The report, titled "The Cost of Failure," details the life of an 18-year-old girl, Brittany Brown, who spent most of her childhood in Department of Children and Families residential care programs because no community-based services were available to treat her behavioral and mental health problems.

The report describes in detail the various treatments she received, including stints at the Riverview Children's Psychiatric Hospital and Long Lane Detention Center, at an expense of almost $2 million.

And after spending most of her life in 24 different institutions, some as far away as Virginia, she still has trouble controlling her behavior, is self destructive, and has not developed any concrete job skills or coping strategies, said Child Advocate Jeanne Milstein and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Had she received early intervention and community-based therapeutic services, the price tag would have been much smaller, the report states.

Brown's name was changed to protect her privacy, and she is representative of roughly 830 such children who are now "warehoused" in state residential programs, Milstein said. Another 350 also are sent out of state, she said at a morning press conference.

According to DCF figures, the average annual cost of residential care is about $50,000 per child. But the report states that for the children examined by the Child Advocate's office, average annual costs ran closer to $90,000 and above.

DCF officials confirmed that the agency expects to spend $124 million - or roughly one fifth of its annual budget - on residential board and care this year.

"The moral is that money alone cannot substitute for early, effective intervention, comprehensive care and treatment, and, most importantly, sustained involvement of family and community," Blumenthal said.

Both officials are also concerned with how long children are placed in residential care, saying it averages to approximately 31 months, or nearly three years, at a time.

Typically, children are discharged back to the home with few services in place, Milstein said, and most often, their behavior spirals downward until they're in crisis and land back in residential care.

Both Milstein and Blumenthal say KidCare, the state's multimillion dollar community-based mental health care initiative which over the past two years has begun to roll out programs, should help. But more is needed, and at a much quicker pace, they said.

DCF spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said that today, "almost nine out of 10 kids who get services in their home, remain at home. Early indications are that KidCare is having a positive effect.

"We certainly want to make improvements," he added, "and that's how were looking at this report."

"Thirty years ago, the state of Connecticut decided it would no longer institutionalize adults in the mental health system," Milstein said. "When are we going to do the same for our children. We owe it to them, we owe it to their families, and we owe it to the taxpayers."