American Youth in the 21st Century: Pathologized, Criminalized and Disposable
By Henry A. Giroux, AlterNet
Posted on November 16, 2009, Printed on November 28, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/143875/
Editor's note: the following is an excerpt from Henry Giroux' new book, Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? (Palgrave MacMillan).
Punishment and fear have replaced compassion and social responsibility as the most important modalities mediating the relationship of youth to the larger social order. Youth within the last two decades have come to be seen as a source of trouble rather than as a resource for investing in the future, and in the case of poor black and Hispanic youth are increasingly treated as either a disposable population, cannon fodder for barbaric wars abroad, or the source of most of society’s problems. Hence, young people now constitute a crisis that has less to do with improving the future than with denying it. As Larry Grossberg points out, “It has become common to think of kids as a threat to the existing social order and for kids to be blamed for the problems they experience. We slide from kids in trouble, kids have problems, and kids are threatened, to kids as trouble, kids as problems, and kids as threatening.” This was exemplified when the columnist Bob Herbert reported in the New York Times that “parts of New York City are like a police state for young men, women, and children who happen to be black or Hispanic. They are routinely stopped, searched, harassed, intimidated, humiliated and, in many cases, arrested for no good reason.” No longer “viewed as a privileged sign and embodiment of the future,” youth are now increasingly demonized by the popular media and derided by politicians looking for quick-fix solutions to crime and other social ills. While youth have always had to bear the misplaced fear and distrust of adults, how youth are represented, talked about, and treated has changed dramatically in the last two decades.
Under the reign of neoliberal politics with its hyped-up social Darwinism and theater of cruelty, the popular demonization and “dangerousation” of the young now justifies responses to youth that were unthinkable 20 years ago, including criminalization and imprisonment, the prescription of psychotropic drugs, psychiatric confinement, and zero tolerance policies that model schools after prisons. School has become a model for a punishing society in which children who commit a rule violation as minor as a dress code infraction or slightly act out in class can be handcuffed, booked, and put in a jail cell. Racism, inequality, and poverty are on full display in the growing resegregation of public schools in the United States. Now more than ever, many schools either simply warehouse young black males or put them on the fast track to prison incarceration or a future of control under the criminal justice system. All across America, black and brown youth are being suspended or expelled at rates much higher than their white counterparts who commit similar behavioral infractions. For example, as Howard Witt writes in the Chicago Tribune, “In the average New Jersey public school, African-American students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for serious disciplinary infractions. In Minnesota, black students are suspended 6 times as often as whites [and ] in Iowa, blacks make up just 5 percent of the statewide public school enrollment but account for 22 percent of the students who get suspended. . . . And on average across the nation, black students are suspended and expelled at nearly three times the rate of white students.” As schools become increasingly militarized, drug-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, and cameras have become common features in schools, and administrators appear more willing if not eager “to criminalize many school infractions, saddling tens of thousands of students with misdemeanor criminal records for offenses such as swearing[,] disrupting class,” or pushing another student. Trust and respect now give way to fear, disdain, and suspicion, creating an environment in which critical pedagogical practices wither, while pedagogies of surveillance and testing flourish. If young people were once defined as part of the vocabulary of innocence and compassion, they are now largely understood through the discourse of fear, guilt, and punishment.
Clearly, there is more at stake under the current regime of neoliberal politics than an attack on children largely characterized by “negative labels and characterizations of youth [that] are falsely totalizing” and punitive laws and public policies. Youth have also become collateral damage for conservatives and neoliberal advocates who want to dismantle the social state and in doing so justify themselves by pointing to an alleged rise of a generation of disorderly and dangerous youth dependent upon government entitlements. Within this discourse, government support for young people is both undermined and inappropriately blamed for creating a generation of kids labeled as psychologically damaged, narcissistic, violent, and out of control. Scapegoating youth as both a generation of suspects and a threat to the social order allows conservatives and neoliberals to further privatize those public spheres that youth need, such as education and health care, while developing policies that move away from social investment to matters of punishment and containment. In this instance, the punishing state combines with the logic of the market to produce priorities and policies that disinvest in the future of children and assert a ruthlessness that largely treats them as reified commodities or disposable populations. Both childhood and the state are now being reimagined in ways that reveal the priorities of a society that has fully embraced the reckless abandon of casino capitalism, where the only rules that matter are made to order by powerful corporations and rich investors. How else to interpret neoliberal-inspired government programs that in the midst of deepening inequality, rising levels of poverty, catastrophic increases in failed mortgages, and growing unemployment invest more in prisons than in public and higher education?
It is more necessary than ever to register youth as a theoretical, moral, and political center of concern, even as it is increasingly evident that youth are one of our lowest national priorities. It is crucial to connect the current crisis in democracy to the war against young people. Doing so will remind adults of their ethical and political responsibility to invest in youth as a symbol for not only securing a democratic future but also keeping alive those elements of civic imagination, culture, and education that subordinate economic principles to democratic values. The category of youth may be one of the most important referents for beginning a critical examination about the pernicious consequences of a society driven by market values, one that not only abstracts young people from the future but shapes the present in a theater of war in which youth become the most innocent victims. Youth provide a powerful touchstone for a critical discussion about the long-term consequences of neoliberal policies, which undermine any viable notion of justice, equality, and freedom, while also gesturing toward those conditions that make a democratic future possible. Many young people are part of social movements that not only address these crucial issues but also provide a politics, modes of resistance, and connective relations that adults should take seriously as part of their own civic and political formation at the beginning of the new millennium.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department. His most recent books include "The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex" (2007) and "Against the Terror of Neoliberalism" (2008).
© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/143875/
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
An Oregon School for Troubled Teens Is Under Scrutiny
April 17, 2009
On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that has caused anguish in the world of special education and children's mental health.
The case, Forest Grove v. TA, centers on the question of whether families with a disabled child have a right to seek reimbursement for private-school tuition from the state if the child did not first receive special-education services in public school. The legal question is a narrow one, but the case raises larger, more troublesome issues about student safety and the quality of educational services that families should expect when they place their children in private residential care, because the school involved in the case, Mount Bachelor Academy, near Prineville, Ore., is under state investigation for allegations of abuse reported by students and one employee.
A spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) declined to discuss the details of the ongoing investigations, which include a second inquiry based on possible licensing violations. But according to 10 students, two separate parents and a part-time employee interviewed by TIME — some of whom are involved in the inquiry — Mount Bachelor Academy regularly uses intensely humiliating tactics as treatment. For instance, in required seminars that the school calls Lifesteps, students say staff members of the residential program have instructed girls, some of whom say they have been victims of rape or sexual abuse, to dress in provocative clothing — fishnet stockings, high heels and miniskirts — and perform lap dances for male students as therapy.
Sharon Bitz, executive director of Mount Bachelor Academy, denies the charges. In an e-mailed statement to TIME, she said the reports of abuse are "inaccurate representations of Mount Bachelor Academy's therapeutic approach for struggling or underachieving teens. Some of the accusations are demonstrably false, while others have been exaggerated for shock effect."
In response to the accusations of sexual humiliation, Bitz told Oregon's Bend Bulletin newspaper in a recent interview that school officials have never instructed students to act in a way that would "sexualize them," and that the students' costumes came from their own dorm rooms and were chosen by the students. "We would never ask a student to give a lap dance," Bitz told the paper.
When the Supreme Court hears arguments in Forest Grove v. TA this month, it will not determine whether Mount Bachelor Academy — or any facility chosen by families — offers appropriate care. The parents of the student, TA (because he was a minor at the time the case was filed, the student is identified by his initials, and his parents have not made their names public), stand to gain only the right to seek reimbursement for the child's stay at Mount Bachelor under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
A ruling for the parents could have serious financial implications for cash-strapped school districts. Federal funding for private special-education placements, including residential and nonresidential programs, totaled $5.3 billion in the fiscal year 1999-2000, the most recent year for which data is available from the Special Education Expenditure Project, a national study begun in 1999 and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education.
In New York City alone, the number of reimbursement claims by parents who have unilaterally placed their kids in private special education rose from 3,023 to 4,068, and the city's spending on private placements went from $53 million in 2005-2006 to $88.9 million in 2007-2008, after the Second Circuit Court ruled in favor of the families in two similar cases in 2005 and 2006.
It is not known how many of the thousands of families who send their children to so-called therapeutic boarding schools each year receive tuition reimbursement via IDEA. The exact number of therapeutic boarding schools operating in the U.S. is also unknown, since no official body tracks them, but some estimates put the figure at 150 to 300.
Tuition is far from cheap. Monthly costs at residential facilities are $5,000 and up; Mount Bachelor, which houses up to 125 students, charges $6,400 per month, and in 2008 revenue for the Aspen Education Group, which owns Mount Bachelor and is one of the largest chains of residential facilities for problem students, it topped $132 million.
The proceedings of Forest Grove are being watched with intense concern by school administrators and the teachers union as well as children's advocates. Most advocates argue that families should have access to private schools when public schools cannot provide free and appropriate public education for a disabled child, but most also say that public funds should not be used to pay for residential schools like Mount Bachelor.
Such programs, they say, are overly restrictive and unproven, and virtually all their students — who typically have depression, substance use, behavioral problems or ADHD — can be safely treated within the community.
"We feel very strongly that for-profit residential facilities are completely inappropriate for special education. They have been shown to be ineffective and commonly employ practices that do harm," says Alison Barkoff, senior staff attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
But because the programs are privately run, what happens within their walls is largely a mystery. No one knows whether the programs succeed or fail.
The Case of Forest Grove v. TA
TA's case began in elementary school. He had trouble learning basic math, struggled to pay attention in class and could not finish his homework without his parents' help. In September 2000, he began attending Forest Grove High School. By December, he was failing or nearly failing most subjects. His parents had the school evaluate him for special education.
This is when the major disagreements arose. TA's mother originally agreed with Forest Grove's assessment that her son did not have the type of learning disability, such as autism or mental retardation, that typically qualifies a student for special education. Notes taken by the school district in a January 2001 meeting about TA include a comment that says "maybe ADD [attention-deficit disorder]/ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder]?," but TA's parents say they were not informed that a diagnosis of ADHD could have qualified him for special education if the condition affected his academic performance. The school did not further evaluate him for attention disorders.
TA's behavior and grades continued to deteriorate. He began smoking large quantities of marijuana. He was briefly suspended for bringing a knife to school. In January 2003, his parents took him to see a psychologist, who recommended that they enroll him in a wilderness program and then place him in Mount Bachelor Academy.
Later in 2003, TA's parents sought reimbursement from the school district for Mount Bachelor's tuition, claiming that Forest Grove never properly evaluated their son for special education and therefore could not provide him the free and appropriate public education that was legally required. The district countered that, under IDEA, as revised by Congress in 1997, parents may seek reimbursement only after the child has already tried special education within the public system.
The Ninth Circuit heard Forest Grove in 2008 and found that TA's parents had the right to seek reimbursement; otherwise, the court said, school districts could essentially avoid paying for special education simply by refusing to classify students as disabled. Presiding over a separate but similar case, however, the First Circuit Court came to the reverse conclusion, saying the law requires the child to try public special education first. In such instances, when the lower courts disagree, the Supreme Court is often called upon to clarify the law.
