Author Topic: Danish dark past thread  (Read 10122 times)

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Offline Oscar

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Danish dark past thread
« on: February 17, 2012, 02:37:54 AM »
Antigen posted a thread on the Irish past.

Some asked if I could come clean on the Danish dark history of troubled teen handling. I have no problem by this. While we have traveled a long way and have relaxed laws regarding alcohol consumption etc. there are areas where we certainly can do better. Also I have to say that things have not always looked that bright.

Asylums in Denmark were something left behind in the 18-century up to 1979. Before 1979 clients adult and juvenile were not allowed to wear their own clothes. They often received clothes left behind by those who were discharged or died in the system. We are talking 1979 - not 1879.

The use of mechanical restraints was almost mandatory so the residential treatment facilities could use almost no staff by night. Normal people who did pose no risk of violence were put in leather belt before sleeping as a daily routine.

Teenagers or in some case children who were taken in by the authorities were often beaten during their stay. The Danish version of Tranquility Bay was Godhavn. While it still exist before 1976 the use of corporal punishment were widespread. The children were sleeping in large dorms with only their bed as private. Education was sparse and they were expected to work in the fields or in other projects which could support the business of running a group home.

But we are not stopping here.

For naughty girls or girls who were not functioning as fast as their peers, we had "The Kellesker Asylum" on the once remote island of Sprogoe. Today the island is connected to the mainland but before 1962 the island was a holding place for teenage girls. They were restrained, beaten and treated against their will. Some were subjected to Lobotomy.

Their only hope of release was that a family could take them in as servants or someone stepped up wanting to marry them. In fact fishermen from the surrounding towns often were the one who knew where they could find an obedient wife and not so few young men were allowed to sail the boat of their family close to this island in the hope of “rescuing” one of the girls.

Lobotomy was in Denmark used up to 1980. Many were fooled into accepting the procedure as a condition of release from the residential treatment facilities. They were told how wonderful the procedure would be, freeing them from medication and how it would enable them to live a normal life. Today we all know how many who died from the complication and how many who actually got worse as result of this procedure. It is just awful stuff.

Are we then perfect today? No we are certainly not. The main problem today is the heritage of 1990’s politic in the US. Today there are politicians in Denmark who want to lower the age of criminal responsibility, they believe that boot camps are the new manna to deal with troubled teenagers and there are a few public run group homes who believe that teenagers should be confronted and restrained even by the first outburst.

Second we support a large public sector. I guess you will be unable to find another country in the world which has so many youth counselors and small treatment facilities with 7-10 teenagers living in them. On every school there are at least 10 people who have no dealing with the normal schooling. They are assigned to find problem families so their colleagues down in the department of social security can get new clients. Every time a case of neglect is reported in the media the labor unions for the personal employed in department of social services are all over to ask for more money. I can only give one advice. DO NEVER ASK FOR HELP from our department of social services. Your home will be taken over by a changing staff of people who want to “help” your children and no matter how perfect you are as a parent they want at least one of the children put into a residential group home. You just have to decide which one of your children you want to give up.

It doesn’t stop here. Your children cannot get pregnant in Denmark. They have to leave the country because their names will be stored on a warning list if they have been in the system once as a child. Once they announce their pregnancy to a doctor or to the hospital the department of social services is noticed by a email and they will demand that the mother and the child live in a special group home for new mothers for the first 6 months while the ability of the new mother to do her job is evaluated. The new mother will be offered holiday from their own child so she can get a free weekend every month. The goal is to get foster parents to be standby by letting them look after the child from time to time.

There are no help or no offers from the department of social services in Denmark – only orders. They are a state inside the state in Denmark. Avoid them by all means.

Secret Prisons for Teens is only one organization among those who are working for better conditions for the 14,000 Danish children in the system.

Our main problem as an organization working to improve the conditions for families and teenagers in the system today is that the system protects themselves with lawyers suing everyone who want to expose awful conditions in Denmark.

One of the whistleblower sites were forced to move their site to a foreign server. It is called Det Sorte register (The black filing-cabinet).

We do very seldom write a lot about Danish facilities on our webpage because we cannot afford a trial. We send our information to our Swedish partner. Instead we publish a lot of their stuff. This kind of exchange was the main reason for our partnership. They have created a whistleblower site called Minder fra en hård tid (Memories from a hard time).

Another organization called Danmarks børn (The children of Denmark) discovered awful conditions at a certain group home and published what they learned. They were sued and they lost. Some years later one of children told his story to the newspaper Information and now everybody can see that the trial was wrong.

