Published: March 21, 2008 04:22 pm         

Meeting a need: Greer Center places clients in right environments

Since Liberty Oklahoma Corporation took control of the Robert M. Greer Center in 1999, more than 100 clients have received treatment from the facility.

The Greer Center is the only state-owned residential treatment facility in Oklahoma that exclusively serves those who are diagnosed as having mental retardation, as well as mental illness.

Greer Center Director Hugh Sage said the center serves “mostly adults,” but also has helped younger clients.

The center is budgeted for 134.4 employees, most of which are full-time employees, and has budgeted for nearly $9 million for this year, Sage said.

Since assuming management of the center in February 2000, Liberty Oklahoma Corporation has served 146 clients, stabilizing 79 percent and reintegrating 77 percent of those in other alternatives.

On average, the center receives six admission requests per month, Sage said.

The center provides short-term treatment and rehabilitation services designed to integrate clients back into a community environment where they will be served by caregivers who have been trained to effectively maintain the former clients’ appropriate behavior, Sage said.

“”It just takes an enormous amount of effort and skill on behalf of the staff who provide services for the clients,” Sage said.

Built on the west side of the campus of the Northern Oklahoma Resource Center of Enid, the Greer Center is separately licensed, funded and managed from NORCE.

By late 1999, 50 clients were residing at the center with an average length of stay of about seven and a half years and no placements had been made since 1997, Sage said.

The center was outsourced Nov. 1, 1999, by the Department of Human Services to Liberty of Oklahoma Corporation to convert it to a short-term residential treatment program that would stabilize clients and, working cooperatively with case management staff of DHS’s Developmental Disabilities Services Division and community providers, facilitate the stable clients’ integration or reintegration to suitable community-based alternatives.

“The services are good for those needing rehabilitation,” Sage said.

He said pharmacology and treatments to stabilize behaviors are both used at the center to achieve stabilization of clients and make them “placement ready.”

Clients must meet four requirements, although a fifth is also recommended, before a client is considered placement ready.

Clients must meet conditions of any applicable court order, must exhibit a three-month trend of stabilized behavior, all medical and psychological problems believed to be causing challenging behaviors have been addressed.

The fifth recommended criteria is the client is on the minimal therapeutic dosage of psychoactive medications, if any.

The center also provides placement/discharge planning for clients, their families or guardians, DHS’s Developmental Disabilities Services Division case managers and community providers.

It provides on-site pre-placement behavior management training to community caregivers, such as community agency staff and family members, which is usually provided the day of the client’s placement.

Also provided is a one- to two-day training session in the community at the time of the client’s placement to assure effective transfer into the community environment.

Post placement follows up community site consultation services, if and as needed. This helps to avoid re-hospitalization within the first six months of placement.

Of the 89 stable clients who have been placed or discharged from the Greer Center, one has been returned to then center because of behavior management difficulty, Sage said.

The center contracts its physician services from Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center and through a shared services agreement between Liberty and DHS.

The facility is provided about $1.8 million of goods and services from the staff of NORCE a year, most of which consists of building and grounds maintenance, pharmacy and drugs, vocational services and food and food services for its clients.

The center is accredited through the Commission for Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities. It is also separately licensed and certified by the state health department and Medicaid, Sage said. In December, following an accreditation survey, the center was accredited for another three years for its 51 beds.

“We never undersell an individual,” Sage said.