Custody relinquishment is a bureaucratic loophole used by social workers to get kids help, since foster children are entitled to government-funded mental-health care. But solving one problem creates another. Some parents say they’ve lost track of their children for months while the state moves them to different facilities. “These are children who already have mental-health problems,” says attorney Mary Giliberti, “and then on top of that you tear them away from the only family they know.”
When Theo Lehr was 16, doctors recommended six months of residential treatment for his bipolar disorder. When his mother’s 30-day cap on her mental-health coverage expired, she couldn’t cover the $500 a day. After two months of bouncing between foster families, Theo was placed at a state-run facility where he was treated for eight months. “It’s scary,” says Theo, who now lives at home. “You never know what the system is going to do to you.”
