The Boys and Girls Home Shelter and Group Home in North Platte closed its doors Jan. 29, according to a former employee.

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Boys and Girls Home did not fulfill the 30-day notice it served via a letter to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 7, and left local authorities searching for solutions.

The abrupt closure also caught employees of the facility off guard. The Bulletin spoke with one employee, who declined to be named.

They said that an emergency meeting was called prior to the Bulletin story that the shelter and group home would close at the end of January. There were 10 employees at that time, and there were always at least two on duty, the employee said.

When the facility closed for good, there were three children in the group home program and seven or eight in shelter (temporary) care. At least two of the long-term care children were sent to Coumbus, the employee reported, while some of the shelter care kids went home.

The state dropped the Boys and Girls Home as a lead service provider in October 2010, and the money needed to operate homes in North Platte and Kearney disappeared, according to statements in January by B&GH director Bob Sheehan.

The employee said it was their understanding the state was not paying the Boys and Girls Home. Pay checks were paid but other expenses, such as travel, could not be met, employees said. No supplies were ordered during the final month, they added.

Signs of trouble first cropped up last summer, they said, when all kids were moved into the group side of the facility to save money.

“Then they announced they were closing. I thought if anything, they would close the group home and leave the shelter open,” an employee said. "I miss my job. I miss the kids and I really liked the people I worked with."

The Boys and Girls Home organization is reportedly offering to sell the building for nearly $1 million, if another organization were to take over the operation.

Local response

North Platte Police Chief Mike Swain said there have been a few meetings among law enforcement, the county attorney’s office, Health and Human Services, and the regional probation office to talk about how to deal with the shelter closure.

“We’re kind of stuck; we don’t have many choices,” Swain told the Bulletin.

For the police’s part, he said, “We’re doing everything in our power to keep kids in their homes. If that isn’t possible for safety reasons, then we try to find a relative for the child to stay with.”

The police have it easier than the other agencies, Swain said.

“Our job is to make sure everybody is safe now, and in the short-term future,” he told the Bulletin. “HHS intervenes if they have to.”

Swain’s comments is music to the ears of child-welfare advocate Richard Wexler. Wexler, the executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said group home care is inherently detrimental and the utmost priority should be placed on leaving children in their homes.

“When you take away the easy option of dumping the children in the shelter, everyone gets more creative about finding better options,” Wexler said in response to Swain’s statements.

County Attorney Rebecca Harling was reluctant to discuss many aspects of the situation, because it involves juveniles.

However, she said, “The privatization of the child welfare system hasn’t left us with many options. We have to carefully pick and choose who we send where because we don’t have the number of local placement options we had a year ago.”

North Platte City Administrator Jim Hawks said he had been approached by some residents curious about starting a shelter to fill the gap, but he believes the long-term solution will have to come from the state.

Affecting North Platte schools

The closure of the North Platte Boys and Girls Home could add more budget woes to the school district.

Students who were suspended or expelled from school were often placed in the Boys and Girls Home, where they continued their studies under a special educational program.

It’s not likely that program will be established again even if the Boys and Girls Home opens again, the schools’ Special Services Director Kim Cooper said Tuesday.

“It is a very complicated process to establish” that educational program and comply with state and federal laws, Cooper told the school board.

And of course funding is an issue, if the schools creates an education program for expelled students, she said.

“This is a difficult time to consider an additional program,” Cooper said, referring to big cuts in state aid and burdens on local property taxpayers.

However, state and federal funds earmarked for special education might be used for a new program, Cooper said, or possibly federal Title I money aimed to help low-income students. But general funds might be needed too.

Cooper will meet next week with some of the principals to talk about where and how the new program might be established.

“We have a responsibility to educate all students and also to provide a safe environment for all students,” she said.

Unicameral investigation

The legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee will investigate and evaluate child welfare reform, according to a Feb. 7 Lincoln Journal Star report.

Among problems identified by Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell, the committee chairperson, as cited by the Journal Star:

• Shelter closings in Kearney and North Platte.

• 10 percent of children in the southeast service area, which includes Lincoln, were re-abused or neglected while in the state's care, up from 7 percent in 2009.

• The number of foster homes in Dawson County dwindled from 45 to 11 because parents got out of foster care.

• The state spent $131 million of the $227 million allocated for all child welfare to pay lead contractors. Three of five contractors have since left their contracts for various reasons.

Despite the good intentions of the senators, Wexler believes they are missing the fundamental problem.

“It’s hard to imagine how all those legislators and that great big elephant fit into that one room,” he said. “The elephant in the room, of course, is Nebraska’s obscenely high rate of child removal, year after year among the worst in the nation, which is driving all the other problems and which the lawmakers apparently managed to ignore.”

“The senators also seem to be upset about the closing of a couple of parking place shelters where kids are dumped when DHHS workers can’t find anyplace else to put them, precisely because they’re taking away too many children,” he continued. “Such closings actually should be cause for celebration. Shelters are a truly barbaric form of placement and utterly unnecessary.”

Bulletin Editor George Lauby contributed to this report, which was first published in the Bulletin's Feb. 9 print edition.