Should the Supreme Court decide in favor of TA, says Naomi Gittins, deputy general counsel for the National School Boards Association, "it would be detrimental to the whole framework of collaboration to figure out what an appropriate education for a particular child is ... A lot of private schools for which parents want reimbursement don't have to meet state standards. How does that really serve the interest of children?"
Mount Bachelor's executive director, Bitz, says her school uses widely accepted psychological treatments to help children overcome their problems. "We also use a psychodrama-treatment approach designed to do one or both of two things," said Bitz in her statement, "get a student to embrace qualities of their character (such as beauty or courage) about which they have doubt or assist them in recognizing qualities that are unproductive (such as selfishness or conceit) about which they have little insight."
There are plenty of parents, including TA's, who say they are happy with the services provided to their children. Former students have also praised the school for turning their lives around, in comments on Internet message boards and in letters to regulators.
"All methods of therapy are done in a supportive atmosphere with trained professionals and the intent to raise self-awareness and self-worth," said Bitz.
But other students and parents describe a different experience. The students interviewed by TIME, who attended the school at separate times in recent years, said that humiliation, not support, was the foundation of much of the treatment at Mount Bachelor.
One 18-year-old former student and victim of rape wept while recounting what happened to her during a Lifesteps seminar. Jane, who asked not to be identified by her real name, left the school in March. "They had me dress up as a French maid," she said, describing an outfit that included fishnet stockings and a short skirt. "I had to sit on guys' laps and give them lap dances," while sexually suggestive songs, like "Milkshake" by Kelis, played at high volume.
"They told me I was dirty and I had to put mud on myself for being raped," she said in reference to another Lifesteps session. "They basically blamed me for getting raped."
Bitz dismissed Jane's story and called it "very suspect" in an interview with the Bend Bulletin, which also spoke with Jane. "We know that some current students have made a conscious decision to lie about our school, hoping that it will be closed as a result, and that they would then be sent back home," Bitz told TIME.
Amber Ozier, now 23, attended Mount Bachelor Academy from the summer of 2002 to October 2003 — at about the same time as TA. Her parents enrolled her after she started sneaking out at night and drinking as a teenager. She had also begun smoking marijuana, and her grades were suffering. Several years earlier, Ozier says, her 10-year-old sister had drowned in a lake during Amber's 12th birthday party.
Ozier describes being made to retell the harrowing story of her sister's death repeatedly in groups. In a role-playing session, Ozier says, her closest friend was asked to pretend to be her sister, so Ozier could again relive her death.
According to Ozier and others, in a Lifesteps seminar called Forever Young, students were placed on a mattress and taunted with painful information about their childhood that they had previously revealed, an apparent attempt to trigger regression to infancy. Once more, Ozier was instructed to recall her sister's death against her will. "That was probably the thing that traumatized me the most," she says, describing how she thrashed on the mattress until she vomited. "They prey on people who have already been hurt."
When teens tried to complain in phone calls to parents, the calls were cut off, according to several students interviewed by TIME. Even with good behavior, students say, they were permitted only one monitored, 10-min. phone call every other week.
"We were worried about Amber's life," says Jody Ozier, Amber's mother, regarding her decision to send her daughter to Mount Bachelor. But after hearing Amber's account of her experiences, she says, "I couldn't believe that they did that. I see where it's done her mental harm."
Resurrected Allegations
This is not the first time students have accused Mount Bachelor of abuse, nor is Mount Bachelor the only such program to face allegations of mistreatment. Similar allegations of abuse were documented by the Government Accountability Office for numerous programs in 2007 and 2008, when the agency investigated the troubled-teen industry at the behest of California Congressman George Miller.
In 1998, Mount Bachelor was investigated by the Oregon DHS based on claims by several former employees that students were "subjected to frequent obscenity-laced screaming sessions by staff members; students were deprived of sleep; a group of girls emerged from one group-therapy session with bruising on their arms after they were ordered to clasp their hands in front of them and pound a mattress for an extended period," according to the Bend Bulletin. The Oregon DHS cleared the program following the investigation.
"I am in a state of shock," says Sharon Ferguson, whose complaints about her son's treatment at Mount Bachelor in the 1990s helped spur the earlier investigation. "I can't believe that school is still open and the same things are being said and the same people are running it."
A former student, Melissa Maisa, now 32, married and a mother of two young children in San Diego, had a similar response when informed of the present investigation. Maisa attended Mount Bachelor between 1992 and 1994 under largely the same management that runs the school today, and graduated the school with honors. She was sent there in part because of promiscuous behavior as a teen, which Maisa associates with being a victim of child sexual abuse and date rape. "Mount Bachelor made me feel even more dirty and more shameful than either one of those experiences ever did. I just want to make sure the things I suffered through there never happen again," Maisa says.
She describes a Lifesteps session in which she says she was required to perform an exercise called "the holidays." "I had to stand up in the sluttiest way possible and strut over to every male in the room," including the counselors, Maisa says. She was instructed to sit on the floor before each man, place her left foot on his right knee and say, "This foot is Christmas." She then placed her right foot on his left knee and said, "This foot is New Year's. Do you want to meet me between the holidays?"
Maisa says she performed the exercise more than 250 times. When she failed to show sufficient enthusiasm, Maisa says, she and her peers were punished, each having to repeat their own humiliating skit. When Maisa tried to tell her mother about it on the phone, she says, a staff member terminated the call.
Susan Owren, a part-time driver for Mount Bachelor, has heard similar stories from dozens of students. Owren spends several hours several days a week shuttling the school's students to doctor's appointments in town; during the rides, she says, students open up to her. She says she's seen teens being made to run in the snow without adequate footwear and to move rocks back and forth, apparently as discipline. "Every single kid has told me something horrifying," she says, adding that students who spoke with her independently corroborated one another. In mid-March, Owren went to the authorities, prompting the current state investigation.
Roots in Utopian Principles
The techniques that Mount Bachelor allegedly uses, while unconventional, are not new. They are similar to the tenets of the once popular "human potential movement" of the 1960s and '70s, which purported to change people's lives through intense emotional experiences. The movement grew out of the practices of Synanon and other California experiments in utopian living, which later helped spawn so-called large group awareness training programs, such as LifeSpring and est.
Synanon began as a drug-rehabilitation program before morphing into a controversial cult and is credited with putting forth the idea that confrontation and boot-camp-style breakdown tactics could cure teen misbehavior and addiction. Synanon's confrontational techniques influenced est and LifeSpring, which began selling weekend seminars designed to prompt emotional breakthroughs in participants.
Food, sleep and access to the outside world — sometimes even to the bathroom — were strictly controlled. Using intense role-playing, humiliation and physical experience, the seminars attempted to liberate people from victimhood by teaching them that they are ultimately responsible for everything that happens to them, including being a victim of child abuse or rape.
Mount Bachelor's Lifesteps seminars appear to share these tactics and philosophy. Several of its top employees formerly worked at a now defunct chain of troubled-teen programs known as CEDU, which was founded by former Synanon members.
"The process of breaking kids down is very much integrated into the therapeutic milieu," says Kat Whitehead, executive director of the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth, an expert on such abuse, who has testified before Congress on the topic. "Unfortunately, that seems to be very common, at least in the private facilities."
Although many people report being helped by cathartic seminars, studies suggest that programs like LifeSpring do not produce lasting change. Indeed, in the 1980s and early 1990s, LifeSpring lost millions of dollars in lawsuits related to suicides and psychiatric hospitalizations of participants.
Most mental-health experts today strongly disagree with the use of brutal confrontation or humiliation as therapy — particularly for vulnerable youths who have troubled pasts. Research suggests that feelings of being out of control characterize the typical patient's response to traumatic life events; consequently, recovery requires the avoidance of coercion.
Experts say that pressuring trauma victims to retell their stories against their will tends to increase stress symptoms rather than alleviate them. And brain research associates feelings of shame and humiliation to stress responses that exacerbate depression and anxiety and may contribute to physical illness. In addition, isolation from parents, except in situations where they are abusive, can increase trauma further.
"There is absolutely no role for shame and humiliation in the treatment of youth," says Christopher Bellonci, medical director of the Walker School, a nonprofit serving children with serious mental, behavioral and learning problems. "I know of no clinical rationale for treating youth for any condition in that fashion ... They are engendering new trauma, not repairing it."
Whatever the Supreme Court decides in Forest Grove v. TA, the case will put the spotlight on questions surrounding these troubled-teen programs. And while Oregon's investigations continue, yet more change may be forthcoming: a bill introduced by Congressman Miller to regulate private teen programs and ban "acts of physical or mental abuse designed to humiliate, degrade or undermine a child's self respect" passed the House of Representatives on Feb. 23. It is expected to be introduced in the Senate this year.
Maia Szalavitz is a freelance journalist in New York City and author of the book Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead, 2006).
Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1891082,00.html
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Florida Governor Orders Investigation into School Graves
Inquiry Ordered Into School Graves
By Rich Phillips
CNN
MIAMI, Florida (Dec. 10) -- Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered an investigation to determine whether the bodies of 32 students were buried decades ago in shallow graves on the grounds of a former reform school for boys.
The governor's action came at the urging of four former residents of what was known as the Florida School for Boys. The four alleged that students were abused and killed by guards decades ago at the school in Marianna, Florida, just south of the Georgia border.
In a letter Crist asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the graves and determine whether any crimes were committed.
"Questions remain unanswered as to the identity of the deceased and the origin of these graves," Crist wrote in his letter to the FDLE.
"The main goal is to determine the location of the graves, who owned the property at the time, and determine if any crimes were committed," FDLE spokesman Kristin Perezluha told CNN.
Authorities are only now beginning their investigation, so no one can say for certain who, if anyone, is buried in the 32 graves with the white metal crosses.
Four former residents of the school on Monday asked Crist to launch the investigation. They call themselves the White House Boys after the concrete building, where, they claim, the beatings and torture were carried out.
The White House Boys -- Roger Kiser, Michael McCarthy, Bryant Middleton and Dick Colon -- found each other on the Internet, after Kiser started a Web site. They began to talk about experiences at the reform school and eventually decided to go public, and call for an investigation.
The four believe many of the boys who were sent to the White House were killed and their remains buried on the grounds of what is now known as the Dozier School for Boys.
Reached at his home in the Florida panhandle, Middleton, 64, was told by a CNN producer that the governor ordered the probe.
"My god! That's remarkable. My god! That's all I ever wanted," he said. "That will begin a lot of the healing for those that survived that school."
Some of us will never get over the brutality, the sexual assaults and the fear. But this is a major step in the right direction," he said.
Middleton told CNN he was "an incorrigible youth of 14 or 15" when he was sent to the reform school for breaking and entering. During a 30-minute phone interview, he recounted story after horrific story about his time there.
Middleton said he took six trips to the concrete White House, where he endured brutal beatings. He says boys were regularly struck with a metal-reinforced double strap with a long wooden handle.
"You could hear it coming through the air and when it hit your body, the pain was unbelievable," he recalled.
"They just beat you to the point of unconsciousness, or you could no longer understand what was happening to you."
He recalled another occasion in which he and another boy decided to get drunk. They mixed orange juice with rubbing alcohol. It make Middleton sick and his friend intoxicated. A guard confronted the other boy, and began to treat him roughly, Middleton said.
"He dragged him to the administration building and I never saw him again. He never came back to work or to the cottage," Middleton told CNN. "He literally disappeared off the face of the earth."
