The Real Problem Is ...

[Anonymous]

On 2006-05-02 10:17:00, Three Springs Waygookin wrote:

"The same state who has the heads of various private programs chairing a committee to clean up program abused under the auspices of the department of labour.



Not very convincing.

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
-- Ben Franklin At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

"

Are you sure? Consider this: those people from private programs (and there's only one chair, two other program members, and two members of the public) are competitors. They might have real motivation for finding problems with each others' programs. This establishes checks and balances.

Consider this, too-- The state of Montana has been using citizen-involved boards for regulation since its birth as a state. The record is pretty solid and it works very well, at far less cost than more bureaucratic, less democratic structures. This is the same outfit that regulates most health care workers, social workers, psychologists, chem. dep. workers. etc.

In contrast, professions regulated by unwieldy, heavy-handed bureacracies have a far worse record of abuse, injuries, and deaths. Don't forget that all those boot camps in Florida are heavily regulated, and state licensed and managed.

[MightyAardvark]

On 2006-05-01 14:32:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2006-05-01 12:30:00, MightyAardvark wrote:


"

Thanks for sharing your experience of CCM; I can't deny or agree with anything you say because I've never seen CCM. We were discussing SCL, which does not censor mail,

Yes it does, or at least to my certain knowledge did so as recently as four months ago.

 has no concrete rooms, and has no locked intervention room. "

The rooms are wood and plaster but the child is still powerless to leave.


"

MA, your "certain knowledge" is incorrect. Mail is not censored. In fact, parents may opt to send mail to and from friends. The only way SCL even knows if that happens is if the child shows staff, or the parents mention it. I know this, because I had occasion to discipline staff who read kids' mail. It's not allowed.



The child is not powerless to leave Intervention, and even "Irish Mom" admits that. They just have to be de-escalated, and agree to stay that way. They're assisted with all kinds of support: They can talk to any staff they ask for, including therapists. They can talk to upper level students and mentors. They can sit or lie down, or they can sleep. It isn't that big a deal.



You've discussed the possibility of a well-run program. In a "well-run" program, what would you consider good options for a student who is escalated to the point of possible harm to herself or someone else?



Intervention as it works at SCL and most programs I've had experience with is simply a time-out, used as a means of de-escalating kids who are still learning how to manage their anger and frustration in a healthy way. It's not punishment.



This is a common model in all kinds of public and private settings, and very few health professionals have a problem with it at all.



I think your concern is sincere but misplaced; you couldn't possibly care more about these kids than the people working with them.

"

It is an accepted, although distasteful fact that restraint and removal to a timeout room is the appropriate response for a patient who is escalated to the point of being a danger to themselves or others. I don't have a problem with the therapeutically appropriate use of restraint and timeout.
The children at Spring Creek Lodge are not patients. They are mostly, normal healthy children who have been incarcerated against their will without a conviction or a diagnosis to justify it. This in my view, makes any discussion of therapeutic justification utterly irellevant. These children are not patients, they are prisoners.
As far as anonymous program apologists go you are a very polite and constructive one and for that I thank you. I'd like to think at some point it might be possible to get some sort of dialogue going across the ideological divide. Sadly I instinctively distrust people who lack the courage of their convictions and find it necessary to hide behind anonymity.
However, you doutless have my email address and my AIM address so I'll invite you to message me and maybe you can place some context around some of the documents and evidence I have.
Thankyou too for at least acknowledging the basic nobility of my concern, if not the validity but please. I think that: given that you know nothing of my motivations, experience, credentials, abilities or the sources of information available to me please don't comment on these.
I

[Troll Control]

"They might have real motivation for finding problems with each others' programs. This establishes checks and balances."


This is rubbish in its entirety.  They all collude for profit.  Get real.

[emaree]

i never said the therapists didn't have degrees. i said they should be stripped.

learn to read, trollie.

[emaree]

and the teachers that do have degrees are not there at all times, that was my main point. students DO NOT have access to a degree-holding teacher at every class period. about 1/3 of the time, there are either no teachers in the classrooms (first morning period and last night period), or there are test graders that are simply "aides" with no education. they can do nothing for the students except to try look at answer logs for the tests and help them that way. that is ridiculous, especially when the academics are supposedly so great at SCL. what a joke.

[Badpuppy]

Why is the room only four feet wide if you are not using it for punishment? Why do you let kids, who by your definition are troubled, give consequences to other kids that result in longer incarceration. Why do you transfer kids to Tranquility Bay. SCL obviously approves of daily pepper spraying, shoulder dislocation, placing children beyond the protection of US laws, Scrubbing geneitals with steel brushes, OR IT WOULDN'T BE SENDING CHILDREN THERE. If you have a different take on this, I would like to hear about it. [ This Message was edited by: Badpuppy on 2006-05-02 20:10 ]

[MightyAardvark]

I wonder if there is a way that we could arrange a fund for interest free loans for children who have taken their exit plans, and how could wel tell them about it. Having the funds there is no use if the children it's intended for don't know about it.
I wonder how much we'd need.

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic
for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has
happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to
the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail,
there will be anarchy throughout the world.

http://www.marshfield.net/History/webster.htm' target='_new'>Daniel Webster

[Anonymous]

What it would take would be multiple billboards that said, "Kid leaving SCL?  Need help and money?  Call 800-(something memorable).  We are a non-profit run by survivors, for survivors."

Then you'd change the program name to match whatever other programs you put up billboards at.

