Mohican Young Star Academy remains open, state weighing license options

PERRYSVILLE ‒ Mohican Young Star Academy, a residential treatment center for at-risk children sued by the state in 2021, continues efforts to rebuild its programming.

Operators say they won a recent victory when an administrative hearing examiner recommended state officials renew Mohican Young Star's state license.

According to Eric Wandersleben, director of media relations and outreach for the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OMHAS), the facility can "continue to operate under its current license.”

However, “the department is reviewing the hearing officer’s report on the administrative hearing regarding the issues and will be issuing a final ruling.”

He declined further comment, describing it as "a pending legal matter.”

Licensing battle, Mohican Young Star under scrutiny,

Legal issues between Mohican Young Star and the state mental health and addiction services began in late 2020 when several teens left the facility. In March 2021, the Ohio Attorney General's Office sued to remove its owner and executive director, Olga Strasser, and appoint an outside operator. The state alleged Young Star, a treatment facility for boys ages 8 to 21, used illegal and inappropriate restraints on its residents.

The center, located in Mohican State Park about 5½ miles southwest of Loudonville, provides residential accommodations, mental health treatment and drug and alcohol counseling for troubled boys.

According to Strasser, her center "is the last chance before entering youth into the juvenile detention system, as they have been labeled ‘too delinquent’ for foster care and other community settings.”

When the suit against Strasser was heard in Ashland County Common Pleas Court, Judge Ronald Forsthoefel ruled “the state failed to prove there is any substantial risk to the health and safety of the academy residents,” and rejected the court case.

The state appealed Forsthoefel’s decision to the 5th District Court of Appeals, which upheld Forsthoefel's ruling.

Despite Young Star's legal victories, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services declined to renew the site's license a month later, citing 114 alleged violations. Strasser provided a rebuttal and requested a hearing.

By the time the hearing began in December 2021, Strasser said, “OMHAS had already dropped 93 allegations, and through the course of the legal proceeding, dropped three more.”

The hearing concluded in May, with examiner Shantae Decarlow recommending the state renew Mohican Young Star's license, Strasser said.

The state cited the academy's repeated requests for help from the Ashland County Sheriff's Office, 50 times in 2020 and 54 times over a six-month period in 2021. And it cited other examples where the state claimed the youths weren't properly supervised or protocols were not followed.

But the examiner disagreed with many of the state's allegations, concluding Mohican Young Star was required to ask for help for runaways and other situations as it is not a lock-down facility. The examiner also didn't find the youths weren't properly monitored.

"To revoke a license for a facility with the capability of providing services such as MYSA would place an even heavier burden on the agencies that search desperately to locate options for the children in their caseload," the hearing officer wrote in a 53-page ruling. "It is this Hearing Examiner’s opinion that MYSA is being penalized for at least trying to accommodate children with well-documented behavioral issues."

According to Strasser, Decarlow’s analysis determined that OMHAS failed to prove 16 of the 18 allegations against the academy, and that the remaining two were “isolated occurrences” regarding restraint-related youth injury that the center investigated and took appropriate action, terminating staff involved.

According to Strasser, Decarlow said her center "is being penalized for at least trying to accommodate children with well-documented behavioral issues” while “the program is organized and appears to have the intention of achieving success for the residents admitted.”

Impact on Mohican Young Star

Strasser said the legal action has taken its toll. There are fewer residents and it's been harder to attract and maintain staff.

The facility, which employs 120, according to Strasser, has lost 62% of its youths, with over 50 residents “abruptly uprooted and relocated to different placements. Currently the 99-bed facility is at two-thirds of its capacity,” she said.

“Mistakes happen, and OMHAS has made a mistake,” Strasser contends. “Right now, we are focusing on rebuilding our program and our relationship with the state.”

Strasser said there are dozens of similar facilities across the state. She said it maintains a lower restraint rate than most and the number of calls it makes to law enforcement is 33% less than its closest competition.

“I am not sure why we were singled out,” Strasser said. “But I knew that the facts would speak for themselves. We put tremendous effort into training our staff and our treatment outcomes demonstrate this. Unfortunately, the negative publicity impacted our census and our ability to recruit staff, especially therapists, who are already in great demand nationwide.”

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Mohican Young Star Academy continues fight for state license