Vista Maria Shuts Down Residential Behavioral Health Program For Girls

Michigan is entering into a juvenile behavioral health services crisis.  It is very expensive to provide the level of behavioral care demanded by lawyers and the legal system, and the money to pay for such care simply doesn't exist.  Vista Maria laid off the 154 workers in their girls behavioral health program on December 19th:

https://www.vistamaria.org/another-residential-program-for-troubled-youths-shuts-down-amid-safety-concerns-regulations/

Another residential program for troubled youths shuts down amid safety concerns, regulations
November 12, 2025

When Vista Maria shuts down its residential treatment program for girls next month, it will become the 16th provider to exit Michigan’s youth mental health system since 2020.

The closure, which will result in the loss of 154 jobs in Dearborn Heights, will leave just 398 residential treatment beds statewide — down from 1,200 five years ago — amid state regulations limiting the restraint and seclusion of violent clients. That has made facilities unsafe for workers and youth alike, resulting in high staff turnover that forced some agencies to end the program, leaders said.

Too few treatment beds and the increasing number and acuity of youth needing treatment have fueled the soaring staff turnover, and led to property damage, police calls and in a vicious circle, the exodus of other treatment providers.

“This is not a single provider issue. It’s a statewide systems issue,” said Dan Gowdy, president of the Association of Accredited Child & Family Agencies and CEO of Wedgwood Christian Services in Kentwood on the state’s west side. “Unfortunately, we’re in a situation right now where the system is shrinking in real time … we need to focus on rebuilding not just the capacity in the system but the capability in the system to meet the youth where they are at … with no more or no less than what they need.”

Vista Maria has operated its residential treatment program for girls on its Dearborn Heights campus since the 1970s. Its exit from that service comes about six months after the state suspended placements on its campus and moved girls to other sites after confirming staff violations of client treatment.

The nature of complaints against Vista Maria included name-calling, swearing, inappropriate contact and assaults by staff members on clients, among other things. Many of the allegations that were substantiated had to do with too few staff to monitor kids as staff were called away from a building wing for a moment, but none of them rose to the level of abuse or neglect, and assault situations were initiated by clients, CEO Kathy Regan said.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services did not directly comment on the violations.

After suspending placements at Vista Maria, MDHHS mandated trauma-informed care training for its employees. The nonprofit completed the staff training and the state lifted the suspension in late July.

Placements resumed, but “even with retraining, we were still having the same outcomes: high aggression and staff were not able to legally de-escalate situations” under the state licensing rules, said Regan, who served as CFO for Vista Maria for a dozen years before she was named CEO in July. She succeeded Megan Zambiasi, who left in April after two years at the helm.

Under state rules, agency staff can restrain clients or put them in seclusion only in emergency situations and then must account for the circumstances that required that response.

“When I can’t send a child to their room so they can cool off because it’s considered seclusion, then we have a problem … it defies logic. Any parent would send their child to their room to cool off,” Regan said.

Last week, local attorney Michael Jaafar said he was investigating allegations of abuse against Vista Maria and planned to file a lawsuit on behalf of several of its former clients, according to a WDIV-Channel 4 report.

Vista Maria’s staff members, like those at peer providers, have been tackled, punched, kicked, spit on, doused in urine and otherwise attacked, resulting in knee injuries and broken bones, Regan said. The agency’s workers’ compensation insurer is dropping coverage at year’s end because of the high injury rate.

“For $18 an hour … our turnover is 150%. I can’t keep an employee more than a year. How are you going to keep continuity of care under those conditions?,” Regan said.

Vista Maria will lay off more than half of its 283 employees on Dec. 19 as it shuts down its residential treatment program for girls and one of two locked treatment sites for young human trafficking victims in the state. MDHHS will move 11 girls who are on the campus now to other facilities.

