A legislative commission isn’t changing its recommendation that Virginia should close the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents in Staunton, but the Spanberger administration is following the lead of the Youngkin folks in resisting doing so.
A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services told media outlets earlier this month that DBHDS is “not currently pursuing closure.”
“Our work on Virginia’s children’s behavioral health system following the report has reinforced how important CCCA remains to the current ecosystem,” spokesperson Lauren Cunningham said, in a statement on behalf of the department.
“Virginia still has significant gaps in inpatient, residential, crisis and other specialized services for children with complex behavioral health needs,” Cunningham said.
Translation: what else we gonna do?
I mean, somebody could try to fix the problems, but that’s apparently another story for another day.
ICYMI
- Staunton: Commonwealth Center employee arrested on child sex charges
- CCCA employee pleads guilty in sex case: Is there more going on there?
- A child in a mental health crisis was abandoned: You’ll never guess by whom
- What’s going on at the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents?
The Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission, a bicameral, bipartisan research arm of the Virginia General Assembly, issued a recommendation in 2023 urging the Youngkin administration to close CCCA, citing patient safety concerns.
JLARC Director Hal Greer reiterated the commission’s position on closure at a meeting earlier this month, saying the body doesn’t “have reason to believe that conditions have improved significantly, if at all.”
“In fact, we continued to get phone calls from staff at the facility after the completion of our study, who shared serious concerns about safety and treatment,” Greer said, per reporting from VPM.
We’ve been reporting on safety concerns the 48-bed facility for years, hoping to get the attention of higher-ups to either effect meaningful change or just close the facility down entirely, to no avail.
We eventually came to assume that the lack of action regarding CCCA was just inattention to basic detail on the part of the Youngkin team, but now that the ball has been passed to Team Spanberger, the lack of focus on the issues at the facility continue.
The ball keeps getting dropped, first by the MAGAs, now by the Dems, and in the meantime, the people paying the price are kids in need of protection.
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Chris Graham