Runners would call you, and programmies pretending to be runners would try to get you shut down.  You'd need volunteer lawyers set up in advance to make sure any runner was covered by attorney client privilege before he spilled the beans on where to pick him up.  And to be sure that nobody who was *not* covered by attorney client privilege ever knew anything they'd legally have to report to the authorities.

I know you're not proposing to set up to help the runners, but I think your natural sympathy for them is how the programmies would try to get at you.

Anything else I can think of that the programmies could try to do to you would be easier to defend against.

Obviously, you'd need a long term lease on your billboards, or to buy the land under them before putting them up.  And you'd need to obey all local sign ordinances, etc.

You could also pay for sky writers or planes carrying banners to plaster it over their heads. :wink:  They may own the ground, they may own the local government to rig the sign ordinances, but they can't take the sky from you. :wink:

Julie

Julie

[CCM girl 1989]

I think the second idea is much better.

[Irish Mom]

On 2006-05-02 17:11:00, emaree wrote:

"and the teachers that do have degrees are not there at all times, that was my main point. students DO NOT have access to a degree-holding teacher at every class period. about 1/3 of the time, there are either no teachers in the classrooms (first morning period and last night period), or there are test graders that are simply "aides" with no education. they can do nothing for the students except to try look at answer logs for the tests and help them that way. that is ridiculous, especially when the academics are supposedly so great at SCL. what a joke."

Emaree is so correct on this.  I dealt with the Teacher's Aide more than I ever did the teacher the whole time I worked there.  The Teacher had very little to do with the students anyway.  Most of the time she was just sitting there correcting papers or writing stuff down.  I hardly ever saw her working with a student.  I'm not saying they don't have degrees and that some of them aren't really good teachers, but there is definitely something lacking out there in the "academics".  I do know that a couple of the male teachers were really on the ball and really worked with the students.  This information came from the Family Fathers that worked the families in those classrooms.  I can really only speak for the classroom I was in and the person in there was a pathetic excuse for a teacher.

[Anonymous]

I was in the program over 11 years ago.  Paradise Cove.  I am thankful I was and I am now a Lawyer who highly recommends the programs.  You see, I have stayed in touch with many past students and parents.  I have no reason to stay involved or to support the programs.  I am not their legal counsel. Nor do I get any sort of renumeration.  I was never mistreated, never deprived of food, never emotionally or phsysically abused.  I have been to many of the facilities over the years and still endorse them highly.

I know that now I will get attacked by all of you that choose to use every 4 letter word you ever learned and that's OK.  I am thriving, doing extremely well and lviing the good life.  If I am brainwashed, then I hope I stay brainwashed.  If not, then I just learned alot and used it to further myself in my life's endeavors.

Good luck to all.

[Anonymous]

I was never mistreated, never deprived of food, never emotionally or phsysically abused.

Well, a lot of people were, and you are now giving advice to send kids away where this might happen to them. Either you choose not to believe the numerous stories of abuse, or you don't care. Either way, you are irresponsible with your advice, and it hurts real people.

[MightyAardvark]

On 2006-05-25 18:53:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I was in the program over 11 years ago.  Paradise Cove.  I am thankful I was and I am now a Lawyer who highly recommends the programs.  You see, I have stayed in touch with many past students and parents.  I have no reason to stay involved or to support the programs.  I am not their legal counsel. Nor do I get any sort of renumeration.  I was never mistreated, never deprived of food, never emotionally or phsysically abused.  I have been to many of the facilities over the years and still endorse them highly.



I know that now I will get attacked by all of you that choose to use every 4 letter word you ever learned and that's OK.  I am thriving, doing extremely well and lviing the good life.  If I am brainwashed, then I hope I stay brainwashed.  If not, then I just learned alot and used it to further myself in my life's endeavors.



Good luck to all."

Well we're all glad it workedout for you. This site is about speaking up for the hundreds of kids that didn't benefit from this treatment, those that were deprived of food and we mistreated.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there;  lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well;  but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=circlofmiamithem&keyword=mark+twain&mode=books' target='_new'> Mark Twain

[Badpuppy]

You are a WWASP marketer. Your job is to scam people out of their money and the love of their child. That is reason you went to so many of their programs. With your propaganda are mocking the victims of torture for your own sadistic pleasure. Paradise Cove was closed for child abuse. This abuse is documented in trial testimony and sworn affidavids. The fact that you claim you were in a system where kids were transferred like chattle, and kids give consequences to other kids that result in a lengthened incarceration proves you are lying about the abuse. You are contemptable.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-05-25 18:53:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I was never ..... phsysically abused.  



.....If not, then I just learned alot and used it to further myself in my life's endeavors."

Yeah...sure you're a lawyer.  Just like the WWASP marketer claiming to be a former student on their way to an Ivy League school, yet lacking the most basic spelling and grammar skills.  What's really funny is that after the last attempt a WWASPie made at sounding intelligent failed so horribly, I would have thought that several of them would have collaborated and proofread their potential post in advance.  

Follow this link.  "Renumeration" is not a word in the English language.  No wonder you say you don't get any renumeration.  I don't get any flibbeyjabbey, either, 'cause there ain't no such thing.  Nice attempt at multi-syllable words, but stick to what you're good at.  "We take cash.  Pay now.  We get your kid.  You get good pizza....."

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/renumeration

I was there 11 years ago.  And I know for a fact that there is not a single Paradise Cove graduate on the list for referrals other than one who works for the program.  Why go nameless, proudgrad?

Nice try.