A-START SURVEY
By: Denise Woodbury, JD
"The announcement of the existence of the survey and the invitations to participate were primarily initially made to to a small group of self-selected websites hostile to this private industry. This suggests a desire on the part of the people involved with the survey to make the worst case possible when evaluating the results, and consequently, an unprofessional bias"
MREEEOOWW! MREEEOOWW! HISSSSSS!Does anybody remember Lon posting info about
this survey
http://www.strugglingteens.com/survey.html here on Fornits, or CAFETY, or anywhere outside of the warm and fuzzy confines of StrugglingTeens?
Woodbury Reports Confidential
Residential School/Program Survey
I give my permission for my responses to be used in aggregate totals to be published from time to time in the Woodbury Reports Inc. newsletters. (Surveys without an electronic signature cannot be used and will be discarded). By checking this box I agree to these terms and wish to continue with the rest of the survey.
Email
Your Age
Your Sex Male Female
Today's Date
Student's Age (at time of attendance)
Student's Sex Male Female
Your relationship with the school/program at the time of attendance
Student/Patient Mother Father
Step-Mother Step-Father Other
Name, city & state of school/program attended (address & phone if known)
Dates of Attendance (Arrival date) — (Ending date)
Completed Program Yes Left Early Still Attending
Please write a brief phrase that describes the school/program.
What were the behaviors/issues/diagnoses that led to the placement?
How did you hear about the program?
What made you choose this school/program?
Please list up to five or six adjectives that best describe this school/program.
Please list up to five or six adjectives that best describe your experience with this school/program.
What in your view were the most effective or beneficial elements and/or persons of the school/program (if any)?
What in your view were the weakest or most troublesome elements and/or persons of the school/program (if any)?
What behaviors/issues/diagnoses were identified and worked with in the school/program (if any)?
What changes in the student/patient had occured upon leaving the school/program (if any)?
If it has been some time since graduation, what long-term changes do you attribute to this school/program (if any)?
How would you rate this program on a scale of 0 to 5?
0 - having a negative effect 1 - having no effect
2 - a little helpful 3 - helpful
4 - very helpful 5 - very effective and appropriate
May Woodbury Reports Inc. contact you for an interview or to ask for your permission to participate in further research?
YES NO
Any additional comments you'd like to include are welcome.[/i]
The survey tends to focus more on the negative than the positive. For example, in the section asking for information about Privilege & Discipline Policies and Practices, there is one question on privileges, asking if the system of privileges and rewards was motivating for the child, while there are 32 questions asking about negative discipline policies and practices.
Notice the
total lack of questions about "negative discipline policies and practices" in StrugglingTeen's Confidential Survey. Those unpleasant subjects are detrimental to the industry's profits, and Lon's got his eye on the bottom line. The industry is big
business, teens are the raw material being processed and packaged. So why isn't an official agency outside the industry responsible for checking what's coming off the production line?
Argh. There is a "one size fits all" description for programs: The "Industry". Denise's analogy about imposing wide-sweeping regulations on programs being akin to
"classifying a chiropractor, a brain surgeon, and a natural healer into the same category and then trying to apply the same criteria to all of them" is lame. Bazelon broke off relations with A START because the group wouldn't take a stand against
all programs. That seemed like an odd thing to do, but now I understand Bazelon's decision: the task of trying to sort "good" from "bad" programs would be endless as the programs shifted policies, re-directed investigations, anything to deliberately slow the sorting process. A piecemeal approach like that would be bogged down forever, while dozens of new programs opened, undetected. Bazelon's right, nothing can be done to end industry abuse without taking action against the industry as a
whole.
First industry-wide regulation: re-familiarize program "clinicians" with the Hippocratic Oath, specifically
"I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone."[/color]
Leaving it up to program clinicians' ability and judgment is a proven failure. They need effective oversight and real penalties for non-compliance.
