Group Home Probed After Abuse Reports State Stops Sending Juveniles While Investigation Is Under Way
The state has stopped sending youngsters to a Cowlitz County group home for troubled boys, pending completion of a probe into reports of physical abuse and other problems.
The director of the Toutle River Boys Ranch, Steve Watters, said Friday he welcomed the review, and is confident the state will give the facility, about 10 miles north of Longview, a clean bill of health.
“A stop-placement has been ordered. We aren’t placing any additional children there, but children already there will remain,” said Laurie Evans, regional administrator for the Department of Social and Health Services. The state already has about 30 boys at the nonprofit, contract home, she said.
“We are auditing the general operation to make sure the facility is maintaining health and safety of the kids. There is information that the children weren’t being supervised sufficiently by staff. The majority of the incidents were physical assaults,” she said.
Evans said investigators are preparing a final report of their findings, which will be made public, possibly next week.
Watters, however, said he also was asking for a federal investigation of the ranch to ensure the state was not engaged in a “witch hunt” spawned by fear and embarrassment over its handling an investigation last year into extensive sexual abuse allegations at the now-closed O.K. Boys Ranch in Olympia.
The attorney general is looking into how DSHS handled that probe, and a legislative committee says it will do the same.
“I have absolutely nothing to hide,” Watters said. “There is nothing there. I have sat here and taken notes during the (state) audit, and I can tell you, what the audit has found is what is to be expected” given the sort of youngsters at the facility. The ranch takes in largely older teenagers who have proven too tough to be placed in foster homes.
“We were told that the volume and nature of physical abuse between clients is too high. The most frequent incidents are physical altercations between clients, not five kids ganging up on one kid,” Watters said, adding that most of the fights are not serious.
He said the state found no problems following three routine “health and safety reviews” in the past year.
“This newest review came out of the blue,” he said.
“There is always room for improvement, but to tell you the truth, I worry that this could be a witch hunt.”
The O.K. Boys Ranch was closed after the state agreed to pay $4.3 million to 16 boys to settle lawsuits alleging they had been physically and sexually abused there.