Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => News Items => Topic started by: Inculcated on May 23, 2010, 10:15:37 PM
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State department of Juvenile Justice stands by youth facility operator after sexual assault (http://http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/051710/new_640207646.shtml)By AP - Athens Banner-Herald Published Monday, May 17, 2010
AUGUSTA - The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice is standing behind operators of the WestCare-Georgia Intensive Residential Treatment Program, where a 16-year-old said he was sexually assaulted with a toilet plunger.
No sanctions were imposed and no employees were disciplined, The Augusta Chronicle reported Sunday. The newspaper used an open records request to obtain the investigation report of what happened on the night of Jan. 2. As a result of the case, four teens who were at the privately run drug and alcohol recovery program were indicted on charges of aggravated sexual battery.
The report describes how four large teens attacked the victim while the lights were out during a shift change.
The file said corrective actions taken by the company include adopting a zero-tolerance policy for "horse play" and assigning extra keys so counselors overseeing dormitories can keep watch over residents during shift changes.
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"Inculcated"]State department of Juvenile Justice stands by youth facility operator after sexual assault (http://http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/051710/new_640207646.shtml)By AP - Athens Banner-Herald Published Monday, May 17, 2010
AUGUSTA - The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice is standing behind operators of the WestCare-Georgia Intensive Residential Treatment Program, where a 16-year-old said he was sexually assaulted with a toilet plunger.
No sanctions were imposed and no employees were disciplined, The Augusta Chronicle reported Sunday. The newspaper used an open records request to obtain the investigation report of what happened on the night of Jan. 2. As a result of the case, four teens who were at the privately run drug and alcohol recovery program were indicted on charges of aggravated sexual battery.
The report describes how four large teens attacked the victim while the lights were out during a shift change.
The file said corrective actions taken by the company include adopting a zero-tolerance policy for "horse play" and assigning extra keys so counselors overseeing dormitories can keep watch over residents during shift changes.
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Here is a short bio of the program, a different sort of treatment program.
A Tribute to Bob McNutt, 1920 - 2008
A Tribute to Arnold Andrews, 1942 - 2006
Uplifting the human spirit is a lofty statement for any organization to promote as their objective, especially given the challenging world we live in today. Quality health and human services for individuals, families and communities in need are a priceless resource. With over three decades of experience, WestCare has the necessary expertise to be that resource to the communities we serve.
WestCare, a family of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, provides a wide spectrum of health and human services in both residential and outpatient environments. Our services include substance abuse and addiction treatment, homeless and runaway shelters, domestic violence treatment and prevention, and mental health programs. These services are available to adults, children, adolescents, and families; we specialize in helping people traditionally considered difficult to treat, such as those who are indigent, have multiple disorders, or are involved with the criminal justice system.
Much of our growth has resulted from partnering with like-minded, community-oriented treatment programs that focus on providing the highest quality services. All of these partnerships are to the mutual benefit of the organizations involved and have enabled the partners to sustain and enhance the provision of treatment services for those who need such help. A brief historical overview shows how this strategy has further strengthened and broadened the treatment continuum WestCare provides in its many regions.
WestCare, Inc. is an AmeriCorps National Direct grantee through the Corporation for National and Community Service. Join the national service movement and help us uplift spirits, strengthen neighborhoods and build strong families! For more information regarding AmeriCorps opportunities at WestCare please contact David Rosynsky, WeDirect National AmeriCorps Director at http://www.americorps.gov (http://www.americorps.gov).
1973
• WestCare was created to provide community-based substance abuse treatment for people who are indigent or from low-income households and who would not otherwise have had access to treatment services. Founded as a residential treatment program called Fitzsimmons House, or “Fitz House,” adopted the therapeutic community treatment modality and focused on long-term care for hard-core adult male heroin addicts. Within a few years, WestCare responded to the community’s need for expanded substance abuse treatment and made available to women and to individuals abusing drugs other than heroin.