Two employees from the group home Åhuset (House by the river) near the Danish town of Odense told newspapers about neglect they saw at work. They were sued and they lost. It was a witch-trial with the goal of scaring every employee from ever stepping up trying to protect the children.

Presently we are trying to break this order of silence. There are too many children in the system and in Denmark you are not allowed to get legal protection free until they have removed the children. Often you as a parent are offered a deal where they take one of your children in exchange for you to get home visits every 14 day from day 1 and during holidays.

I hope this gives some insight in our dark past and what kind of problems we are facing today.

Sources:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Ursus

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2012, 11:31:15 AM »
Thanks for that synopsis, Oscar... It would appear that state-run social services organizations are not only corrupt, but destructive the world over. It seems their primary objective has more to do with social control and manipulation of the population, than anything to do with children's needs or best interests.

In the U.S., one aspect of all this that I find quite interesting is the intersection of, and "cooperative work" of these agencies with the Department of Defense. Is there something analogous to that in Denmark?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Oscar

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2012, 07:29:08 AM »
Rotsne constructed this Fornits Wiki Datasheet about the facilities in question. It is a dark spot in our history but we have no interest in covering the Danish participating in the eugenics fashion in the 1920s up, so the page was made.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Reddit TroubledTeens

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2012, 11:24:36 PM »
Thank you, Oscar, for putting together all of this info. I had no idea things were so bad there, especially with the suppression of information. I'm just aghast that your voices are not allowed freedom of speech. I have always considered Denmark to be far more advanced in social causes than the states (esp after visiting Copenhagen). I saw an article about Danes being outraged by a kid who was tethered to a wall in an institution and was impressed that your society could recognize the abuse. Here in the states we tie children to beds for so long they are forced to defecate on themselves and no one seems to care.

I've posted this to several areas of reddit:

/r/troubledteens
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/c ... stitutions

/r/denmark (http://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark)
http://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comment ... stitutions

and my list of worldwide information:
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/c ... _worldwide
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline cock and balls 1

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« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2012, 02:11:12 AM »
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Offline Oscar

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2012, 04:02:30 AM »
Quote from: "Reddit TroubledTeens"
Thank you, Oscar, for putting together all of this info. I had no idea things were so bad there, especially with the suppression of information. I'm just aghast that your voices are not allowed freedom of speech. I have always considered Denmark to be far more advanced in social causes than the states (esp after visiting Copenhagen). I saw an article about Danes being outraged by a kid who was tethered to a wall in an institution and was impressed that your society could recognize the abuse. Here in the states we tie children to beds for so long they are forced to defecate on themselves and no one seems to care.
Danes are in general compassionate people who cares until a new headline takes their attention away from this issue.

Everyone knows that time in the foster care in Denmark are equal less chance of an education. Everyone knows that it is equal increased risk of being abused sexual. The department of social services does openly accept that they don't know if residential care or treatment works. There are several reports of that.

Every time we have a scandal people want head of the responsible parties on a plate - for 1-2 weeks. Then other news remove the interest of the citizens and eveyone forgets what took place.

Last year a treatment center named Herkules took kids to Sweden to a wilderness therapy program where the kids were made to believe that they were standing on a land mine. The had an actress coming in posing as a troubled teen who tried to escape only to be caught and have his fingers being biten off by one of the guard dogs. A very well-prepaired stunt which scared the teens. The treatment center was closed down. Right now another treatment facility called Solhaven is under investigation because they allowed male employees to remove the trousers on a girl.

We have a long path to walk before the world is perfect - even in Denmark.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

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Offline Reddit TroubledTeens

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2012, 02:21:24 PM »
The Danes on reddit are skeptical. If you have any interest in responding, it takes 2 seconds to make an account on reddit. You just need a username and password, email is optional (but required if you ever forget your password).

http://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comment ... titutions/

grumpypants_mcnallen
5 points 10 hours ago (6|1)

A quick few tl;dr snippets:

    Asylums in Denmark were something left behind in the 18-century up to 1979. Before 1979 clients adult and juvenile were not allowed to wear their own clothes. They often received clothes left behind by those who were discharged or died in the system. We are talking 1979 - not 1879.

...

    Teenagers or in some case children who were taken in by the authorities were often beaten during their stay.

...

    On every school there are at least 10 people who have no dealing with the normal schooling. They are assigned to find problem families so their colleagues down in the department of social security can get new clients.

