Bleak Stories Follow a Lawsuit on Oklahoma Foster Care
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20080416/ZNYT02/804160347/1020/FEATURES/ZNYT02/Bleak_Stories_Follow_a_Lawsuit_on_Oklahoma_Foster_Care
OKLAHOMA CITY — From age 4, when she was taken from her drug-using
mother, until she turned 18 last year and left the foster care system,
Sasha Gray moved a total of 42 times. There were emergency shelters,
foster homes, group homes, a brief trial with her mother and short stays
in psychiatric care because of defiant behavior.
When she complained that a foster father had climbed into her bed in his
underwear, she was moved again, but state workers kept placing other
children in the same house until the man was arrested for molesting his
niece.
“Instead of properly investigating it, they let it slide,” Ms. Gray
said. She now lives with an aunt and despite the traumatic churning of
homes and “parents,” she finished high school and is studying to be a
nurse.
Ms. Gray’s stories of displacement and abuse while in state custody are
unusually common in Oklahoma, according to a new lawsuit and many
lawyers, foster parents, former foster children, volunteer mentors and
even state employees.
Federal data shows that Oklahoma consistently has one of the worst
records in the country of documented abuse of children in foster or
group homes. In addition to frequent moves and extended stays in
overcrowded shelters, the system is short of foster parents, social
workers and needed therapies.
All this has exposed many children to lasting psychological damage,
including an inability to form emotional bonds, according to the
lawsuit, a class-action filed in February by Children’s Rights, an
advocacy organization, and several local lawyers.
Child advocates here are using the federal courts, as they have in more
than a dozen other states and cities over the last 20 years, to push for
an overhaul of the child welfare system. In an inherently difficult
field, often plagued by inadequate staffing and financing, such suits
have brought major improvements.
Alabama, for example, at the time of a 1988 lawsuit, had one of the
worst records of protecting children and preserving families. Last year,
14 years of court monitoring ended after the state quadrupled its
spending on child welfare and cut caseloads to 18 from 50.
Ira Lustbader, a lawyer for Children’s Rights, said of Oklahoma, “This
is one of the most dangerous systems for kids in custody we’ve ever
seen.”
The state’s Department of Human Services is fighting the suit, saying
its system, like any other, has strengths and weaknesses. Officials cite
their high adoption rate for foster children as a success, for example,
though they admit to shortages of social workers and foster parents.
“Oklahoma is very aggressive at protecting children,” said Gary
Miller,
a former judge who was named director of the child and family services
division in March, after the suit was filed.
But Dynda Post, a district judge for three counties northeast of Tulsa,
said, “The entire system is broken, and there’s a lack of
accountability
to the courts.”
“If you order a child to get counseling, say for rape or physical abuse
or if they’re mentally challenged, sometimes you see that kid in custody
for months with no treatment,” Judge Post said.
And when things go wrong, “no one is accountable,” she said.
If the federal court agrees that the case can proceed, a possible
outcome, based on the experiences of other states, is eventual agreement
on a court-monitored program of change. The state could be required to
hire more caseworkers, for example, and to provide more psychiatric
services to parents and children, to improve emergency shelters and to
develop a strategy to attract more foster parents.
In Judge Post’s own purview, 3-year-old Blake Ragsdale, who was born
addicted to methamphetamine and had cerebral palsy and other serious
disorders, died last year during a trial reunification with his mother
that state workers had arranged without the required court permission.
Blake had been removed because of his mother’s drug use and neglect.
When he was returned to her last year, the state had still not given her
special training to meet his medical needs, she was unemployed and had
no phone or car — over all, she was “woefully unequipped to take care
of
Blake’s special medical needs,” the lawsuit says.
State officials said they were doing their best to cope with a rising
number of children in the system, nearly 16,000 during the second half
of 2007 and nearly 8,000 on any given day.
In a statement, the Human Services Department said its good record of
monthly checks on foster families meant that more safety problems were
discovered, not that abuses were more frequent than in other states. But
many foster parents and children said that monitoring records were often
falsified by harried workers or that untrained aides made visits.
“I went years without seeing a caseworker,” Ms. Gray said, adding that
in one four-month period she was assigned three different workers.
The threat to children is broader than records indicate, critics say,
including three state workers who spoke anonymously to protect their
jobs. The suit describes an 11-month-old girl, identified as C.S., who
was taken soon after birth from a drug-addicted mother and has lived in
17 homes, shelters and hospitals since then.
At one point, she was placed with a relative, who threw her against a
wall and fractured her skull, the lawsuit says. Many placements later,
she had respiratory disease, and a foster parent had her tested for
allergies and discovered that she had multiple sensitivities, including
to cats and dogs. The household had pets, so she was moved again.
One reason for the foster-parent shortage is the state’s low payments.
But more important, foster parents say, is frustration.
“Great foster parents will identify a child’s needs, call D.H.S. for
help and get nothing back,” said Anne B. Sublett, president of a
lawyers’ group in Tulsa that represents foster children in court.
Caseworkers, who are supposed to monitor foster homes regularly and
connect children with services, often have more than 50 clients,
compared with the 12 to 15 recommended by professional groups.
Because the work is stressful and the pay is low, starting at $26,000,
turnover is high and many case workers are young and inexperienced.
Many states keep emergency homes on call, for temporary placement of
children removed from dangerous households. In Oklahoma, such children
go instead to large shelters, where they sometimes spend many months
waiting for a placement in conditions that some say are unsafe and
unpleasant.
Destiny Emmons, 15, spoke recently after spending five weeks in the
Oklahoma City shelter; she was removed from her mother’s house after the
mother’s ex-boyfriend molested a younger half-sister. Destiny was angry
at her removal, and imminent placement in a foster home, saying she
wanted to stay with her mother.
In the shelter, as Destiny described it, teenagers just sit in a room
watching a television when not in school. She said they had to go to bed
at 9 each night and had to ask an attendant to unlock the bathroom.
One of the state workers, who has spent time in the overcrowded shelter
in Tulsa, said that staff members were not trained to deal with special
medical needs, like heart monitors and feeding or breathing tubes, and
that no nurses were on duty at night to help in a crisis. At Christmas,
rats and mice ran among the presents under the tree, the worker said.
Ms. Gray, now 19, is grateful to a volunteer mentor, Buddy Faye Foster,
who was a constant presence through her whirlwind of moves and who
helped fight for needed counseling, took her shopping, even helped her
obtain a birth certificate. Ms. Foster also encouraged her to speak out
for her interests, which sometimes led to conflicts with families or
caseworkers.
Still, Ms. Gray noted, suffering is relative.
“I’ve been blessed,” she said. “All my homes haven’t been
horrible.”
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY
GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER
AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS....
CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.
every parent should read the free handbook from
connecticut dcf watch..
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com
Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS
*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*
Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13
Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12
Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5
Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
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