1981
• The Board of Directors reincorporated the agency under Western Counseling Associations, Inc. (WCA). With this re-incorporation, the agency further expanded to provide adult outpatient and day treatment services, as well as a substance abuse education and prevention school for adults convicted of driving under the influence.
1984
• WCA acquired Vegas House, Inc. (now known as WestCare’s Youth Residential Program), an adolescent residential program that utilizes the therapeutic community treatment modality: 75% of the treatment population is youthful offenders.
1985
• Our service delivery system expanded to include a youth day treatment component with an accredited school program sponsored by the Clark County School District, primarily serving probationers and parolees.
1986
• The Regional Family Resource Center (RFRC) was added to our family of programs to provide a comprehensive system of crisis intervention, substance abuse assessments, and referral/placement services for youth and families in need. This program was the result of collaboration between the Nevada Association of Counties, Juvenile Court Services, and WCA. The RFRC has continued to grow and now provides shelter and drug abuse prevention services to runaway, homeless, and exploited youth; adult social model civil protective custody and detoxification program (primarily serving individuals with criminal justice backgrounds or public inebriates referred by local law enforcement); and an adult transitional living program and aftercare support services.
1988
• The agency changed its name to WestCare. The agency’s new name reflected more accurately the diversity of treatment alternatives made available to the community.
1991
• WestCare continued to expand its focus on special populations with the addition of a school-based substance abuse education and prevention project focusing on serving Hispanic youth.
1992
• Programs in neighboring states began to request WestCare’s assistance and expertise in developing and managing substance abuse education, prevention, and treatment programs for both youth and adults. WestCare started its Colorado River Region Youth Services Project (CRRYS), located in Mohave County, Arizona, to address gaps in services for youth corrections and child welfare referrals in the tri-state region of Arizona, California, and Nevada. WestCare also acquired fiscal and clinical management of The Third Floor in Fresno, California in 1992. The Third Floor, incorporated in 1974, provides critical substance abuse treatment and prevention programs as well as support services for homeless and families in need throughout Fresno County. The Third Floor (now WestCare California) provides service to over 3,000 individuals annually. The WestCare California treatment facility in Fresno is one of the largest community-based programs in the United States with a capacity of almost 350 residential and detoxification treatment beds providing specialty services to youth, women with children, and adults.
1996 - 1997
• WestCare initiated a rural outpatient substance abuse treatment program for youthful offenders in Pahrump, Nevada. WestCare opened an adolescent social model detoxification program, and added a domestic violence program for chemically dependent women to its Nevada operations. We also acquired a domestic violence shelter that annually serves approximately 320 women and their children, known as Safe House, in Arizona; 60% of the women in the program have criminal justice involvement. The Safe House operation was added at the request of its Board of Directors, which wanted the program to benefit from WestCare’s experienced management team.
1998
• WestCare Nevada develops a Street Outreach Team Project named "Dusk to Dawn" which provides crisis intervention on the streets and transportation of homeless and runaway youth from the streets of Las Vegas.
2001
• In January, WestCare established a Community Involvement Center and administrative office in St. Petersburg, Florida and began building partnerships with local treatment providers and community organizations. WestCare currently provides outpatient substance abuse treatment services to individuals affected or infected with HIV/AIDS.
• In April, WestCare Nevada added the Healthy Families Project, a residential substance abuse treatment program serving pregnant and postpartum women and their children. Healthy Families Project offers a continuum of care ranging from medium/high intensity residential, intensive outpatient, outpatient individual and group, and transitional housing treatment services. This program provides gender specific case management substance abuse treatment services to pregnant/parenting women and women with dependent children. This is the only substance abuse treatment facility in Southern Nevada that specifically targets this population, allows the clients to bring children into treatment with them, and provides intensive case management during the treatment process.
2002
• WestCare California contracted with the Department of Corrections, and in February 2003, began operating residential treatment and outpatient counseling for prison inmates.
2003
• WestCare Nevada begins operating a Community Triage Center with support from the city of Las Vegas, Clark County, and the local medical community.
