OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) – Child neglect charges are being filed against a pair of Oshkosh foster home operators.
60-year-old Barbara Peterson and her 35-year-old son Alan Small will be in court on March 25 to face three counts each of chronic neglect of a child.
According to the criminal complaint, Peterson and Small improperly provided for three teens over the course of several months.
Two 15-year-old boys have described that they were provided a bucket to use as a toilet and that their rooms had an alarm on their door.
One said “he can leave his room, but the alarm always sounds so he’s essentially locked in his room and is not free to leave (and) a consequence of opening the door is to hold a chair over his head or face the corner,” according to the criminal complaint.
A 16-year-old boy said he had to clean the buckets with a hose and that he could not leave his room.
The thermostat was set at fifty-seven degrees and the presence of door alarms and waste buckets were confirmed when investigators visited the home.
In the complaint, Small said the locks were for when he previously rented rooms through the internet, so he could lock away his items.
The complaint states that Peterson, “admitted to dumping the buckets of urine and feces outside in the yard behind the garage.”
No attorneys are listed for Small or Peterson, according to court records.
Small was contracted by Brown County to operate the foster home, according to the complaint.
But the county contracted with another agency, which would have then contracted with Small and Peterson, according to Erik Pritzl, executive director of the Brown County Health and Human Services.
Pritzl says the county has no comment on the criminal charges and that they did not directly contract with or supervise Small and Peterson.
