TULSA, Okla. — A new law will go into effect in June, allowing residential group homes across the state to file protective orders to keep their vulnerable youth as safe as possible.
After an incident at the Tulsa Girls Home, co-founder and CEO Brittany Stokes really pushed for the change in law.
“This legislation was specific to us because we walked through it," she said. "We had a girl who was being targeted by a man who had many different conviction prior, and he was pretending to be much younger than he was. Really you know pulling on her heart strings, really trying to convince her that she was special to him."
The man was going as far as parking outside the house, waiting for the girl and taking her places. Stokes said the girl went dark for three days with the man, and when they found her she was in bad shape at a motel.
“The frustrating part was we couldn’t go and protect her," said Stokes. "Just to get a protective order and say hey, ‘stop coming after our girls, stop coming after these kids, you can’t do that.’"
Stokes explained as the law stood, it was either up to the victim or their case worker to file a protective order.
If the victim does it, Stokes said that only puts them in more danger. As far as a case worker doing it, Stokes said that is not common practice.
So she started pursuing different avenues, going up the chain of command to get some safeguards in place so something like this didn't happen again.
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Stokes got in contact with Representative Mike Lay. As soon as he was brought up to speed, he said it was a no-brainer to fill what he called an obvious oversight by the previous legislature.
"Once we realized that we knew we had to champion that change in the law to fill that gap," said Lay. "How many times have we heard about the bureaucracy standing in the way or progress? And when it really mattered, everybody stood up.”
He authored House Bill 2207, which would give the guardians in a residential care facility, like TGH, the ability to file protective orders on behalf of the children in their care.
The bill passed unanimously under an emergency status, so instead of needing to wait until November, it will go into effect in June.
“We’re talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our society and if we’re not tasked with anything in Oklahoma city, it’s to be a champion for those who are more vulnerable," said Lay.
Now, arming Stokes and her team with one more tool to keep the girls under their roof safe.
“This allows Tulsa Girls Home and other therapeutic residential care facilities to be able to say, 'hey, you’re targeting girls in our program, you have no relation to them, you need to stop,'” said Stokes.
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