Colon, 65, is a successful electrical contractor in Baltimore, Maryland. But in the 1950s, he acknowledged, he was a wayward youth who gritted his teeth through 11 beatings inside the White House.
Colon said he remembers entering the laundry one day, and his life, he said, has never been the same. Inside a large tumble dryer, was a black teen.
The White House boys, who are all white, told CNN that black kids at the school were beaten even more savagely than white kids.
"I said to myself, 'What's going to happen to me, if I take him out?' " he told CNN. He recalled being about 15 feet away from the boy in the dryer. He thought about helping him, but was afraid.
"I said to myself, I can't do it, cause I'm gonna be the next one in the God-d-- dryer if I take him out," he said.
"I turned my back and walked out and it torments me every day of my life."
Colon established an educational trust fund at the same campus, for high academic achievers, today operated by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
At least one former student says the school was strict but fair.
"They were justified in giving me these paddlings because, hey, I was wrong," Phil Hail of Anniston, Alabama, told The Miami Herald.
Hail remembers going to the white building once for getting low grades in 1957, he told the Herald.
"Was [the school] run with a very strict hand?
Yes, it was ... Were the paddlings very severe? Yes, they were," he said.
Another question no one seems able to answer: Why was there no outcry from the parents of boys who disappeared? Why did no one look for them?
Colon and Middleton say it's a valid question. They firmly believe that bodies will be found, and they will be the bodies of both black and white boys.
"I believe, in my own heart, that there has been a cover-up", said Middleton.
Added Colon, "White, African-American, they're all there ... I believe they will find crushed skulls, and broken bones -- and hopefully, one day, the murderers."
© 2008 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Whitmore Academy Settles Lawsuit for $450,000.00
Ex-school owners OK $450,000 settlement
8 students accused couple of abusing and hazing them
By Ethan Thomas
Deseret News
Published: November 19, 2008
The former operators of a Nephi school for troubled youths agreed to a $450,000 settlement to eight former students who alleged they were abused and hazed while there.
Mark and Cheryl Sudweeks, the former owners and operators of the now failed Whitmore Academy, came under fire in 2005 when several students accused them of various types of abuse that led to criminal charges being filed against Cheryl Sudweeks.
A 4th District Court civil suit seeking damages in the case was settled Monday.
"We are happy to get it behind us," said Susan Schacherer, a plaintiff whose granddaughter attended Whitmore.
"Does it undo the damage that caused us to bring the lawsuit to begin with? No. The window of opportunity to help these kids was lost. The money can't replace that."
The complaint filed in Juab County said that the Whitmore Academy, which was advertised as a facility for "teens looking to accelerate their education intellectually, emotionally and spiritually," was actually nothing of the sort.
The complaint alleges that some students enrolled at the Whitmore Academy were physically bound with plastic handcuffs for several hours, others were forced to spend periods of time outside without any clothing on, and some were forced to sleep in a space referred to as the "shelf room."
The shelf room was a small, enclosed area where students could neither sit up, fully stretch out, and was located 10 feet off the ground, according to the complaint. The Sudweeks were also accused of recruiting students and encouraging the students to use violence against other youths to enforce the rules.
There were also accusations of "environmental abuse" due to problems with the sewage system. Students were asked to not flush used toilet paper down the toilet, and the complaint states that "soiled toilet paper was stored in open trash bags that were left in the bathrooms."
There was also an apparent problem with mouse feces and rodents, among other accusations.
Schacherer said that when she and her daughter visited the Whitmore Academy, they had no idea that these types of things were happening and that apparently they were duped.
Schacherer's granddaughter now lives in Texas with her mother and still harbors animosity toward the people she believes mistreated her.
"I don't think that she feels like the settlement was justified for what she went through," Schacherer said. "She realized this was the best we could do and that is the way it is. She still has bitter feelings."
In September of 2006, Cheryl Sudweeks pleaded no contest to four class C misdemeanor counts of hazing and agreed to meet all court-ordered requirements and pay a fee.
In April, Gregory Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, used several examples of problems at the Whitmore Academy and other behavior modification schools to show that boot camp therapy companies use deceptive practices enrolling troubled teens in programs where they can end up abused and neglected.
"The biggest part of the problem was that there was no regulation and oversight, and Utah is jam-packed with these types of facilities," Schacherer said.
------------
SEE ALSO:
GAO Report
ISAC News Archives and Reports
8 students accused couple of abusing and hazing them
By Ethan Thomas
Deseret News
Published: November 19, 2008
The former operators of a Nephi school for troubled youths agreed to a $450,000 settlement to eight former students who alleged they were abused and hazed while there.
Mark and Cheryl Sudweeks, the former owners and operators of the now failed Whitmore Academy, came under fire in 2005 when several students accused them of various types of abuse that led to criminal charges being filed against Cheryl Sudweeks.
A 4th District Court civil suit seeking damages in the case was settled Monday.
"We are happy to get it behind us," said Susan Schacherer, a plaintiff whose granddaughter attended Whitmore.
"Does it undo the damage that caused us to bring the lawsuit to begin with? No. The window of opportunity to help these kids was lost. The money can't replace that."
The complaint filed in Juab County said that the Whitmore Academy, which was advertised as a facility for "teens looking to accelerate their education intellectually, emotionally and spiritually," was actually nothing of the sort.
The complaint alleges that some students enrolled at the Whitmore Academy were physically bound with plastic handcuffs for several hours, others were forced to spend periods of time outside without any clothing on, and some were forced to sleep in a space referred to as the "shelf room."
The shelf room was a small, enclosed area where students could neither sit up, fully stretch out, and was located 10 feet off the ground, according to the complaint. The Sudweeks were also accused of recruiting students and encouraging the students to use violence against other youths to enforce the rules.
There were also accusations of "environmental abuse" due to problems with the sewage system. Students were asked to not flush used toilet paper down the toilet, and the complaint states that "soiled toilet paper was stored in open trash bags that were left in the bathrooms."
There was also an apparent problem with mouse feces and rodents, among other accusations.
Schacherer said that when she and her daughter visited the Whitmore Academy, they had no idea that these types of things were happening and that apparently they were duped.
Schacherer's granddaughter now lives in Texas with her mother and still harbors animosity toward the people she believes mistreated her.
"I don't think that she feels like the settlement was justified for what she went through," Schacherer said. "She realized this was the best we could do and that is the way it is. She still has bitter feelings."
In September of 2006, Cheryl Sudweeks pleaded no contest to four class C misdemeanor counts of hazing and agreed to meet all court-ordered requirements and pay a fee.
In April, Gregory Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, used several examples of problems at the Whitmore Academy and other behavior modification schools to show that boot camp therapy companies use deceptive practices enrolling troubled teens in programs where they can end up abused and neglected.
"The biggest part of the problem was that there was no regulation and oversight, and Utah is jam-packed with these types of facilities," Schacherer said.
------------
SEE ALSO:
GAO Report
ISAC News Archives and Reports
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
House blocks latest attempt to restrict electric shocks at JRC in Canton
House blocks latest attempt to restrict electric shocks at JRC in Canton
By Jay Turner
Citizen Staff
Attached to the 2009 state budget as Amendment EHS 874, the measure had previously passed the Senate and was being hailed by Joyce as a true compromise between an outright ban and the current requirement that the school get permission from a state probate court before administering shocks to any of its students.
“We have been stymied by the House and it’s incredibly frustrating,” said Joyce in a telephone interview on Friday.
The legislation, authored by Joyce and Representative John Scibak (D), a licensed psychologist, would have limited the controversial treatment to cases in which the student’s behavior presented an “immediate risk of serious physical injury or harm to self or others,” and only after all other “less intrusive” treatments had proved unsuccessful.
Currently, the Rotenberg Center, which treats both high- and low-functioning students with behavior problems, employs the two-second electric shocks to address a range of behaviors, including some that the JRC admits might seem too “innocuous” if viewed out of context, such as mumbling, deliberately providing a wrong answer, and getting out of one’s seat without permission.
According to its website, www.judgerc.org, the school as of August 2007 was using skin shock treatment on 43 percent of its 154 school-age students, as well as 85 percent of its 65 adult residents, most of whom are lower functioning. JRC also uses other behavior modification techniques, including water spraying, known as “sensory punishment,” and “movement limitation” as a form of physical punishment.
“I think what they’re doing there is wrong,” Joyce said. “I think that innocent children are being harmed.”
In addition to pointing a finger at JRC founder Matthew Israel, Joyce said he also faults House leadership for repeatedly blocking attempts to ban what he considers to be “barbaric” acts committed on the “most vulnerable citizens,” including many with autism and mental retardation.
Joyce himself has now been rebuffed twice in three years, including in 2006 when he went for an all-out ban — a proposal that also died in a conference committee after passing the Senate.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the JRC has a powerful ally in Representative Jeffrey Sanchez, whose nephew attends the school and has reportedly benefited from skin shock treatment. In fact, according to a State House News Service report, Sanchez’s nephew hit himself repeatedly during a January legislative hearing, and then Sanchez, after restraining him, stated that the treatment has “kept [the child] alive.”
Meanwhile, Joyce, who was recently honored as “Legislator of the Year” by the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, has vowed to “continue to push this issue” until children in Canton and at some of the JRC’s nearby residential facilities are no longer shocked.
“The government has a fundamental duty to protect vulnerable populations,” he said in a press release, “and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a moral imperative to address this issue once and for all.”
It isn’t just the treatment that has the senator concerned, either. He pointed to an incident last August that made national headlines, in which staff members wrongfully shocked two students dozens of times after being ordered to do so by a caller posing as a supervisor. The caller was later determined to be a former JRC student.
Citing a story printed in the Boston Globe, Joyce pointed to the fact that surveillance tapes of the incident were shown to investigators, but that school officials later destroyed the tapes despite being instructed to preserve them.
The story also reported that State Police in May seized boxes of documents from JRC offices as part of a yearlong grand jury investigation into the prank call incident led by the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley. The Globe quoted an unnamed source who said the investigation “had an ambitious scope and involves multiple government agencies.”
Joyce also detailed other alleged “horrors” in a press release, including children receiving second degree burns from the skin shocks, and children who have been shocked as many as 5,000 times in one day.
“We don’t allow shock therapy on our prisoners and we should not allow it to be used on innocent children,” he said in the press release. “We have an obligation to stop the unfettered use of shock therapy on a very vulnerable group of disabled children and adults.”
####
See Also:
Shock School Replicates Shocking Obedience Experiment
http://stopchildprofiteering.blogspot.com/2007/12/shock-school-replicates-shocking.html
By Jay Turner
Citizen Staff
July 24, 2008
A 20-year legislative odyssey aimed at ending the practice of electric skin shock treatment at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton will apparently continue, after the latest proposal, sponsored by State Senator Brian Joyce (D) of Milton, recently stalled in a conference committee after facing opposition from members of the House.Attached to the 2009 state budget as Amendment EHS 874, the measure had previously passed the Senate and was being hailed by Joyce as a true compromise between an outright ban and the current requirement that the school get permission from a state probate court before administering shocks to any of its students.
“We have been stymied by the House and it’s incredibly frustrating,” said Joyce in a telephone interview on Friday.
The legislation, authored by Joyce and Representative John Scibak (D), a licensed psychologist, would have limited the controversial treatment to cases in which the student’s behavior presented an “immediate risk of serious physical injury or harm to self or others,” and only after all other “less intrusive” treatments had proved unsuccessful.