• WestCare Florida assumed operational responsibility for Turning Point and The Mustard Seed Inn, two programs that serve homeless drug-dependent individuals in the Pinellas County area, at the invitation of the Mustard Seed Foundation early in 2003.
• WestCare assumed operations of the Living Room, a nonprofit agency in 2003, thus providing WestCare California with an opportunity to develop a full complement of HIV/AIDS-related services in the Fresno community. In addition to offering counseling and related services, The Living Room offers a drop-in center, a food bank, and a hot meals program.
• Blossom House, an independent living program that prepares drug-free women for a life of sobriety and productivity, joined WestCare Arizona’s service array in 2003. Staff assists residents in finding meaningful work and in finding affordable permanent housing.
• WestCare Nevada opened the Women and Children’s Campus in November 2003. Licensed for 130 beds, the facility offers a crisis intervention program for runaways and homeless adolescents; separate treatment programs for adolescents and adult women address gender-specific needs of campus residents; and Healthy Families.
• The Village South, located in Miami, The Village - Virgin Islands and WestCare affiliated in December 2003, thus joining forces. Through this partnership, both organizations came together with the expectation of maximizing their respective strengths by sharing resources and “best practices” of service delivery, and by improving administrative efficiencies.
2004
• WestCare Georgia enters into a contract with DeKalb County and began operation of two independent living facilities for foster children and adjudicated youths. One for Boys in Tucker, Georgia, and one for Girls in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
• Charles G. Curie, Administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) presented a grant award to WestCare for $2 million over five years to integrate treatment for health problems, substance abuse and mental disorders for homeless adults at The Turning Point.
• In preparation for establishing community-base substance abuse treatment services in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, WestCare Foundation filed articles of incorporation. Initially, WestCare will provide services in eastern and central Kentucky, with plans to expand into western Kentucky.
• The Colorado River Youth Shelter (CRRYS) celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a gala celebration.
• WestCare Florida began offering targeted case management services in Pensacola, Florida, for severely and persistently mentally ill adults and children.
• WestCare Florida subcontracted with the University of South Florida for HIV/AIDS testing and counseling services.
• WestCare Nevada opened the Girls Intermediate Residential Living and Support Services (GIRRLS) program at the Women and Children’s Campus. The program offers alternative placements for females who have committed non-violent offenses, yet are not categorized as delinquents because they are often victims of crime. The program is a collaboration of Department of Juvenile Justice Services, the Metropolitan Police Department, and WestCare.
• WestCare Nevada begins Prevention Education services in rural and Urban Nevada. This new program covers two counties and is included in the school curriculum in three cities.
• WestCare Georgia begins operation of two Independent Living Facilities; one for Boys, in Tucker Georgia and one for Girls, in Stone Mountain Georgia.
2005
• WestCare Kentucky opened a residential substance abuse treatment facility in August of 2005. The facility is licensed for 72 adult men and women in Eastern Kentucky.
• WestCare Arizona opens Emery House, a men’s sober living home that provides housing and services for ten adult men in recovery.
• WestCare Arizona opens Sage House, a respite day center for seniors that provides supervised care for those who cannot be left home alone.
• WestCare receives funding to begin expansion of Street Outreach Services to include identification of victims of trafficking
• The Care Center for Mental Health affiliated with WestCare. The Care Center for Mental Health has been providing substance abuse and mental health services to the residents of Monroe County and the Florida Keys over two decades.
• The Guidance Clinic of the Middle Keys affiliated with WestCare. The Guidance Clinic of the Middle Keys has been faithfully serving the residents of the Middle Keys of Monroe County for more than three decades.
2006
• WestCare Nevada opened the Butterflies Emergency Shelter Program which provides an immediate safe haven for girls referred by Child Haven. The Unit provides alternatives for girls age 10-17 in danger of abuse or neglect, and works with caseworkers to coordinate services to meet each individuals needs.
