SALT LAKE CITY — The state Division of Child and Family Services has decided to terminate its contract with an Orem therapy center under fire from licensing officials for its use of holding therapy and implicated by two parents accused of killing their child through forced drinking of water

Richard Anderson, DCFS director, said the division has paid for a handful of adoptive families this year to receive traditional treatment at the Cascade Center for Family Growth. At least one family is currently receiving a state subsidy for treatment at the center, he said.

The state subsidizes therapy for children adopted through the division and has contracts with about 100 treatment providers. Under these contracts, the state will not pay for any coercive techniques, including compression holding therapy. The ban on coercive therapy also applies to Medicaid benefits used by families of children adopted through the state.

The division said its contract with Cascade ends Oct. 20.

“(Parents) can continue to go (to Cascade), but if they want us to pay for the service they have to go somewhere else,” Anderson said Tuesday.

Anderson did not give a specific reason for terminating the contract.

The center’s director, Larry VanBloem, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Last week, VanBloem and Jennie Murdock Gwilliam, who run the center, were accused of 14 ethical and professional violations by the Department of Occupational and Professional Licensing. Those allegations include the use of compression holding therapy, in which children are restrained while staff members use their fists and elbows to apply pressure to the children’s abdomens and other areas.

Both social workers have denied wrongdoing and have said they are targets of a witch hunt.

They also have said they had nothing to do with the water intoxication death of Cassandra Killpack, a 4-year-old Springville girl who was being treated at the center.

Lawrence Lee VanBloem and Jennie Murdock Gwilliam run the Cascade Center for Family Growth. The clinic once treated a 4-year-old Springville girl who died after her adoptive parents allegedly forced her to drink too much water.

The parents, Richard and Jennete Killpack, who are charged with child abuse homicide, have claimed they were acting on the advice of Cascade. The therapists were not charged in the death.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.