Youngkin administration not ready to commit to either side of CCCA closure issue

A state study’s recommendation that the beleaguered state-run youth mental hospital in Staunton be shut down is being met tepidly by the Youngkin administration.

The chief spokesperson for Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in an email Tuesday that the administration has been “evaluating the level of care” at Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents as part of its “commitment to providing Virginia’s next generation with adequate behavioral health support.” As far as a direct response to the recommendation that CCCA be shut down, spokesperson Macaulay Porter did not commit to either supporting or opposing it.

“The administration and Secretary of Health and Human Resources [John Littel] are aware and assessing the [Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission]'s findings regarding CCCA,” Porter wrote in the email.

However, Littel was quoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch Tuesday as saying, “We don’t think it’s time to talk about closing CCCA.” He appeared to echo sentiments raised by the commissioner of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services at a JLARC meeting Monday that there could be alternatives to closure.

Nelson Smith acknowledged the issues facing CCCA at the meeting but also added that the administration was taking steps to fix them, and it would “take time” to completely reverse those problems. Smith, a Youngkin appointee, also hinted that Youngkin inherited those issues from his Democratic predecessor Ralph Northam.

While the entire state-run mental hospital system was roundly criticized in Monday’s report by JLARC staff, CCCA received the lion’s share of wrath. It is the smallest hospital in the state’s nine-facility chain, but the study cited CCCA as “the worst” of all of them.

Among its findings, the study said CCCA had the highest number of civil-rights violations for patients, the highest average rate of patient restraint hours and the highest total of physical patient-patient and patient-staff altercations. Only half of its 48 beds are being filled due to staffing shortages, and CCCA’s annual operating costs have jumped $8 million over the past decade.

The JLARC study suggested that DBHDS shutter the hospital by July 2025 and develop a plan to work with private mental hospitals to provide services for kids and teenagers.

CCCA, which was opened in 1932 and taken over by DBHDS in 1975, is located on Richmond Road in Staunton, near Western State Hospital. It has come under public scrutiny in recent years for many of the problems cited in the JLARC study.

In its presentation Monday, the JLARC study suggested that CCCA staff could be transferred to Western State to alleviate that facility's staffing shortages.

The General Assembly is expected to take up the JLARC report when it convenes Jan. 10 in Richmond.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Governor taking 'wait and see' position on possible CCCA closure