Farm Home ever bouncing back
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2007/05/14/news/community/8aaa01_farmhome.txt
By Gwyneth Gibby
Corvallis Gazette-Times
Scobel Wiggins/Democrat-Herald
A resident and a staff member walk around the fenced and locked
recreation yard behind one of the cottages at the Children’s Farm Home,
an 85-year-old mental health treatment center on Highway 20 in northeast
Corvallis.
Name of the game for ex-orphanage: Resilience
A fence stretches along the sides and over the top of the walkway and
exercise yard. Steve Schuttpelz stands next to it and talks about its
construction — wrought iron with a layer of chain link and covered by
no-climb metal mesh. The fence would not look out of place in a prison.
But Schuttpelz is the interim regional director not of a prison but of
the Children’s Farm Home in northeast Corvallis, and as he talks,
something heavy smashes into the window behind his head. He smiles.
The window doesn’t break — it’s made of Lexan, a product that advertises
its “unmatched impact resistance.”
That is a quality that could be attributed to the Farm Home in general.
The clients at the home are kids from 7 to 17. The most common diagnoses
are severe depression and aggressive and self-harming behaviors.
It’s a tough group to treat, and every day brings the possibility of crisis.
But the Farm Home has gone through much more overwhelming,
institutionwide crises, most notably in 1990, when Executive Director
William Henry “Hank” Dufort was convicted on 28 counts of sodomy, sexual
abuse and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.
The charges stemmed from crimes against six boys, whom Dufort continues
to deny he molested. He admits, however, that he abused “at least two
dozen” boys in his lifetime. Dufort, who started working at the Farm
Home in 1964, is serving a 48-year sentence at the Snake River
Correctional Institution in Ontario.
With his recent March 7 hearing before the Oregon Parole Board, which
ruled Dufort must remain in prison until at least September 2009, we
wondered how he got away with preying on boys for so long. Could
something like the Dufort reign occur at the Children’s Farm Home again?
What is different there now?
Picture of serenity
The campus looks peaceful with its spreading green lawns. A stable with
horses is flanked by pastures, and flower gardens cluster around the
buildings.
But during the years Dufort worked there, dozens of boys, some of whom
had been sexually abused at home, were molested behind closed doors.
“He was doing the most heinous thing that we would ever consider,” said
Derenda Schubert, external affairs officer for Trillium Family Services,
which now owns and operates the home.
Karen Zorn, then a Benton County deputy district attorney, prosecuted
Dufort. In a recent interview, Zorn and Scott Fels, who was a deputy
sheriff and lead investigator on the case, said many of Dufort’s victims
left the Farm Home without ever telling anyone what had happened to them.
“Boys don’t tell,” said Fels.
The case came to light when a man who had been a resident at the Farm
Home in the late 1960s remembered being abused by Dufort.
The man became a convicted sex offender himself. He had been through
treatment, according to Fels and Zorn, and done his time in prison. But
he kept on with psychological treatment because he knew there was
something still bothering him.
Then he saw a picture in the newspaper of Dufort winning an award
sometime in 1989.
“It broke the camel’s back, so to speak,” Fels said. “It was right after
seeing that picture, and he was just livid, and it all had come to a
head in this guy who knew he still had problems.”
The man told his counselor, who was a mandatory reporter of sex offenses
involving juveniles.
Fels was assigned to investigate, and he gave the man a polygraph test,
which he passed. Fels decided to talk to Dufort.
He told Dufort someone had accused him of sex abuse.
“So then he started to confess,” Fels said. “He told me about a couple
(victims), but he was always staying outside the statute of limitations.”
But he gave Fels enough probable cause to open a full investigation of
the Farm Home.
“That’s when the whole incredible dysfunction of the Farm Home became
clearly obvious very quickly,” Zorn said.
Fear and deceit
At Dufort’s trial, staff members testified that Dufort would frequently
go into the bedrooms of male residents early in the morning.
“When I would go upstairs to wake the kids,” testified staff member
Kerri Blum, “I wouldn’t enter the room where he was.”
“And why is that?” Zorn asked during the trial.
“I felt that it would not be welcomed,” Blum answered. “And as a person
who was higher than me in the agency, that I didn’t want to be seen as
interfering.”
Dufort’s victims testified that during the early morning visits, he was
molesting them.
