Enid center for people with developmental disabilities went years without a state advocate on site full-time

No state advocate worked on site full-time to represent clients and investigate abuse at an Enid center for people with developmental disabilities where facility staff allegedly beat and choked residents last year.

The Oklahoma Human Services’ Office of Client Advocacy investigates complaints of abuse and neglect at the 52-bed Robert M. Greer Center in Enid. But for more than seven years, the state advocate assigned to Greer clients didn’t work in-person on the campus full-time.

At least eight former Greer staff members have been criminally charged since November on allegations of caretaker abuse and are awaiting court hearings. There were reports of abuse dating back to at least 2021 at Greer, but State Department of Health investigators didn’t have enough evidence to prove abuse or neglect occurred, according to state surveys. Some injuries to clients weren’t reported to the state at all, or reports were delayed by days or weeks, according to state surveyors and court testimony. Police and state officials have said they are investigating whether some Greer staff refused to cooperate with abuse investigations or provided inaccurate information.

For 16 years, the Office of Client Advocacy maintained an office staffed with a full-time advocate to investigate client grievances and concerns on the campus that was home to the Greer Center and the former Northern Oklahoma Resource Center, another facility serving individuals with developmental disabilities, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Human Services said. The Resource Center buildings shut down in 2016, and there was limited office space inside of Greer, the agency said. The advocacy office also closed in 2016.

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The agency said in an emailed statement to The Frontier that a state advocate still had the sole job responsibility of advocating for Greer clients and “maintained a physical presence at the facility no less than two to three days per week.”

“These efforts are motivated by no reason other than to protect these individuals to the best of the agency’s ability within the resources available to it,” a statement reads.

Oklahoma Human Services said the agency is only required to maintain offices at state-run facilities like the former Northern Oklahoma Resource Center. Since the state contracts with the private, for-profit company Liberty of Oklahoma Corporation to manage Greer, the agency says it did not have to keep the advocacy office open after the other center closed. A Liberty of Oklahoma spokeswoman directed questions to Oklahoma Human Services.

State rules last revised in 2017 say the Office of Client Advocacy maintained an office at the Greer Center. But the agency says the requirement does not apply because the Greer Center is no longer a state-operated facility.

Oklahoma Human Services’ current contract with Liberty of Oklahoma signed in July 2022 states that the Office of Client Advocacy was expected to assign a full-time advocate to the Greer Center to attend staff meetings and investigate allegations of maltreatment on a daily basis.

RoseAnn Duplan, a policy specialist with the Oklahoma Disability Law Center, said various systems of oversight were put in place for individuals with developmental disabilities following a settlement agreement from a lawsuit filed against a facility for individuals with developmental disabilities in the 1980s. But policies have been “relaxed or ignored” over time, she said.

“We think it is clear that the abuse that was allowed to run rampant in the Greer facility was a direct result of the agencies charged with oversight not following the policies that were put in place to protect the residents,” Duplan said.

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Greer Center in Enid went years without full-time, onside advocate