Uannouced visits is often not enough. Replace the staff who does the work can be an improvement

In Denmark, residential programs are visited by audit teams. They come unannouced. The reason for this method is to prevent the residential programs to arrange deals with the teenagers in treatment so they either is not in the facility during the audit or they get something in return for describing the facility as fine and dandy.

But a recent case shows that the employees who do the audits also should be given different facilities to audit so the management of the facility cannot befriend certain employees at the audit teams so the reports are altered to be perfect instead of pointing out the conditions which need to be fixed or improved.

The social services pay for most of the treatment programs in Denmark. It is the taxpayers who suffer when money is wasted.

And the recent years despite improvements have shown overexpenses which is money wasted on treatment program of poor quality or even illegal treatment programs which have not been approved.

In some cases, teenagers were sent to Sweden or Norway, which is illegal and totally against the laws in Denmark. Money were paid and while the treatment program was shut down, the taxpayers need answers to who approved the payments. Some teamleaders need prosecution but the system lack interest in doing so. How can we then prevent a similar situation from happening in the future?

A foster mom was paid 3 times the appropiate sum of money. She often was on holiday and let the teenager alone back home. Who approved this and why was the case-worker or the accountant not held responsible?

The Tvind organization where the leaders are wanted men by the state prosecution continue to run their empire from their private city in Mexico where they control the authorities so they cannot be extradited to Denmark. Over the entire Denmark many departments of social services continue to send children to the facilities they control. How can this happen? Should they not stop this traffic until the management of Tvind gives up and come back to face the justice they deserve?

On of their facilities "Småskolen Ved Nakkebølle Fjord" got nice reviews until the audit team were changed. Suddenly new eyes on the conditions changed the reviews. Now they had to fix a lot of things.

The facility changed the management. One person got a new job. The managers at Tvind rotate whenever criticism get bad. It is enough for the audit system it seems. Because then a number of years can go by before things to bad again and they have to rotate again. It is a never ending story with no real improvements for the children.

If we look at the work, various human rights organizations have lobbied for over the last decades, the conditions for the children in treatment have gotten better. The employees can no longer confiscate cell phones because the children need them so they can call the help hotline, the state has made. Also Internet access is mandated mostly because the public school system is now run with books and lesson put on the Internet, so without Internet Access it is impossible to make homework.

However it seems that treatment programs sometime fly under the radar. 60 days in prison suspended for a male counselor having sex with a 15 year old girl is too short a sentence according to our opinion. It can be done better.

So we will continue to feed human rights organizations in Denmark with news we find so conditions for the children placed in treatment homes can be improved.

It is our money. We who goes to work every single day and pay taxes shall see our money be put to work in a way which improves the lives of the children in placement. Nothing less can satisfy us. Period !

Sources:

• Tvind Alert
• 448. Gøgereden (1000 places You don't want to be as a teenager - It is sadly not fiction but reality)

A conviction with far reaching consequences

In relationship with the dragon boat accident involving teachers and students from Lundby Efterskole the court in Nykøbing Falster has now handed down convictions.

The court fined the boarding school 25 separate fines of DKK 10,000. The accident resulted in the death of one teacher and injury to many of the students after their body temperatures dropped as low as 15 degrees. One of the students is still hospitalized and has lost the ability to speak or swallow.

The headmaster of the school got a sentence of 60 days of prison suspended. He was also banned from teaching activities on the water for 3 years.

The last past is rather interesting as the trial showed that the headmaster was abroad while the accident took place and outsourced the teaching on the water to the deceased teacher who was a former elite officer from the Royal Danish Navy. Whether the school has to refrain from activities on water while the headmaster has his job or the school can continue to conduct such activities outsourcing the teaching to another teacher is disputed so maybe the conviction will be appealed.

However, regardless of the dispute the conviction has resulted in far reaching consequences for the entire boarding school business in Denmark. The reaching for taking the students out that day was to push the students out of their comfort zone. To enable that the students had to experience discomfort and in this particular case a near death experience.

The court’s ruling is a full stop for introducing emotional growth as part of the teaching in boarding schools and also in day schools. The schools have already made press releases that they will stop activities that would push students out of their comfort zone due to this ruling. You have to conclude that while many wants to collect payment from parents and school districts none wants to take responsibility when the activities inevitable go wrong.

And they will. Deaths in Denmark as well as abroad show that wilderness expeditions and outdoor activities will lead to the death of minors when the goal is emotional growth. Deaths are inevitable because no teacher or instructor has the full picture of the student’s emotional and physical history at hand when the students are ordered to do an activity.

Records of deaths at boarding schools, in wilderness programs and any other outdoor activity are now being recorded as they happened due to the wish of guardians and teachers trying to push the individual student out of his or her comfort zone. And the numbers are not few.

The accident involving this dragon boat could have meant the loss of the lives for several students if one student hadn’t swam ashore and ran barefooted for mile because the boat had to radio or other kind of communication equipment. It took 90 minutes before the authorities were alerted. So it is only luck combined with a heroic effort from the students which prevented a tragedy beyond imagination and a doubling of the victim list for Denmark.