• WestCare California opened a Therapeutic Community inside Pleasant Valley State Prison which can provide substance abuse services for 200 inmate participants.
• Drug Court services begin in town of Pahrump, Nevada. Adult and Youth Drug Court Clients are able to receive compassionate care in their own community.
• On November 1, 2006, WestCare Illinois enters into a contract with the Illinois Department of Corrections to provide substance abuse treatment for all 950 offenders at the Sheridan Correctional Facility -Fully Dedicated Drug Treatment Prison and Reentry Program. The Sheridan program utilizes a therapeutic community model of care.
• WestCare Arizona’s Colorado River Regional Youth Services (CRRYS) is the recipient of three major community inspired renovation projects.
Mohave County Probation Department, volunteers and neighbors from the community came together to help build a new baseball field for the youth at CRRYS. In November CRRYS held its 1st annual softball tournament on the new field to mark the occasion. Staff from Mohave County Probation played the opening game.
The CRRYS facility opened a new classroom. This classroom is state of the art, equipped with 20 computers where students can complete school work assignments on-line and work at their own pace, while earning credits toward graduation. This project was made possible by Apple Construction and local Kiwanis Clubs.
Local businesses and volunteers join together to create an outside picnic area furnished with picnic tables and canopy for the youth and staff at CRRYS.
2007
• WestCare Arizona's Thrift Store gets a new name, new manager and a much needed makeover. This project was made possible by the hard work and dedication of the WestCare Arizona staff. Formerly known as "My Sister’s Closet" this new and improved thrift store now proudly bears the name of WestCare Arizona Thrift Store.
• Mohave County Probation Department, volunteers and neighbors unite to build a new basketball court at CRRYS. In celebration, WestCare Arizona staff held a celebrity "shoot the hoops with the kids day" at CRRYS, where the local Needles, CA Judge, Honorable Joe Brisco, Mohave County Attorney, Matt Smith and WestCare Sr. Vice President, Kirby Burgess shot hoops with the kids.
• Scheduled for winter 2007, WestCare Nevada, will open the doors to its newest facility, the Community Triage Center (CTC), located in Reno, Nevada. The CTC – Reno will provide safe, medically supervised detoxification services, as well as provide triage services for individuals in need of acute mental health treatment. The CTC will offer safe and effective treatment options for early interventions for both populations.
• In fall 2007 WestCare began operating the new WestCare Charter School. WestCare Charter School is a publicly-funded charter school geared at assisting children and adolescents with behavioral and/or emotional problems. The school will combine a middle school and high school educational program with emotional wellness training and behavioral modification techniques.
• WestCare Nevada awarded State of Nevada grant to provide integrated mental health and substance abuse treatment services to Seriously Emotionally Disturbed (SED) adolescents with Co-occurring Disorders. The Co-Occurring Disorders Pilot Project of Clark County is a comprehensive, integrated, evidence-based program which incorporates intensive outpatient services and Family Behavioral Therapy.
• WestCare Nevada expands the Healthy Families Project. In a collaborative effort, WestCare Nevada, State of Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, the State of Nevada Attorney General's Office and other partner agencies awarded $3.7 million federal grant through the Administration for Children and Families to improve permanency outcomes for children affected by methamphetamine and other substance abuse. The Healthy Families Project, the only licensed treatment services for mothers and their young children in Las Vegas, provides residential and transitional substance abuse treatment services to pregnant, postpartum, and parenting women. This funding will allow WestCare to expand services by an additional 12 treatment beds, enabling the HFP to serve 30 mothers and up to 30 children. The enhanced services will benefit an additional 48 women and children annually.
Danny
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
There programs in Georgia; Locations:
WestCare, Inc. is an AmeriCorps National Direct grantee through the Corporation for National and Community Service. Join the national service movement and help us uplift spirits, strengthen neighborhoods and build strong families! For more information regarding AmeriCorps opportunities at WestCare please contact David Rosynsky, WeDirect National AmeriCorps Director at http://www.americorps.gov (http://www.americorps.gov).
