Sunday, December 20, 2015

Dangerous wilderness programs used in custody cases

A custody case attracted national and international attention when Judge Gorcyca threw 3 children in juvenile detention because they didn't want to be with their father who they claim where abusive.

Now the story get even more bizarre. One of the children were sent to a wilderness program and the father hasn't been fully committed in working with the therapists the court appointed.

Wilderness programs are often private-run programs who you can hire to conduct so-called therapy based on what you are willing to pay for. It might not be in the best interest of the child because there are very little oversight into what kind of operation these wilderness programs run.

Secondly it is among the most deadly types of therapy you can expose minors to. Opposite adults the minors cannot leave the program and too often they cause the death of minors in them.

Just last year late 2014 a teenager froze to death in North Carolina.

Lately a girl had a close call when she became separated from her group in Tennessee. She was unable to walk out of the woods and ended up in hospital.

It is asking for a tragedy to happen accepting that this child to leave the home state in order to attend a wilderness program. How far will the justice system go putting these children at risk? It is not a question of judging whether the father or the mother is the best parent. It is a question whether the court orders the parents to use neutral therapist hired and paid by the court to work the case where the kids started to live instead of splitting them up and putting them at risk.

Divorce can be a testing period for everyone especially the children but the court should not make it more difficult by putting the children in jail or allowing them to be exposed to untested and dangerous therapy methods they will be emotional damaged by the rest of their lives.

Source:
Tsimhoni custody case deteriorates (Communities Digital News LLC)

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Carlbrook closes

Carlbrook School which was founded based on the twisted teachings of the CEDU-chain which closed due to threat of lawsuits in 2005 closed its doors this week. Now the students can return home a start to work to heal the emotional scar this line of teachings inflicted upon them. Some families didn't get their sons home. Forest Ferguson and Joshua Clay Inscoe are stilling missing. Ferguson left the school in 2010, Inscoe in 2012 and their families have still not heard from either of them.

If it was not for the students who got their emotional lives destroyed it could have been fun to research more into how the religious cult like praying of Synanon was developed into so-called therapy. The furniture reseller who founded CEDU was a long-time member of Synanon. It was persons from CEDU who took the initiative to found Carlbrook.

It is hard to understand why it took so many years to close Carlbrook. Why did parents continue to enroll their children at the school when the Internet is filled with testimonies from former students providing a picture of how Carlbrook messed their minds up? Did they trust educational consultants so much that they failed to investigate what the outcome could be?

Maybe. It is time to focus on the role educational consultants have in sending vulnerable teenagers to places where they are put in danger or exposed to methods which would hurt them disguised as therapy.

The fact is: Education consultants receive referral fees from the owners of the programs and school they refer students to. The extent of these referral fees are not known but they exist and various source place them in size almost as close to the amounts parents pay which make people question if the recommendations the educational consultants give are in the interest of the child or the interest of their pockets.

The troubled teen industry needs more overview. The flow of money between transport firms, residential programs and educational consultants is unclear. Some school districts have observed this and there are many cases all over the United States where parents sue the school districts based on the poor advice of private firms aiming at profit.

Money kept Carlbrook operational for too many years. It finally closed but there are still many places out there operating just like Carlbrook paying educational consultants money for referrals to their programs and schools.

Please help organizations like HEAL-online and similar in their work to close these programs down. Every voice makes a difference.


Sources:

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Now 400 posts on the blog "1000 places you don't want to be as a teenager"

You can ask yourselves how many months and years it would take to make 1.000 posts about places no child should go as a teenager. Sadly the answer to this question is: Too few years!

It has not taken 6 people a decade to make 400 posts.

I admire their work.

Of course many of the places they mention are the same as we have in our wiki.

But they are not the same.

We don't have the resources as they have.

We wish we had.

However there shouldn't be a need for such a blog. Children should be treated with dignity when they need treatment. Is is not the case and that is the reason such a blog is needed.

Wish them God's speed. They are doing a good job.



Source:
1000 places you don't want to be as a teenager

Monday, November 30, 2015

Riot at Copper Hills Youth Center

The journalist Lyn Duff battled during her teenage years to be allowed to live the life she wanted. Her choice of partner didn't suit her mother and she was sent to a treatment center in Utah where she was forced to smell ammonia to learn her the right choice of a partner. She escaped and with legal help she got the life she wanted.

