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WCSC News Channel 5 reported yesterday that a behavioral treatment facility in Williamsburg County, SC that serves foster children and young people with special needs is facing a growing number of allegations involving sexual assault, physical abuse, and widespread neglect. Broadstep Behavioral Health in Kingstree, a 40 bed psychiatric residential treatment facility, has been named in multiple lawsuits and has been the subject of numerous complaints submitted to South Carolina’s Department of Public Health.
The facility houses children with intellectual disabilities, developmental conditions, and mental health challenges. Many residents are placed there by the Department of Social Services or by parents seeking additional support and supervision.
A mother who placed her son at Broadstep in 2020 said she believed the facility would help stabilize his needs. “As a parent, you don’t know everything that your child is dealing with and enduring back there. They go through that door in the back and you have no idea,” she said. Her son, who has autism and severe depression, said he experienced worsening emotional distress inside the facility. He described staff ignoring or mocking conversations about his mental health. “They felt like they were judge, jury and executioner and they beat on anyone who they felt disrespected them,” he said.
One of his friends at the facility died by suicide on Jan. 25, 2024. According to court documents, Broadstep failed to file the required investigative report following the death.
State records show the facility has faced dozens of complaints since 2023. The allegations include staff hitting, stepping on, or slamming children against walls, children being isolated due to understaffing, improper medical care, bed bugs, resident escapes, emotional abuse, and sexual assault. One complaint states a resident was found with shoe prints on their body. Another alleges a child drank bleach that had been poured into a discarded juice bottle.
A plaintiff’s attorney said, “These facilities are shrouded in confidentiality and kind of secrecy protections under the law.”
Broadstep’s challenges extend beyond its Kingstree location. After media coverage of other sites in Georgetown, Pickens, and Simpsonville, two of those facilities shut down. The Summerville location, which has also faced lawsuits, is not regulated by the state because it is classified as a group home rather than a behavioral treatment center.
A plaintiff’s attorney representing multiple clients described longstanding patterns of neglect. One of her clients, a 13 year old girl in foster care, reported being denied water and blankets, witnessing other children being restrained and strip searched, and later being sexually assaulted by a maintenance worker at the Kingstree facility. She was eventually moved to another Broadstep location, where staff reacted to her self harm by saying, “Why would you do this to yourself? This is stupid.”
“We have named DSS as a defendant because we want to hold the state agency accountable that is responsible for placing children in these facilities like my client,” the attorney said. “Someone needs to be looking into what kind of training these employees are getting.”
State officials confirmed that each complaint triggers an inspection. Even when Broadstep failed inspections, the facility submitted corrective action plans and was allowed to keep operating. Complaints continued despite those assurances. As one parent asked, “Why is it that more vulnerable children can go to a daycare, go to somewhere where they’re supposed to be taken care of, and get this type of treatment?”