Currently, the Rotenberg Center, which treats both high- and low-functioning students with behavior problems, employs the two-second electric shocks to address a range of behaviors, including some that the JRC admits might seem too “innocuous” if viewed out of context, such as mumbling, deliberately providing a wrong answer, and getting out of one’s seat without permission.
According to its website, www.judgerc.org, the school as of August 2007 was using skin shock treatment on 43 percent of its 154 school-age students, as well as 85 percent of its 65 adult residents, most of whom are lower functioning. JRC also uses other behavior modification techniques, including water spraying, known as “sensory punishment,” and “movement limitation” as a form of physical punishment.
“I think what they’re doing there is wrong,” Joyce said. “I think that innocent children are being harmed.”
In addition to pointing a finger at JRC founder Matthew Israel, Joyce said he also faults House leadership for repeatedly blocking attempts to ban what he considers to be “barbaric” acts committed on the “most vulnerable citizens,” including many with autism and mental retardation.
Joyce himself has now been rebuffed twice in three years, including in 2006 when he went for an all-out ban — a proposal that also died in a conference committee after passing the Senate.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the JRC has a powerful ally in Representative Jeffrey Sanchez, whose nephew attends the school and has reportedly benefited from skin shock treatment. In fact, according to a State House News Service report, Sanchez’s nephew hit himself repeatedly during a January legislative hearing, and then Sanchez, after restraining him, stated that the treatment has “kept [the child] alive.”
Meanwhile, Joyce, who was recently honored as “Legislator of the Year” by the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, has vowed to “continue to push this issue” until children in Canton and at some of the JRC’s nearby residential facilities are no longer shocked.
“The government has a fundamental duty to protect vulnerable populations,” he said in a press release, “and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a moral imperative to address this issue once and for all.”
It isn’t just the treatment that has the senator concerned, either. He pointed to an incident last August that made national headlines, in which staff members wrongfully shocked two students dozens of times after being ordered to do so by a caller posing as a supervisor. The caller was later determined to be a former JRC student.
Citing a story printed in the Boston Globe, Joyce pointed to the fact that surveillance tapes of the incident were shown to investigators, but that school officials later destroyed the tapes despite being instructed to preserve them.
The story also reported that State Police in May seized boxes of documents from JRC offices as part of a yearlong grand jury investigation into the prank call incident led by the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley. The Globe quoted an unnamed source who said the investigation “had an ambitious scope and involves multiple government agencies.”
Joyce also detailed other alleged “horrors” in a press release, including children receiving second degree burns from the skin shocks, and children who have been shocked as many as 5,000 times in one day.
“We don’t allow shock therapy on our prisoners and we should not allow it to be used on innocent children,” he said in the press release. “We have an obligation to stop the unfettered use of shock therapy on a very vulnerable group of disabled children and adults.”
####
See Also:
Shock School Replicates Shocking Obedience Experiment
http://stopchildprofiteering.blogspot.com/2007/12/shock-school-replicates-shocking.html
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Straight, Inc. and KHK Survivors Protest
The Cincinnati Beacon
Straight, Inc. and KHK survivors protest locally
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Posted by Media Release
Numerous Straight, Inc. and Kids Helping Kids survivors, along with other concerned activists, traveled from 5 different states and the Greater Cincinnati area to participate in the July 11, 2008 protest in Milford, Ohio.
The group protested Kids Helping Kids, a Pathway Family Center (aka Pathway Family Center, PFC and/or KHK), a behavior modification teen treatment facility which is not only the current renamed version of Straight, Inc, it also still uses the STRAIGHT, Inc. treatment modality.
The protesters’ mission was to express opposition and to educate local residents about the “treatment methods” used by PFC, methods which this group believes pose a substantial risk of harm to children.
Specifically, the protesters strongly object to, among other things, the use of coercive thought reform, isolation from parents, peers and society, unlicensed host homes, unqualified peer staff, unnecessary and/or disproportionate punishments, and the denial of basic human rights such as total bathroom privacy.
Additionally, the demonstrators are extremely concerned about children having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other serious mental health issues caused by their ordeal in Pathway. Repeated reports to state agencies of systematic abuse and other improprieties have also been ignored for years.
This protest comes on the heels of the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelming approval of H.R. 6358, The Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008. Recent congressional investigations uncovered thousands of allegations of abuse, neglect and youth deaths in private teen behavior modification facilities in the United States. This legislation aims to protect youth in all private treatment facilities, including Pathway Family Center.
The rocky start of the protest itself did not deter the determined activists from sharing their message. One Pathway official (Monica Mertens, according to Pathway insiders who spoke with protesters) displayed unprofessional conduct by confiscating one of the protestor’s signs. PFC officials also summoned Miami Township police twice. The first time was to remove protesters from the far side of the driveway who occasionally crossed it without blocking incoming traffic. The second time, participants were later told, was an attempt to stop protesters from videotaping the public event.
Demonstrators did comply with law enforcement’s request to stay off to the sides of Pathway’s entrance but were never asked to stop filming. In spite of these incidents, the peaceful protest resumed without further confrontation.
At the demonstration itself, protesters carried and displayed numerous signs including “Coercive Thought Reform is Not Treatment,” “KHK Tortured Me,” and “Close PFC Now”. Many drivers showed solidarity either by honking, giving the thumbs up or by shouting “Thank you! My friend (or relative) was in there. This place stinks!”
In addition, many passersby stopped, took literature and were given the free DVD set of the congressional hearings and KHK news footage. Even former clients of Straight and KHK, with no previous knowledge of our protests, no prior contact with activist survivors, saw the protest and stopped to speak with survivors. Both supported our efforts.
As the event was winding down, current PFC peer staff/graduates initiated peaceful discussions. At times the talks became a bit heated and emotional. Certainly there was much disagreement. But for the most part, both sides remained civil.
At the end of the day, the exhausted survivors unanimously agreed that this event was nothing less than a smashing success and felt rejuvenated by the interest from the community.
All participants vowed to continue their quest to educate the community about the harmful Straight Inc treatment model used by Kids Helping Kids, a Pathway Family Center. Their mission is to protect children from these harmful treatment methods.
###
SEE ALSO:
History of Protests Against KHK, Photo Gallery, Special Reports, Etc.
ISAC
http://www.isaccorp.org/kidshelpingkids.asp
HEAL-ONLINE
http://www.heal-online.org/kentucky.htm
Saturday, July 19, 2008
BUYER BEWARE: FTC Releases First Federal Guideline on Private Residential Treatment Programs for Teens
Federal Trade Commission
FACTS for Consumers
Considering a Private Residential Treatment Program for a Troubled Teen?
Questions for Parents and Guardians to Ask
"Private residential treatment programs for young people offer a range of services, including drug and alcohol treatment, confidence building, military-style discipline, and psychological counseling for a variety of addiction, behavioral, and emotional problems. Many of these programs are intended to provide a less-restrictive alternative to incarceration or hospitalization, or an intervention for a troubled young person.
If you are a parent or guardian and think you have exhausted intervention alternatives for a troubled teen, you may be considering a private residential treatment program. These programs go by a variety of names, including "therapeutic boarding schools," "emotional growth academies," "teen boot camps," "behavior modification facilities," and "wilderness therapy programs."
No standard definitions exist for specific types of programs. The programs are not regulated by the federal government, and many are not subject to state licensing or monitoring as mental health or educational facilities, either.
A 2007 Report to Congress by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found cases involving serious abuse and neglect at some of these programs.
Many programs advertise on the Internet and through other media, making claims about staff credentials, the level of treatment a participant will receive, program accreditation, education credit transfers, success rates, and endorsements by educational consultants.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, cautions that before you enroll a youngster in a private residential treatment program, check it out: ask questions; ask for proof or support for claims about staff credentials, program accreditation, and endorsements; do a site visit; and get all policies and promises in writing."
READ FULL FTC CONSUMER GUIDELINES ON RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT PROGRAMS HERE
FACTS for Consumers
Considering a Private Residential Treatment Program for a Troubled Teen?
Questions for Parents and Guardians to Ask
"Private residential treatment programs for young people offer a range of services, including drug and alcohol treatment, confidence building, military-style discipline, and psychological counseling for a variety of addiction, behavioral, and emotional problems. Many of these programs are intended to provide a less-restrictive alternative to incarceration or hospitalization, or an intervention for a troubled young person.
If you are a parent or guardian and think you have exhausted intervention alternatives for a troubled teen, you may be considering a private residential treatment program. These programs go by a variety of names, including "therapeutic boarding schools," "emotional growth academies," "teen boot camps," "behavior modification facilities," and "wilderness therapy programs."
No standard definitions exist for specific types of programs. The programs are not regulated by the federal government, and many are not subject to state licensing or monitoring as mental health or educational facilities, either.
A 2007 Report to Congress by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found cases involving serious abuse and neglect at some of these programs.
Many programs advertise on the Internet and through other media, making claims about staff credentials, the level of treatment a participant will receive, program accreditation, education credit transfers, success rates, and endorsements by educational consultants.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, cautions that before you enroll a youngster in a private residential treatment program, check it out: ask questions; ask for proof or support for claims about staff credentials, program accreditation, and endorsements; do a site visit; and get all policies and promises in writing."
READ FULL FTC CONSUMER GUIDELINES ON RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT PROGRAMS HERE
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Youth Camp Charged in Teen's Death
By Joey Bunch
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 07/15/2008 05:23:56 PM MDT
A Montrose County grand jury today handed up a raft of charges against operators and staff of a youth rehabilitation camp in connection with the death of a 15-year-old who died in their care.
Caleb Jensen died in May 2007 from an untreated staph infection at a court-ordered wilderness camp run by Alternative Youth Adventures in Montrose.
The program was shuttered after his death and surrendered its state license.
The grand jury filed various negligent homicide, child abuse resulting in death and manslaughter charges against staff and management, as well as Dr. Keith Hooker, the camp's medical director.
"CEC stands by its position that at all times the company acted appropriately and that the circumstances that lead to Caleb Jensen's death, while tragic, were not reasonably foreseeable," according to a statement from the New Jersey-based company that owns the wilderness program, Community Education Centers.
District Attorney Myrl Serra did not return a telephone call to comment on the indictments. Jensen was placed in the program by the Utah Division of Juvenile Services two months before his death.
His mother, Dawn Boyd of Salt Lake City, could not be reached for comment this afternoon. A tribute website she created includes a handwritten letter said to be the last one he wrote home from the camp.
Caleb said in the letter, "I wish I could go back and be a good little boy, a nice little naive church boy who couldn't steal bubble gum without feeling bad about it. I want to wear sponge bob pj's and big teddy bear slippers and cuddle up next to my mommy. I usta think I was to hard of a gangsta that nobody could break me, but they found my weakness and I want to come home."
Alternative Youth Adventures, its parent company, program director James Omer and Hooker were charged with negligent homicide and child abuse resulting in death.
Staff member Ben Askins was charged with manslaughter and child abuse resulting in death. The defendants will be be formally charged in an Aug. 25 court hearing in Montrose.
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 07/15/2008 05:23:56 PM MDT
A Montrose County grand jury today handed up a raft of charges against operators and staff of a youth rehabilitation camp in connection with the death of a 15-year-old who died in their care.
