Eleanor Middlin was 15 when her family sent her to a Missouri boarding school, an 11-hour drive from her home in mid-Michigan. She said the move was the worst thing that ever happened to her at the time and also what kept her alive, telling Bridge Michigan that “I’m alive because of it, and I will never be able to forget it.”
Her experience reflects a trend in Michigan in which teens and children with severe mental health crises are being placed hundreds or thousands of miles from home, often because state offerings are not available when families or officials need them. The pattern includes placements that families arrange themselves and placements that involve the court or child welfare systems, with families saying their lived experience is largely invisible in state data.
State reporting cited in the coverage shows that out-of-state placements have surged in recent years as a series of Michigan facilities closed. As of September, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported that 152 youth in Michigan’s direct-placement program were living in out-of-state facilities, including placements described as far away as Hawaii and Arizona. That number was up from 122 children sent out of state in 2024, and from more than double the 74 children placed out of state in 2023.
Parents who spoke about the practice said the extreme distance makes it harder to plan visits and can limit contact further depending on the facility. Laura Marshall of Cedar Springs, whose son was sent through court order to a Wyoming long-term treatment facility, said forcing a child to travel for care felt like “throwing them to the wolves,” adding that “We had no control over where he was going.”
Marshall said parents also have little ability to vet what happens at facilities, warning that “You’re shipping your kid, in some cases, across the country,” and that “There really isn’t any way as a parent to be able to vet what’s really going on.” She and other parents described how isolation can interfere with recovery while also traumatizing families.
State officials said the rise in out-of-state placements is largely limited to court-supervised youth in the juvenile justice system, rather than children directly overseen by the state. But counties that report placement data to Michigan are described as “not required” to share that information, according to the coverage, leaving room for confusion about how broadly out-of-state placements are occurring.
Erin Stover, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in an email that “The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services believes that placement decisions for youth in foster care and those involved with the juvenile justice system must be guided by safety, stability and the best interests of each individual child to ensure they receive the care and treatment they need to thrive.” Lawmakers cited in the report argued that the structure of the system, including a sprawling landscape of juvenile facilities, can leave children without timely access to care or without clear accountability.
State Rep. John Roth, R-Interlochen, described “the liability question” as “really huge,” saying, “If that kid gets seriously injured in an (out-of-state facility), is it the state that they went to’s problem now?” The question of responsibility, advocates said, sits alongside concerns that capacity limits and insurance coverage disputes can push families and agencies to seek beds elsewhere even when specialized treatment is needed.
In the coverage, providers and mental health advocates attributed the capacity shortage to intersecting factors including limited in-state capacity, gaps in insurance support, and closures and staffing strain at child caring institutions. The reporting cited state figures showing 9,200 children in Michigan’s welfare system as of December 2024, with 468 living in institutional centers that include youth residential treatment facilities.
Some residential facilities have closed since the onset of the pandemic, the report said, when about 1,200 beds for child caring institutions were operating, while today there are fewer than 400 beds available. Dan Gowdy, president of the Association of Accredited Child and Family Agencies and CEO of Wedgewood Christian Services in Grand Rapids, described what he called a “perfect storm,” saying youth mental health had been deteriorating before COVID-19 and that the pandemic’s “extended isolation” pushed problems out of public view.
The report also said staffing turnover became the norm, with facilities placed on “full lockdown for months at a time” and programs facing assaults while dealing with a “great retirement.” Kathy Regan, CEO of recently-closed Vista Maria residential treatment program in Dearborn Heights, said her agency’s workers’ compensation insurance provider stopped coverage at the end of 2025 due to the severity of staff injuries, including broken knees and dislocated shoulders, and that she “can’t keep staff safe,” adding, “They’re getting their asses handed to them.”
Michigan adopted new rules in 2022 intended to reduce the use of “restraints and seclusions” at state child caring facilities after the death of 16-year-old Cornelius Fredrick, whose fatal restraint at Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo was determined to be homicide. The coverage said two former staffers charged with involuntary manslaughter in Fredrick’s death were sentenced to probation and Lakeside Academy was closed, while Stover said that use of restraints is permitted in emergency situations and that emergency restraints were utilized 362 times in February alone.
Gowdy told Bridge Michigan that shifting policies and oversight placed pressure on facilities to address wait lists even if beds were not aligned with youths’ needs, saying, “You had smaller available beds, high-acuity youth concentrated in more intense environments,” which he said was “just simply not sustainable.” He estimated that about 16 youth treatment programs have shuttered since the onset of the pandemic, and the report said Michigan has 101 active child caring institutions, with the Shawono Center in Grayling described as the only state-run residential facility for male juveniles and closing in February 2025, and Vista Maria described as shutting down in December.
Michigan is working to increase in-state capacity for youth in psychiatric crisis, the report said, but many children and teens continue to travel to states including Nebraska and Utah. Legislators quoted in the story said substantial changes in the near term may be difficult because of elections and term-limits politics, while providers and advocates said a sustained approach is needed to expand specialized, trauma-informed bed capacity and train clinicians and frontline staff.
The coverage included the perspective of parents who said community and peer connection can help families navigate the system. Rachel Cuschieri-Murray, a cofounder of a local parents group called Advocates for Mental Health of MI Youth, said insurance companies and the public mental health system were “fighting it out” to cover care and that “So it’s not being done by anyone,” while also describing how overwhelmed parents become by both their children’s specific needs and navigating a system without a roadmap.
For Middlin, the crisis stabilization services she received in Michigan helped her get through a period when she needed “a life preserver,” she said, until her family eventually found longer-term care in Missouri. Back in Holt, she said she is now trying to reduce stigma around mental health issues, telling Bridge Michigan, “I’m not looking for everyone to understand what I went through and how that affected me,” and saying she hopes “maybe the one person who needs it … maybe they understand it. Maybe they feel a little bit less alone about that.”