DHS told to move kids
Judge rules Tulsa shelter should close
TULSA — A federal judge has ordered the Oklahoma Department of Human Services to immediately stop placing children in the Laura Dester Children’s Center in Tulsa and relocate all children from the facility by June 30.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell issued the order at the request of three out-of-state monitors overseeing a 2012 settlement agreement to a class-action lawsuit over the maltreatment of children in state care.
The out-of-state overseers told the Tulsa judge they were concerned for the safety of children at the center, citing seven confirmed complaints of maltreatment involving 10 children at the center over a recent 12-month period.
They noted that 46 other child maltreatment complaints
at the center were investigated and either ruled out or couldn’t be substantiated, and an additional 53 complaints were screened out.
Nine children currently are in the residential center, said Sheree Powell, a DHS spokeswoman.
The shelter serves some of the most difficult to place children in the state’s foster care system, with many of them having a combination of developmental disabilities, mental illness and medical needs, she said. Some of the children exhibit extremely violent behaviors.
The state has been phasing out the shelter and is in the process of negotiating a contract with Liberty Health Care to convert the center into a 16-24 bed treatment center for children with similar needs to those currently cared for at the facility. Liberty Health Care currently operates a facility for adults with similar problems at the Robert M. Greer Center in Enid.
The state plans to move forward with those conversion plans, Powell said.
DHS attorneys had argued against shuttering the Tulsa shelter by June 30, contending that more time was needed to safely make the transition for children.
DHS workers already have developed relocation plans for some of the children, but has no plans yet for some of the most difficult to place children, Powell said.
“For the kids who don’t have an identified placement, we’re going to have to find one and do an extremely accelerated transition plan, which is not good for them,” Powell said.
Powell said DHS officials believe the soon-tobe converted Laura Dester shelter may be the best initial placement option for a few of the children currently housed there and had hoped to avoid having to move them twice, but that will not be possible because of the judicial order.
While DHS officials expressed concerns about the judge’s order, attorneys who pursued the class-action lawsuit against DHS said they believe the judge made the right decision.
“After seven years, the Department of Human Services has not met a significant number of the crucial goals to which it agreed,” said Frederic Dorwart, a Tulsa attorney who served as colead counsel in the classaction lawsuit. “While progress in some areas has been made, the system failures resulted in a disturbingly high number of substantiated incidents of maltreatment in care which left the national experts no choice. We are pleased Judge Frizzell acted so quickly and properly implemented the provisions of the settlement agreement.”
“The judge’s order puts the power of the court behind the action of the monitoring group, as the parties originally agreed,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of A Better Childhood and colead counsel in the case. “When the state refuses to act and jeopardizes the well-being of children, the monitoring group has the right to turn their order into a federal court order that the children’s lawyers can enforce. That is what has happened here.”