OKLAHOMA - 78 KIDS MISSING FROM DHS CUSTODY

Missing: 78 children from Oklahoma Department of Human Services custody

Seventy-eight children in custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services are missing. Thirty-eight of them have been missing for more than three months.

by Randy Ellis Modified: August 10, 2013 at 2:36 am • Published: August 11, 2013

©Copyright 2013, The Oklahoman

Seventy-eight children in custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services are missing.
Thirty-eight of them have been missing for more than three months.

“That is ridiculous,” said Michelle Zettee, of Midwest City, a former volunteer with the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program. “There needs to be some accountability here … When DHS has a child removed from his or her parents — especially when the reason for the removal stems from allegations of neglect rather than abuse — I feel that DHS should have as much responsibility to provide adequate supervision and ensure the child's safety as they are attempting to require from the child's parents.”

Millie Carpenter, DHS's permanency and well-being program administrator, and Melissa Jones, a DHS program supervisor, insist there is accountability, but say preventing children from running away is not as easy as it might sound.
Carpenter said staff members believe all 78 children who are currently missing are runaways and not children who have been abducted.

There are more than 10,000 children in state custody. Most live in foster homes, while many others stay in shelters and group homes. Many of the children want more independence and some choose to run away, she said.
Some children run away to reunite with parents that state officials have deemed unsuitable, but “I've had just as many run just because they didn't want to follow rules,” Jones said.
“For the most part, we don't put children who are in DHS custody in a lock up facility,” Jones said. “They are in facilities where they can walk away.”

Carpenter said staff members try to persuade children not to run away, when they know their intentions, but that doesn't always work. The extent to which workers will use physical means to keep a child from leaving depends on the age of the child and any disabilities or other limitations they have that might make them particularly vulnerable, she said.

DHS has a strict protocol that must be followed when a child does run away, she said.
A report must be filed immediately with law enforcement and the district attorney, child's attorney and parents, if they still have legal rights, the policy states.

If the child has been abducted or is deemed to be at “high risk of harm,” the DHS worker is required to notify the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for search assistance and may request assistance from the Office of Inspector General.
The national center will then post the child's name, picture and other information on its website and seek the public's help in locating the youth.

Zettee, the former CASA worker, contends that what DHS policy states and what really is going on are two different things.
Zettee said when her CASA class toured DHS's Oklahoma City shelter, the shelter director told them that older children were free to leave at any time and “if the child is above the age of 15, or sometimes if they are above the age of 13 and ‘seem particularly mature,' the shelter staff will not follow the child nor will the police be called,” when they run away.

Rebecca Price, director of the Pauline E. Mayer Children's Shelter in Oklahoma City, said there must have been some misunderstanding.
“That's not our policy nor is that what we do,” Price said.
If a child is under 13 or over 13 and intellectually disabled, staff members will physically stop them from leaving, Price said.

“If they are 13 and over, we do everything we can verbally do to stop them,” she said.
In all cases where a child runs away, a police report is filed and a National Crime Information Center confirmation number is received, she said.
The staff member on duty when a child runs away also is required to prepare an incident report and document what was done to try to stop them, she said.
“But it's not a locked facility,” she said. “They haven't done anything against the law.”

Zettee said she has personal knowledge concerning DHS's handling of a case involving a 15-year-old girl who ran away from the Oklahoma City shelter, because the girl's mother lived with her for a time.The girl was allowed to leave the shelter without interference, Zettee said.

For over a year, the girl was “staying with her abusive, drug addicted 19-year-old boyfriend,” Zettee said.

The girl's mother “reported to DHS several times that her daughter had come around and told her where she was and nobody was doing anything to get the child back in custody,” Zettee said. Zettee said the girl's mother moved out and she has lost track of the case in recent months, but as far as she knows, the girl still may be listed as missing.

“I fail to see how moving a child from a situation with ‘inadequate' supervision to a situation with no supervision benefits the child in any way,” Zettee said.
As a supervisor, Jones said she has never known any of her staff not to be diligent in their efforts to locate a missing child.
“We're going to be out looking,” she said. “The foster parents are going to be out looking. They're concerned.”
“In 11 years with the department, more than half of that in management, I've never had to reprimand a worker for not making a very diligent effort to find a child,” Jones said. “That's never been an issue in all the dozens of people that I've supervised and worked alongside.”

“If we knew where the child was, it would be the expectation to inform police and have them follow up on the pickup order,” Carpenter said. “There should not be a situation where a worker is doing what they're expected to do and just allowing a child to live somewhere without following through on reporting that to the police and trying to get that child recovered.”

“It wouldn't be condoned,” she said.

