{"id":699,"date":"2026-06-23T12:07:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=699"},"modified":"2026-06-23T12:07:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:07:41","slug":"a-mother-jones-investigation-helped-spur-a-new-alaska-law-protecting-vulnerable-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=699","title":{"rendered":"A Mother Jones Investigation Helped Spur a New Alaska Law Protecting Vulnerable Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For years, some of<\/span> Alaska\u2019s most vulnerable children have faced harsh conditions for months at a time in locked psychiatric facilities. A new law aims to change that.<\/p>

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The legislation, HB 36, follows a 2023 Mother Jones<\/em> investigation that found that the state\u2019s Office of Children\u2019s Services routinely placed foster kids at North Star Behavioral Health, Alaska\u2019s only private psychiatric hospital for minors, when there were no available foster homes. Despite North Star\u2019s troubling track record of assaults, escapes, and the routine use of seclusion and chemical restraints, foster children have been admitted to the facility hundreds of times in recent years. Some stayed for months after they were ready for discharge.<\/p>\n

HB 36, which passed into law Monday and goes into effect in 90 days, will require a court to review a foster child\u2019s placement at a psychiatric hospital within seven calendar days to determine if that child meets criteria for hospitalization. (Until the legislation passed, a preliminary injunction required a hearing within 30 days, but the hearings were sometimes delayed.)<\/p>\n

Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray, who first introduced the legislation in 2024, has said that the bill was inspired by Mother Jones<\/em>\u2019 reporting, as well as his own experience as a foster parent. Current and former foster youth rallied around the legislation, with dozens traveling to Juneau over the past three years to meet with lawmakers and testify about their experiences.<\/p>\n

(Universal Health Services, the psychiatric hospital chain that owns North Star, did not respond to questions for this story but has said in the past that it adheres to policies intended to keep patients safe.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was basically all-out chaos at the hospital,\u201d says Amanda Metivier, who directs the nonprofit Facing Foster Care in Alaska. \u201cWhen this started showing up publicly,\u201d she said, \u201cthat made folks pay attention to it.\u201d<\/p>

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But for Metivier and other foster care reform advocates, the legislative win was bittersweet. Last week, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed HB 52, another bill that aimed to protect vulnerable youth at psychiatric hospitals and had broad bipartisan support. It would have required the state\u2019s health department to conduct unannounced inspections of psychiatric hospitals, including interviewing at least half of the hospital\u2019s minor patients, and to provide annual reports to the legislature on the use of seclusions and restraints, among other things.\u00a0Rep. Maxine Dibert, the Fairbanks Democrat who introduced the legislation, has said the bill was inspired in part by the prevalence of Native children in psychiatric facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a letter to the house speaker, Dunleavy explained that he vetoed the bill because \u201cpsychiatric hospitals are already subject to strict regulatory and accreditation standards, and this bill adds duplicative inspection, reporting, and notification requirements in statute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legislators attempted to override the veto on Friday but were four votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority. Rep. Zack Fields, an Anchorage Democrat, noted that even some North Star employees supported HB 52. Currently, the health department conducts announced inspections at the facility; in his floor speech speech, Fields anonymously quoted a North Star employee, who said that \u201ceveryone knows we\u2019re going to be inspected, and we all get instructions on what we need to do to check boxes for the inspection\u2014not to actually fix the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, North Star hired a lobbyist, Dianne Blumer, who was paid $41,000 in each of the past two legislative sessions to advocate on \u201cissues related to mental health, workforce, background checks and State of Alaska budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

The institution of vulnerable youth in Alaska is a well-documented, long-standing problem. A landmark Department of Justice report in 2022 found that the state was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by unnecessarily institutionalizing children far away from their families, often for months on end.\u00a0Two years later, a state supreme court ruling concluded that children in state custody \u201care at substantial risk of being hospitalized for longer than they need, or when they do not need to be hospitalized at all.\u201d<\/p>

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HB 36 will require a review of foster kids\u2019 placements in psychiatric hospitals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nA Mother Jones Investigation Helped Spur a New Alaska Law Protecting Vulnerable Kids - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=699\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Mother Jones Investigation Helped Spur a New Alaska Law Protecting Vulnerable Kids - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"HB 36 will require a review of foster kids\u2019 placements in psychiatric hospitals.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=699\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-23T12:07:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/a7c71cb26c40002bc5d5aec8774f0de0-1024x576.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"A Mother Jones Investigation Helped Spur a New Alaska Law Protecting Vulnerable Kids\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-23T12:07:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699\"},\"wordCount\":706,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/32a405d9f21b62bc48ea3cb767d2a60b.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=699\",\"name\":\"A Mother Jones Investigation Helped Spur a New Alaska Law Protecting Vulnerable Kids - 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