An Idaho House of Representatives committee on Thursday unanimously approved a bill to overhaul oversight of children’s residential treatment facilities to address a state report finding widespread abuse and gaps in safeguards.

Idaho Falls Republican Rep. Marco Erickson sponsored House Bill 723, which would create requirements for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to investigate and enforce safety standards, allow for more reporting to parents and Child Protective Services, and to outline to children and their parents what their rights are.

“We have the opportunity to protect many, many children in the future,” Erickson said, “and for future generations of people who are entering into a mental health treatment facility.”

The House Health and Welfare Committee voted to send the bill to the full House for consideration.

Idahoans testify in favor of youth treatment facility oversight bill

Brittany Shipley of Hailey, who said she had a child who suffered abuse in one of these facilities, spoke in support of the bill.

“He had food withheld. He was subjected to physical and sexual abuse,” Shipley said.

She wasn’t made aware of the abuse, and CPS couldn’t intervene because it wasn’t by a parent.

“It is a significant gap,” she said, “and this is needed.”

Idaho Falls resident Jessica Hayes said that as a teenager, she was sent to a residential treatment facility. There, she said she was forced to undress in front of staff, kept isolated, deprived of sleep and health care, and denied an adequate high school education.

“There was no confidential, protected way to report abuse or seek help,” Hayes said. “After the program, I was not the same. It took me nearly a decade to explain to my parents why I struggled to look them in the eye, and our relationship had changed in ways none of us understood the time. It wasn’t just fractured, it was severed.”

She said her experience took place years ago, but structural gaps have allowed those conditions to persist.

“Idaho can be known as a safe state,” Hayes said, “a state where parents can send their children for help and know the oversight is real, that rights are protected and harm cannot hide behind closed doors.”

Rep. Lucas Cayler, R-Caldwell, said he intended to support sending the bill to the floor but wanted to look into the bill more, especially the outlined “bill of rights” for young people staying in these facilities.

“The language in this bill is a little weird,” Cayler said. “And I’m kind of torn, honestly, how to interpret it, or to support or not support. I guess one of the things that I’m looking at is the right to health care, where in both U.S. and state constitutions, there does not exist a right as enumerated in either of those constitutions to health care.”

The committee members voted unanimously to send the bill to the House.