Carpenter said courts have flexibility to change a child's placement to the home they have run away to if that home is investigated and deemed appropriate.
Carpenter said she only knows of one child who died within the past year while on the run from state custody.
She said the girl died from a medical condition and had been in contact with relatives while she was missing.
Active efforts were being made to locate her at the time of her death, Carpenter said.

http://newsok.com/missing-78-children-from-oklahoma-department-of-human-services-custody/article/3871014

This story ran in August, with a follow-up story two days later.

It's now May. Where are these kids?

I respectfully submit to DHS that being a runaway in the state of Oklahoma automatically qualifies a child to be "high risk," as Oklahoma
is one of the largest human trafficking centers in the United States. A favorite target of traffickers is runaways, mainly because NO ONE IS LOOKING FOR THEM.

Gah.

What the hell is going on here?

Missing Children and Human Trafficking in Oklahoma
16-Aug-2013

A recent local news story revealed that as many as 78 missing children in Oklahoma are minors in DHS custody. Nearly half of these children, of whom the Oklahoma Department of Human Services has lost track, have been missing for more than three months. Critics of the state DHS system say that the agency responsible for taking children from their homes should be likewise responsible for making sure those children are safe and secure in a shelter or foster home. They argue that 78 missing children is a staggering and shameful number, and that DHS has failed in its duty to protect endangered youth by failing to find these children.

The Department of Human Services counters by saying that it is believed that all of the missing children are runaways, not victims of abduction. DHS asserts the difficulty of preventing teens from running away--either to return to the parents from whom they have been taken or to escape the rules and structure of foster homes and DHS facilities.

Unfortunately, the fact that these kids are runaways does not mitigate the dangers they face. Oklahoma is being recognized as a major hub for human trafficking, with I-40 crossing the state from east to west, I-35 spanning the state's borders from north to south, and I-44 reaching from southwest to northeast Oklahoma. The most likely victims of sex trafficking in the United States? Runaways and disenfranchised youth.

No longer a crime restricted to back alleys of Bangkok and overseas destinations, human trafficking is a real problem in the United States. In fact, in 2012, the U.S. State Department listed the United States as the leading destination for human trafficking. Among the most active states are California, New York, Texas, and Oklahoma.

Human trafficking is not the same as smuggling humans across the border. Transportation is only one of five actions--along with recruitment, transfer, harboring, and receipt--required for to define human trafficking. These actions, along with the means of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of forced labor or commercial sex, constitute human trafficking.

It is important to note, however, that coercion is not required for human trafficking charges involving commercial sex acts with the victim is under the age of 18. Runaway and homeless youth are disproportionately involved in commercial sexual exploitation--prostitution, child pornography, and stripping, for example--as a means of survival on the streets.

A University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work: Philadelphia study entitled "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States, Canada, and Mexico," reveals startling statistics about the number of disenfranchised, runaway, and homeless youth involved in the child sex trade:

The average age of entry into prostitution is 12-14 years old for girls and 11-13 years old for boys
75 percent of runaway and sexually exploited girls are controlled by traffickers
70 percent of "street youth" are involved in commercial sexual exploitation
30 percent of youths living in shelters are involved in commercial sexual exploitation
Sex trafficking in Oklahoma first gained widespread public attention in 2011, when the dismembered body of 19-year-old Carina Saunders was discovered in a duffel bag behind a Homeland grocery store in Bethany, Oklahoma. Since then, multiple of arrests have been made as a result of local law enforcement action and federal initiatives, such as Operation Cross Country 7.

DHS may have lost track of 78 young people in their custody, but it's a safe bet the traffickers know where to find them.

http://www.oklahomalegalgroup.com/news/human-trafficking-in-oklahoma-and-dhs-missing-children

http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/08/15/child-sex-trafficking-and-the-oklahoma-state-government/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pakalert+%28Pak+Alert+Press%29


Child Sex Trafficking and the Oklahoma State Government
truther August 15, 2013 2


Dave Hodges
Something is wrong in this country, terribly wrong. Many children are going missing from Child Protective Custody supervision, all across this country, with no record of what has happened to the thousands of missing children.

Oklahoma Is the Latest State to Tolerate Child Sex Slavery Rings
In Oklahoma, Seventy-eight children have gone completely missing with no explanation. The most frightening aspect of this development is that these children went missing while in custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS).
Even the Oklahoma media is asking questions. Millie Carpenter, who holds the position of DHS’s permanency and well-being program administrator, and her cohort, Melissa Jones, a DHS program supervisor, insist that there is nothing wrong and their publicly funded agency has made absolutely no mistakes. No mistakes? There are 78 children, under their care who are missing! Nothing wrong?

Carpenter and Jones insist there is DHS accountability and that all 78 missing children should be considered to be runaways and that they have not been abducted. How would they know since the children are missing?

