SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Child welfare officials say there was credible information that foster children kept at a converted juvenile detention center in southern Oregon were subjected to strip searches, bullying and unwanted physical contact.
Top officials with the Department of Human Services revealed the information at a legislative hearing Thursday, shedding more light on the living conditions at the Youth Inspiration Program in Klamath Falls, a facility included in a federal lawsuit against Oregon’s foster care system.
DHS Child Welfare Director Marilyn Jones said there were reports that foster care youth at YIP had little access to recreational and extracurricular activities. Residents of the facility also reported that their contact with family members were also limited.
At least one child reported being bullied by another peer, and there were also credible reports of youth being subjected to strip searches, in which children would change into robes and hand their clothing over to staff to be searched.
Oregon has increasingly sent foster care children to converted juvenile jails and to other institutional settings after DHS committed to no longer keep some of the state’s most high-needs children in hotel rooms.
The hearing came as Gov. Kate Brown forges ahead with her own plan to tackle Oregon’s foster care crisis. The governor announced the members of her Child Welfare Oversight Board, a nine-person panel that will meet every other week to craft solutions to challenges within DHS. Members will include a former circuit court judge, a DHS caseworker, and officials with expertise in youth intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“One of the things we are working to do is to build capacity of the system and ensure that all of the kids are getting their needs met,” Brown told reporters Thursday.
YIP is a converted juvenile detention center that provides intensive behavioral interventions for some of the foster care system’s most troubled youth. The facility houses foster children from different backgrounds, particularly those who have had contact with the state’s juvenile justice system.
The institution is included in a recent federal lawsuit that alleges the state has provided inadequate housing and support for its foster children, violating their constitutional rights. The lawsuit details the conditions of a 16-year-old girl who was sent to YIP out of a lack of other placement options in the state. There, lawyers say she slept in a refurbished jail cell and was not provided adequate access to mental health or educational services.
State welfare officials removed four foster children from that facility in late March after it was uncovered that girls would only have access to tampons if they exhibited “good behavior.” Staff at that facility later changed the policy, allowing girls to have three tampons at a time if they turned in their used hygiene products.
DHS Director Fariborz Pakeresht said he could not comment on that particular case since it’s subject to ongoing litigation, but he admitted that children are sometimes sent to facilities that may not meet their needs out of a lack of alternative placement options.
“Because of lack of capacity, there are times that we may place youth in a facility…that may not be the best match,” he said.
Pakeresht said that he met with representatives from YIP, who complained that assessments of the Klamath Falls facility have been unfair.
DHS said that, going forward, it will only send children to YIP that have had contact with the juvenile justice system. The department also plans to create a small team dedicated to better matching its high-needs children with facilities that provide intensive behavioral treatments.
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