GEORGIA:
WestCare Georgia provides a wide spectrum of health and human services in both residential and outpatient environments. Our services include a juvenile justice treatment program, outpatient substance abuse and addiction treatment, children in crisis and HIV/AIDS educational programs.
Dedicated to working in partnership with the communities and agencies we serve, our philosophy is to empower everyone who comes into contact with us to engage in a process of healing, growth, and change that will benefit them, their families, their coworkers and their communities.
Fast Facts
Georgia Map
DeKalb County Children’s Center
901 Fourth Street
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
Phone: 770-469-8480
Fax: 770-469-1024
In March of 2004, WestCare entered into partnership with the Department of Children and Families in DeKalb County, Georgia, to provide residential care and treatment for children in the child protective service system. The DeKalb Children’s Center is 52-bed residential treatment facilities for youths ages 12-17 in need of support and services to meet their varied needs.
• 24-hour Child Assessment Center.
• 24-hour day rooms, board, care and supervision in a residential therapeutic milieu that addresses each child’s individual, physical, social, mental, and emotional needs.
• Comprehensive residential group care to children who have been identified as having emotional or behavior problems and permanency planning challenges.
• Service planning and provision based on the child’s placement assessment, which is individualized, and integrated with the case plan and permanency goals.
• A full array of enhanced/comprehensive residential group care program services to facilitate the achievement of the permanency goals of each child in care.
• Independent Living for youths ages 16-21 in Stone Mountain and Tucker.
• A full array of vocational services designed to prepare youth for independent living.
Boggs Intensive Residential Adolescent Boys Treatment Program
4729 Quaker Road
Keysville, Georgia 30816
Phone: 706-554-1005
FAX: 706-554-7006
• 24 hours therapeutic community
• Intensive residential substance abuse treatment
• Adolescent boys ages 13-17
• Individual, group and family counseling
• On-campus school
• Vocational component
• On call medical/psychiatric service
This Is a FREE Program, Funded by the Georgia Department of Human Resources.
Project Safe Place
901 Fourth Street
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
Phone: 770-469-8480 ext. 229
Hotline: 800-621-4000
Safe Place is a nationally acclaimed program to assist young people in crisis. Safe Place is an alternative to running away or remaining silent about abuse. Safe Place partners are business leaders and community volunteers. The Safe Place sign at a business location tells a child it is a safe place to come for help. A volunteer meets with the child and takes the young person to a shelter or releases him or her to their parent. Safe Place makes help available whenever and wherever a child needs it.
CARES Program
2818 Lakewood Ave.
Atlanta, GA 30315
Phone: 404-761-7485
Fax: 404-761-8427
• At-risk and substance abusing youth ages 12-18 in Atlanta Metro region, Fulton County and Dekalb County
• Outreach and pretreatment services for youth affected by HIV/AIDS
• Expansive referral network
• Free rapid HIV testing and counseling
• Education through pamphlets, impromptu discussions during outreach, community events and school presentations
• Free Safe sex kits
DJJ IRTP
3431 Mike Padgett Hwy
Augusta, GA 30906
Phone: 706-772-9722
Fax: 706-798-5422
The Intensive Treatment Program has trained Clinical Counselors/Therapists/Educators who provide a Therapeutic program to assist adolescents address not only the symptoms of the disorder/addiction but develop skills that will enhance their knowledge of "root causes and pre/post onsets."
