Patterns Persist: Alarming Concerns in Ohio’s Residential Treatment Facilities for Children and Youth

May 13, 2026

Today, DRO is releasing "Patterns Persist: Alarming Concerns in Ohio's Residential Treatment Facilities for Children and Youth," a position paper calling for changes and improvements in the way the state enforces rules for Ohio's youth residential treatment facilities (RTFs).

After 75 visits to Ohio Youth RTFs since 2020, DRO's team identified persistent and pervasive problems within these facilities:
• Serious and systemic cases of abuse and neglect,
• Unapproved and painful restraint techniques,
• Inappropriate use of restraint including chemical restraint,
• Peer-to-peer bullying and staff intimidation,
• Poorly supervised, unstructured, and re-traumatizing environments,
• Failures by agency leadership to provide safe, trauma-informed cultures

State licensing agencies need to be able to take immediate action and use existing tools available to them to enforce accountability, rapidly remove youth from harmful treatment settings, and swiftly remove a facility's license either temporarily or permanently. Additionally, an abuser registry needs to be created to make the individual(s) involved in a substantiated abuse or neglect incident ineligible for hire at any facility or agency until removed from the registry by the respective State Director.

"Information gathered through more than six years of our investigation and monitoring activities shows that problems in these facilities are not rare or one-offs," said Kerstin Sjoberg, DRO's President and CEO. "Through faster and more consequential actions under current licensing rules and new protective tools to increase staff and facility accountability, standards of care and safety can be increased for the youth living in these facilities."

Ohio's children and youth deserve better. Ohio has the potential to become a national leader in the provision of quality, safe, trauma-competent, and recovery-promoting care for children and youth. You can learn more at www.disabilityrightsohio.org/patterns-persist

Click here to read the full report.
Click here for a fact sheet.