WOODSIDE TRAILS- Abusive Wilderness Program Reopens with a N

[Deborah]

Political vendetta alleged in foster care crackdown
Strayhorn sued by former wilderness camp director.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The director of a now-shuttered wilderness camp for troubled youth has filed a lawsuit against state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, accusing her of pressuring regulators to shut down the facility with unproven and false allegations of abuse to boost her political ambitions.

As I recall, the state did their own investigation and found numerous violations.

Nine other state officials are named as defendants with Strayhorn in the suit, filed Thursday in federal court in Austin.

Betty Lou Gaines, the former director of Woodside Trails Therapeutic Camp in Bastrop County, seeks unspecified damages for what she says was an administrative chain of political manipulation that began more than two years ago, when Strayhorn released "Forgotten Children," a report that was highly critical of how the Department of Family and Protective Services protects foster children.

Betty Lou, aka Bebe.

The camp near Smithville cared for more than 500 abused and troubled adolescent boys in more than 20 years of operation and "enjoyed a favorable success rate" before it closed in August 2004, according to the lawsuit.

Favorable? Not 98%?

"Had a proper investigation been conducted, free from politics and bureaucracy, the allegation of sexual abuse and the allegations of neglect against (Gaines) would have been ruled out by a preponderance of the evidence," the suit states.

Will Holford, a spokesman for Strayhorn, said Monday that neither she nor the agency would comment on pending litigation. Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said his agency has not seen the lawsuit and had no comment.

In the suit, filed by Austin attorney Susan Henricks, Gaines alleges that the investigation of Woodside Trails by Strayhorn was politically motivated from the start.

Last month, two state administrative law judges "unanimously found that DFPS had no evidence of sexual abuse" of a resident by a camp counselor. That was an allegation in Strayhorn's investigation, although the boy who had made the charges recanted them before Strayhorn's report was made public, according to the suit.

As a result, the suit argues, state officials had no reason to revoke Woodside Trails' state license in August 2004, an action that led to its shutdown.

"The closing of Woodside Trails was the culmination of the extensive and relentless political pressure exerted against the agency and the facility by Defendant Strayhorn," according to the suit.

It alleges that she had no legal authority to investigate the camp and that the report was misleading and inaccurate.

"The depth, intensity and extent" of Strayhorn's campaign against Woodside Trails "went far beyond the normal agenda of a powerful, ambitious and unscrupulous politician seeking higher office," the suit alleges.

After her report was released, Strayhorn was so upset by a favorable media story about the camp that she took two other TV journalists to the camp, said they were part of her inspection team and used hidden cameras to film boys at the camp, the suit says.

Links to those videos, of the squalid conditions the kids were living in, are posted on Fornits.

Strayhorn is currently challenging Gov. Rick Perry as an independent candidate for governor, after initially running as a Republican.

Gaines could not be reached for comment Monday.

Also named as defendants are Family and Protective Services employees Darla Jean Shaw, an investigator; Sherry Loyd, a supervisor; Jan Martin, at the time the Houston regional director of residential child care licensing; Charlene Bateman, director of child care licensing; Assistant Commissioners Diana Spiser and Karen Eells; and Thomas Chapmond, commissioner at the time; and comptroller's office employees Vicki Anderson and Ruthie Ford.


THE STORY SO FAR
Strayhorn and Woodside Trails

April 2004: Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn issues a report blasting the foster care system, particularly therapeutic camps. Although not by name, Woodside Trails is among several camps cited for poor living conditions.

August 2004: The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services revokes the camp's license several weeks after an employee and a former employee are arrested on charges of sexual assault of a child.