• Long term "Recovery Concept"
• Therapeutic Community Curriculum
• 12 Step model
• Community support systems of AA/NA/CA/MA weekly
• Stages of Change model
• Family Therapy
• Dual Diagnosis Program
Methamphetamine Adult Intensive Outpatient Services
• Adult Substance Abuse Outpatient Services
• Substance Abuse Counseling
• Adult Assessment and Referral
• Methamphetamine Specific Drug Treatment Services and Education Programs
• Mobile Assessment and Outreach Services
• Weekly Random Urine Tests
• Individual and Family Counseling
• Case management and Crisis Intervention
• Utilization of Evidenced-Base Matrix Model Treatment Service Approach
• Aftercare and Follow-up Services
Services Locations
Region One- Rome Georgia Office
2201 Shorter Ave.
Rome, GA 30165
Phone: 706-235-1313
Fax: 706-235-1315
Region Two-Augusta Georgia Office
2368 Barton Chapel Road
Augusta, GA 30930
Phone: 706-790-1689
Fax: 706-790-1691
Region Three-Atlanta Georgia Office
2818 Lakewood Ave.
Atlanta, GA 30315
Phone: 404-761-7485
Fax: 404-761-8427
Danny
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Listen here son, stop trying to be like Ursus!
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Here is a short bio of the program, a different sort of treatment program.
What exactly do you mean by "different?" They utilize a therapeutic community modality just like all the other programs here. They started as a hardcore drug rehab TC, yet another friggin' Synanon. I'd classify them as a public sector gulag, working through the juvenile justice system for the most part.
Danny, if you're gonna copy all this stuff from someone's website, you should at least have the courtesy to acknowledge their efforts and info with a source link. Jeeeeezzz.
Not sure of the exact internal page designations, but here's the website for WestCare, from which Danny's material appears to have been obtained: http://www.westcare.com/ (http://www.westcare.com/)
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I'm sure it won't be long before similar stories begin to percolate from Ridge Creek*, Len Buccellato's new private juvenile jail.
*not sure of the juvy lockup name, but it is colocated with Ridge Creek.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
DannyB II wrote:Here is a short bio of the program, a different sort of treatment program.
What exactly do you mean by "different?" They utilize a therapeutic community modality just like all the other programs here. They started as a hardcore drug rehab TC, yet another friggin' Synanon. I'd classify them as a public sector gulag, working through the juvenile justice system for the most part.
What exactly do you mean by "different?" They utilize a therapeutic community modality just like all the other programs here.
Ursus you know what the nice part about my rebuttal is I am going to speak from first hand experience whereas you will speak from reading some web site. There is very little that goes on in Georgia that I don't know about in regards to treatment centers.
This particular facility is dealing with hardcore criminals whereas other facilities not so. That is a start OK, with me so far Urie.
So lets not get to crazy in our similarities, there idea of treatment modality is 3 hots and a cot with a group or two a week to diagnose personality disorders. They are not trying to rehabilitate.
They started as a hardcore drug rehab TC, yet another friggin' Synanon. I'd classify them as a public sector gulag, working through the juvenile justice system for the most part.
Your not even close (at this facility) where the allege rape happened. Gulag, I don't think the boys staying here would go for that.
These are mostly indigent .
Danny, if you're gonna copy all this stuff from someone's website, you should at least have the courtesy to acknowledge their efforts and info with a source link
. Jeeeeezzz.
[/quote]
Why don't we watch are tone of writing there my dear. I thought that was your job. Ya kno following up on Danny's errors.
I always thought it helped you to feel superior. Quik boost to the ego.
Danny
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Ursus you know what the nice part about my rebuttal is I am going to speak from first hand experience whereas you will speak from reading some web site. There is very little that goes on in Georgia that I don't know about in regards to treatment centers.
This particular facility is dealing with hardcore criminals whereas other facilities not so. That is a start OK, with me so far Urie.
So lets not get to crazy in our similarities, there idea of treatment modality is 3 hots and a cot with a group or two a week to diagnose personality disorders. They are not trying to rehabilitate.
Speaking from first hand experience being in a treatment center ya' drunk?
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Here is a short bio of the program, a different sort of treatment program.
What exactly do you mean by "different?" They utilize a therapeutic community modality just like all the other programs here.
Ursus you know what the nice part about my rebuttal is I am going to speak from first hand experience whereas you will speak from reading some web site. There is very little that goes on in Georgia that I don't know about in regards to treatment centers.