Caleb Jensen died in May 2007 from an untreated staph infection at a court-ordered wilderness camp run by Alternative Youth Adventures in Montrose.
The program was shuttered after his death and surrendered its state license.
The grand jury filed various negligent homicide, child abuse resulting in death and manslaughter charges against staff and management, as well as Dr. Keith Hooker, the camp's medical director.
"CEC stands by its position that at all times the company acted appropriately and that the circumstances that lead to Caleb Jensen's death, while tragic, were not reasonably foreseeable," according to a statement from the New Jersey-based company that owns the wilderness program, Community Education Centers.
District Attorney Myrl Serra did not return a telephone call to comment on the indictments. Jensen was placed in the program by the Utah Division of Juvenile Services two months before his death.
His mother, Dawn Boyd of Salt Lake City, could not be reached for comment this afternoon. A tribute website she created includes a handwritten letter said to be the last one he wrote home from the camp.
Caleb said in the letter, "I wish I could go back and be a good little boy, a nice little naive church boy who couldn't steal bubble gum without feeling bad about it. I want to wear sponge bob pj's and big teddy bear slippers and cuddle up next to my mommy. I usta think I was to hard of a gangsta that nobody could break me, but they found my weakness and I want to come home."
Alternative Youth Adventures, its parent company, program director James Omer and Hooker were charged with negligent homicide and child abuse resulting in death.
Staff member Ben Askins was charged with manslaughter and child abuse resulting in death. The defendants will be be formally charged in an Aug. 25 court hearing in Montrose.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Hephzibah House: Former Students Protest Against Local Boarding School
6/12/2008 7:00:00 PM
http://www.timesuniononline.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=33697&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=224&S=1
Former Students Demonstrate Against Local Boarding School
The three women came from different states. They hadn't met in person before, but they stood together Wednesday in front of the Kosciusko County Courthouse to raise awareness of the abuse they allege they and other girls suffered when they were students at Hephzibah House, a boarding school for girls in Warsaw.
"The first day I was there, I was brutally beaten," said Jennifer Sengpiehl, of Virginia. Sengpiehl said she was a student at Hephzibah House when she was a teenager, from 1996 to 1997. She said her first day at Hephzibah House was one of the worst.
"They made me lie face down on the floor," said Sengpiehl. "A lady sat on my arms, and another lady sat on my legs, and someone else beat me with a big piece of board. They were quoting Bible verses and beating me."
Other hardships the women said they and other students experienced at Hephzibah House included verbal bullying by staff, being forbidden to talk to or look at any other students for months at a time, students being forced to eat their own vomit, and shaming punishments such as making teenage girls wear diapers.
Despite the claims of the former students, there are no open investigations regarding abuse at Hephzibah House, according to Susan Tielking, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Child Services.A spokesman for Kosciusko County Prosecutor Steve Hearn said his office is not investigating.
Hephzibah House officials, while refusing to comment, did provide a number of testimonial letters from former students who found their programs to be a positive experience. All the students' letters denied that physical, emotional or mental abuse took place at the school.
A couple of hours before their demonstration at the courthouse, Sengpiehl; Gabriella Fleury, of Wisconsin; and Susan Grotte, of Minnesota; sat down in the lobby of a local hotel to tell their stories.
Fleury said she was a student at Hephzibah House from August 1989 to November 1990. Grotte said she was a student at the school from February 1981 to July 1983.
The women said Hephzibah House was an environment completely controlled by the school's staff and director Pastor Ronald Williams. They said the little communication they were allowed with the outside world came in the form of censored letters to and from their families and brief telephone calls with family in which a school staff member listened in.
The women said their daily activities were scheduled and structured all the way down to their bathroom activities. "Every time we went to the bathroom, we had to record it," said Grotte, "and not just that we went to the bathroom, but whether we had a bowl movement and the amount."
"We didn't record it in a private file either," said Sengpiehl. "It was on a public board. We called it the 'BM board.'"The women said their days at Hephzibah House were spent doing chores in and around the school campus at 2277 E. Pierceton Road, memorizing Bible verses and doing school work.
They said all their activities were closely monitored by school staff. "There were alarms on the windows and doors so we couldn't get out," Fleury said.Fleury said she and Grotte and Sengpiehl met through several Web sites run by former Hephzibah students. She said, on the sites, students share their stories and support each other.
Grotte said she found the Web sites ironically through contact with Williams. "Williams called me and asked me to write him a letter to say I was never abused at Hephzibah House and that I hadn't seen anyone else abused there," Grotte said. "He told me some former students had started an evil Web site against Hephzibah House."
Wednesday, the women held signs with slogans like "Help Stop Abuse" and "Hephzibah: Abusing girls since 1974", and handed out fliers detailing the abuses they said they and others suffered at Hephzibah House.
"I feel like we're campaigning for awareness," said Fleury. "We know it will be hard to close it, but we want to bring awareness of what's going on in this locked-up facility. Most people who live here probably don't know that place exists."
Fleury said Wednesday's demonstration was aimed at bringing change."Our demonstration is in protest of the abuse that has been taking place at Hephzibah House for the past 30 years," she said. "We want to bring attention to the fact that this facility has been operating over 30 years and it has yet to be held accountable to anyone. This facility is not licensed and it has never been regulated by the state of Indiana. There needs to be a change in state law, and hopefully our demonstration can draw attention to that fact."
The women weren't standing alone Wednesday. Fleury's mother, Marie Fleury, and Kevin Smith, of Florida, whose niece was recently a student at Hephzibah House, also took part in the demonstration.
"We didn't realize the home was like that," Marie Fleury said. "We didn't do our homework."Marie Fleury said, looking back, she and her husband can see hints that something was wrong when their daughter was at the school."There was an extreme lack of communication," she said. "We would ask her questions and her answers would be evasive."
Marie Fleury said, after her daughter returned from Hephzibah House, it took a while before she began to talk about her experience. "When she got home, she was very quiet and much more 'quote' obedient," Marie Fleury said.
"It really took a few years before she was able to tell us. It was devastating to us as a family to find out what had happened. That's why I'm here, because I don't want other parents to make the same mistakes."
Hephzibah House Director Ron Williams and other school staff declined to be interviewed Wednesday, but provided a press release and 15 letters from parents and former Hephzibah House students voicing support for the school.
According to the press release, Hephzibah House was founded in 1971 and is a 501(c)3 Christian boarding school affiliated with Believers Baptist Church, located on the same property as Hephzibah House and headquartered at 508 School St., Winona Lake.
In the release, Hephzibah staff wrote, "Because of the nature of our work, which includes working with minors and the resulting needs for privacy of the girls and their parents, tours of the facility, interviews with staff members or students and other normal needs of the news media cannot be honored. While all of us at Hephzibah House certainly embrace and support a free press, we hope you can understand that the nature of our work here demands such a position."
According to the release, Hephzibah House is routinely inspected for safety by fire and health department officials, students are involved in regular schooling, and parents and pastors may make regular phone calls and personal visits during their girls' stay there.
"Over the years, we have taken in troubled teenaged girls who were brought to us by anxious parents and guardians who were concerned about the spiritual direction in which their daughters were going," Hephzibah staff wrote in the release. "Through separation from bad influences and through the Word of God, we have seen many young hearts turn around and become sweet respectful young ladies as well as productive citizens."All the letters denied that physical, emotional or mental abuse took place at the school.
One letter is signed by Mary R. Speckels, of Alaska, who claims to have been a student at the school from June 1997 to October 1998.
Speckels wrote, "After my experience at Hephzibah House as a student, I would highly recommend it to parents for their struggling teenage girls. The effect it had on my life was very dramatic and completely positive."
In a letter from Smith's niece's parents, Joseph and Karen Oberle, the Oberles wrote, "The results we have seen from Caitlin's stay at Hephzibah House are higher moral standard, respect for authority, self-confidence, self-motivation to complete her education, very high moral standards of cleanliness, appreciation for her family and an undeniable cheerful attitude."
Several of the letters expressed disapproval of the accusations being brought against the school."I think some of you just need to grow up and stop complaining about the past," wrote Betty Good, parent of a former Hephzibah House student, "and start being thankful you're still alive and well and not into what you were saved from."
Fleury, Grotte and Sengpiehl each said the trip to Warsaw was worthwhile."It's been totally a positive response," Fleury said.
"If I felt that it would do more good to show up next weekend, I would."
For more information about Hephzibah House, call the school's office at 574-269-2376 or 574-269-2375.
For more information about former students' accusations against the school, visit www.formerhephzibahgirls.webs.org or www.hephzibahhouse.com or www.hephzibah-girls.blogspot.com
----------------------
SEE ALSO
HELL CAMPS FOR JESUS?
A Teen Advocates USA Special Report
http://www.teenadvocatesusa.org/NewHorizons.html
Former Students Demonstrate Against Local Boarding School
The three women came from different states. They hadn't met in person before, but they stood together Wednesday in front of the Kosciusko County Courthouse to raise awareness of the abuse they allege they and other girls suffered when they were students at Hephzibah House, a boarding school for girls in Warsaw.
"The first day I was there, I was brutally beaten," said Jennifer Sengpiehl, of Virginia. Sengpiehl said she was a student at Hephzibah House when she was a teenager, from 1996 to 1997. She said her first day at Hephzibah House was one of the worst.
"They made me lie face down on the floor," said Sengpiehl. "A lady sat on my arms, and another lady sat on my legs, and someone else beat me with a big piece of board. They were quoting Bible verses and beating me."
Other hardships the women said they and other students experienced at Hephzibah House included verbal bullying by staff, being forbidden to talk to or look at any other students for months at a time, students being forced to eat their own vomit, and shaming punishments such as making teenage girls wear diapers.
Despite the claims of the former students, there are no open investigations regarding abuse at Hephzibah House, according to Susan Tielking, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Child Services.A spokesman for Kosciusko County Prosecutor Steve Hearn said his office is not investigating.
Hephzibah House officials, while refusing to comment, did provide a number of testimonial letters from former students who found their programs to be a positive experience. All the students' letters denied that physical, emotional or mental abuse took place at the school.
A couple of hours before their demonstration at the courthouse, Sengpiehl; Gabriella Fleury, of Wisconsin; and Susan Grotte, of Minnesota; sat down in the lobby of a local hotel to tell their stories.
Fleury said she was a student at Hephzibah House from August 1989 to November 1990. Grotte said she was a student at the school from February 1981 to July 1983.
The women said Hephzibah House was an environment completely controlled by the school's staff and director Pastor Ronald Williams. They said the little communication they were allowed with the outside world came in the form of censored letters to and from their families and brief telephone calls with family in which a school staff member listened in.
The women said their daily activities were scheduled and structured all the way down to their bathroom activities. "Every time we went to the bathroom, we had to record it," said Grotte, "and not just that we went to the bathroom, but whether we had a bowl movement and the amount."
"We didn't record it in a private file either," said Sengpiehl. "It was on a public board. We called it the 'BM board.'"The women said their days at Hephzibah House were spent doing chores in and around the school campus at 2277 E. Pierceton Road, memorizing Bible verses and doing school work.
They said all their activities were closely monitored by school staff. "There were alarms on the windows and doors so we couldn't get out," Fleury said.Fleury said she and Grotte and Sengpiehl met through several Web sites run by former Hephzibah students. She said, on the sites, students share their stories and support each other.
