Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: GOATFLAVOR on June 01, 2007, 12:22:01 PM
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it's fine to say burn them all down,
but who is meeting the need?
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If you check the HLA board you'll find they're doing a good job of burning themselves down. :lol:
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I am worried about anybody that tries to do anything
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Someone at Hyde School tried burning that place down in 1975 but they didn't succeed...
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Well these programs are not meeting the need. Ask the vets about what "help" they got from their program in regards to real issues they had. Most of their needs are neglected in favor of just beating them with the "programs fix" no matter the issue. In some cases the kids don't even have an issue.
However some people do have problems and to meet their needs will be a challenge. For a start we could get rid of the punitive think that seems so pervasive in this industry. Creating more passive controls for those who are dangers to themselves would help in regards to the conflict that results when you try to control someone. By passive I mean building environments around the child. Would you setup a daycare in a nuclear energy plant? No, so why have hard objects(floors, walls) in a facility with kids that bang their heads? And why remove a kid from the home, especially kids with developmental disabilities? We can take care of most of these kids at home if we are willing to sacrifice time and convenience.
The institutions of last resort have become the institutions of convenience when we are desperate, at our wits end, or when we just feel like being fucking cruel. Now we have a system of care that often places the ego of the facilities directors, or political backers, over the interest of the kids, and lets not forget about the powerful influence of money.
It sounds like me and you listen to different choirs. You listen to the lofty promise of the program while I listen to the broken reality of their collateral damage.
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I thought the OP's need was the need to incinerate programs, not the need to torture children.
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but i am hoping my choir is the child in need
your ideas sound great
but the reality is underfunding, and lack of respect all around
a person trying to do the right thing has a hard time without support
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What program do you work for Goatfucker?
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I stopped working for programs in Texas
due to a lack of support
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My bad dude didn't mean to attack you. I've been reading some fucked up shit lately. But yeah what kind of support are you talking about?
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I got a two year masters degree in special education with an emphasis in behavior disorders.
I learned through studying research and experience what works.
I then went to work for a supervisor that had 0 years of special ed experience much less experience with behavior disorders. The school was required to have the program on the campus by the state. No one wanted it there. I got to deal with all that that created as well as knowing what is suppose to be done and not being in a position to do anything about it.
I saw a mentor with decades of experience running progressive least restrictive programs all over the country being attacked by teachers in a school run poorly because they were threatened by change. I saw administrators in the poorly run school that had been in the field for over 20 years refering to and using restraints as "compliance holds".
I have worked for 2 different RTCs in Texas and have seen the extreme staff turn over. There is not enough funding to keep qualified people.
I got to work in one of the best situations that I have ever seen in terms of people educated and experienced. I saw the staff over worked and under payed.
I have no problem giving names and dates, but i have done that before on this sight and responses were off topic and aimed only at attacking my credibility. Believe me or don't. I have nothing to prove.
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Many places are hiring people that i wouldn't trust to make my lunch
to work with kids that already have problems. Now mix in sincere people trying to do the right thing that get no support and have to face instant attack if anything goes wrong. All I did was post on this sight and i got about 4 people that don't know anything about me implying that i abuse kids. It gets tough to see a reason to even try.
I pray about it. I stopped working for the state and I now try to work through the salvation army. Anybody trying to do anything needs support. Find a group you trust and do as much as you can.
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I dont know what happened at the ranch
I am not connected to the people there
but I have been in the past
It provided a chance to do something that mattered to the person that wanted it, and I knew several people that did
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What did you see that unsettled you?
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Have you ever contacted your statesman about the problems you saw? I know it might seem like a lost cause(dealing with government) but at the least when the shit hits the fan(which it will) they won't be able to say "we didn't know". Texas? TYC? It would also be good to contact ISAC, report what you know.
But yeah didn't mean to attack you, well I guess I did.. You just caught me coming off of a roller coaster through someone else's personal hell. It's easy to attach someone else's words about needing to use restraints and the monsters you just read about who use restraints as a tool of terror and punishment.
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It is hard because of the subject. It touches on instant emotion to deal with some of these things.
Let me tell you some of the things I have seen, starting for me at the ranch, that do not disturb me.
I have seen the chance to serve a group of kids that no one else was serving because they were too much of a risk.
I have seen the chance to join up with other people that do their best to do the same thing.
I have seen plenty of that.