This particular facility is dealing with hardcore criminals whereas other facilities not so. That is a start OK, with me so far Urie.
So lets not get to crazy in our similarities, there idea of treatment modality is 3 hots and a cot with a group or two a week to diagnose personality disorders. They are not trying to rehabilitate.
They started as a hardcore drug rehab TC, yet another friggin' Synanon. I'd classify them as a public sector gulag, working through the juvenile justice system for the most part.
Your not even close (at this facility) where the allege rape happened. Gulag, I don't think the boys staying here would go for that.
These are mostly indigent .
Hmm. Not only does WestCare employ therapeutic community modalities in their treatment programs, but they partner with ex-Synanon folk for some of their jail contracts.
From WestCare's 2008 Annual Report (http://http://www.villagesouth.com/WC_Annual_Report_2008.pdf.) (44pp, 2759k PDF), color emphasis added:
In November 2006, WestCare entered into partnership with the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) to provide substance abuse treatment services at the Sheridan Correctional Center. The Sheridan Correctional Center Program is an adult male, 950-bed Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA) licensed, totally dedicated in-prison substance abuse program designed to provide long-term intensive treatment services for incarcerated males. The program is 9 to 24 months in length, and services are provided using a three-phase (orientation, treatment and prerelease reentry/reintegration), modified therapeutic community (TC) model. Once the men complete treatment at Sheridan, they participate in additional postrelease case management, job preparedness services and funded aftercare treatment and housing services in the community, as well as assistance with reintegration back into society. Recognized as a national reentry model, this program is the largest fully dedicated, prison-based treatment program in the country. Funding for the Sheridan Correctional Center is provided through a contract with IDOC.
Drawing from WestCare's experience, the Sheridan substance abuse program was developed using "best practice" clinical and behavioral approaches. The Sheridan Correctional Center TC model incorporates assessment; individual and group counseling; vocational skills training; alcohol and drug education classes; relapse prevention; cognitive restructuring/behavior modification; critical thinking errors; violence reduction; and family counseling, as well as a wide variety of other services to meet the needs of the participant.
WestCare works closely with IDOC administrative, security, program, and support staff through regular meetings, development of shared procedures, and planned cross trainings to achieve a seamless and well-articulated set of expectations for both staff and inmate participants. WestCare values our Sheridan partnerships and has a commitment to work closely with TASC, Safer Foundation, the Illinois Valley Community College, the Illinois Manufacturing Foundation, and the National Homebuilders Association, to ensure communication and collaboration between all stakeholders.
WestCare has partnered with the Amity Foundation, Inc., to implement the well-researched and recognized Amity Model for in-custody TC, and with Extensions LLC to provide the TC staff training and specialized TC curriculum. Use of a curriculum provides hands-on training so that a participant is not just exposed to the structure of a TC, but also learns why they are exposed to the structure and their role in maintaining that structure. This knowledge aids participants in their continual self-examination.[/list]
And just who are Amity Foundation, Inc. and Extensions LLC?
- Amity Foundation, Inc.: A therapeutic community initially run by long-term former Synanites Naya Arbiter, Rod Mullen, and Bette Fleishman (each having been part of Synanon ?10 years during the 1970s). Initially Amity's focus was on "helping troubled youth," later their focus was on incorporating TCs into the correctional system with government contracts (much more lucrative). Despite Amity's very convoluted and overly complicated history filled with lots of scandal, character assassination, and financial misdeeds, they currently hold a number of prison contracts.
- Extensions LLC: A consulting group run by Naya Arbiter.
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See also:
Phoenix New Times
Children of Synanon (http://http://www.rickross.com/reference/synanon/synanon3.html)
An acclaimed Tucson drug-treatment program went suddenly, mysteriouly bankrupt. Administrators blame the board of directors. But others are questioning the administrators and their history at the notorious drug-treatment empire known as Synanon.
By John Dougherty
October 10, 1996
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Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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Edited..duplicate
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Edited Duplicate
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Danny you idiot please learn how to use the quote function correctly.
