New residential treatment center for teen girls breaks ground this week. What to know.

EXETER – The state is expected to break ground Tuesday on a much-discussed and critically needed residential treatment center for teenage girls with psychiatric and behavioral-health issues.

A start on the $45 million, 16-bed facility comes at a time when the shortage of such beds for children in state care prompted U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha in May to warn Rhode Island that he might file a civil-rights suit if the state didn’t stop warehousing children with disabilities in Bradley Hospital.

For years, warning bells about teenage girls at risk

Various state lawmakers, and even the chief judge of the Family Court, have been sounding the alarm for the need for more adolescent treatment beds, noting that for years Rhode Island has sent scores of girls with complex behavioral and mental-health needs out of state at an annual cost of millions.

Family Court Chief Judge Michael B. Forte warned lawmakers at a 2021 State House legislative hearing that Rhode Island faced a potential gender-discrimination lawsuit because it had ignored for years the crisis of inadequate residential treatment for girls in its care.

And Cunha called the warehousing of children at Bradley Hospital "appalling.”

Probe finds teenagers held at Bradley Hospital for more than a year

An investigation conducted by his office and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights found:

• 527 children in DCYF care from Jan. 1, 2017, through Sept. 30, 2022, who had been hospitalized at Bradley Hospital for more than 100 consecutive days.

• 42 children were hospitalized for more than 180 days.

• Seven children were hospitalized for more than a year.

Some lawmakers have criticized Gov. Dan McKee and the Department of Children, Youth & Families for not moving faster on the Exeter treatment center, which along with 16 beds will have classrooms, a full-service kitchen, treatment rooms, indoor and outdoor recreation areas and support spaces for youth, staff and families.

Laura Hart, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Friday that the project, at 160 Main St., Exeter, is expected to be completed in late spring 2026.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: New residential treatment center for teen girls breaks ground this week. What to know.