The Parent Child Center was established on May 1, 1990, at the urging of the Tulsa Area United Way with the merger of The At Risk Parent Child Program and Child Abuse Prevention Services (CAPS).
CAPS was founded in 1972 by the wife of a St. Francis Hospital physician and a pediatric nurse. It originated as Parents Anonymous, a self-help group for parents based on a 12-step model which held meetings at Boston Avenue United Methodist Church. Several of the women went back to school and received degrees in social work and, in 1984, the agency moved toward more comprehensive counseling services for the treatment of child abuse and neglect. In 1987, the name was changed to Child Abuse Prevention Services. CAPS was the basis of The Parent Child Center’s Treatment Services today.
The At Risk Parent Child Program was created in 1974 by medical personnel at Hillcrest Medical Center who noticed that some babies born in the hospital a few months earlier were returning to the emergency room abused, neglected, or failing to thrive. Dr. Donald Pfeifer and Dr. Cathy Ayoub (then a nurse) set up a program to screen newborns, developing criteria for what staff thought were at-risk behaviors in the family that could lead to neglect or abuse of the child. The program was called “the beginning of a realistic approach to the prevention of child abuse” and it became the basis for The Parent Child Center’s Prevention Services today.
The merger of these two agencies provided continuity of services while centralizing administration, reducing duplication, and enabling a coordinated expansion of programs.
In 1997, The Parent Child Center of Tulsa completed a $3.3 million capital/endowment campaign and moved into our own home at 1421 S. Boston.
In December 2006, Desiree Doherty became Executive Director, succeeding Claudette Selph who was the agency’s founding director and visionary leader for 17 years.
In March 2008, the agency received national accreditation through the Council on Accreditation which oversees community-based behavioral health services.
The Parent Child Center now provides a continuum of outreach, education, prevention, treatment and advocacy services that reach over 25,000 individuals last year.
