Oklahoma DHS working to rid waitlist for Developmental Disability Services
By Amanda Slee
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BROKEN ARROW, Oklahoma (KJRH) — People on a decade-long waitlist for disability services will be getting some long-awaited answers and it’s all happening in Broken Arrow.
The Oklahoma State Department of Human Services is holding a regional meeting Monday as the department tries to cut down on the long waitlist.
About 100 families on that waitlist are set to meet with OK DHS Developmental Disability Service (DDS) staff. Every one of those families is on a waitlist right now to get connected to the disability services they need.
In 2021, we reported the waitlist was 13 years long. It means families would wait more than a decade to get off the list and connected to services. That was because of how many names were on the list — close to 6,000 back then.
In May of 2022, Oklahoma Human Services says there were over 5,100 families still waiting.
The waitlist is decades old, and in 2021, the hope was to have it erased within a couple of years.
Regional meetings, like the one Monday in Broken Arrow, are part of the department’s work to shorten that waitlist. The legislature appropriated $32.5 million to end the DDS wait list and increase provider rates.
It’s all being done with the help of a partner known as Liberty of Oklahoma.
The meeting Monday is for families who applied for services between April 2012 and January 2016.
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