There’s a mental health crisis worldwide, but youth, especially girls, are being especially impacted, Regan said. There aren’t enough inpatient psychiatric beds in Michigan, which leads to youth who need treatment ending up in regular residential care. Many could benefit from 24/7, inpatient psychiatric care, Regan said, but “Vista Maria is not equipped or licensed to that.”

“We’ve been a leader, but in this environment, now, no one can be successful because of the acuity of the kids compared to the (shortage) of psychiatric beds,” Regan said.

Michigan needs regulations that fit the clinical approaches residential providers need to take with children, she said.

In a statement sent to Crain’s, MDHHS said it works with residential service providers to ensure they have behavioral health services in place to help address the needs of children in their care. That includes training “and guidance focused on reducing the use of physical management, such as restraints, with alternative trauma-informed care that are in the best interest of the child as outlined by the state legislature,” the department said.

The state noted it has worked closely with Vista Maria over the last year to address facility-related concerns, sending staff to the nonprofit’s campus and connecting it with training and coaching focused on trauma-informed care.

While Vista Maria’s exit from residential treatment “marks a change within our community of short-term residential treatment centers, our focus remains firmly on ensuring children receive the treatment and support they need to thrive,” the department said.

Issues not unique to Vista Maria

The issues aren’t unique to Vista Maria, said Gowdy, who testified on the issue in May with leaders from Spectrum Human Services in Westland and Hersey-based Eagle Village before a hearing of the Michigan House Joint Oversight Subcommittee on Child Welfare with Public Health and Food Security.

With the drop in available residential beds over the past several years, the state has placed more youth with complex needs and aggressive behavior in whatever sites are available. Others have been moved into the foster care system, he said, noting that that system has seen its own loss of 1,000 foster care providers.

Vista Maria, one of the most well-respected child care institutions in the state, was among a handful of providers that entered a “no reject, no eject” contract with the state a year before other providers did, Gowdy said. The contract cut base payment by about 5% but restored it and bumped it up a bit for accepting and continuing to treat whoever the state placed as demand grew.

That contract model, which prioritized placement volume over clinical match and program capability, became the precursor to the contract adopted by Wedgewood and other residential treatment providers statewide in October 2024, he said.

Since then, incidents of physical assault, property damage and suicide watches have increased across the 13 homes on Wedgwood’s West Michigan campus. Gowdy said. Staff assaults and injuries increased 229% year over year, hospital engagements were up 421% and calls to police rose 450%, he said.

“These are not evil kids. These are kids who have had horrible things happen to them,” Gowdy said. But “safety means it has to be safe for clients and staff.”

In “those instances where there are safety concerns, there’s no clear guidance from the state as to how that’s protecting our staff. The balance has tilted … there’s an abundance of trying to protect the client at risk of staff who don’t feel safe.”

“We’re committed to the mission. We will do everything we can to serve youth,” as Wedgewood has done for 65 years, Gowdy said. “But like everybody doing this work and serving these kids with unimaginable trauma, we’re vulnerable.”

Vista Maria to launch new programs

Vista Maria’s budget will drop to about $20 million next year from $30 million this year with its exit from the residential treatment program, Regan said.

But the nonprofit expects to serve just as many kids with rising demand in its other service areas of foster care and adoption, independent living apartments on campus and off for young adults who have aged out of foster care and juvenile justice case management and support services for 90 youths who have been involved with Wayne County’s juvenile justice system. Currently, Vista Maria serves 320 kids on a monthly basis, with 11, or 5%, in the residential programs, Regan said.

Vista Maria’s exit from residential care will leave one of two charter schools on its campus and five of its 16 buildings vacant — for now. It plans to redirect its mission rather than close entirely.

The organization has been approached by three different residential mental health providers about leasing Vista Maria’s residential facilities, Regan said. “But we’re not leasing our space; we have a different use (in mind) for them,” she said.

Vista Maria will repurpose those buildings for other mission-aligned programs that are in the planning stages and expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2026, she said. Regan declined to disclose details about those new programs.