On 2004-12-23 09:08:00, Anonymous wrote:
"What, no rebuttals? "
Hello, I have a life other than spending 24/7 on Fornits.
On the other----my real complaint with all these places is that the licensing requirements are minimal, there is no safeguard process to prevent inappropriate admissions, there is no ability of the teens to communicate freely with the outside world (including extended family) by uncensored letter, and there are no definied rights of the teen that the facility is required to respect and the respect of which are enforced by authority external to the corporate entity running the facility/facilities.
I don't think the safeguards and limits for residential treatment for teens should be exactly like those for adults, but I *do* think they should be a lot *closer* to the rules governing involuntary commitment of adults than they are now.
I think the replies to my concerns about cult-like features of WWASPS were whitewashing a real problem BUT even if they were 100% true and accurate, there *still* needs to be substantial government oversight put in place to ensure that the teens are receiving quality care.
The big problem with the industry is that whether a particular facility is a bad apple or not, any facility could open up its doors tomorrow and get away with being the bad apple facilities described on Fornits, because there is no meaningful, adequate oversight of these facilities.
*One* of the reasons I suspect the WWASPS advocacy response is a whitewash is that I've talked with a therapist from a non-WWASPS program who, though she didn't mention a particular program by name, says she has often had to open up trauma files on students transferred into her facility from facilities in Utah. That is---her facility has had to treat students for PTSD from the former program after the student transferred in from some program in Utah. She sees the kids coming out of various other programs, and she did *not* have a high opinion of WWASPS.
Now, I didn't agree with everything *she* said, either. For one thing, she was entirely too tolerant of an overly-authoritarian approach to rules for my tastes. But she was, for various reasons, someone I trust to be telling me the truth.
Her account of the condition the kids were in when she got them from places in Utah was a lot more consistent with what the self-identified survivors are saying than with what the WWASPS program advocates are saying.
Regardless--the industry needs oversight. Not just rules on paper, but actual adequately-funded, diligent inspection and enforcement personnel with the power to notify facilities where they're in violation, order compliance, verify compliance, and, if necessary, write citations for violations that can be (and when appropriate, are) translated into fines and lifted operating licenses.
There's a vast difference between rules on paper, and even rules *with teeth* on paper, and actually budgetting the personnel and other overhead costs to make those teeth start chewing out those who need it.
I've seen bureaucracy work well and I've seen it work badly. I've been a bureaucrat, and I've been an activist, and I've been a small business owner.
The problem here is that where rules and laws exist, they aren't adequately implemented and aren't being enforced because nobody in government has been specifically tasked with the enforcement responsibilities, has been specifically allocated budgetted funds for enforcement, has been specifically given a rule system with tools (like violation notification forms, compliance order forms, and the power to issue citations for violations) adequate for enforcement, and nobody in government has been saddled with the recordkeeping requirements (detailed inspection reports, reports to be made available to the public, the media, the legislators, etc. under sunshine laws) to ensure the enforcement actually gets done.
The problem with bureaucracy is you can't just pass a law restricting or prohibiting something and have it be effective. You have to assemble the pieces of a bureaucracy necessary for enforcement, and you have to put those pieces together so that some specific bureacrat with authority over all the bureaucrats down-chain in the enforcement arm *knows* it will be his ass on the line if something bad happens at one of these schools, and it turns out the school was way out of compliance, and it turns out the king bureaucrat wasn't doing his job.
That's the problem with the whole Anson Arnett thing. There is no specific bureaucrat who was responsible for seeing to it that the staffing rules were followed by the facility, and there is no specific bureacrat whose ass is in a sling for not regularly inspecting the facility to ensure their compliance.
It's no wonder when people call the Utah bureaucrats and complain that the bureaucrats blow them off. If child welfare pulls a child from his/her home because the kid's being abused, and places the kid in foster care where the kid gets further abused, or dies, or gets lost in the system----there are particular bureaucrats whose butts are in the hot seat over that screw-up.
They don't have any bureaucratic accountability over the facilities. They can bemoan with the person complaining how lax the rules are----without ever feeling the heat *themselves* for not fixing the problem.
It's the difference between having rules on paper and having rules with teeth.
I know this has seemed like a long digression, but there actually is a point to it.
The biggest reason I'm very, very suspicious of WWASPS is how much work they put into *avoiding* having oversight over them that has actual teeth.
Nobody likes red tape. But at some point squirming away from the red tape becomes less about, "Oh, you hate red tape, too. Don't we all." And becomes more about, "Gee, you're awful intent on avoiding fairly normal, expected red tape for this kind of endeavor. What have you got to hide?"
It *bothers* me that the cattle rancher who grows my steaks has more meaningful, effective oversight than people who run residential treatment facilities for children.
It *bothers* me that animal shelters for cats and dogs have more meaningful, effective oversight than people who run residential treatment facilities for children.
And it bothers the hell out of me that the people who run residential treatment centers for children aren't right out there in front saying, "You know what, there *should* be standards and their *should* be inspections so our clients can know they're getting the services we promised, delivered in a safe and effective manner."
Nobody *likes* to be inspected, but sometimes you just have to be a grown up and understand why it's necessary. I don't *like* going through security to get on a plane---but I do it, or I don't fly.
The biggest single thing that makes me believe the survivors, in general, over the program cheerleaders is the unwillingness of the programs to not only *accept* meaningful oversight, but to affirmatively reach out and *insist* on it, while helping craft it to make sure the oversight is done *well*.
Timoclea