David Dougher, the Farm Home’s clinical director, testified he knew
about those visits. Since Dufort was executive director, a job that was
administrative rather than clinical, Zorn asked Dougher at the trial if
Dufort gave an explanation for the early morning sessions.
“Well, he thought that kids were vulnerable at that time,” Dougher
testified, “and that they were less likely to be defended, and that good
data would come out of kids at that time.”
Blum also testified that a staff member had told her about another
staffer who had abused two kids. When Blum reported the allegation to
the police and the Children’s Services Division (now known as Child
Protective Services), Dufort came down hard on her at a staff meeting.
“(He) began talking about that there was a problem,” Blum testified,
“that somebody had reported abuse and that that wasn’t to happen, and
that that was dangerous to the survival of the agency.”
Starting over
The Farm Home survived, but not because of Dufort’s efforts to keep his
secrets. Partly as a result of the investigation and trial, the facility
did a major housecleaning in the early 1990s. The Farm Home now is part
of Trillium Family Services, which has facilities for treating kids and
families with mental health problems in Portland and Central Oregon as
well as Corvallis.
Tom Vanderveen, who works for the Department of Human Services, keeps a
close eye on the Farm Home, which is licensed by the state. Every two
years, the agency must be recertified. If there is a report of abuse or
an injury to a child while being restrained by staff, Vanderveen gets a
copy — as do Child Protective Services, the Mental Health Division of
DHS and the Oregon Advocacy Center.
“Sometimes questions pop up: ‘Why were (staff) doing that restraint?’”
said Vanderveen, who performs interviews to find out what happened.
No more hiding behind closed doors. There is transparency everywhere in
the agency — literally, right down to the bedroom doors. Inside the
cottages where kids live for up to three months at a time, every door
has a window in it.
When kids start to act out, they are escorted to seclusion rooms, where
a staff member looks in on them constantly.
Schubert and Schuttpelz emphasize the staff is trained to use physical
restraint as a last resort.
Restoring control
Cummings Cottage usually houses 16 kids who require subacute psychiatric
services.
“Kids who come here are usually experiencing severe depression,”
Schubert said on a recent tour of the facility.
The day is structured, and kids are monitored throughout the day
according to the goals they set for their own behavior. Each child moves
through a series of five levels, ranging from unsafe behavior through
being polite and respectful to having a therapeutic breakthrough. The
level is set every day for each kid.
“Putting the control back in their hands,” said Lisa Johnson, lead
treatment team leader in Cummings, “so they can decide how their day is
going to look.”
Helping the kids gain some control over their lives is a main goal of
the Farm Home. From its opening in 1922 as an orphanage, the facility
was a working farm for many years, giving kids a chance to learn, to do
something productive and get some control over lives that had been
shattered by losing their families.
The farm, which included a dairy, is no longer functioning, although
many of the old farm buildings remain in use for other activities, such
as a pottery studio and offices.
But there are still horses to ride. And for some kids the therapeutic
value of riding and caring for the animals is one of the strongest
experiences they have at the Farm Home, Schubert said.
In the 1960s and 1970s, kids routinely stayed at the home for more than
a year. Now the goal is to teach the kids living skills so they can be
back home within a few weeks or months. The Farm Home also has
outpatient services to help families on a continuing basis.
Far from trouble-free
There are still problems. Kids run away, and the Benton County Sheriff’s
Office is called in to help find them, which unnerves neighbors. There
are regular reports to law enforcement about kids assaulting staff or
sometimes each other.
And the staff is not highly paid.
“A lot of times we’re the first job out of college for psychology majors
and social work majors,” Schubert said.
There are some financial challenges ahead for the facility. Recently the
state of Oregon, which pays for a majority of the clients through
various programs, has changed its contract with the Farm Home from
guaranteeing a certain number of clients to paying for individual
services. So the income from the state can fluctuate dramatically from
one month to the next. It may even out over time, but the short term can
be unpredictable. That means relying more on clients who are paid for by
private insurance.
Still, the Children’s Farm Home carries on, changing and adapting.
“I learned a lot about the Farm Home,” investigator Fels said, “and they
were a wonderful group of people. We need them in the community.
Luckily, they’re still there.”
“They’re still there,” Zorn echoed.
Gwyneth Gibby reports on crime and the courts for the Corvallis
Gazette-Times. She can be reached at gwyneth.gibby@lee.net.
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....
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 this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf
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 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Fatalities CPS 6.4, 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.
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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