...

    It doesn’t stop here. Your children cannot get pregnant in Denmark. They have to leave the country because their names will be stored on a warning list if they have been in the system once as a child.

...

    Once they announce their pregnancy to a doctor or to the hospital the department of social services is noticed by a email and they will demand that the mother and the child live in a special group home for new mothers for the first 6 months while the ability of the new mother to do her job is evaluated.

?_?

If it really was like this, then the press would have a field day. Sorry Pixel8, but just because somebody posted a story on the internet doesn't make it true.

The 'banned website' is a site that lists people by name and has in very short words state why the should be there, most simply say 'Abuse of power'. There are no links to any documentation or any other kind explanation. He moved the website to be hosted in germany last year, fearing he'd get sued for Libel and for not adhering to the danish privacy protection laws.


AllisonWeatherwax
5 points 10 hours ago (5|1)

    There are no help or no offers from the department of social services in Denmark – only orders. They are a state inside the state in Denmark. Avoid them by all means.

This is bullshit. Don't get me wrong. Looking back there's loads of weird shit that makes Denmark's social and mental health services look questionable. And things are hardly perfect today, but this is bullshit.


charlesrussell
2 points 6 hours ago (2|0)

Is this from The Onion?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2012, 09:54:06 AM »
One of the organizations we exchange information with has been after this facility for some time. They managed to get former students and journalists to speak with each other and for 2 nights in row the facility has been in the media:

Solhaven: few childcare specialists
Denmarks Radio, 28. feb. 2012

Only 3 out of 75 employees at the Solhaven children’s residential facility have a background in childcare.

This emerged after 21Søndag revealed some serious allegations against Solhaven on its use of beatings, emotional abuse and unnecessary use of force against young residents.

“The practice of childcare is non-existent, at least not as I know it,” former employee Mette Krog told DR News.

From 2008 to 2009 she was employed at Himmerlands RådgivningsCenter in Farsø, part of the same organisation, which is run by Søren Virenfeldt, director, board member and general manager of Solhaven.

Disgusting
Mette Krog witnessed several violent methods, including one known as the “coffee visit”.

“It was a disgusting method. It involved 10-12 people rushing into one of the young resident’s rooms simply to create fear,” she said.

At this facility, only 6 out of 63 employees were trained in childcare:

“There were a lot of big, strong, rough men,” she said.

Predominance of manual workers
The same was true at Solhaven, according to a former employee who chose to resign:

“The employees were usually manual workers or security or people with non-childcare qualifications. There was a real lack of professionalism there,” said the man, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Mette Krog was fired after one year, because she spoke out against the methods, she claims:

“To apparently believe that the only recourse is to threaten young people and intimidate them is just throwing the towel into the childcare ring,” said Mette Krog.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2012, 12:49:53 PM »
Minister not impressed
Denmarks Radio, February 27, 2012

The Minister for Social Affairs, Karen Hækkerup, is very concerned about the approach being taken at the country’s residential schools for children and young people with behavioural problems and has given notice of reforms to approval and inspection procedures.

As a first step the National Social Appeals Board will carry out a detailed review of the whole area of inspection, the Minister told DR News.

Her response comes after TV news programme 21 Søndag exposed fierce criticism of the Solhaven centre which receives large amounts of money from the municipalities to look after children and young people with behavioural problems.

Professionalism challenged
Karen Hækkerup notes that the institution was reported to the police after allegations of violence against the children in its care.

“I am not impressed by methods which involve breaking people down in order to build them up again. That type of thing belongs in a military strategy and is not appropriate for vulnerable children,” she says.

Hækkerup believes that professional standards should be laid down for those centres which look after our most vulnerable citizens.

“It is not acceptable that some people do not understand what they are dealing with. That is why I am taking up the issues of reform of approval and supervision,” she says.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2012, 12:48:05 PM »
This is just in: Press release from Domestic prisoners of conscience. We have asked them to deal with problems here in Denmark because we have attracted too much attention by certain groups in Denmark.

The interest of an adopted girl put aside for politics

We have just received news about the forced removal of an adopted girl from a foster family who had been approved by the social services and host several children in categorized as at-risk teenagers.

The girl had been adopted by a Danish couple some years back but she had too much luggage based on her life in Africa so the Danish couple was unable to provide her with support to deal with her past. The Danish couple reached out to the social services in the town of Naestved. She was placed in a foster family and everybody was happy.

