Amanda Simmons Presents Webinar on Congregate Care and Collective Trauma for the National Association of Counsel for Children

On December 11, 2024, the National Association of Counsel for Children (NACC) hosted a national webinar titled “Congregate Care & Collective Trauma,” featuring a multidisciplinary panel of experts examining the troubled-teen industry, residential treatment centers (RTCs), and the systemic factors that perpetuate abuse in institutional settings. The program brought together four presenters—Amanda Simmons, Chelsea Maldonado, Kayla Muzquiz, and Annette Smith—each offering a different professional lens on the historical, legal, and trauma-related dimensions of congregate care. 

The webinar was designed to equip child welfare attorneys with the context and tools necessary to recognize abuse within these facilities, advocate for safer alternatives, and better understand the systems that funnel youth into institutional placements. As the NACC’s program announcement explained, the session focused on “the history of congregate care, the legal landscape governing youth residential programs, and the widespread trauma resulting from these environments.”

Amanda’s portion of the webinar began with a historical overview of the troubled-teen industry, tracing its origins from early institutionalization to the deinstitutionalization movement and the reforms that emerged from Brown v. Board of Education. Her slides illustrated how the disability rights movement, the Kennedy administration’s call for community solutions, and public exposure of conditions in institutions like Willowbrook shaped the trajectory that ultimately gave rise to modern private residential treatment programs. Using archival research and photographs shown in the presentation (pages 6–9), she explained how public concern about mental illness and substance use disorders in the 1960s and 1970s intersected with insufficient oversight to create fertile ground for private, often unregulated programs. 

The presentation also highlighted pivotal litigation of the 1970s—including PARC v. Pennsylvania, Wyatt v. Stickney, and Goss v. Lopez—which expanded children’s rights to education, due process, and humane conditions, while simultaneously revealing that the rise of the “troubled teen industry” was not accompanied by parallel legal protections. Amanda walked attendees through the massive public investments that fuel this industry today, noting that at least $23 billion in taxpayer funds are spent annually on youth residential placements and that over 120,000 youth are placed in such programs each year. Visual infographics on page 5 of the slide deck underscore these stark realities. 

Co-presenter Chelsea Maldonado, a journalist and researcher known for her work chronicling institutional abuse, expanded upon this historical foundation by situating the industry within broader media investigations and survivor accounts. Kayla Muzquiz, an attorney specializing in children’s rights, led much of the legal analysis, discussing the overlapping federal, state, and local regulatory frameworks. She guided participants through the complexities of federal oversight, including the Family First Prevention Services Act, Medicaid authority, Protection & Advocacy statutes, ADA Title II, Section 504, IDEA, and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (pages 14–19). Her discussion illuminated how, contrary to common belief, these facilities are subject to numerous layers of regulation—yet still routinely evade accountability due to definitional loopholes and fragmented enforcement. 

Annette Smith, a clinician and organizational trauma expert, focused on the psychological toll of congregate care. She explained how strip searches, isolation, restraint-based interventions, and disconnection from familial support systems create patterns of collective trauma that can affect entire cohorts of youth within a facility. Drawing from Amanda’s and Kayla’s slides on abuses in treatment centers (pages 27–33), Annette articulated the cumulative harm of sexual assault, labor trafficking, educational neglect, and chronic overmedication—all documented problems in the slide deck and in federal investigations. 

The second half of Amanda’s presentation turned to legal challenges facing attorneys advocating for children placed in RTCs. She explained the profound problems caused by nomenclature, noting that as shown on page 24, the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly documented the lack of standardized definitions for residential facilities—a loophole that allows programs to rebrand as academies, ranches, faith-based schools, or wilderness camps to avoid licensing. She also discussed the persistent barrier of RTCs being classified as private entities, even when heavily funded by public dollars, referencing the case law example outlined on page 25. This distinction prevents many constitutional claims and narrows available remedies for youth harmed in these settings. 

The webinar closed with practical guidance for child welfare attorneys. Drawing from the final section of the slide deck, the presenters encouraged participants to scrutinize placement decisions, examine how IEPs are administered within RTCs, track educational progress, ask targeted questions about restraints and seclusion, and utilize state and federal oversight agencies whenever possible. Amanda emphasized that much of the meaningful oversight happens locally—through youth ombudsman programs, community-based services, school districts, and wraparound supports that keep children safely in their communities rather than sending them far from home (page 21). 

Together, the four presenters delivered a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of congregate care—its history, its legal framework, its documented abuses, and the systems-level opportunities available to child welfare attorneys advocating for safer, trauma-informed alternatives. The NACC webinar underscored the urgent need for reform and the critical role of attorneys who serve children in the dependency system.

https://naccchildlaw.org/event/congregate-care-collective-trauma/