July 2006: Two state judges find that the state had no evidence of sexual abuse.
~~

So... why no mention of "Eagle Pines Academy", which they opened immediately upon Woodside Trails Wilderness being shut down by the state?
Have they closed their doors? Website's still up.
No longer listed at NATSAP though. Were they booted or have they ceased operating?
[/i]

[Anonymous]

State agency said to have mishandled probe of foster camp

12/01/2006

By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON  / Associated Press

A state agency ignored evidence and the opinions of its own staff before closing a camp for troubled boys in 2004 and accusing its director and two employees of neglect or sexual abuse, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Managers and staff at the Department of Family and Protective Services made a series of questionable decisions in handling allegations involving Woodside Trails Therapeutic Camp, two administrative law judges said in July rulings that cleared the camp's employees of all wrongdoing.

The AP first requested the documents in August under the Texas Public Information Act, but the State Office of Administrative Hearings refused, citing confidentiality laws. The state attorney general's office rejected that argument and ordered the rulings be made public this week.

The state's investigation into the Bastrop County camp is also the subject of two lawsuits. Betty Lou "Bebe" Gaines, the camp's former director, and one of the counselors sued comptroller and recent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn claiming she targeted the facility for political gain.

Between October 2003 and August 2004, one counselor was accused of failing to supervise a boy who overdosed on ibuprofen, another counselor was accused of molesting a child and Gaines was accused of neglect for, among other things, taking some campers to an American Indian religious ceremony. The camp was cited for 32 violations of state standards.

Among the administrative law judges' findings:

_ The agency's director of residential child care licensing overrode investigators' findings and determined there was reason to believe neglect had occurred even though she didn't speak to any witnesses or the accused employees and didn't obtain any other information. In counselor Paul Lowery's case, if the director had asked a few basic questions she would have realized the teen's explanation of how he got the pills could not have been true.

_ An investigator concluded counselor Jackie Reynolds had molested a former camper even though the boy had recanted his accusation, had a lengthy history of lying and had threatened to falsely accuse Reynolds of abusing him. "There is simply no evidence showing that sexual abuse occurred," the judges said.

_ Woodside Trails merited just 11 of the 32 standards violations state inspectors found between October 2003 and August 2004, and it immediately corrected four of them, so the department should not have revoked its license.

The department has asked a state district court to overturn the judges' findings in its case against Woodside Trails, spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. It is not appealing the findings in the cases against the counselors and the director.

Asked to comment on the judges' findings, Crimmins would only say "the judge apparently didn't disagree with the fact that it was a problem facility but took issue with our regulatory remedy for that." He said there will be no internal inquiry into the shortcomings the judges described concerning the state investigation.

Gaines' and Reynolds' lawsuits claim Strayhorn forced the department to find or fabricate problems at the camp to bolster her campaign to clean up the state's foster care system.

Strayhorn spokesman Will Holford declined to comment on the rulings. When Gaines filed her lawsuit in August, he said the comptroller has been and will continue to be "the voice for our forgotten children in the state's foster care system."

Reynolds said the rulings were a step in the right direction but didn't do much to repair his shattered life. He was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, and even though those charges were dropped in 2005 he was rejected from public housing because the allegations remain on his record. He now makes $6 an hour at a cardboard box factory.

"It doesn't have to be true to completely and utterly destroy the credibility of the person being accused," he said. "It destroyed Woodside Trails. It destroyed me. It destroyed Bebe Gaines. Just the suggestion this has happened utterly annihilates people's lives."

Lowery also has had a hard time finding work, especially in the child care field.

"When you're dealing with kids, the state's always going to believe the kids before they believe the adults and I can understand that," he said. "But once there's evidence proving I wasn't negligent why wasn't action taken in order to reverse the verdict?"

Gaines declined to comment because of her lawsuit, other than to say she was glad the rulings were no longer secret.

Weaver Gaines, the camp's former chief operating officer, said his sister has a gift for helping troubled boys but likely will never be able to do that work again. Over more than two decades, the camp helped more than 500 abused and troubled boys rebuild their lives, he said.

"It was really important to her that the 23 years of what they did for those children not end with an undisputed allegation that they didn't take care of the kids," he said. "She would really, really like it if somebody would pay attention to the way that the department is run and take some steps to see that things like this don't happen in the future."