So this case had become a teaching tool for parents. You cannot send your child to a boarding school expecting emotional growth without knowing that it could mean risking the life of your child. Not even taken into account that the boarding school association in Denmark has made a press release that they will stop the most dangerous activities. Because where is the limit. Until this incident the rules wasn’t clear regarding boating activities. New rules were introduced after this incident. We have to ask. This was stricter rules regarding water activities. What about the other activities?

Are the safety precautions in sports taken? What about activities along the roads? Many students are from cities where bicycles and cars never meet.

Last but least: Do the teachers know what they are dealing with when they decide what the comfort zone of the students is? They are not educated counselors. They are teachers. In 1994 the Danish government decided that not everyone should be allowed to call themselves psychologists without education which had been the case before this year. Today even group homes dealing with the most troubled youth call themselves psychotherapist which is a title everyone can take in Denmark unchallenged. It is due to the cost running these places. Psychologists are too expensive to hire when we are talking of troubled youth.

The teachers at these boarding schools are doing tasks which would require the assistance of psychologists if we were talking about adults being forced through the same exercises, but when we are talking of students then everyone finds it acceptable that a simple teacher does this job.

Do the teachers realize that they are opening Pandora’s box at some students when they push the students out of their comfort zone?

Even if they were successful with damaging the students, will it benefit the students in the long run? It is not certain. We all remember the famous writer H.C. Andersen. In the end of one of his book a duckling finds out that he is a swan. Many of the students attending these boarding schools enter with a luggage based on a mixture of their social heritage and the upbringing their parents provided them with.

What if they are made to believe that they are swans and decide to reach out for the highest jobs based on that belief? Fact is that it would end poorly for them because Denmark is a society where people choose a line of living and education based on their social heritage. It is a both sensitive and vulnerable society. The development the last 30 years in Denmark has showed that areas where people enter Denmark believing that they don’t have to develop their family over generations from low-income jobs to high-income positions end up being in trouble with the law when they so to say try to skip generations aiming for the highest positions.

So teaching emotional growth can be damaging for the students when they are destined to serve in ordinary jobs by birth. That is why this ruling can be positive for not only future students but the entire society.

Last year 8 schools closed because the parents are realizing the dangers of these schools. Not only when tragedies like the Dragon Boat accident happened but more general when the students return from an enclosed world believing that the swan status has been reached only to discover that isolated in the real world on the lessons learned are unreal. We don’t need that kind of frustration. We need that each and every youth learn to function based on the resources they have been taught at home and not at some emotional growth exercise.

Source:

• Convictions handed down in boating tragedy (The Copenhagen Post)
• Svigtet da behovet var der (Victim list for Denmark - In Danish)

Teen Challenge also present in Denmark

The Danish market for alcohol and drug rehab are without any governmental control. The two Danish television stations have uncovered both religious influence and in some cases even fraud against public funds aimed at helping people in need.

One of the larger firms in the United States - Teen Challenge - is now confirmed to be operating inside Denmark.

We urge the authorities in Denmark to observe the nature of such religious treatment facilities very carefully.

Sources:
Behind the walls - Teen Challenge exposed
Teen Challenge category, Fornits Wiki
Global Teen Challenge - Starting with letter D
60 procent af narkobehandling er religiøst funderet (TV2 east, In Danish only)
Fik støtte på forkert grundlag, (TV2 Fyn, In Danish only)

Denmark has lowered the age of criminal responsibility

Press-release posted on facebook:

Recently the Danish parliament voted to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 years of age. They did that while Denmark continues to fail to honor the conventions of the right of a child because they detain minors in the same prison as adults whenever the juvenile detentions are overbooked.

Now it turns out that they in fact did lower the age of criminal responsibility to 12 but the denied the children aged 12 and 13 to legal aid because they have made it an administrative decision whether a child of this age should wear an ankle monitor to ensure that the child will remain at home outside school.

We find it awful that a country like Denmark which in other situations work to spread the use of democracy would teach the future voters that they are not considered human enough to qualify for legal aid.

We are fully aware that the core of the Danish problem with juvenile crime is that residential treatment is an enormous burden for the budget in the social sector. It is so huge a burden that all minors know that they are more likely to avoid consequences of their crime if they commit it late in a budget year.

But the answer is not to use the courts to enforce treatment of what is basically a social problem. The bill will end up at the social sector regardless of who will take the decision.

The answer must come from the social sector itself. They must remove the standard approach which is to maintain a reluctant approach with the individual case until residential treatment cannot be avoided. A focus on local treatment options would lower the total costs.

An ankle monitor cannot provide counseling. An ankle monitor will not be a consequence for a child committing a crime if it is put on without letting the child go through the proper legal process where it is confronted with the victims of the crime so the child is given time to reflect on the actions which led to the legal process.

We must urge that Denmark revoke this decision and find a method to lower the cost in the social sector with other treatment methods and a strategy based on local and early intervention.

References:

Kriminel lavalder sænket til 12 år? - blog entry in Denmark by Birthe1951