental health issues are beyond their parents’ control.

In the past few years, updates in state law and regulation have attempted to strike a balance between children’s safety and the use of restraints and seclusion. One new law came in response to concern that the youth corrections division was relying too heavily on solitary connement and straitjackets to control behavior. Other state regulations say that residential treatment center sta cannot use physical restraint on children in out-of-home placements