Years later the residential treatment center now operating under a different name is the in news again. A riot is the reason.

Comments show a understaffed facility with toxic mix of youth.

Fact is that no treatment center in the world can fix every issue. A treatment center needs to focus. It needs to specialize. It is costly but if corners are cut a dangerous mix of minors can be put together and either employees or the children will be hurt.

Of course there are also some who never should be put in treatment programs. Children with addiction should never be put in treatment programs involuntary unless the entire family is sent there for a short stay so they can prepare their roles as addicts and relatives to addicts. People cannot fix issues they don't acknowledge. It also goes for children. If addicts are sent to place involuntary it becomes a holding place and the minute the addict is released to the society the risk of relapse is high.

If you check out deaths involving addicts they often happen shortly after leaving the treatment center.

The treatment center claiming to have the higest rate of successes either keep the addicts in semi-confinement or sober living communities where they cannot afford to leave from creating a kind of cult environment.

Copper Hills Youth Center is a "we take them all" treatment center. It has a history of incidents where employees and children were hurt. It should have been shut down years ago for the sake of both employees and children.

It had another name while Lyn Duff was confined in it but the mismanagement seems to have continued.

Hopefully the riot will force the authorities to close it down.

Source:
10 teens arrested in riot at youth treatment center (Desert News)

Thursday, November 5, 2015

When will the next death happen

The blog "Today a child died" already have more than 100 entries. An entry covers the tragedy of an individual child sent to a residential treatment program.

It can be a wilderness program. It can be a boarding school. It can be a residential treatment center or a juvenile detention center.

In each case the child didn't make it out.

Most deaths were caused by restraints. A number of employees jumps the child officially to stop the child from hurting another child or the child itself. The child is crushed to death slowly. Sometimes it takes more than 15 minutes to die. What goes through the mind of the child while every breath means one more step towards death is not to explain.

Other deaths are caused by heath, malnutrition, cold and infections. It is often something which occur in wilderness programs. Reality television shows like Brat Camp made this kind of therapy look safe. It is far from the case. Even trained wilderness people lose their lives from time to time. The nature can be non-forgiving. A small mistake can mean the difference between life and death.

Then there are children who dies from illnesses which could have been treated easily in hospitals. The problem is that the employees believe that the child tries to manipulate them. Often there also is a cost issue because many programs exist to make profit so they hire employees who even didn't graduate high school. They may hire nurses and doctors to drop by. But how should it be possible for poorly educated employees and hired medical staff to evaluate children regarding illness without the resources of a hospital.

Last but not least there are cases where the children should have been on suicide watch and they were left on their own.

Facilities like Liahona Academy in Virgin, Utah, Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane, Utah are among those who have lost children in their care. They continue to operate like nothing happened.

That is why it is important for both parents but also the extended family to research the treatment options considered. Educational consultants, local sheriff departments, local departments of social services often looks more at referreal fees and local jobs than security of the children in treatment.

The advocates of a child cannot be economically dependent of the facilities and programs. There is a need for federal oversight and federal rules. A number of states have forbidden a number of treatment programs but we are still waiting for federal rules.

"Today a child died" is sadly only one out of several blogs covering this area. More and more countries join the sad statitics having a need for such a blog. You can find links for a number of countries on the blog.

Source:
Today a child died

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

They continue to find bodies (Dozier School for boys)

When they started to investigate the graves at the former reform school, they expected to locate around 30-40 children. Until now they have found the remains of 55. If the exact number of victims is ever known is hard to say. Fact is that there also were boys who were found dead outside the facility.

Children who might either have committed suicide due to the harsh condition or children who were murdered because they were considered criminals the society could not turn around.

Now where we now that some had interest in hiding matters, it is time to look at our own state. Could something similar happen here?

Yes, it could.

In Denmark everyone can search on "Godhavn", which was a terrible place before the early 1970's where the authorities quickly but discreetly retired the management and the employees to avoid a criminal investigation.

Everybody can read about "Skorpeskolen" a boarding school which had teachers doing improper personal activities with the boys. A teacher died in a car accident where the faulty brakes might have been worked on by some of the boys but the authorities didn't investigate because some knew that the truth could come out.

There are many more secrets but will we learn them? In Denmark the parliament has closed the door to the past. In Florida they have opened it. Denmark might learn something here. What about your state?



Sources:
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