Grotte said she found the Web sites ironically through contact with Williams. "Williams called me and asked me to write him a letter to say I was never abused at Hephzibah House and that I hadn't seen anyone else abused there," Grotte said. "He told me some former students had started an evil Web site against Hephzibah House."
Wednesday, the women held signs with slogans like "Help Stop Abuse" and "Hephzibah: Abusing girls since 1974", and handed out fliers detailing the abuses they said they and others suffered at Hephzibah House.
"I feel like we're campaigning for awareness," said Fleury. "We know it will be hard to close it, but we want to bring awareness of what's going on in this locked-up facility. Most people who live here probably don't know that place exists."
Fleury said Wednesday's demonstration was aimed at bringing change."Our demonstration is in protest of the abuse that has been taking place at Hephzibah House for the past 30 years," she said. "We want to bring attention to the fact that this facility has been operating over 30 years and it has yet to be held accountable to anyone. This facility is not licensed and it has never been regulated by the state of Indiana. There needs to be a change in state law, and hopefully our demonstration can draw attention to that fact."
The women weren't standing alone Wednesday. Fleury's mother, Marie Fleury, and Kevin Smith, of Florida, whose niece was recently a student at Hephzibah House, also took part in the demonstration.
"We didn't realize the home was like that," Marie Fleury said. "We didn't do our homework."Marie Fleury said, looking back, she and her husband can see hints that something was wrong when their daughter was at the school."There was an extreme lack of communication," she said. "We would ask her questions and her answers would be evasive."
Marie Fleury said, after her daughter returned from Hephzibah House, it took a while before she began to talk about her experience. "When she got home, she was very quiet and much more 'quote' obedient," Marie Fleury said.
"It really took a few years before she was able to tell us. It was devastating to us as a family to find out what had happened. That's why I'm here, because I don't want other parents to make the same mistakes."
Hephzibah House Director Ron Williams and other school staff declined to be interviewed Wednesday, but provided a press release and 15 letters from parents and former Hephzibah House students voicing support for the school.
According to the press release, Hephzibah House was founded in 1971 and is a 501(c)3 Christian boarding school affiliated with Believers Baptist Church, located on the same property as Hephzibah House and headquartered at 508 School St., Winona Lake.
In the release, Hephzibah staff wrote, "Because of the nature of our work, which includes working with minors and the resulting needs for privacy of the girls and their parents, tours of the facility, interviews with staff members or students and other normal needs of the news media cannot be honored. While all of us at Hephzibah House certainly embrace and support a free press, we hope you can understand that the nature of our work here demands such a position."
According to the release, Hephzibah House is routinely inspected for safety by fire and health department officials, students are involved in regular schooling, and parents and pastors may make regular phone calls and personal visits during their girls' stay there.
"Over the years, we have taken in troubled teenaged girls who were brought to us by anxious parents and guardians who were concerned about the spiritual direction in which their daughters were going," Hephzibah staff wrote in the release. "Through separation from bad influences and through the Word of God, we have seen many young hearts turn around and become sweet respectful young ladies as well as productive citizens."All the letters denied that physical, emotional or mental abuse took place at the school.
One letter is signed by Mary R. Speckels, of Alaska, who claims to have been a student at the school from June 1997 to October 1998.
Speckels wrote, "After my experience at Hephzibah House as a student, I would highly recommend it to parents for their struggling teenage girls. The effect it had on my life was very dramatic and completely positive."
In a letter from Smith's niece's parents, Joseph and Karen Oberle, the Oberles wrote, "The results we have seen from Caitlin's stay at Hephzibah House are higher moral standard, respect for authority, self-confidence, self-motivation to complete her education, very high moral standards of cleanliness, appreciation for her family and an undeniable cheerful attitude."
Several of the letters expressed disapproval of the accusations being brought against the school."I think some of you just need to grow up and stop complaining about the past," wrote Betty Good, parent of a former Hephzibah House student, "and start being thankful you're still alive and well and not into what you were saved from."
Fleury, Grotte and Sengpiehl each said the trip to Warsaw was worthwhile."It's been totally a positive response," Fleury said.
"If I felt that it would do more good to show up next weekend, I would."
For more information about Hephzibah House, call the school's office at 574-269-2376 or 574-269-2375.
For more information about former students' accusations against the school, visit www.formerhephzibahgirls.webs.org or www.hephzibahhouse.com or www.hephzibah-girls.blogspot.com
----------------------
SEE ALSO
HELL CAMPS FOR JESUS?
A Teen Advocates USA Special Report
http://www.teenadvocatesusa.org/NewHorizons.html
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Thayer Learning Center: Ex-Employees Sue Boot Camp
Ex-employees sue boot camp accused of abuse
By STEVE ROCK
The Kansas City Star
June 3, 2008
Five former employees of a northwest Missouri boot camp where a child died in 2004 have sued for alleged malicious prosecution.
The workers had been sued by Thayer Learning Center in a case that eventually was dropped. In that lawsuit, Thayer alleged that the ex-employees made false statements and false allegations to law-enforcement officials and others about activities at the camp.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, the former employees allege that Thayer sued them to keep them and others quiet, describing the lawsuit against them as an attempt “to keep the truth about their facility secret.”
The workers’ lawsuit also accuses Thayer of suing them “to hide from the appropriate authorities and parents the fact that … the usual methods used by (Thayer) did indeed and actually constitute child abuse.”
The case filed in Caldwell County Circuit Court names Thayer Learning Center and the facility’s owner, Willa Bundy, as defendants.
Bundy and an attorney for the center did not return phone calls Monday and Tuesday. Allegations of child abuse at Thayer — about 50 miles northeast of Kansas City in Kidder — came to light after Roberto Reyes, 15, died in November 2004, less than two weeks after enrolling.
No charges were filed in connection with Roberto’s death, but the FBI recently conducted a preliminary investigation and sent its findings to the U.S. Department of Justice. Officials there are reviewing the case.
Thayer officials have said that allegations of abuse were “ludicrous and false.” In its 2003 lawsuit, Thayer alleged that the workers made false statements to third parties about the center “physically abusing and harming its students” and accused them of violating written contracts by contacting parents, government agencies and law-enforcement officials to discuss specific students and school operations.
Those contacts, Thayer alleged, forced the school to “have to continually … deny these false allegations” and caused the loss of potential students. Thayer dropped its lawsuit last month.
In their lawsuit, the ex-employees said contractual agreements could not be used to prevent individuals from reporting abuse. They accuse Thayer of “covering up the fact that they had an unqualified and unsupervised staff engaging in child abuse.”
Phil Elberg, a New Jersey attorney representing the plaintiffs, alleged by phone that Thayer’s 2003 lawsuit “was clearly intended to scare people into shutting up.”
The plaintiffs did not specify a dollar amount but alleged that the center’s “outrageous” behavior “showed an evil motive” and therefore entitles them to exemplary damages in addition to actual damages, attorneys’ fees and “such other relief as the court deems just and proper.”
Elberg said the plaintiffs — Nanette Burge and Candessa Williams of Gallatin, Mo.; Linda Glenn and Janet Traylor of Hamilton, Mo., and Regina Burge of Jamesport, Mo. — would not comment.
A 2005 investigation by The Kansas City Star showed that, between April 2003 and October 2005, at least seven people reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at Thayer to the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office.
A state investigative report obtained by The Star said “it appears that those responsible for the safety … of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment.”
In a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in 2005, Roberto’s parents alleged that the teenager would have lived had he received competent medical care in a timely manner and that he was dragged, hit, placed in solitary confinement and “forced to lay in his own excrement for extended periods” of time.
In court filings, Thayer denied those and other allegations. The two sides settled in March 2006 for slightly more than $1 million.
To reach Steve Rock, call 816-234-4338
By STEVE ROCK
The Kansas City Star
June 3, 2008
Five former employees of a northwest Missouri boot camp where a child died in 2004 have sued for alleged malicious prosecution.
The workers had been sued by Thayer Learning Center in a case that eventually was dropped. In that lawsuit, Thayer alleged that the ex-employees made false statements and false allegations to law-enforcement officials and others about activities at the camp.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, the former employees allege that Thayer sued them to keep them and others quiet, describing the lawsuit against them as an attempt “to keep the truth about their facility secret.”
The workers’ lawsuit also accuses Thayer of suing them “to hide from the appropriate authorities and parents the fact that … the usual methods used by (Thayer) did indeed and actually constitute child abuse.”
The case filed in Caldwell County Circuit Court names Thayer Learning Center and the facility’s owner, Willa Bundy, as defendants.
Bundy and an attorney for the center did not return phone calls Monday and Tuesday. Allegations of child abuse at Thayer — about 50 miles northeast of Kansas City in Kidder — came to light after Roberto Reyes, 15, died in November 2004, less than two weeks after enrolling.
No charges were filed in connection with Roberto’s death, but the FBI recently conducted a preliminary investigation and sent its findings to the U.S. Department of Justice. Officials there are reviewing the case.
Thayer officials have said that allegations of abuse were “ludicrous and false.” In its 2003 lawsuit, Thayer alleged that the workers made false statements to third parties about the center “physically abusing and harming its students” and accused them of violating written contracts by contacting parents, government agencies and law-enforcement officials to discuss specific students and school operations.
Those contacts, Thayer alleged, forced the school to “have to continually … deny these false allegations” and caused the loss of potential students. Thayer dropped its lawsuit last month.
In their lawsuit, the ex-employees said contractual agreements could not be used to prevent individuals from reporting abuse. They accuse Thayer of “covering up the fact that they had an unqualified and unsupervised staff engaging in child abuse.”
Phil Elberg, a New Jersey attorney representing the plaintiffs, alleged by phone that Thayer’s 2003 lawsuit “was clearly intended to scare people into shutting up.”
The plaintiffs did not specify a dollar amount but alleged that the center’s “outrageous” behavior “showed an evil motive” and therefore entitles them to exemplary damages in addition to actual damages, attorneys’ fees and “such other relief as the court deems just and proper.”
Elberg said the plaintiffs — Nanette Burge and Candessa Williams of Gallatin, Mo.; Linda Glenn and Janet Traylor of Hamilton, Mo., and Regina Burge of Jamesport, Mo. — would not comment.
A 2005 investigation by The Kansas City Star showed that, between April 2003 and October 2005, at least seven people reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at Thayer to the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office.
A state investigative report obtained by The Star said “it appears that those responsible for the safety … of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment.”
In a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in 2005, Roberto’s parents alleged that the teenager would have lived had he received competent medical care in a timely manner and that he was dragged, hit, placed in solitary confinement and “forced to lay in his own excrement for extended periods” of time.
In court filings, Thayer denied those and other allegations. The two sides settled in March 2006 for slightly more than $1 million.
To reach Steve Rock, call 816-234-4338
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Girl Who Overdosed at KidsPeace Dies
May 3, 2008
By Jeanne Bonner and Veronica Torrejón
themorningcall.com
Girl Who OD'd Dies
She and another girl allegedly took stolen methadone from counselor. Second teen faces tough recovery, her uncle says. One of two teenage girls who overdosed on methadone that one of them allegedly stole from a counselor at a KidsPeace group home died Friday.
Katherine Rice, 16, was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. in Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim said. He would not give the cause of death, saying an autopsy will be done Sunday.
It was the third unnatural death in the last 15 years at KidsPeace, of North Whitehall Township.