The girl seemed to adjust to her life in the foster family. She attended a local school with little absence. There seemed to be no reason to move her to another solution. But the social services in Naestved had their own agenda. In Naestved they have a special behavior modification program who marketed themselves as a program which can deal with every kind of problem teenagers may have.

For the town of Naestved to attract clients to their program from other cities they use every opportunity to put teenagers into the program. Even teenagers like Amy which functioned very well within the foster family. They proudly state that they don’t kick teenagers out just because the teenagers act out. They just hire employees with more muscles. Soldiers are the employees called by the manager of the program in one article in a magazine for social workers.

But this young girl doesn’t need soldiers. She doesn’t need power play by employees. We can hardly understand how it is to live in Africa in countries which have been marked with armed action.

The social services removed her by force from her foster family. They were aided by police. How should this poor girl act when she properly is used to that the police kills children living on the street before they ask questions, if the police in her native country ask questions at all.

What kind of care does this girl get now? We do know that this specific behavior modification program employs people who drink alcohol during their work hours. Several newspapers stated so in 2008. The program didn’t drag the newspapers in court so the journalists must have hit something right there.

This case raise the question whether Denmark as a country are able to participate in the business of buying children for adoption from the third world. It is difficult to state whether her adoption to Denmark was of service to her. Maybe it is time for countries which sell their children to Denmark for adoption of a typical price of DKK 80,000 to stop this traffic while the case of Amy is fully investigated.

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #12 on: March 23, 2012, 05:22:21 AM »
Amy Rebecca Steen
Adventures and Japes blog, Posted on 11/03/2012

The best thing for the authorities in Denmark is that only 5.5 million people speak Danish.

The second best thing is that only a tiny minority of the people of Denmark are politically minded which translates to only a few thousand people giving an actual shit at any one time.

Næstved is a small town just outside Copenhagen. In common with all the towns in Denmark, it has financial worries. The global financial crisis has hit Denmark hard and the central government has passed the buck to the individual “kommunes”, who have to find the savings or suffer the consequences.

As you might imagine, from experience with your own country, the kommunes make the savings from the weak. They close schools with high proportions of socially disadvantaged students, they cut back on support for disabled people and as seen in this case, they make savings on vulnerable children in the state’s care.

Eleven year old Amy Rebecca Steen was placed in foster care, in which she was thriving. The council needed to save money, so they placed her in a half-way home for alcoholics. When the council came to remove her, they brought the police. When she resisted, social services and the police violently assaulted her to get her into the car. The police have been informed. Excuse me if I do not hold my breath for justice to be done here.

The mayor was shown footage of her assault. Halfway through he actually looks like he might cry. The journalist says “So, Mr Mayor, what do you think about that?” and his response is the following:-

“That’s what happens if you try to solve situations with force. Of course, honestly, the family… I mean, the foster family did not contribute more positively to the removal of Amy.”

I cannot translate the rest of what that moral coward Carsten Ramussen has to say because he makes me sick. He says some stuff about the foster family having to contribute more positively because the kommune has the right to remove the girl. Etc etc blah blah blah.

If he were still a full human being and not a shell, he would have said “this is a police matter, the amount of force used is unacceptable, she is only eleven for God’s sake”. Here, the politicians are inured to violence being used on the weak to make savings in the budget. Better to criticise people standing up for what is right, than to look at what is wrong.

The Danish national press has not picked up the story. It is only being reported  locally in newspapers (and god bless them). It did make the national tv news but only briefly. The story is over, as far as they are concerned.

This is how unremarkable something like this is, in Denmark. This is how it keeps out of the international press.  This is how the hype that Denmark is a socialist paradise is continued. It is NOT like “anywhere else”. It is awful here. You just do not hear about it unless you can speak Danish, unless you read other local newspapers, unless you turn on the tv on the right day at the right time.

Go back to your bubbles, people, nothing to see.

Links:-
Næstved Kommune removed Amy with force
Næstved Kommune reported to the police
Næstved Kommune didn’t dare remove Amy
The kommune struck under the cover of darkness
Amy removed by force
Heavy handed forcible removal reported to the police
Borough dialogue in Næstved
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Offline Reddit TroubledTeens

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Re: Danish dark past thread
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2012, 03:20:59 PM »
Thank you for all the additional info, Oscar. I have linked this in our thread about international programs:
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/c ... _worldwide

What happened to Amy Rebecca Steen is truly horrible, I'm outraged she would be treated like that in the name of money. Her story sounds so similar to what happens to thousands of kids here in the States.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »