For the past 18 months, an 11-year-old Palm Beach County girl who is harming herself or a 9-year-old boy in a psychiatric crisis could be sent as far away as Fort Pierce to get a mental health assessment under Florida’s Baker Act.
That’s because no hospital or clinic in the county has accepted any child in mental health crisis under age 12 since the privately owned HCA Florida JFK North Hospital stopped suddenly in December 2024.
Just in time for the start of school in August, NeuroBehavioral Hospital of the Palm Beaches North in West Palm Beach, with a $450,000 infusion from the Palm Beach County Health Care District, will begin taking the roughly 100 children examined each year.
Once cited nationally for an excessive number of Baker Acts among schoolchildren, the county has had to send some of its youngest, most vulnerable residents to St. Lucie or Broward counties as far as 60 miles away.
“The addition of dedicated Baker Act beds for children under 12 fills a critical gap in Palm Beach County’s behavioral health system,” said Ann Berner, president and CEO of Southeast Florida Behavioral Health Network, which distributes state money for mental health treatment in five counties, including Palm Beach. “This investment reflects the collaborative work of local partners who are committed to ensuring that children and families have access to timely, appropriate behavioral health care close to home.”
The taxpayer-financed county Health Care District put up the money to convert 14 to 16 adult beds at Neurobehavioral Health into six pediatric beds. The money also paid for a therapy room, nurses’ station and other changes.
“As Palm Beach County’s health care safety net, the district is proud to be able to respond when our community’s needs evolve,” the district said in a statement. “These investments reflect our commitment to ensuring families have access to critical behavioral health services close to home.”
The work has been underway for months.
How the Baker Act works
Florida’s Baker Act, known formally as the state’s Mental Health Act, allows authorities to hold children or adults up to 72 hours for examination if they are showing signs of mental illness and without care or treatment, post an immediate, significant threat to themselves or others.
The involuntary admission can be started by a police officer, mental health professional, doctor or judge.
Baker Act patients are taken for assessment to a receiving facility, usually a hospital. Palm Beach County has five, including JFK North and NeuroBehavioral, a privately owned hospital which operates its Baker Act facility out of the former mental health unit at St. Mary’s Medical Center on 45th Street.
Of the five, only JFK North accepts children under 18, but no facility volunteered to fill the void when JFK North stopped taking children under 12.
Sometimes, after an assessment, the Baker Act is lifted and patients are released with referrals for help.
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If the Baker Act isn’t lifted, the patients can be held involuntarily for three days without a hearing in front of a magistrate. In the cases of children, parents can consent to extend the stay voluntarily beyond 72 hours.
Children under 12 are more likely to have the Baker Act lifted in the emergency room as well as having a shorter involuntary stay, Berner said. But if they are admitted to a hospital in another county, it places a burden on families to maintain ties.
1,200 children assessed under Baker Act
About 1,200 youths in Palm Beach County were examined under the Baker Act from July 1, 2025, to June 10. Some children were committed more than once.
The majority were ages 14 to 16 with 609 examinations, but assessments of children under 12 numbered nearly 180 — about 20 of them under age 8.
A national report that cited Palm Beach County pointed out the low likelihood of children this age being able to hurt themselves or others and asserted that the law is used as a tool for discipline.
In December 2024, JFK North said in a statement quoted by The Palm Beach Post that it would focus on patients ages 12 to 17, “the largest population amongst youth needing this level of support.”
If they are admitted under the Baker Act, the elementary school-age children aren’t necessarily travelling without a family member.
A recent change in Florida law has allowed parents to drive the children to the hospital if it was deemed necessary, said Berner, who runs the agency that distributes state money for mental health and substance use disorder treatment in Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties.
Since late 2024, the children have gone to Broward Health North in Deerfield Beach or New Horizons of the Treasure Coast in Fort Pierce.
The Health Care District’s proposed Two Waters Mental Health Center will take the youngest children under the Baker Act when it opens in 2029.
Getting ready to receive children under 12
NeuroBehavioral had to get special licensing from the state and local permits to begin treating children there, said Weesam Khoury, associate vice president for communications and external affairs at the Health Care District.
They expect about 10 admissions of 5- to 11-year-olds per month with a length of stay of about three days, Berner said. More occur during the school year with extra eyes on the children and fewer in the summer.
Officials at NeuroBehavioral Hospital did not return a request for comment.
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Baker Acts for children once a problem in county
Palm Beach County was once singled out nationally for a high number of children sent for examination under the Baker Act.
The Southern Poverty Law Center in 2021 sued Palm Beach County schools after using the district’s numbers as a case study in its statewide report “Costly and Cruel: How Misuse of the Baker Act Harms 37,000 Florida Children Each Year.”
School data showed more than 1,200 students were examined under the Baker Act between 2016 and 2020, the center said. Nineteen percent — 254 — were taken away from elementary schools, and the kids were disproportionately Black and disabled children.
The center along with Disability Rights Florida and several children and their parents or guardians sued the district in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, saying the schools often were sending children to the hospital without meeting the Baker Act criteria.
In 2023, the School Board agreed to change its policy and pay $440,000 to the plaintiffs.
Among the changes were: more training for school-based employees on what constitutes the criteria and on de-escalation techniques as well as requirements that schools make concerted efforts to contact parents and/or guardians before the student is taken to the hospital.
The policy states emphatically that involuntary examination can never be used as a form of discipline or as a threat against parents.
Since then the number of children under 18 held under the Baker Act in the county as a whole has decreased from about 1,800 in 2017-18 to about 1,200 in 2025-26, the Department of Children and Families Baker Act dashboard shows.
For children, the experience can elicit its own trauma. The Palm Beach County School District does not bar police officers from handcuffing children though it now requires they be transported in unmarked cars when available.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call 988, the mental health hotline, or in Palm Beach County, call 211 for help. Mobile response teams can come wherever the crisis is and help you and your loved one get through it. The folks at 211 can hook you up with the resources you need. It’s all free, confidential and available 24/7.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
