Late Friday, when a troubled psychiatric facility outside Minneapolis was on the verge of being shut down for placing youth at “imminent risk of harm,” an agreement was reached with the state to keep its doors open.
But under the settlement with the Department of Human Services (DHS) obtained by The Imprint, Nexus East Bethel Family Healing must scale back its offerings and submit to more rigorous oversight.
“All youth placed previously at the East Bethel facility have been moved to new locations,” a state spokesperson said Monday. “Nexus has agreed to implement additional terms under the new agreement and can continue operations according to these terms.”
The residential treatment center is now temporarily approved to house just six youth, instead of the 40 it had been licensed to serve. Management must fix broken doors and broken glass tiles in bathrooms, and produce monthly reviews detailing how often staff use restraints and seclusion.
In addition, the facility must adopt policies to prevent sexual contact between residents, and train employees on how to better respond. A supervisor is required to work overnight shifts along with line staff. And a psychiatric nurse or licensed mental health provider must be on-site until 8 p.m. each day. The medical director must be more involved in case planning.
According to the Friday settlement agreement, weekly status updates to state officials will ensure compliance. If the facility fails to meet the terms, the state may reinstate the immediate suspension of its license.
But if the new requirements are met, after 60 days East Bethel can begin gradually increasing its capacity.
Nexus Family Healing, the $99-million Minnesota-based nonprofit that runs the treatment facility, has already taken “significant steps to implement changes to its program that address some of the conditions that led to DHS’s determination that youth were at an imminent risk of harm,” the settlement states. It also states that management “continues to review and update current practices to safely meet the unique needs of the youth served at its program.”
Representatives of the Department of Human Services and Nexus Family Healing did not answer follow-up questions this week regarding the settlement agreement.
It was just last month that the department ordered a temporary suspension of the facility’s license because the state could not “ensure the health and safety” of the young people living there. Investigators found staff had failed to protect resident rights, keep the campus in good repair, safely administer medication, maintain enough trained staff and properly report allegations of suspected neglect or abuse.
In a May 15 letter to Nexus CEO Michelle Murray, state officials said that all 21 of the psychiatric residential treatment facility’s residents had to be moved by May 29, but later extended that deadline to June 15.
The suspension order came just three years after the facility first opened, serving young people ages 10 through 21. Since opening, the East Bethel program has incurred more than three dozen state licensing violations, been fined $1,400 and received multiple corrective action plans, according to an Imprint review of state licensing documents.
The nonprofit serves more than 4,600 children and families annually in four states with an array of residential programs and foster care and adoption services.
Trouble at East Bethel comes at a hard time for psychiatric residential treatment facilities in Minnesota. There are just three others in the state, located in Saint Peter, Duluth and Cold Spring. Those facilities have not been ordered to close, according to licensing records, but since 2022, they too have received lengthy correction orders for a range of shortcomings.
Together, the three facilities are licensed to serve 118 youth. But demand exceeds supply. Families and county agencies placing foster youth often struggle to find residential treatment options. As a result, some struggling young people have wound up stuck in emergency departments long after they are approved for discharge, simply because they had nowhere else to go.
A bill to create a new 30-bed secure psychiatric residential treatment facility run by the state could have eased some of these supply issues, but it did not progress this legislative session.