State police are investigating the overdoses, which happened April 17 at the KidsPeace home in Saylorsburg. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare closed admissions to the home while it is investigating how the teens got the pills and why the counselor had them.
On Tuesday, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families suspended referrals to KidsPeace pending the results of the inquiry.
Rice had been in critical condition since the overdose, but the nature of her injuries or illness was unknown.
The surviving girl, also 16, is recovering at LVH and faces a long battle to regain motor and cognitive skills lost as a result of the overdose, her uncle, Don Ramirez, said Friday. Ramirez, who lives in West Virginia, said her arm is paralyzed and she has blood clots.
''She's doing well, given everything that has happened,'' he said.
Ramirez, who said he works with developmentally disabled people, said he took issue with previous statements by KidsPeace spokesman Mark Stubis about counselors using narcotics. Stubis has said the nonprofit agency's investigation showed the counselor was legally prescribed methadone for pain relief.
''He is essentially saying they were allowing a staff person on a narcotic to not only supervise the kids but transport them,'' Ramirez said. ''I just found that extremely disturbing.''
Asked to respond, Stubis said more and more people with severe pain are getting prescriptions for methadone. He said the counselor, who is on paid administrative leave, has chronic pain because of a back injury.
Stubis said KidsPeace is reviewing its policies and awaiting the results of the police investigation, but it's unclear if the agency will change any procedures. He said KidsPeace believes the overdoses were ''an isolated incident in one small program in the Poconos.'' He expressed sadness over Rice's death. ''This is really hard for us,'' he said. ''It is heartbreaking that both could not be saved.''
Stubis would not say how long Rice had been at the group home, which now houses seven teens. Grim, the coroner, said her mother lives in the Saratoga Springs area of New York. The Pennsylvania investigation is expected to conclude in the coming weeks, welfare department spokeswoman Ann Bale said Friday.
While awaiting those results, no New Jersey referrals will be made to KidsPeace, said Kate Bernyk, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Children and Families. She said neither of the girls involved in the incident was referred by New Jersey.
State police at Lehighton are continuing to investigate the overdoses and had nothing new to report Friday, Trooper Jamie Sgarlat said.
KidsPeace came under fire in 1993 when 12-year-old Jason Tallman of Barnegat, N.J., died while being restrained, and again in 1998 when 14-year-old Mark Draheim of Pelican Island, N.J., also died while being restrained.
After each of the deaths, KidsPeace adopted a new restraint method to reduce the risk of suffocation. Tallman and Draheim both died of suffocation.
KidsPeace has been trying to rebound from a tough year. The number of youths at the KidsPeace main campus fell after the Pennsylvania welfare department closed admissions last September.
With admissions down, KidsPeace had to lay off 79 workers and slash its $170 million budget by $20 million.
By Jeanne Bonner and Veronica Torrejón
themorningcall.com
Girl Who OD'd Dies
She and another girl allegedly took stolen methadone from counselor. Second teen faces tough recovery, her uncle says. One of two teenage girls who overdosed on methadone that one of them allegedly stole from a counselor at a KidsPeace group home died Friday.
Katherine Rice, 16, was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. in Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim said. He would not give the cause of death, saying an autopsy will be done Sunday.
It was the third unnatural death in the last 15 years at KidsPeace, of North Whitehall Township.
State police are investigating the overdoses, which happened April 17 at the KidsPeace home in Saylorsburg. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare closed admissions to the home while it is investigating how the teens got the pills and why the counselor had them.
On Tuesday, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families suspended referrals to KidsPeace pending the results of the inquiry.
Rice had been in critical condition since the overdose, but the nature of her injuries or illness was unknown.
The surviving girl, also 16, is recovering at LVH and faces a long battle to regain motor and cognitive skills lost as a result of the overdose, her uncle, Don Ramirez, said Friday. Ramirez, who lives in West Virginia, said her arm is paralyzed and she has blood clots.
''She's doing well, given everything that has happened,'' he said.
Ramirez, who said he works with developmentally disabled people, said he took issue with previous statements by KidsPeace spokesman Mark Stubis about counselors using narcotics. Stubis has said the nonprofit agency's investigation showed the counselor was legally prescribed methadone for pain relief.
''He is essentially saying they were allowing a staff person on a narcotic to not only supervise the kids but transport them,'' Ramirez said. ''I just found that extremely disturbing.''
Asked to respond, Stubis said more and more people with severe pain are getting prescriptions for methadone. He said the counselor, who is on paid administrative leave, has chronic pain because of a back injury.
Stubis said KidsPeace is reviewing its policies and awaiting the results of the police investigation, but it's unclear if the agency will change any procedures. He said KidsPeace believes the overdoses were ''an isolated incident in one small program in the Poconos.'' He expressed sadness over Rice's death. ''This is really hard for us,'' he said. ''It is heartbreaking that both could not be saved.''
Stubis would not say how long Rice had been at the group home, which now houses seven teens. Grim, the coroner, said her mother lives in the Saratoga Springs area of New York. The Pennsylvania investigation is expected to conclude in the coming weeks, welfare department spokeswoman Ann Bale said Friday.
While awaiting those results, no New Jersey referrals will be made to KidsPeace, said Kate Bernyk, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Children and Families. She said neither of the girls involved in the incident was referred by New Jersey.
State police at Lehighton are continuing to investigate the overdoses and had nothing new to report Friday, Trooper Jamie Sgarlat said.
KidsPeace came under fire in 1993 when 12-year-old Jason Tallman of Barnegat, N.J., died while being restrained, and again in 1998 when 14-year-old Mark Draheim of Pelican Island, N.J., also died while being restrained.
After each of the deaths, KidsPeace adopted a new restraint method to reduce the risk of suffocation. Tallman and Draheim both died of suffocation.
KidsPeace has been trying to rebound from a tough year. The number of youths at the KidsPeace main campus fell after the Pennsylvania welfare department closed admissions last September.
With admissions down, KidsPeace had to lay off 79 workers and slash its $170 million budget by $20 million.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Congressional Hearing on Child Abuse and Deceptive Advertising in Private Teen Treatment Programs
COMPLETE VIDEO LIBRARY: CLICK HERE
Teen Abuse Hearing: Jon Martin-Crawford
Teen Abuse Hearing: Chairman George Miller Q&A
Teen Abuse Hearing: Chairman George Miller 2
Teen Abuse Hearing: Christopher Bellonci, MD
Teen Abuse Hearing: Kay Brown
Teen Abuse Hearing: Kathryn Whitehead
Teen Abuse Hearing: Greg Kutz (Part 1 of 2)
Teen Abuse Hearing: Greg Kutz (Part 2 of 2)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Dog bites, nooses: Teen camp abuses laid out
Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP
Investigator Greg Kutz told lawmakers last fall that there were thousands of allegations of abuse in teen residential programs, including boot camps, wilderness camps and therapeutic boarding schools.
updated 1:56 p.m. PT, Thurs., April. 24, 2008
MSNBC LINK
WASHINGTON - During an emotional hearing in the House on Thursday, lawmakers and witnesses likened the treatment of teens in youth boot camps to the kind of torture faced by prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Investigators uncovered cases in which a program employee's pit bull was trained to bite students in the groin and where teens had bags placed over their heads and nooses slipped around their necks, testified Greg Kutz, who has led an investigation into youth residential programs for the federal Government Accountability Office.
"It's hard to believe that people would do this to somebody else's child," said a visibly angry Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Miller, chairman of the House education committee, introduced legislation this week to prevent such abuses and boost oversight of boot camps.
Such programs also are commonly referred to as residential treatment facilities, behavior modification programs or therapeutic boarding schools. The programs are typically loosely regulated by states.
There are no federal laws that define and regulate them.
Deceptive marketing alleged
Kutz said Thursday that the programs use deceptive marketing practices when trying to persuade parents of troubled youngsters to enter the programs.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, made undercover calls to programs and referral services that work with them. Kutz played a recording of such a call in which a referral service employee advised an investigator posing as a father to hide information about a residential facility from his wife.
The referral agency representative warned the caller that his wife might "freak out" about sending her daughter to such a program and said: "I want you to tell her that it's a college prep boarding school ... If she thinks that you want to send her daughter to a place where there are drug addicts and people that are all screwed up, she will look at you and say 'no way.'"
Misleading investigators?
Kutz also testified that a Texas wilderness program representative misled investigators about whether a trade group inspected the facility and whether the program was covered by health insurance.
When asked about insurance, the program representative "emphasized that we should not call ahead of time to seek pre-approval, because then we would be 'up the creek,'" Kutz said. In fact, experts told investigators that insurers actually could require pre-approval before mental health services are provided.
The House hearing was a follow-up to one last fall in which Kutz told lawmakers the GAO uncovered thousands of allegations of abuse, some of which involved death, at residential programs since the early 1990s.
On Thursday, the agency detailed eight separate cases in which teens were abused or died at residential programs. Investigators found that ineffective management and operating practices and untrained staff contributed to the deaths or abuse.
Criminal charges were only brought in two cases, and only one resulted in minimal jail time, Kutz said. In one case, a 16-year-old with asthma and chronic bronchitis complained of chest pain and breathing problems, but his complaints were dismissed by program staff at an Arizona boot camp. The boy ended up dying from empyema, a condition in which pus accumulated in his chest. An autopsy found more than 70 injuries, including some from blunt force, on the boy's body.
In another case, a 12-year-old boy died of suffocation at a Texas facility after being restrained and forced to lie on the floor face down.
Account of forced confession
Witnesses at the hearing included adults who had been in residential treatment facilities when they were children. "I was not allowed to speak with my family for months after I arrived, and calls thereafter were monitored. Any criticisms were labeled as manipulative and my phone call was promptly disconnected, followed by punishment," recalled Kathryn Whitehead, who attended the Mission Mountain School in Montana.
Jon Martin-Crawford, who attended the Family Foundation School in Hancock, N.Y., said the school staff made him confess to things he didn't do to convince his parents he needed to be there.
Martin-Crawford said the abuse he experienced a decade ago continues to haunt him. "The nightmares and psychological scars of being dragged from your home to a place in the middle of nowhere, restrained in blankets and duct tape, assaulted, verbally and physically ... those scars and that trauma will never go away," he said.
Miller's legislation focuses on private programs, which are the least regulated, and which serve tens of thousands of kids, according to congressional estimates. The bill would require that staff at such facilities be trained in understanding what constitutes child abuse and neglect and how to report it.
Programs also would be required to disclose to parents the qualifications, roles and responsibilities of staff members. The federal Department of Health and Human Services also would have to inspect such programs.
Fed Report Points Out Problems With Some Therapy Programs
Fed report points out problems with some therapy programs
By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret News Published: April 24, 2008
WASHINGTON — Boot camp therapy companies use deceptive practices in getting parents to enroll troubled teens in programs where they can end up abused and neglected, the Government Accountability Office has found.
The findings come at the same time House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller introduced the "Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008," designed to create federal oversight of wilderness therapy programs, also known as therapeutic boarding schools, boot camps and behavior modification facilities.
At a committee hearing Thursday, Gregory Kutz, GAO's managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, said the most recent investigation looked at eight closed cases of abuse or death, including abuse at the Whitmore Academy in Utah in November 2004. GAO found that "ineffective management and operating practices, in addition to untrained staff, contributed to the death and abuse of youth enrolled in selected programs."
