"These kids haven't got a prayer": Grandfather laments critical shortage of youth mental health treatment in Colorado

The email said, "we are at the end of our rope."

It was from Stephen Johnson, a 77-year-old Silverthorne man. He and his wife were raising their 16-year-old grandson who he said had been in five mental health hospitals.

"As soon as funds run dry," Johnson explained. "Kids are declared safe enough to go home."

This time, he said, he had refused to take his grandson back.

"He got more violent the last time home, punched a hole in his bedroom wall," Johnson told me when I later interviewed him. "There's scar tissue up and down both arms, you know slices. His safety and our safety is at risk."

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He wasn't alone in his plea for help. After I did a series of stories about the dire lack of treatment in Colorado for kids with severe mental health issues, I received a flood of emails.

One after another parents told me about kids who were dangerous, destructive, and had been failed by the state. They described "an abysmal lack of services".  

Providers too wrote me about guardians who "dump their children at the ER" and of staff burnout, saying it was unacceptable, inhumane, and appalling.

"These kids haven't got a prayer," Johnson told CBS News Colorado. 

CBS News Colorado asked Minna Castillo Cohen, director of the Colorado Office of Children, Youth and Families, how we had gotten to this point.

She said the lack of residential treatment was primarily due to a lack of providers specialized in complex cases.

"We are seeing, especially in the last couple years, a new population of young people who perhaps have needs that are much more acute than we've seen before. We have open beds. Some of them aren't staffed which is why we can't utilize them. Some of them aren't specialized," she said. 

And that won't change she says unless the state is willing to pay more. Based on an actuary analysis, Colorado should be paying $700 per kid per day. Instead, it pays $320.

Complex cases are even more expensive. Based on a pilot program, Cohen says, the cost of care in those cases runs $1600 per kid per day for six months.

"I do think there are providers in our state who want to expand if the payment structure was right and I do believe that we have some providers out of state who are interested in serving in Colorado as well," Cohen said. 

While the legislature has approved millions of dollars to help meet the need, Cohen says, it will take millions more.

"We are singularly focused at this time on really working toward solutions," Cohen said. 

Stephen Johnson says he needs help now. His grandson is getting worse, he says, and he's not getting any younger.

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"Yes, my golden years aren't quite so golden," Johnson said. 

Human services directors across the state have asked Gov. Jared Polis to step in, saying it is a crisis. 

Gov. Polis has declined a request for an interview. His last budget request included an increase for providers of .5%. 

The legislature bumped that up to 3%, but it's not even close to what analysis shows is needed to attract more providers. 

Even though the state can't staff the beds it currently has, it is pushing ahead with a multi-million dollar new psychiatric facility at Fort Logan.