DFS terminating contract with Normative Services

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - The Wyoming Department of Family Services is terminating its contract with another juvenile center — this time, a Sheridan facility that treats adolescent boys and girls for behavioral problems.

About 160 juveniles live at Normative Services Inc. The Department of Family Services contract applies to 39 youths who've been ordered by Wyoming courts to enter into the facility's 10- to 18-month residential programs.

In January, four male students at Normative Services were charged with battery against other students and staff at the institution.

But Department Director Tony Lewis wouldn't say whether that incident or any other problem was the reason for terminating the contract. He would only say that the department has the right to end its contract with Normative Services after giving 30 days notice and without giving cause.

Lewis said if he talked publicly about any problems at the facility, that would imply some sort of formal cause for the termination.

"If I start talking about our reasons, I'm likely to find myself in the middle of a contract dispute," Lewis said Monday.

Department spokeswoman Juliette Rule also wouldn't say what prompted the contract termination.

"We're always concerned about the safety of youth," she said. "Really, in licensing, it's our primary function. Certainly we don't make these decisions lightly."

A Feb. 19 letter from Lewis to Normative Services said the contract would end effective March 18.

Lewis said the department will help courts make informed decisions about what to do with the children in state custody who are currently sentenced to Normative Services. The department will see to any necessary psychological and medical assessments of youths to make sure treatment is continued properly, he said.

The executive director of Normative Services, Bud Patterson, declined to comment. Patterson referred inquires to Normative Services' parent company, Sequel Youth and Family Services, which didn't return a phone message seeking comment.

Sequel also runs the Clarinda Academy, in Clarinda, Iowa; Woodward Academy, in Woodward, Iowa; Lakeside Academy, in Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Mingus Mountain Academy, in Prescott Valley, Ariz., according to the company's Web site.

The Department of Family Services also was tightlipped when it terminated its contract with the operator of a Cheyenne juvenile facility in 2007. The department said safety concerns were the reason for ending the contract with Frontier Correctional Systems, which ran the Jeffrey C. Wardle Academy.

"I'm not sure that all of the secrecy that sometimes surrounds these decisions works in kids' favor," Lewis said Monday. "I think in the future we'll be looking at ways to make this information available so we don't have to work behind closed doors so much."

In the case of the Wardle Academy, department documents showed that one problem was juveniles who were sentenced to the Wardle Academy as punishment intermingled with, and sometimes beat up, youth who were there for drug and alcohol treatment.

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On the Net:

Normative Services: http://www.normativeservices.com/index.html

Wyoming Department of Family Services: http://dfsweb.state.wy.us/

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