"Aetna wants to assist current in-state residential treatment providers in expanding their services to help move these children back home," Todd White, CEO of Aetna Better Health of West Virginia, says in a press release.
That's thanks to a $6.1 million investment in 18 health care providers across the state to help them expand community-based waiver services for children with serious emotional disorders and in-state specialized residential care.
Currently, there are more than 500 West Virginia children living in some form of residential mental health treatment facility, says Kathy Szafran, executive director of Aetna Better Health of West Virginia.
"Children with specialized and high-need behavioral health concerns, such as children with autism spectrum disorder or severe trauma reactive behaviors, are often placed in residential facilities that offer unique specialized services," she says.
"This practice can create much stress on the family unit, including the child."
Szafran says that in one case, a 9-year-old with "extreme behavioral challenges" was removed from his adoptive parent's care and placed in a residential facility.
After nine months of intensive residential therapy, the boy "is the best he's ever been, and is excelling at home and school, with no bouts of aggression," she says.
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Caroline Diehl is a serial social entrepreneur in the impact media space. She is Executive Chair and Founder of the UK’s only charitable and co-operatively owned national broadcast television channel Together TV, the leading broadcaster for social change runs a national TV channel in the UK and digital platform which helps people find inspiration to do good in their lives and communities.