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)

Looking back on the last few years

It all started with Brat Camp being broadcasted on Danish Television. It all was so wonderful. Teenagers were going down the wrong track and some helpful people took the teenagers out in the wilderness or to a ranch where they guided the teenagers back on the right track.

But something alarmed me. I live in Denmark where we also have so-called troubled teenagers. But the criterion’s labeling who is troubled or who is not were entirely different in our two cultures. Drinking alcohol in Denmark does not make a troubled teenager. In fact when I was a child there was no lower purchase limit. Today it is 16 for alcohol with a percentage below the safe limit of 16.5 but back then there was no limit.

In fact the young adults I as a CIO in a larger publishing company would have difficulties to hire would be those who restrain from drinking alcohol because the human resource tools we have at our disposal is a beer or a glass of wine Friday after work and 5 minutes development conversation every 18 month. If I don't learn my employee to know Friday after work what would I have to talk about when we sit down and I dictates the employee’s career? Nothing and when times get rough guess I would have to let go first. Second what about the relationship between this individual and the colleagues? This individual would be isolated and I would not dare to offer such a work environment to anyone.

A troubled teenager in Denmark is a teenager who isolates her or himself. I know that because I have suffered a personal tragedy in my own family. I have a child who is not living at home because the authorities was concerned about her life staying at home after school instead of hanging out in the alleys behind the public run youth clubs where the youth learn to drink alcohol and socialize.

So when I saw Brat Camp I started a research about the subject. I met people online on Fornits back when sick people didn't try to destroy its reputation by posting porn and intentionally insult people just to scare them away from the board.

I was not interesting in starting a fight. I saw a problem. Private companies and various religious organizations did actually pay for results which could scare parents to lock their children up and politicians to make laws which criminalized the entire rite of passage for every teenager becoming an adult.

So together with the founder of Fornits, we created Fornits Wiki, where we gathered all the news from the industry on a worldwide basis. Today there are articles about behavior modification from 41 countries.

Times have changed. Many of the teenagers who were locked up at youth facilities in the 1990's are now adults and the internet has helped them to understand that they were not subjected to isolated incident when they were raped, beaten, humiliated and subjected to other inhumane so-called treatment methods. There were no laws protecting them. Troubled teenagers are not recognized as equals when they end up as victims in courts.

In fact they still are not in Denmark. What kind of punishment should a counselor get when he force a teenager to oral sex? I can state that a Danish court gave such a counselor suspended sentence 60 days in prison to serve if he ever repeated his actions once again. And this incident was caught on tape because the teenager taped the counselor on a hidden mobile phone when he took advantage of her. It is not fair but given the state of the laws which should protect children placed in care, the court did nothing wrong. They just could not punish him further even if they gave him a punishment to the full extent of the law.

But while we still have a distance to go in Denmark there are positive news from the States. Today the activism has moved from an isolated message board to Facebook and to 100 of websites. The former teenagers are no longer silent. They have created national wide network where they monitor the group homes, wilderness programs and boot camps. They are in the process of changing the general view on troubled teenagers.

In New York Post there is a story about the new “Teen Trouble” show. A self-taught counselor has sold the concept of a show to Lifetime – a major television network in the States. In every episode the counselor approach a so-called troubled teenager, put the teenager through some situation like jail and arrest to show what would happen if the path the teenager has chosen would continue. In the end the teenager ends up in a residential facility which has chosen to sponsor the show.

It is not a new concept. There have been dozen of such shows like Dr. Phil, Jenny Jones, Maury and Wilkos. There are many private “treatment” facilities which are willing to sponsor such shows because they don’t care whether the teenager is suited for their treatment approach or not. They don’t care about the problem. They care about how many they can house for the least expenses.

I who have been a professional businessman for more than 20 years have often wondered why they don’t care about who they serve because I know that a satisfied customer is a returning customer. I have come to the conclusion that they don’t realize who their customer is. They believe that their customer is the person who pays them the money, so they care about the parent. It is short-lived business. It would fail once the teenager exits the program because the next generation of this family would certainly not use this business again.

If I should run a youth home I would first entire that I have a qualified staff because I recognize the limitations I have. I am not a certified counselor. In Denmark there are a number of titles I could take which don’t require certification which would make me look like a counselor and when I look at the homepages of Danish group home I can see a lot of un-licensed employees who have taken these titles. It would be a scam if I tried this and I have to ask why parents put up with this?

In Denmark there are few if not no parents who seek out of the home placement on a voluntary basis. My child is not living outside my home at my choice but my mother has non-Danish origin so I was already rated low as a parent when the social worker first saw our case. Second we have been hit hard by a life-treating illness among us adults, so we accepted the “offer” given to us. It is generally a horse head placed in your bed. If you say no, we will find an unqualified group home or a foster family only caring about the money. If you say yes, you can better a better place for your child and visit it more frequently.

Because of the ordeal my child has to go through I cannot involve myself with Danish group homes and foster families. If I engaged in any activism my child could suffer if the authorities took revenge on us as a family. It has happened before here so I have remained focused on running and updating Fornits Wiki.

But my investment has paid up because others have picked up the axe and using the same tools developed by organizations like CAFETY and HEAL-online, they are charting the Danish group homes and foster families. It has led to a number of cases in Danish courts. The television channels have broadcasted documentaries about the most abusive facilities and legislation has been introduced in our parliament to ensure a safer environment for children in placement. Group homes have been closed; employees have been punished for their wrongdoings.

Today the most active organizations in Denmark are Domestic Prisoners of Consience (US-based) and Minors in residential placement research center (Sweden). As I have stated above I have to stay out their work in Denmark, but it does not mean that I cannot praise their excellent work.

My webpage was started in 2006. Many years have passed. Results have been reached by the timeless efforts of many volunteers. I want to thank them because I am a happy man today even given the fact that my child is not at home because I know that there is caring persons around my child because many of the people in business who were only present due to the money have been put out of work.

Thank you very much.

We are however not finished. There is a lot of work ahead of us. I hope to contribute for many years to come.

Sources:

• Fornits message board
• HEAL-online
• 'Abused' teens take aim at Lifetime reality show (New York Post)
• Domestic prisoners of conscience
• Minors in residential placement research center
• Pædagog dømt for sex med anbragt pige (Ekstra-Bladet - in Danish langugage)

Milton Girls Juvenile Residential Facility should lose their license

A private-run youth prison called Milton Girls Juvenile Residential Facility is in the spotlight of the media due to a video showing an employee restraining a girl in a very violent way.

In fact had the restraint method used in this incident been used in several other states it would have been a banned method used. The employee placed her body on the top of the 15 year old. It is a move which could restraint the breath of the girl and in some cases it could have led to her death. Restraints are a huge killer in youth facilities and if you look at blogs covering deaths in residential treatment facilities, it is properly the most frequent cause of deaths.

But worse is the fact the facility did not report the incident as soon as possible. Also those who look at the video will notice that other employees don’t seem to care as if restraints of this nature are quite common in this facility.

Dealing with troubled teenager the most important lesson to learn them is to make their complaints verbally rather than physically. Once they are back on the streets there is no need to learn them that all conflicts are solved by the use of force.

Restraints have to be the very last option to solve a conflict.

So there is a reason to be very critical of the management of this facility. The license should be taken away from them. They are teaching these young people the wrong lesson and once released, we should be concern about how they use their experiences from this facility on the streets.

Sources:

• Shocking surveillance video reveals girl, 15, being battered and restrained in juvenile prison by female guards (The Daily Mail)
• Admissions freeze put on Milton Girls Juvenile Residential Facility (PNJ.COM)