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Under-funded and underpaid are complaints I've heard, but don't agree with. Peninsula Village is non-profit, but they still turn a huge profit and the staffers are still underpaid. That's fucking greed at work, and that's the problem with turning teenage angst into an industry.
As far as your question about who's offering solutions, well, read up some more. I've been pushing for Wraparound, community-based treatment that doesn't require a kid to be yanked out of his/her home for being a teenager. Wraparound involves the parents in treatment much more than the fast food method, "pizza delivery service" TBSs would ever want to. If you're as experienced as you say, I'm sure you're aware that the parents are often a prime cause of the acting-out of their kids, whether they know it or not. Parents need some lessons, too.
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Reading and doing are two different things.
I am all for new ideas.
I am all for education and research.
I support your ideas and I hope they work.
I am more for application and chances to serve.
I don't think i am an expert.
i am far far from it.
i have too much respect for the people that do this to think that of myself.
i just wanted to add that good things happened at star ranch,
as well as what ever negative things happened there.
I worked there in the past, and I worked hard to do my job well, and I know several other people that did the same.
I have seen and read enough to know the gaps between
talk and application.
people doing is where it is at.
show me that.
It is what I am looking for.
I agree with your industry comment
Making this work about dollars will never work
People's hearts need to change
I don't think the state is able to address that
It is a huge part of why i stopped working for them
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I'm lost on what you mean by doing so I'll give two responses:
1st responses
Taking action is great and is something I encourage you to do. Starting with educating parents on the issue of abuse surrounding much of the troubled teen industry is a good start. Showing parents real alternatives and, as Juile wrote, true quality of care in regards to inpatient treatment. However, despite your experience, you need to spend time learning from others experiences... Especially those of survivors.
2nd response
I think I get what you're saying about doing but working for a place that's abusive is not going to keep one kid safe. Thats the trap Kevin fell in, the idea that you, in someway, can be the gate & guardian who keeps kids safer.
It's totally unacceptable for any kid to be abused and saving a few, or a lot, along the way doesn't make the scale balance out. Basically what I'm saying is that the "I saw some bad, but many more kids were helped then hurt" adage is a flawed justification spawned from good intentions.
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Jack is back. How did the lawsuit turn out anyway?
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There are three former program employees I know of posting on Fornits, you make a fourth. This is basically a forum for survivors, not experts on adolescent mental healthcare reform. The majority of us lean toward the raze 'em all, scorched earth policy for programs. There are some good ones, but they're short-term, acute care treatment facilities geared toward getting a child stable and ready to re-integrate as quickly as possible, with oupatient care upon release. You never see the names of these facilities here, and for good reason.
What exactly are you expecting from a group of survivors and parents as far as ideas about re-structuring an industry that in my opinion is fucked-up beyond repair? Seriously, look at the names of the programs on this forum and find one that would be missed if the Earth opened up under it and swallowed it.
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I am not an expert
I am not defending any program or any certain way of doing things
If things need to be changed than I am all for it
I am a person who wants to serve
and I have felt the strains of trying to
I did not see that side represented in the discussion
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Well you have to understand that most of us have more sympathy for the kids then we ever will for the staff, even the ones who mean well. Don't take that as a knock to what you tried to accomplish, anyone who tries to make a difference is certainly welcomed. Your concerns, if corrected, would improve the situation, but the fact of the matter is that you can't nurse something back to health that was sick from the start.
The industry is simply built atop a faulty foundation, it needs scraping. Understand that people who get into the industry with the intention of helping kids, like you did, will not accomplish what they set out to do. It's like working for the devil to save souls from hell. Your goals are not consistent with those of this awful industry. If you think I'm wrong just look at the history. The industry changes only when it needs to cover it's ass, smoke and mirrors not progress.
I would suggest that you get into a mentoring program for kids and young adults. Volunteer with organizations that truly help kids, boys and girls clubs, ymca, tutoring, if you have skills as a counselor perhaps working with the Red Cross in devastated areas like New Orleans, where they need help bad cause suicide has gone through the roof, would be more appropriate.
Aye... I don't know man...
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I am not an expert
I am not defending any program or any certain way of doing things
If things need to be changed than I am all for it
I am a person who wants to serve
and I have felt the strains of trying to
I did not see that side represented in the discussion
I value your opinion.
You wouldn't be here if you weren't looking for answers, If you didn't have something to say, but I suspect are hesitant to betray your friends on the staff by discussing what went on... am I right?
