White Fields: A Place to Call Home

There are some people who are simply called toward a certain duty. For Tom Ward, CEO of SandRidge Energy, you might expect that duty to be a business venture or major corporate challenge.

So it may surprise you to learn that Ward and his family have taken on a far greater challenge to help some of Oklahoma’s most abused and neglected children at White Fields.

“This is what my family believes is our calling. We were given the opportunity to try to help these children and it’s really been our goal and now there’s a number of other people who’ve decided this is something they’ve been led to do,” says Ward who, along with his son Trent, began researching ways to get involved in the issue of child abuse and neglect in 2000.

Frank Alberson knows firsthand the long and difficult journey the boys at White Fields have taken to get there.

Born to a drug addicted mother and alcoholic father, Alberson suffered years of abuse, a failed adoption, severe burns and spent his teen years at a military boarding school. He ended up attending Anderson University where Ward’s son Trent was also studying. “He saw that I had no family, and we became good friends. He invited me home for Christmas and they kind of adopted me unofficially,” says Alberson.

This friendship, along with six years of research by the Wards, led to the opening of White Fields in 2006. Things came full circle when Alberson first began mentoring a child at White Fields and then was asked to come on board as the facility’s co-director.

The White Fields campus sits amid the broad and beautiful expanse of a wheat field not far outside of Edmond. The grounds have beautiful buildings, a skate park, playground, basketball court and a two-acre fishing pond.

What is truly impressive are the programs and ideas at work within White Fields’ walls. The children receive a wide range of services. With individual therapy, group therapy, art therapy and personal enrichment activities such as golf and bowling, they learn to heal and grow as individuals.

All of these programs ride on a continuum of care model. The innovative aspect of White Fields is that they provide all of these services under one roof and the program becomes a permanent home for the boys that arrive.

“The idea of permanency is really the solid foundation of White Fields,” says Ward. “What we try to instill in our boys is that they’re loved and they have a place to stay. They’re not going to be moved. They can be a whole person and get well.”

White Fields takes boys aged eight to 12 that are of the most serious cases of abuse. All of the boys have been in other placements that have failed. They currently have 13 boys in the program and the capacity to hold 40. White Fields is a young organization and intentional about growing slowly so they maintain the level of care they are able to provide.

The boys attend the facility’s accredited school until they are ready to go into public school. Currently, five of the boys attend public school.

As they move through the program and become ready, the boys have the opportunity to move into the facility cottages where they live with house parents within a family setting.

Ultimately, White Fields is offering these kids hope and a chance at a better life. For Ward, and everyone else involved, this calling has become a long-term commitment to the boys. “Our goal is to continue to be a family to them as long as we can see in the future,” he says. For White Fields, home really is sweet.

In addition to donations, White Fields is currently in need of three male mentors and other volunteers. White Fields offers tours of their program and facilities. Please visit www.whitefieldsok.com for more information.