[Anonymous]

State agency said to have mishandled probe of foster camp

12/01/2006

By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON  / Associated Press

A state agency ignored evidence and the opinions of its own staff before closing a camp for troubled boys in 2004 and accusing its director and two employees of neglect or sexual abuse, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Managers and staff at the Department of Family and Protective Services made a series of questionable decisions in handling allegations involving Woodside Trails Therapeutic Camp, two administrative law judges said in July rulings that cleared the camp's employees of all wrongdoing.

The AP first requested the documents in August under the Texas Public Information Act, but the State Office of Administrative Hearings refused, citing confidentiality laws. The state attorney general's office rejected that argument and ordered the rulings be made public this week.

The state's investigation into the Bastrop County camp is also the subject of two lawsuits. Betty Lou "Bebe" Gaines, the camp's former director, and one of the counselors sued comptroller and recent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn claiming she targeted the facility for political gain.

Between October 2003 and August 2004, one counselor was accused of failing to supervise a boy who overdosed on ibuprofen, another counselor was accused of molesting a child and Gaines was accused of neglect for, among other things, taking some campers to an American Indian religious ceremony. The camp was cited for 32 violations of state standards.

Among the administrative law judges' findings:

_ The agency's director of residential child care licensing overrode investigators' findings and determined there was reason to believe neglect had occurred even though she didn't speak to any witnesses or the accused employees and didn't obtain any other information. In counselor Paul Lowery's case, if the director had asked a few basic questions she would have realized the teen's explanation of how he got the pills could not have been true.

_ An investigator concluded counselor Jackie Reynolds had molested a former camper even though the boy had recanted his accusation, had a lengthy history of lying and had threatened to falsely accuse Reynolds of abusing him. "There is simply no evidence showing that sexual abuse occurred," the judges said.

_ Woodside Trails merited just 11 of the 32 standards violations state inspectors found between October 2003 and August 2004, and it immediately corrected four of them, so the department should not have revoked its license.

The department has asked a state district court to overturn the judges' findings in its case against Woodside Trails, spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. It is not appealing the findings in the cases against the counselors and the director.

Asked to comment on the judges' findings, Crimmins would only say "the judge apparently didn't disagree with the fact that it was a problem facility but took issue with our regulatory remedy for that." He said there will be no internal inquiry into the shortcomings the judges described concerning the state investigation.

Gaines' and Reynolds' lawsuits claim Strayhorn forced the department to find or fabricate problems at the camp to bolster her campaign to clean up the state's foster care system.

Strayhorn spokesman Will Holford declined to comment on the rulings. When Gaines filed her lawsuit in August, he said the comptroller has been and will continue to be "the voice for our forgotten children in the state's foster care system."

Reynolds said the rulings were a step in the right direction but didn't do much to repair his shattered life. He was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, and even though those charges were dropped in 2005 he was rejected from public housing because the allegations remain on his record. He now makes $6 an hour at a cardboard box factory.

"It doesn't have to be true to completely and utterly destroy the credibility of the person being accused," he said. "It destroyed Woodside Trails. It destroyed me. It destroyed Bebe Gaines. Just the suggestion this has happened utterly annihilates people's lives."

Lowery also has had a hard time finding work, especially in the child care field.

"When you're dealing with kids, the state's always going to believe the kids before they believe the adults and I can understand that," he said. "But once there's evidence proving I wasn't negligent why wasn't action taken in order to reverse the verdict?"

Gaines declined to comment because of her lawsuit, other than to say she was glad the rulings were no longer secret.

Weaver Gaines, the camp's former chief operating officer, said his sister has a gift for helping troubled boys but likely will never be able to do that work again. Over more than two decades, the camp helped more than 500 abused and troubled boys rebuild their lives, he said.

"It was really important to her that the 23 years of what they did for those children not end with an undisputed allegation that they didn't take care of the kids," he said. "She would really, really like it if somebody would pay attention to the way that the department is run and take some steps to see that things like this don't happen in the future."