Why some kids in Oklahoma Co. may be more at risk

© Copyright 2008, The Oklahoman

Abused and neglected children are taken from parents in Oklahoma County at a rate more than double that of Tulsa County.

The monthly average number of foster care children in Oklahoma County was 2,261 last fiscal year, compared with 843 for Tulsa County, state statistics reveal.

That raises some interesting questions: Are Oklahoma County children taken away too often? Are Tulsa County children not removed often enough?

Are there more than twice as many bad parents in Oklahoma County as Tulsa County?

Opinions vary.

"There are a lot of differences between Oklahoma County and Tulsa County,” said Howard Hendrick, director of the state Department of Human Services.

Poverty is a strain, and Tulsa County has a better community network in place to assist the poor than Oklahoma County, he said.

Richard Kirby, head Oklahoma County juvenile court judge, said he hasn't noticed police officers and Oklahoma County DHS employees intervening in families without justification.

"Frankly, I can't say I've heard a case that DHS didn't need to have some involvement in,” Kirby said.

Taking a far more critical view of Oklahoma County's high removal rate is the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, a group of outside attorneys brought in by DHS to take a look at the system.

"A disproportionately high number of children are entering and remaining in care in Oklahoma County,” the group said in a draft report.

Law enforcement officers execute most emergency removals in Oklahoma County and the training and removal standards used by various police departments in the county vary greatly, the report said.

Many Oklahoma County DHS child welfare workers and supervisors are inexperienced and poorly trained, the bar association group found.

"Caseworker training and supervision is inadequate, contributing to low job satisfaction, high caseworker turnover, and distrust between DHS and the court,” the report said.

"Currently, there is no shared understanding of child safety or risk of harm. The result is that DHS is filing more petitions on more children without a clear policy of why, or how, it will meet the needs of every family,” according to the report.

Workers who are inexperienced, poorly trained and poorly supervised are more likely to remove a child from a home unnecessarily, under conditions where good social work could fix the problem, said a former DHS worker with 16 years of supervisory experience.

The former supervisor, who asked that her name not be used, said it's "easier to get a kid removed than worry about how to improve a situation.”

It's also safe for the employee because there is no risk of criticism for leaving a child in a home where they could later be injured or killed, she said. The decision on whether to send the child back is left up to someone else.

"They don't comprehend the damage to the child,” she said.

Hendrick said Oklahoma County may be able to divert some children from going into foster care through a family group conferencing service that gets extended family members together prior to children entering foster care to see if there is anyone in the family who might be able to safely take care of the kids.

"With family group conferencing maybe we can just divert 10 or 15 percent of the kids coming into the system,” he said. "It wouldn't save a lot, but in maybe 10 or 15 percent of the cases they would come up with their own plan” that would be acceptable to state officials, as well as the family.

Hendrick suggested the difference between Oklahoma County and Tulsa County might better be explained by differences in preventive services within the counties.

Oklahoma County has a slightly higher poverty rate, which is part of the problem, he said.

But there also are other differences.

"They have a pretty good community network,” Hendrick said of Tulsa County. "They have a big commitment to community schools up there. ... They have a lot of mental health services. ... You can go into some of their schools and OU physicians will have clinics inside the schools. ... I mean, you'll have a doctor in the local school in Tulsa. You'll have licensed professional counselors in a school.”

Getting social services into low income neighborhoods can relieve the strains of poverty and have a positive impact on families, he said.

Hendrick said Oklahoma County is starting to make some strides in that area, but Tulsa County is more advanced.

"Here goes the turnpike rivalry again,” he said.