Right now, there are three sides here, there are parents, there are survivors, and there is you, a staff member. The response you've gotten so far is miraculously pretty clean. I suspect this is because people sense you were trying to do the right thing. But ask yourself... Can the "right thing" in your eyes change over time? I'm sure you had good intentions, but what were the results. Did you aid what was unjust because it was easier than resisting? You say you want to serve, but do you have the courage to lead, only subject to your conscience?
Recent research shows that ethics are more or less hard-wired in the brain. It's all based on empathy apparantly. Causing another person pain, even in animals, is known to be wrong on an neuropsychological level... However, when known, learned, morality conflicts, judgements can go either way. I trust my "conscience". Hurting another person is wrong, period. Causing another person pain... Or discomfort.. or removing a person from a "comfort zone" Regardless of the euphemism, It's wrong.
The ends do not justify the means, especially when those ends (desired behavior) require creating such discomfort in another person that they submit to the will of another and forfeit choice. And down the slippery slope of gradual submission we go: After choice, identity. After identity, values. After values, truth. After truth, love. It's a rape of the mind. Use whatever euphemism you wish, the reality of it is this: beating another human being into submission. Method is irrelavant. There is no kind method of coersion.
"I'd rather be a free man in my grave, than living as a puppet of a slave" - Bob Dylan
These are my opinions. What are yours? How did you come to them?
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I have plenty of ideas about work I do and work I have done in the past. I feel like being on this forum and mentioning that I have worked at the ranch will make me some sort of representative and that is not the case. I have not worked there for several years.
My goal is and was to be on the side of the child and I pray for anybody else that shares that goal because it is not easy
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I have plenty of ideas about work I do and work I have done in the past. I feel like being on this forum and mentioning that I have worked at the ranch will make me some sort of representative and that is not the case. I have not worked there for several years.
My goal is and was to be on the side of the child and I pray for anybody else that shares that goal because it is not easy
Absolutely. Why wasn't it easy?
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I am not an expert
I am not defending any program or any certain way of doing things
If things need to be changed than I am all for it
I am a person who wants to serve
and I have felt the strains of trying to
I did not see that side represented in the discussion
That texas camp used long terming camping if I'm not mistaken. What sort of living structures were avaliable, and did the kids have to build them?
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Wouldn't it be funny if GOAT was TheWho? :wink:
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Weird format style going on, too, kinda reminds me of HAL in 2001...
"Dave...the program is good.
It's the kids who are malfunctioning.
Dave...caress me and call me your Electric Aunt Jemimah."
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Weird format style going on, too, kinda reminds me of HAL in 2001...
"Dave...the program is good.
It's the kids who are malfunctioning.
Dave...caress me and call me your Electric Aunt Jemimah."
CLICK ME!! (http://http://www.mundoblaineo.com/sounds/justwhat.wav)
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http://listencloser.ytmnd.com/ (http://listencloser.ytmnd.com/) :)
I'm not defending any program
I'm just aware of what it is like to work with kids
and it is not easy no matter how good your intentions
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What wasn't easy?
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http://listencloser.ytmnd.com/ :)
I'm not defending any program
I'm just aware of what it is like to work with kids
and it is not easy no matter how good your intentions
Obviously it's not easy to work with kids, that's why some parents give up and send their offspring to a supposedly "therapeutic" shithole. Their hope is these "pros" will fix and make better, and as you've stated, they're not going to do any better than the parents.
At least you've got an educational background that gave you the tools to work with troubled kids. Doesn't make it any easier, does it? It seems people going into the troubled adolescent business with great intentions are the first to bail out of it in disgust and horror.
Oh yeah...post 666.... :evil:
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That post is of the Devil :cry2:
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Don't put words in my mouth
there are people doing great things
in tough situations
should those people do nothing for fear of failure?
or because other people have failed?
AND
What is easy about it?
If the child did not have an issue there would be no reason to do anything. Even in the most supported environment some of these kids are hard to work with. The major issue is finding support from the group you're working with and the parents. You're getting attacked from three different sides. I'm not dodging accountability. There should be more of it. I'm all for it.
I think the point is that any blanket statements are not going to be true about child care. There are too many variables and combinations. There are individual children with individual needs. There are workers with good intent and bad intent. There are workers with good skills and those without. There are parents that try and those that don't. It is all out there.
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can anyone explain the "lifeboat" thing? I want to understand what the "group" was trying to do back then...and if you are just tired of refering back to the druggie past then what I experienced today might be interesting