Kutz told stories of teenagers being forced to lie face down on red ant hills, being bitten by pit bulls, being forced to endure extreme physical endurance tests in 120 degree heat and other abuse. Kutz also said GAO found "examples of deceptive marketing and questionable practices in certain industry programs and services" after calling 14 programs with fictitious parents looking for information for fictitious children.
He played audio tapes of phone calls made to certain wilderness programs. One excerpt included a woman at a referral service telling the GAO caller to tell his wife that this was a "college prep boarding school," because she might "freak out" if she thought the caller wanted to send his daughter to a place "where there are drug addicts and people that are all screwed up."
Another example had a referral agent recommend a particular program to GAO because "the bipolar, the depression, those kinds of things, they just go away after a while" when the participants follow a special whole-grain diet and exercise program.
There were other examples of conflicts of interest, as one referral service kept directing participants to a Missouri boot camp that it owned. Other examples showed misleading information on health insurance reimbursement or encouraging tax fraud through charitable donations.
Thursday's hearing was a follow-up to one the committee held in October at which GAO released a report outlining 10 cases where teenagers died in such programs, including five deaths in Utah.
Within the next few weeks, GAO will release a separate study looking at gaps in state and federal oversight at these camps, said Kay Brown, GAO direction of Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues.
GAO found that Utah is home to more than 25 percent of registered wilderness programs in the United States. Miller and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., head of the Healthy Families and Communities Subcommittee, call for more federal oversight in their bill, including unannounced site visits by the Health and Human Services Department at least once every two years, civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation and allowing parents to sue in federal court if a program violates the law.
The bill prohibits any physical or mental abuse, prohibits unneeded physical restraint and would require emergency medical care plans. The bill also requires the programs to disclose the roles and responsibilities of all staff members, inform parents of any prior violations of child abuse or health and safety laws and give a Web site link to the Health and Human Services Department, which would maintain a database of all programs. It also would set up a hotline to report abuse.
"We have an obligation to keep kids safe no matter what setting they are in, and this legislation would take the first step toward finally ending the horrific abuses that have gone on for too long in private residential programs for teens," Miller said. "We know that there are many programs and many people around the country who are committed to helping improve the lives of young people and who do good work every day, but it is difficult for parents to tell the good programs from the bad."
---------------
SEE ALSO:
HR 5876
Keeping Kids Safe: The Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008
GAO REPORT
RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMS: Selected Cases of Death, Abuse, and Deceptive Marketing
DEATHS OF CHILDREN IN PRIVATE YOUTH PROGRAMS
"HOLY THE CHILDREN MEMORIAL"
By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret News Published: April 24, 2008
WASHINGTON — Boot camp therapy companies use deceptive practices in getting parents to enroll troubled teens in programs where they can end up abused and neglected, the Government Accountability Office has found.
The findings come at the same time House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller introduced the "Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008," designed to create federal oversight of wilderness therapy programs, also known as therapeutic boarding schools, boot camps and behavior modification facilities.
At a committee hearing Thursday, Gregory Kutz, GAO's managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, said the most recent investigation looked at eight closed cases of abuse or death, including abuse at the Whitmore Academy in Utah in November 2004. GAO found that "ineffective management and operating practices, in addition to untrained staff, contributed to the death and abuse of youth enrolled in selected programs."
Kutz told stories of teenagers being forced to lie face down on red ant hills, being bitten by pit bulls, being forced to endure extreme physical endurance tests in 120 degree heat and other abuse. Kutz also said GAO found "examples of deceptive marketing and questionable practices in certain industry programs and services" after calling 14 programs with fictitious parents looking for information for fictitious children.
He played audio tapes of phone calls made to certain wilderness programs. One excerpt included a woman at a referral service telling the GAO caller to tell his wife that this was a "college prep boarding school," because she might "freak out" if she thought the caller wanted to send his daughter to a place "where there are drug addicts and people that are all screwed up."
Another example had a referral agent recommend a particular program to GAO because "the bipolar, the depression, those kinds of things, they just go away after a while" when the participants follow a special whole-grain diet and exercise program.
There were other examples of conflicts of interest, as one referral service kept directing participants to a Missouri boot camp that it owned. Other examples showed misleading information on health insurance reimbursement or encouraging tax fraud through charitable donations.
Thursday's hearing was a follow-up to one the committee held in October at which GAO released a report outlining 10 cases where teenagers died in such programs, including five deaths in Utah.
Within the next few weeks, GAO will release a separate study looking at gaps in state and federal oversight at these camps, said Kay Brown, GAO direction of Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues.
GAO found that Utah is home to more than 25 percent of registered wilderness programs in the United States. Miller and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., head of the Healthy Families and Communities Subcommittee, call for more federal oversight in their bill, including unannounced site visits by the Health and Human Services Department at least once every two years, civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation and allowing parents to sue in federal court if a program violates the law.
The bill prohibits any physical or mental abuse, prohibits unneeded physical restraint and would require emergency medical care plans. The bill also requires the programs to disclose the roles and responsibilities of all staff members, inform parents of any prior violations of child abuse or health and safety laws and give a Web site link to the Health and Human Services Department, which would maintain a database of all programs. It also would set up a hotline to report abuse.
"We have an obligation to keep kids safe no matter what setting they are in, and this legislation would take the first step toward finally ending the horrific abuses that have gone on for too long in private residential programs for teens," Miller said. "We know that there are many programs and many people around the country who are committed to helping improve the lives of young people and who do good work every day, but it is difficult for parents to tell the good programs from the bad."
---------------
SEE ALSO:
HR 5876
Keeping Kids Safe: The Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008
GAO REPORT
RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMS: Selected Cases of Death, Abuse, and Deceptive Marketing
DEATHS OF CHILDREN IN PRIVATE YOUTH PROGRAMS
"HOLY THE CHILDREN MEMORIAL"
Press Release: Reps Miller & McCarthy Introduce Legislation to Stop Child Abuse in Teen Residential Programs
Reps. Miller, McCarthy Introduce Legislation to Stop Child Abuse in Teen Residential Programs Witnesses Tell Education Committee of Cases of Abuse, Deceptive Marketing by Programs Nationwide
Thursday, April 24, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC -- Teenagers attending private residential programs would gain new protections against physical, mental, and sexual abuse under legislation announced today by U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). An unknown number of private programs continue to operate free of government oversight.
“There is a nationwide epidemic of abuse and neglect of children at privately-run residential programs,” said Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “In too many cases, we have seen this abuse and neglect lead to the most horrific outcomes imaginable: the deaths of children at the hands of the very people entrusted with their care. We have an obligation to keep kids safe no matter what setting they are in.”
“When parents send their kids to privately-run residential treatment facilities, they deserve to know that – at a bare minimum – these programs will be held accountable for their children’s safety and well-being,” said McCarthy, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities. “It is absolutely critical that we make sure that children are kept safe when attending these privately operated facilities and that families are protected from any misleading marketing schemes programs use to draw them in.”
The lawmakers announced the legislation on the same day that they heard testimony from investigators with the Government Accountability Office about the deceptive marketing practices and other shady schemes that many teen residential programs use to lure vulnerable parents desperate to find help for their children.
Through undercover work, the GAO investigators found programs that counseled parents their services would be covered by health insurance when, in fact, they likely are not covered; programs that said they offered transferable education credits when, in fact, they did not; and programs that said they were subject to independent inspections when, in fact, they are not. The GAO recorded the false assertions on audiotape.
The GAO investigators also presented details of eight cases of child abuse and neglect at teen residential programs, including four resulting in death. Two of the programs where deaths occurred continue to operate today.
The committee also heard testimony from two individuals who experienced abuse when they attended residential programs as teenagers.
The Miller-McCarthy legislation (H.R. 5876) would require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish minimum health and safety standards for private residential programs for teens. It would require HHS to inspect all programs around the country at least once every two years and to issue penalties against programs that violate the standards.
Among other things, the legislation would create a toll-free national hotline for individuals to report cases of abuse. It would require programs to provide children with adequate food, water, medical care, and rest. And to create transparency to help parents make safe choices for their children, it would require, among other things, that programs inform parents of their staff members’ qualifications, roles, and responsibilities.
It is estimated that at least 20,000 U.S. teenagers attend residential programs, including therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps, boot camps, and behavior modification facilities. Parents send their children to the programs in hopes of addressing their kids’ behavioral problems, such as substance abuse, as well as mental illnesses.
For more information on the Miller-McCarthy legislation, click here.
To watch video of today's hearing, click here.
For information on the first hearing held October 10, 2007, including video testimony of parents whose children lost their lives in a private treatment program due to abuse, neglect and/or maltreatment, click here
See Also:
TEEN ADVOCATES USA MEDIA ROOM
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Thursday, April 24, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC -- Teenagers attending private residential programs would gain new protections against physical, mental, and sexual abuse under legislation announced today by U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). An unknown number of private programs continue to operate free of government oversight.
“There is a nationwide epidemic of abuse and neglect of children at privately-run residential programs,” said Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “In too many cases, we have seen this abuse and neglect lead to the most horrific outcomes imaginable: the deaths of children at the hands of the very people entrusted with their care. We have an obligation to keep kids safe no matter what setting they are in.”
“When parents send their kids to privately-run residential treatment facilities, they deserve to know that – at a bare minimum – these programs will be held accountable for their children’s safety and well-being,” said McCarthy, chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities. “It is absolutely critical that we make sure that children are kept safe when attending these privately operated facilities and that families are protected from any misleading marketing schemes programs use to draw them in.”
The lawmakers announced the legislation on the same day that they heard testimony from investigators with the Government Accountability Office about the deceptive marketing practices and other shady schemes that many teen residential programs use to lure vulnerable parents desperate to find help for their children.
Through undercover work, the GAO investigators found programs that counseled parents their services would be covered by health insurance when, in fact, they likely are not covered; programs that said they offered transferable education credits when, in fact, they did not; and programs that said they were subject to independent inspections when, in fact, they are not. The GAO recorded the false assertions on audiotape.
The GAO investigators also presented details of eight cases of child abuse and neglect at teen residential programs, including four resulting in death. Two of the programs where deaths occurred continue to operate today.
The committee also heard testimony from two individuals who experienced abuse when they attended residential programs as teenagers.
The Miller-McCarthy legislation (H.R. 5876) would require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish minimum health and safety standards for private residential programs for teens. It would require HHS to inspect all programs around the country at least once every two years and to issue penalties against programs that violate the standards.
Among other things, the legislation would create a toll-free national hotline for individuals to report cases of abuse. It would require programs to provide children with adequate food, water, medical care, and rest. And to create transparency to help parents make safe choices for their children, it would require, among other things, that programs inform parents of their staff members’ qualifications, roles, and responsibilities.
It is estimated that at least 20,000 U.S. teenagers attend residential programs, including therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps, boot camps, and behavior modification facilities. Parents send their children to the programs in hopes of addressing their kids’ behavioral problems, such as substance abuse, as well as mental illnesses.
For more information on the Miller-McCarthy legislation, click here.
To watch video of today's hearing, click here.
For information on the first hearing held October 10, 2007, including video testimony of parents whose children lost their lives in a private treatment program due to abuse, neglect and/or maltreatment, click here
See Also:
TEEN ADVOCATES USA MEDIA ROOM
...
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