North Carolina is ranked among the bottom half of states in the nation with the highest need for and lowest rates of access to youth mental health services. One of the ways the state addresses these needs in particularly severe cases is by sending teens to psychiatric residential treatment facilities (or PRTFs). But PRTFs can also present challenges to youth residents and their families.
WUNC’s Jason deBruyn spent a year investigating North Carolina’s psychiatric residential treatment facilities, with support from a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 2023 Data Fellowship.
More of his reporting can be found here, here and here.
Due South co-host Jeff Tiberii speaks with deBruyn about his findings. They are joined by two expert-advocates for youth mental health in North Carolina.
Guests
Jason deBruyn, WUNC supervising editor for digital news
Holly Stiles, Assistant Legal Director for Litigation for Disability Rights NC
Paul Lanier, Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work and principal investigator for the school’s Behavioral Health Springboard as well as a co-director of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and Systems Research at the UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research
