The state Department of Human Services said Girley fell asleep while he was in charge of a suicide watch on the boy, then falsified logs. Officials said the boy used a sheet to hang himself. Schmidt noted the boy had been removed once from the center after a suicide attempt for a psychiatric evaluation at the Arkansas State Hospital. It was a death. If a child is suicidal people don't think the child should be treated for a mental illness.
Few services exist in the juvenile justice system that addresses mental health issues.
Schmidt said that a child with diabetes who enters the system would receive the necessary treatment and that state needs to treat mental illness with the same aggressiveness. Group leaders asked the 30 or so people at the rally to write political leaders and their newspapers, and call for changes within DHS and its Division of Youth Services. All rights reserved.