The state Department of Juvenile Justice will seek approval tomorrow of a contract under which offenders would be transported to Pennsylvania for treatment -- a move denounced by children's advocates as backsliding from efforts to keep troubled youths in Maryland.

The three-year contract would be worth up to $11.7 million to the Devereux Foundation of Devon, Pa., if it is ratified by the Board of Public Works.

The agency says the contract is necessary to move some of its most troubled juveniles out of prison-like facilities, but advocates say they will ask Comptroller William Donald Schaefer and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp to block approval of the deal.

James P. McComb, executive director of the Maryland Association of Resources for Families and Youth, said the decision to use a Pennsylvania facility shows that the Juvenile Justice Department is doing "a lousy job" in referring offenders to appropriate programs.

'A step backwards'

"Contracting with out-of-state agencies for Maryland children is backsliding. It's a step backwards," he said.

McComb said the state had been doing a good job of reducing the number of juveniles it sent to out-of-state programs since 1995, when the state was spending about $58 million a year to send about 900 individuals elsewhere for various forms of custodial care.

Child advocates contend that sending youthful offenders out of state is a waste of state resources and impedes treatment because it separates youths from their families.

Department spokesman Lee Towers said there are 33 youths placed in out-of-state programs -- three of them at Devereux under an expired contract. Officials anticipate that under the new pact, Devereux would be treating 10 to 20 Maryland youths at a time at its facility outside Philadelphia.

Towers said the department does not want to send youths out of state but sometimes has no alternative.

Maryland would send Devereux some of the department's most difficult cases: extremely aggressive youths and sexual offenders -- some of them 18 and older -- that other programs won't take.

"This is a group of the kids that is the hardest to place," Towers said.

Devereux, founded in 1912 by Philadelphia educator Helena Devereux, is a large nonprofit group with mental health and educational facilities treating about 15,000 adults and children around the country.

Paul DeMuro, a juvenile justice consultant, said Devereux is a "reasonably well-respected organization," but he questioned why Maryland -- with such resources as the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland -- couldn't develop its own facilities and programs.

"Shipping kids out of state has all sorts of problems," he said. "You can't see them as often. You can't monitor them."

Towers said state monitors would travel regularly to the facility to check on the Maryland youths, each of whom would have an individual treatment plan. He said the state would pay Devereux $184 to $378 a day for each offender's treatment, with the total cost limited to $11.7 million.

Advocates questioned why Gov. Parris N. Glendening's administration would move forward with such a large contract during Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s transition period.

"I think this one stinks," said Vincent Schiraldi, president of the Justice Policy Institute in Washington. "I don't think they should be pushing through something as important as this in the waning days of the administration."

Shareese N. DeLeaver, a spokeswoman for the transition team, said Ehrlich's staff was aware of the contract but did not know enough to comment last night.

Need for treatment

Towers said the department is moving forward because of an urgent need to get youths into programs and out of such facilities as the Cheltenham Youth Facility and the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School. "Is it fair to ask these kids to wait for treatment?" he said.

Jann Jackson, executive director of Advocates for Children and Youth, said the group also plans to ask Schaefer and Kopp to oppose the contract.

Kopp, who as a delegate helped lead the General Assembly's fight to bring Maryland children back to the state, said she is wary of any move to reverse a decade-long effort to reduce out-of-state placements.

"It denies the opportunity for providers of good services in Maryland to keep their programs running," she said.