• Kentucky Sen. Danny Carroll has put forward a bill aimed at opening several new juvenile detention centers and creating a new process to determine where a kid in the state’s care should stay.
• Carroll put forward a similar bill last session, which passed the Senate unanimously but was not taken up by the House before lawmakers gaveled out for the year.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The kids who have been housed inside state offices in recent years weren’t born on third base.

One 11-year-old boy who entered a “non-traditional placement” last month, according to Kentucky officials, has ADHD and a history of parental neglect, suicidal ideations, housing and food insecurity and exposure to inappropriate sexual material. He was kicked out of one foster home last year, removed from an emergency shelter last month due to inappropriate behavior and has been denied by all other foster agencies.

Another 17-year-old girl with an IQ of 83, multiple mental conditions and a history of abuse and neglect has been in out-of-home care since 2020, at one point landing multiple criminal charges after escaping from a residential treatment center. She’s been in a “non-traditional placement” for a week now after being denied by all in-state and out-of-state providers.

These are the children around Kentucky who are lodged in offices operated by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Secretary Eric Friedlander said Tuesday at a committee meeting. They need all the help they can get.

The issue has been on the state’s radar for nearly two years, with The Courier Journal reporting in July 2023 that a downtown Louisville office building had been used to house delinquent, abused and neglected children in the cabinet’s custody overnight.

In the wake of a new report from Auditor Allison Ball’s office, which found the problems have persisted, the issue has again come into the spotlight in the 2025 General Assembly. And while officials say a solution won’t come overnight, at least one lawmaker has filed a bill that could help start the process for getting Kentucky’s kids appropriate care.

“It is a problem, there’s no question about it. We’ve got to resolve it,” said Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, who chairs the Senate Families and Children Committee. “But obviously there’s a lot more to this, or it would already be resolved.”

New report investigates foster children housed in office buildings

A recent study from the Office of the Ombudsman, which now reports to Ball, provided new numbers on how many foster children were being housed in Cabinet for Health and Family Services office buildings. Key findings from the 2024 investigation, spanning from June 10 to Oct. 29, included:

• 49 kids spent a total of 198 days in CHFS buildings.
• The average stay lasted about four days, and about half of all cases lasted just one day. However, one child in Boone County stayed at a state office for 35 days, and Warren County had separate 16- and 17-day stays.
• Kids have been housed in buildings all over the state, with 70% of stays taking place in regions in Northern Kentucky, Western Kentucky and counties surrounding Louisville.
• While kids as young as 1 have stayed in CHFS buildings, 47% were between 16-20 and 37% were between 11-15.

Ball said the report revealed “deeply concerning issues impacting foster children across Kentucky” due to “systemic failures.” The report noted many questions raised “still need answers” and recommended further investigation, including examining the conditions children at the facilities have experienced and barriers that prevent those children from staying with other housing providers.

Speaking at Tuesday’s committee hearing, Ball called the report a “preliminary assessment” that confirmed issues in the system are still present.

“This was step one,” she said. “This just showed it is ongoing, it is still a problem and the ombudsman is actively involved right now in doing a deeper dive.”

When Friedlander spoke to the committee, he stressed the issue is not unique to Kentucky and “no one” wants to see troubled kids who need help housed in office buildings that aren’t a part of the foster system. A significant number are cases that last about a day, he said, when a kid leaves their home and temporarily stays in non-traditional placement before finding a more permanent solution.

“We are not comfortable with the situation at all, but it is the situation that we are presented with,” he said.

Finding placement for kids accused of violence or who suffer from more severe mental or physical issues, though, is a bigger challenge. Hospitals and other centers are often hesitant to take in “high acuity” kids, Carroll said, because they don’t have the option of calling police for other treatment options if those children become violent, which causes staff to leave and conditions to worsen.

Carroll requested Friedlander provide a list of foster care providers around the state, including their specialties and populations they serve, to help legislators identify shortcomings and work to find solutions, including renovating offices where kids are currently staying into “shelter facilities” that can provide better care. The committee meets again next week.