Please allow me to emphasize that these 78 children were under the custody and care of DHS at the time of their disappearance. If these children had disappeared while in the custody of their parents, wouldn’t there be hell to pay regarding parental accountability? Both the authorities and the media should be asking questions about supervision and agency accountability. When these children were not in their tax-supported bed at night, why was nothing done?

Presumably, many of these children were removed from their parents by Child Protective Services and placed in DHS custody because their parents were accused of neglect and/or abuse. Isn’t DHS responsible for room and board? Each child is required to accounted for with regard to state allocations for food and housing! Therefore, can some responsible person of authority, connected to DHS, please explain to me why 78 missing person reports have not been filed? Why weren’t the police notified? If these children were removed from the parents home, then a court would have to be involved. As such, the courts should have been immediately notified when the children went missing because a court order was not being complied with.

If the missing 78 children in Oklahoma was just a case of gross dereliction of duty by officials such DHS administrators Carpenter and Jones, then we could fire the incompetent personnel and hire better people who would protect the children. But the fact that these children were not even reported as missing is inexcusable.

How do I know that something is terribly wrong? Simple, I used to be a mental health counselor and these types of administrative procedures were part of my training. The facts connected to the handling of these missing children does not add up. If the three stooges are not running Oklahoma’s DHS, then there is something very criminal going on. And the fact that the authorities are not up in arms and conducting a criminal investigation is highly suspicious and suggests further complicity at some official level. There is very good reason to expect a much deeper level of criminal activity related to these children because it has happened before.

The Penn State Case
The Oklahoma DHS scandal is nothing new. Agency or corporate controlled sex rings are hidden in plain sight. They often receive legitimacy from various government agencies and top corporate entities. Here is an example of how the child sex rings are hidden in the plain light of day.


Jerry Sandusky’s “The Second Mile Foundation” was recognized as one of President Bush’s top “1000 Points of Light.” Interestingly, Marvin P. Bush was on the National Collegiate Athletic Association Board of Directors which helped make the selection. Former president, George H. W. “Pappy” Bush is no stranger to accusations of pedophilia as evidenced by the accompany headline below this paragraph.

Court records show that former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky molested dozens, if not hundreds of children from at 1977 to 2011 when this animal was finally caught, convicted and sentenced.


Most Americans think that when Sandusky, received a 30 to 60 prison term after being found guilty on 45 counts of the sexual exploitation of minors, that the case was closed. And that is what the child sex trafficking industry and their allies in the corporate controlled media would have the public believe.
In actuality, the Sandusky case was quickly concluded in order to prevent any investigation from going forth which would reveal the extent to which pedophilia, for fun and profit, have ensnared the rich and famous powerful elite, both in this country and abroad.
Records show that Sandusky should have been convicted of child molestation in 1999 when allegations against him were first made. This particular incident was investigated by local police, referred to Centre County’s District Attorney, Ray Gricar, who refused to press charges despite the fact that the mother of the alleged victim had voicemail tapes and tape recordings of Sandusky and her son and their sexually explicit conversations. Friends of Gricar have said that he was frightened and was intimidated in not pursing charges despite overwhelming evidence. However, at a later time, Gricar developed some intestinal fortitude and reopened his investigation into Sandusky’s illicit conduct. Shortly thereafter, on his day off, Gricar went missing and has body has never been found. His laptop was found in a nearby creek, but none of the data could be retrieved according to the FBI investigative report. Gricar was declared legally dead in 2011, after the Sandusky scandal surfaced. The investigation of the apparent kidnapping and murder of Ray Gricar could politely be described as incomplete. Gricar’s fate is an all too common fate experienced by whistle blowers and investigators into the world-wide pedophile ring.
We now know that Sandusky obtained many of his victims from his precious Second Mile Foundation. How could the board members of The Second Mile Foundation expect a naive public that from 1977 to 2011, that absolutely no Second Mile official, nobody at all, except for the abused children and Sandusky, had any knowledge of the abuse? Keep in mind that these young victims were pimped out in broad daylight as revealed in the court testimony. The Second Mile Foundation board members have associations which reach into the highest pinnacles of power in this country including Richard Struthers of Bank of America, Michael O’Donnell, Jake Corman Pennsylvania State Senator. Vice President of Morgan Stanley and Matt Millen an ESPN football analyst. In Additionally, many of the Penn State donors have intimate connections to both Second Mile and some of the top politicians in this country. And for 34 years, nobody at Second Mile knew? Well, District Attorney Ray Gricar knew and he’s dead.

Where Is Nancy Schaefer When We Need Her?


