PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Starting next week, a Palm Beach County hospital will no longer accept Baker Act patients under the age of 12, underscoring a critical need for mental health resources in the county for children.
The Florida Baker Act is a law that allows people to be involuntarily held in a psychiatric facility if they pose a threat to themselves or others.
According to the Florida Department of Children and Families, HCA Florida JFK North Hospital in West Palm Beach is the only facility in Palm Beach County that accepts Baker Act patients under 18. According to Narupa Baldeosingh, a spokeswoman for the hospital, it will stop admitting Baker Act patients under 12 on Nov. 22.
"These are small children in our system that have been in a very big crisis and really need that support," said Erica Whitfield, a member of the Palm Beach County school board. "We have been using (JFK North) as a partner for many years. They have been a great resource for us to be able to make sure that we have a place to send students that are in that really high-level crisis."
According to data provided by Whitfield, 20 children under 12 were Baker Acted from Palm Beach County schools in during the 2023-2024 school year— up from 16 the previous school year, when the district began tracking more comprehensive data.
Not everyone laments the change at JFK North.
"I think this is fantastic," said Jamie Seiler, whose 14-year-old son now attends a private school in Palm Beach County.
In 2019, when Seiler's son was nine years old, he was led out of Acreage Pines Elementary School in handcuffs.
"This has been a long road for five years, and it's never gone," Seiler said. "He still refuses to talk about it."
Seiler's son is diagnosed with a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder and ADHD. He was receiving treatment and had a behavioral health specialist with him in school the day he was removed from the classroom without his mother's knowledge.
"He was upset in the class. He had escalated," Seiler said. "The (specialist) that was working with him had taken him out and had him on the bench in the office, calming down. But I guess by then, the school resource officer had already been called, so he was calm when the officer walked into the room, but they still carried on with attempting to Baker Act him."
Seiler said she was at work when the school called her. Her son was already on his way to JFK North.
She rushed there to meet him.
"He was leaning hunched over with his arms on his legs, rocking, saying, 'I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home,'" Seiler said. "(It's) heartbreaking."
Patients can be held under the Baker Act for 72 hours if a doctor said it's necessary. In the Seilers' case, it wasn't.
"We were under, you know, supervision. And the doctor came in and spoke a few minutes with him about cars. And the doctor looked at me and said, "'Why are you here?'" Seiler said.
Shahar Pasch is an education attorney who represented the Seilers in a complaint against the School District of Palm Beach County in 2020.
"I don't think that the removing a child in the back of a police car, placing them in a psychiatric hospital -- some of them, for the first time ever, being away from home-- is an appropriate solution," Pasch said. "And I think it adds trauma to the child who is already in crisis."
At the time of the complaint, Pasch said, "an exorbitant number of students (were) being Baker Acted from school."
Pasch believes the Baker Act was often used wrongfully as a way to discipline children who may have been defiant in the classroom, but not homicidal or suicidal.
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The lawsuit eventually settled, and Pasch gives the school district credit for what it's done since then.
"They have made their policies regarding not just Baker Acts, but mental health in general, more robust," Pasch said. "They have hired more staff at the school sites. They have done more training for staff."
"I appreciate that she said that," Whitfield said. "We don't want children to have to go through this. It is not about a choice to send them there. I would like to have every resource available so we don't have to."
Pasch and Whitfield agree that there's a dire need for additional mental health resources for kids in Palm Beach County.
"I would like the community to see this as an opportunity to provide wraparound services and support these families, as opposed to lamenting the loss of beds," Pasch said.
Baldeosingh said JFK North is making the change in order to increase the number of behavioral health beds available to kids between the ages of 12 and 17— "the largest population amongst youth needing this level of support," she said, adding that the hospital will still take care of anyone who comes to the ER.
"We will work closely with our Palm Beach community behavioral health providers and nearby hospitals in Broward, Martin, and St. Lucie counties that offer similar behavioral health services to support a seamless transition to meet the needs of children and their families throughout the region," Baldeosingh said in an emailed statement to WPTV.
According to data kept by DCF, the statewide rate of Baker Act use in kids under 18 has ticked down slightly since the 2019-2020 school year, when Seiler's son was led out of his school in handcuffs.
In Palm Beach County, children are getting Baker Acted at about half the rate they were during that school year.
The data includes kids that are sent by the district and outside of school, and does not specify exact ages.
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