“I’m not as concerned about them being in a office, I’m concerned about what happens in that office,” he said.

In the meantime, the Kentucky Youth Advocates nonprofit called the ombudsman’s report a “starting point with the need for more complete data” and called on the state to “keep children in safe, supportive family-based care when possible.”

A CHFS statement said the cabinet continues to work to get those kids, many of whom have “behavioral problems and severe mental or a history of violence or sexual aggression,” with families or facilities that can care for them, noting Kentuckians interested in becoming foster parents can learn more at adopt.ky.gov.

Carroll believes a wider-ranging juvenile justice bill he filed last week could also provide some relief.

Senate Bill 111

A portion of Carroll’s proposal, Senate Bill 111, would change the process used to place kids in the state’s custody into treatment or other residential centers, including those determined to need inpatient care with specialized treatment.

Under Carroll’s proposal, a kid charged with public offenses or who is ordered by a court to receive inpatient psychiatric treatment while in the state’s care would undergo a behavioral assessment by a professional first. If that professional agrees the child needs specialized care, they’d then provide a recommendation for a potential treatment center or for outpatient treatment.

A court could either approve the arrangement for an initial treatment plan or — if the Department of Juvenile Justice and Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities disagree on recommendations — review the case and schedule a hearing to determine treatment.

Hospitals and other inpatient centers would also have to agree that the proper resources will be available, and kids who commit or incite violence in the hospital’s care could be criminally charged, removed from the facility and taken to their last place of custody.

The bill also calls on the Department of Juvenile Justice to run several housing options for kids in the court system, including detention facilities, youth development centers, group homes, alternatives to detention centers and a mental health facility.

“It’s taking the decision away from the hospitals, from the cabinet, from DJJ. The judge is making a decision where the kid goes,” Carroll said. “And then there are avenues if the kid becomes violent where that kid can be moved again upon court order. It establishes a process for all these things.”

A CHFS statement Tuesday said SB 11 would “provide additional avenues for (high acuity) youth to receive the care and treatment they deserve in order to thrive.”

The bill does more than that, though. It also calls for the state to open at least two more female-only detention centers, with those accused of violent and nonviolent offenses separated, along with a separate mental health detention center for “high acuity” kids.

Several parts of the bill, including the provision to build two new detention centers for girls, were included in a similar bill from Carroll last year. That legislation, which came with a price tag of $165 million and included a number of other provisions, had momentum but failed to pass through both chambers.

Carroll has been public in his disappointment that lawmakers did not pass the 2024 bill after it was approved unanimously in the Senate. He urged his colleagues to support his latest proposal this year in a speech last week on the chamber’s floor.

“I have been very critical that we did not get the job done last session,” he said. “I hope that we can do it this session.”

Midway though the bill includes a clause that allows the DJJ to publicly release names, photos and descriptions of kids who escape facilities. It also includes language that would allow the department to disclose confidential records and records about juveniles who file civil lawsuits involving information that had been confidential.

That clause was included in the bill that did not pass last year. While the DJJ defended it as necessary to respond to lawsuits in a Lexington Herald-Leader article, juvenile justice attorney Laura Landenwich told The Courier Journal at that time it would allow officials to “publicly smear” kids who have faced abuse “by opening up for public discourse their juvenile records.”

A key factor working against SB 111 is its hefty financial impact. While it does not yet have a public fiscal impacts statement, Carroll told fellow senators the total price of the new facilities included in the bill would cost “tens of millions of dollars.” House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, has said he does not expect to reopen the state budget this year for major changes.

“I know that that is a very large price tag and is a big step, a big investment for this state,” Carroll told fellow senators. “But as all of you are aware, the Department of Justice has been in our commonwealth once more in relation to DJJ and all the incidents that have occurred within our detention centers throughout the state. … This is the answer that we came up with.”

Reach Lucas Aulbach at laulbach@courier-journal.com.