A milestone in court

The former students at Midwest Academy were abused.

A ruling at Lee County establish that the former so-called students where mistreated.

It is hardly a news for any former student subjected to stays at boarding schools using the WWASP-concept where students had to subject to six levels of punishment and a number of seminars because being granted their freedom.

For those who did not manage to complete this before they turned 18, their destiny in life became homeless shelters shunned by their family. Some managed to move on still with little or no contact to their family just because the parents were told that it was the best option.

Also a history of massive amounts of suicides are seen among former students.

For more than a decade the owners of the former boarding school chain has avoided responsability. A lawsuit started in 2005 came to nothing held up due to appeal after appeal.

So this is a milestone.

There are still schools out there where the owners in the past officially used the same concept. While many of them claim that they use another system, they still use the concept of a level system and arrange a number of seminars. Calling the levels something other and renaming the seminars does not result in any improved treatment of the students.

As of 2017 these schools are still running where they in the past used the WWASP concept.

• Sunset Bay Academy (Oceanside teen center) in Mexico
• US Youth Services (Red River Academy) in Lecompte, Louisiana
• Teen Revitalization (Academy at Dundee Ranch) in Costa Rica
• Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School (Carolina Springs Academy) in South Carolina

More can be using the concept without us knowning. Facts remain that is a damaging concept.

We hope that former students from more schools can use this ruling taking their school to court.




Source:
Midwest Academy Students Win Lawsuit Over Mistreatment (KBUR News)

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)

The Danish break-through fighting obesity among children requires that the child stay at home

Obesity among children has become a huge problem. It is now estimated that overweight is no longer a minority. At least 20 percent is overweight and 70 percent of these overweight children will become overweight once they become adult.

Something has to be done and thanksfully it has.

What is the solution then? Creating a massive number of group homes?

No. Children don't prepare their own food. The parents do. Children often don't do what their parents say. They do as their parents act.

So the cure of the solution is that the family needs a treatment plan. Not the child.

An expert group at Holbaek Hospital research and invented a method which has proven to be very successful. Back in 2014 they had treated 1,900 children with a successrate of 80 percent.

The question people often ask is whether the child has to take ownership and the answer is yes. The child has also to take ownership of the problem but it is not a problem because the body image modern marketing portray has never been father away from the body image you see on Danish streets.

The danish treatment model is simple:

1. The child and the family goes through a number of interviews at the hospital
2. Based on the interviews, the family and the hospital agrees on 15-20 changes in the daily routines. That is it!

The family agree to clean up their kitchen. Rules are given for each meal.

• The breakfast for all members of the family has to consist of Rye bread and the meat the family put on top of it must maximum has a fat percent of 6. It could be chicken, turkey or fish alternatively Oatmeal, oatmeal, rugfras or mini-grass. No serial are a allowed - it must not even be in the home at all.
• The Lunch must consist of 3-4 pieces of Rye Bread with similar kind of meat as the Breakfast.
• No snacks in during afternoon. The child can repeat the breakfast
• All plates are prepared in advance in the kitchen and served for each family member so each plate include a certain percentage is vegetables. If a second service is needs the rule is that 20 minutes must past. Almost every human experience a delay in the signals from the stomach which tells them when they are satiated. That is the reason for the delay. Again the second service has to be prepared in advance. Needless to say that these rules apply to all in the family. It is not the child who are treated. It is the family.
• Drinks which includes sugar like soda or juice must maximum be enjoyed once per week and we are talking half a liter in total per week.
• Candy is once per week and there is a limit based on age

But change in diet is often not enough. The family needs to look at their daily transport routines. In Danish the roads are safe for children. The children often bike to school from an early age (8-9 years old) when the distance is under 7 kilometers.

All Danish homework is computerized but using computer and television for recreational use is set to be 2 hours per day maximum and only after 17:00.

Finally the child has to choose a sport to attend based on the choice of the child. Often a number of sports has to be tried out, but the important part is that it is interest of the child which is the motivation. Of course it would help if a parent or sibling is actively either participating or supporting.

Is that not much responsability to place on the parents? Wasn't is easier to outsource this to a group home or an in-patient program?

No. It is the responsability of the parents to partipate. It comes with the territory of being a parent to show an example. As a parent you have to change your life as much as possible to make your child both healthy and successful.

Sources:

• Have the Danes cracked childhood obesity? (BBC)
• Breakthrough in fighting childhood obesity (Healthcare Denmark)
• Has A Doctor From Denmark Solved Childhood Obesity? (Forbes)