Former Georgia State Senator, Nancy Schaefer was an outspoken opponent of Child Protective Services (CPS). Schaefer authored an investigation in which, among other findings, revealed the following:
“…the separation of families is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets.
The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing.
The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official “safety”, these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in the general population.
That according to the California Little Hoover Commission Report in 2003, 30% to 70% of the children in California group homes do not belong there and should not have been removed from their homes.
…poor parents often times are targeted to lose their children because they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system. Being poor does not mean you are not a good parent or that you do not love your child, or that your child should be removed and placed with strangers.”
In this document, Schaefer makes it clear that organizations, such as The Second Mile, procure their underage victims by making children wards of the State. CPS has unchecked legal authority to remove children, with or without cause. Subsequently, CPS and their partners, the corrupt juvenile court judges can place these children wherever they see fit (e.g. The Franklin House, Boys Town, Elm House, The Second Mile Foundation) where unimaginable horrors take place.
As most of us know, Nancy Schaefer and her husband Bruce were “suicided” in 2010, on the same day she was attempting to reach out to talk show host, Alex Jones, because she knew she was in deep trouble.

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
And of course, there is the omnipresent DynCorp child sex trafficking scandal. On March 11th 2005, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney grilled Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers on the DynCorp child sex trafficking case. “Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003, in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The President called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, DynCorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children. While all of this was going on, DynCorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program. Mr. Secretary, is it the policy of the U.S. Government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls?” Rumsfeld fumbled around and blamed a single employee of DynCorp for these transgressions and DynCorp, at that time, continued to receive government contracts.
McKinney was subsequently driven from office. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is one of very few government officials in high office aside from Cynthia McKinney to demand answers on this issue. And what may you ask happened to Blagojevich? He was framed for trying to sell Obama’s senatorial seat in a story that made no sense. Does this tell us how high up the corruption goes?
Conclusion
The missing 78 Oklahoma children provides the American people with an opportunity to blow the lid off of this conspiracy once and for all. How many of these children are dead? How many were forced into child sex-slavery rings? Or, as Oklahoma’s DHS claims, are these children simply “run away” children?
America, we have an important decision to make. Are we going to press for answers. Will we demand that heads roll in Oklahoma and launch an all out search for the missing 78 children?
If we will not rise up as a nation to protect our children, our most precious asset, then we do not deserve to survive as a nation.

(What's he worried about? Give them time, they'll just run away and DHS won't look for them. Problem solved.)

Too many children going into Oklahoma DHS custody, director says

http://newsok.com/too-many-children-going-into-oklahoma-dhs-custody-director-says/article/3954148

DHS had 11,434 children in its custody Thursday.

by Nolan Clay Published: April 10, 2014
The director of the state Department of Human Services acknowledges too many children are going into DHS custody.

“When you take the child out of his or her world, bad things happen to that child emotionally,” Director Ed Lake said. “So we can protect children physically sometimes and damage them further emotionally.”

DHS had 11,434 children in its custody on Thursday, a DHS spokeswoman said.

The number of children in DHS care has fluctuated in the past 10 years, records show.

The total was as high as 12,222 at the end of the 2007 fiscal year. It was as low as 7,970 at the end of the 2010 fiscal year, but has increased every year since.

Lake said DHS now has a very inexperienced child welfare workforce. He said inexperienced workers fear making mistakes and getting children harmed.

“So the easy answer is: Bring them into care,” Lake said. “Well, yeah, that day, it might protect the child. But there are many, many children that don’t need to be in our system who can still be protected in their homes.”

Lake spoke Thursday to the Editorial Board of The Oklahoman.

The director said some judges, assistant district attorneys and police also think it is just safer to remove children from their parents.

He said the increase has impacted the agency’s efforts to meet the goals of The Pinnacle Plan.

The costly plan requires DHS to hire more child welfare workers, recruit more foster parents and move away from caring for abused and neglected children at shelters. DHS commissioners agreed to make the reforms when they settled a federal class-action lawsuit against them in 2012.

“If we had 9,500 or 10,000, I think we would have made better progress, but the pressure of all these kids in our system in a short period of time really hurt us,” Lake said.

DHS asked a national foundation, Casey Family Programs, for a study into the reasons for the increase. That study looked at 118 cases from December and January.

“There were many removals that seemed unavoidable in hindsight, often due to caregiver substance abuse or domestic violence,” the study found. “However, there were also numerous examples where a different approach to the family or consideration of options other than foster care might have safely been considered.”

Lake said the situation could improve through efforts to reduce worker turnover, add additional in-home prevention services and speed up the permanent placement of children.

He said workers need to consider more often placing a child with a relative rather than taking the child into foster care.

He said salaries for entry-level child welfare workers will be increased to more than $34,000.

The agency has about 1,500 child welfare specialists, Lake said.