Tuesday, June 20th 2023, 6:14 pm
A handful of videos surfaced on social media of a group of children in DHS care fighting. A mother of one of the children seen in the video is saying this wasn’t the first time her son was hurt in the care of DHS.
In the video, you can hear a couple across the street working to break up the fight, and running across the street to confront the children who were staying in a DHS group home.
“The first thing I heard was my son screaming for help in the background,” said Maranda Smith. “Seeing the pain on his face just broke my heart.”
Smith’s son was one of the kids in the video and can be heard saying he was beat up by the other children. She said she wasn’t aware of the incident until videos began surfacing on social media.
Smith says after the video surfaced; a DHS worker contacted her asking her to request the videos be taken down.
“DHS contacted me, made me aware of these videos and sent me verbiage I was supposed to use to ask Facebook to have them taken down,” said Smith.
Smith said she refused and that she wanted to bring to light what she believes was a case of neglect.
“It was an attempt to just quiet it or brush it over,” said Smith. “I told DHS absolutely not- we won't be taking them down. This is exactly what's needed to start the conversation about what needs to change within Oklahoma's system.”
In a statement, DHS asked the public “to honor them and their experiences by reporting concerns to the appropriate parties rather than posting videos identifying them on social media.”
“I put my trust in DHS to take care of my child in a time I wasn’t able to, and to get him the help that he needed and instead of getting the help he needs, he’s being physically assaulted,’ said Smith.
The concerned mother said this isn’t the first incident she’s had with her son getting hurt in DHS care. Smith said she visited her son a few weeks ago and was surprised to find out he had suffered a head injury a week prior that required him to get staples.
In this incident as well, she said she wasn’t aware of anything until she saw her son.
“When I found out about these videos I was already dealing with a whole other fire with DHS and just trying to get information on my son's well-being at that point,” said Smith.
Smith said she feels like there needs to be more layers of safety measures in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen to her son again, or other children in the same place.
“This is a lot bigger situation, a much bigger problem than just my son. There's a lot of children out there who don't have parents to advocate for these children and we need more supervision inside these group homes,” said Smith.
Oklahoma Human Services sent us a statement saying:
“Oklahoma Human Services takes very seriously our responsibility to ensure the safety of all children who are in foster care. As with any other allegation of abuse or neglect, we are conducting a thorough investigation to understand the circumstances and take any actions needed to ensure the safety of children and youth as well as the support needed by those who care for them. Our youth also have a right to privacy and we ask the public to honor them and their experiences by reporting concerns to the appropriate parties rather than posting videos identifying them on social media. Reports of abuse or neglect should be made to the hotline, 1-800-522-3511.”
Haley Weger joined the News 9 team as a multi-media journalist in August 2022. She came to OKC from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Haley began her career as a producer and multi-media reporter and then transitioned to a morning anchor position. While she was in Louisiana, Haley covered an array of news topics, and covered multiple hurricanes on the coast.
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