Excerpt from Article:
"We always had kids with those issues, but the proportion continues to grow and it's pretty alarming."
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Hmmm, wonder if the growing number of troubled youth has anything to do with the growing number of baby-boomer TROUBLED PARENTS?
:silly:
Tough call for youth refuge: Camp program ends as laws change, kids' problems grow more complex
08:09 AM CDT on Thursday, May 13, 2004
By KIM HORNER / The Dallas Morning News
HAWKINS, Texas ? Michele Kliewer didn't believe it when her parents told her they were sending her to live in a tent without running water, electricity or TV for several months at an East Texas wilderness camp.
"I thought they were joking," said Ms. Kliewer. The then 15-year-old had bad grades and was involved with drugs. Five months at The Salesmanship Club Youth Camp changed that.
Back then, Ms. Kliewer, who's now 24, wouldn't have believed she'd say this. But she's sad to hear that no more kids will get to live in tents in the Piney Woods.
"I hated it when I was there, but I hated it when I left," she said.
On May 21, the residential program will close, though the camp will remain available for short-term stays for students from the Salesmanship Club's Oak Cliff school and its counseling programs. Changes in state law, coupled with the increasing complexity of the problems of troubled youth, led to the decision.
Salesmanship Club officials said it was a tough decision to make about the therapeutic camp, which since 1947 has taken in about 5,000 Dallas-area youths whose parents could no longer discipline them.
A history of helping
The Salesmanship Club Youth Camp opened in Dallas in 1946. It moved to Hawkins, Texas, the next year. It will close May 21.
The camp sits on 1,400 acres and includes a lake and miles of hiking trails.
The camp is open to boys 12 to 14 years old and girls 13 to 16 who live in Dallas or the school districts surrounding Dallas and have emotional or behavioral problems. The average stay is four to six months.
More than 5,000 youths have attended the camp.
For more information about the Salesmanship Club and its programs, go to
http://www.salesmanshipclub.org or call 214-915-4700.
SOURCE: Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers Inc.
Officials say they will spend the next year creating a program to address the growing number of youths with severe and chronic problems: drugs, aggression, depression and other mental illnesses.
"The proportion or percentage of kids who are coming to us with multiple difficulties, with chronic and long-standing issues, has been growing over the last 10 to 15 years," said Kent Skipper, executive director of the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers, the Dallas tax-exempt organization that runs the camp. "We always had kids with those issues, but the proportion continues to grow and it's pretty alarming."
Also changing are state regulations governing therapeutic wilderness camps. One proposal would make it illegal for kids to live in tents without running water or electricity for more than two weeks at a time.
The Salesmanship Club's camp was the first of its kind in the nation, and it became a model for others. But now it's time to find another way to help kids with emotional and behavioral problems, Dr. Skipper said. He said the club is lucky to have the resources to do so; most of its funding comes from the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. The professional golf tournament raised $5.8 million for the Salesmanship Club last year, $3.2 million of which was spent on the residential camp. This year's golf event opens today and will run through Sunday in Las Colinas.
Roughing it
The 1,400-acre camp 100 miles east of Dallas looks like a peaceful country getaway. There is a lake surrounded by pine trees, tents nestled under the thick forest and miles of hiking trails.
But for many youths, living here is no vacation.
A 15-year-old Dallas boy at the camp last week said he initially didn't care for the place but he has learned that there are certain things ? like completing homework and daily chores ? that he must do to return home.
"Your first goal is to get out of here, so you work for it," said the boy, who like other campers, cannot be named.
Ms. Kliewer, who grew up in Allen, remembers working with her group to chop and skin wood for their tent. Days off weren't an option; she worked in a rain suit when necessary. She had to hike several minutes to get to a shower.
"You would get out of the shower and immediately start sweating," she said. "You didn't really stay clean."
The Salesmanship Club's program is not boot camp for kids in state custody. Parents, often referred by school counselors or judges, send their kids voluntarily. Payment is based on a low sliding scale.
Out-of-control adolescents learn discipline in one of the hardest ways ? from one another. The youths work together, so if someone makes the group late for the 6 p.m. meal at the dining hall, everyone suffers the consequence of having to eat a less desirable meal at the camp.
The perpetrator may face what's called a "huddle up" or "circle up," in which counselors and kids sit on logs to discuss an issue.
"You deal with it until you get it dealt with," Ms. Kliewer said. She remembers huddle ups that lasted as long as five hours, some until 3 a.m.
She said she soon learned that her actions were not without ramifications.
"It works because the consequences are immediate," Ms. Kliewer said. "When somebody takes your food away, you get pretty sensitive about it."
Today she's a senior psychology major at the University of North Texas in Denton ? which she said wouldn't be possible without her scholarship from the Salesmanship Club. She wants to work with youths when she graduates.
Experience to remember
Lisa di Palma-Bonfiglio said she'll never forget her camp experience, and she keeps a photo album from camp as a reminder. She still sometimes refers to index cards with advice from her counselors. And she has held onto stuff she whittled during her two-year stay in 1982 and 1983.
Times were different then, she said.
The former Plano resident said her parents sent her to the camp because she skipped school, got poor grades, smoked and occasionally ran away to a friend's house. One time she got in trouble at home for wearing a T-shirt that had a six-pack of beer on it and the words: "Man's best friend."
"It's amazing that the big bad thing then was to wear a T-shirt," she said.
Now she's a sheriff's detective who sees young people who overdose on drugs and have much more serious problems.
"The kids today are not like anything I've ever seen," said Ms. di Palma-Bonfiglio, a crime-scene investigator in Morris County, New Jersey. "It's really shocking to see how easy it is for these kids to get drugs and how enticed they are by it."
Changing regulations
The camp's practice of keeping kids in tents during hot summers and cold winters has been controversial in recent years.
Results of a recent investigation by Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn called for a massive overhaul of the state's foster care system, including tightening standards at therapeutic camps. The Salesmanship Club does not take any state placements, but it is one of eight state-licensed therapeutic camps.
Last fall, investigators found that a camp counselor should not have hit a youth who spit on him. They also said the staff member, who expressed remorse, should not have pulled the child by his legs to force him to sit. According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the incident was not abuse. And in general, the Salesmanship Club's camp has had few violations. Those that have been recorded have been minor.
The state's proposed changes for therapeutic youth camps, including limited tent camping, were designed to "address the weather and basically give them more of the modern conveniences of life," said Geoff Wool, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
"We feel like in order for these kids to not be totally disassociated with society they have that permanent structure, that home base, which is where they live, and they can, from there, go out on these camping excursions," Mr. Wool said.
Dr. Skipper of the Salesmanship Club said his camp works to help kids transition back to living with their families by having them go home every weekend. The club provides therapy during the visits so families can work out problems.
'Hate to see it go'
Camp conditions may be rugged, but Greg Leisey of Plano says they saved his daughter, Della, from continuing down the "wrong path."
"Nobody wants to put their kid in a situation where you don't have the comforts of home," Mr. Leisey said. But the camp helped Della ? who attended in 2000 when she was 13 ? learn some tough lessons.
"As hard as it was, it turned out to be the best thing we've ever done for her," Mr. Leisey said. "I hate to see it go."
Della said she doesn't know what she'd be doing if she hadn't attended.
"I would never be the person I am today," said Della, who sings in her school choir and has won achievement awards in science and leadership programs. She plans to serve in the military when she graduates from high school, and said she's not afraid of being sent to Iraq.
Della figures she's already had good training ? at the Salesmanship Club camp.
"I realized that if I can endure something like that," she said, "the military would be a really good option."
