Kansas facility let 8-year-old sexual abuse survivor be assaulted again, suit alleges
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KVC Hospitals placed two 8-year-old girls together at a psychiatric facility, knowing that one had a history of sexually inappropriate behavior and the other had survived sexual assault, according to a lawsuit filed in Wyandotte County.
Days after KVC placed the girls together in December 2020, one girl “coerced” the other into sex acts, lawyers for the other girl wrote. That girl reported the abuse the next day to KVC, which released her back to her mother.
KVC Hospitals was rebranded in August 2022 as Camber Children’s Mental Health, which operates psychiatric facilities. KVC Health Systems is the parent company of nonprofits that offer behavioral health services, including Kansas’ largest foster care contractor.
Spokeswoman Blythe Hinderliter of KVC Health Systems declined to comment on the case, but said all allegations are referred to local authorities for further investigation.
She said staff conduct risk assessments on each child brought to KVC hospitals and medical facilities to create a “culture of safety.”
A Kansas Department for Children and Families spokesperson was not available to comment.
The lawsuit claims that KVC had knowledge about the child that could have prevented her “from abusing others.”
In court documents, KVC generally denied the allegations.
The lawsuit was one of two filed in recent months where a child with mental and emotional conditions was allegedly abused at a KVC psychiatric facility.
In the other case, a 13-year-old boy who has autism and suffered prior abuse was sexually assaulted and tortured by two other residents of a facility in Hays in western Kansas, according to a lawsuit filed in April in Johnson County.
In the Wyandotte County case, the lawsuit said the abused girl — who had bipolar disorder and autism — was assaulted by her babysitter at age 5. KVC knew that as a survivor, the girl was at “higher risk for future abuse and increased harm from any future abuse,” according to the lawsuit.
The girl threatened to harm herself and others, so her mother took her to Children’s Mercy, which referred her to KVC’s facility at 4300 Brenner Drive in KCK, according to the lawsuit.
Both girls were at the facility for “in-patient psychiatric” services.
Brian Russell, a Kansas City-based attorney who represents the survivor, said she will “probably forever be dealing with” the effects of the abuse.
The lawsuit was filed against KVC Hospitals, KVC Behavioral Health Care and KVC Health Systems.
The lawsuit noted that KVC’s website claims it provides “24-hour supervision” from trained clinicians and staff. But no one was supervising the girl when she was abused, the lawsuit said. It said KVC had the resources to “attract and keep qualified staff, but chose not to.”
Three other lawsuits filed in the last three months similarly accuse KVC of placing vulnerable children in unsafe environments, without taking into account their history of abuse or pre-existing health conditions.
A February lawsuit alleged an infant was injured after being placed into an overcrowded home.
Another lawsuit accused KVC of placing a teenage girl with a foster parent who had a history of being inappropriate around adolescents. The foster parent confessed to assaulting her months later, the lawsuit said.
The third lawsuit alleges KVC placed another teenage girl with a foster parent who was unable to provide safe housing and was frequently intoxicated. She was sexually assaulted two months later, the lawsuit said.
This story was updated to correct the name of the nonprofit organization involved in the girls’ placement. KVC Health Systems is the parent company of a nationwide network of child and family-serving nonprofits that included KVC Hospitals, which in 2022 was rebranded as Camber Children’s Mental Health.
The Star’s Laura Bauer contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 26, 2023 at 4:01 PM.