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Which should then give you a good picture of what this facility is like where this rape happened. I am only referring to this particular facility. My only argument here Ursus is "at the facility in question concerning the rape" I believe they are not trying to hard to implement any standard therapeutic modalities as you are say'in. That's all. Other then that little point I was trying to make, I'm on board with everything else you are say'in. Any help I could give to shut down this enterprise please let me know. WestCare is known throughout Georgia as a warehouse for criminals with very little rehab, how else could 4 goons manage to wrestle a dude down and shove a stick up his behind. Nobody heard this or saw this, where were the cameras ect....
So please go on with your bad self and get'em.
If you're implying or under the impression that I am or was saying that they make healthy use of "therapy" for these kids, you're sadly mistaken. Like I said, "They started as a hardcore drug rehab TC, yet another friggin' Synanon." That is to say, C-U-L-T. Just wanna make sure we're clear on this.
I am not exactly a fan of therapeutic communities. Though... to each his own, I guess, presuming one is talking about adults exercising their own free will. I think they can be incredibly psychologically destructive to kids.
As far "where was the camera" is concerned? It was broken. It would have cost $660 to fix it. I think that pretty much sums up just where WestCare's priorities are, in case anyone's still wondering.
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I think it is a little deceiving and misleading to the readers to assume they have adopted the synanon approach because of the connection that west Care partnered with Amity Foundation which had ties to Synanon in its past. That’s 40 or 50 years ago I believe. The important question is what are they doing today?
I would think it would be important to understand if they are still incorporating the confrontational approach and group encounters into their program. Do they strive to create a cult atmosphere and enroll family members, do they have synanon members who kidnap and kill people and if so has this been documented, are people allowed to leave after their time is up? etc…. To just say “Oh, this place is connected to this one who use to employ these people” really doesn’t mean anything today. It might have meant something back then, but does it now?
Ursus, If you had a past relative who committed murder it doesn’t mean that you should be treated any differently or denied employment because of your blood ties to this person. We need to look at what is going on in the present, what you stand for and are doing today.
Do you see what I am saying? We can all be traced back to 9 common people. So everything is related at some point, good and bad.
...
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Here's the original article from the Augusta Chronicle:
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The Augusta Chronicle
State department of Juvenile Justice stands by youth facility operator after sexual assault (http://http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/crime-courts/2010-05-16/state-department-juvenile-justice-stands-youth-facility-operator-after?v=1273972906)
Roommates charged in sexual assault on teen
By Johnny Edwards
Staff Writer
Sunday, May 16, 2010
It happened in the dark.
Four larger teens had been talking about raping him -- one of them had been winking at him lately -- but he thought it was just talk. When the lights went out in the C dorm of WestCare-Georgia Intensive Residential Treatment Program, a privately run drug and alcohol recovery center for incarcerated teens off Mike Padgett Highway, they moved on him.
He went for the door to yell for help, but when he clutched the handle, one of them grabbed him by the neck in a choke hold and pulled him to the floor. They fondled him and pulled his pants off. As he thrashed and kicked, one of them took a toilet plunger from the bathroom, rubbed lotion on it, and attacked him with the handle.
"They did not say anything," the victim told an investigator. "They were just laughing."
That account is based on statements by the 16-year-old victim and two accused perpetrators contained in the state Department of Juvenile Justice's investigative file on the Jan. 2 incident, which The Augusta Chronicle obtained through an Open Records Act request.
Four-and-a-half months later, the department is standing by the contractor operating the facility, even though its investigation confirmed that a sexual assault occurred there.
"The investigation did not substantiate any negligence on their part," said Rob Rosenbloom, deputy commissioner for Community Services and Intake, "and we believe the children are still safe there."
NO SANCTIONS have been imposed on WestCare-Georgia, a division of a Las Vegas-based nonprofit in the third year of a five-year contract to run the center at an annual cost of about $2 million, and no employees have been disciplined. According to the department's statistics on the center, this is the only youth-on-youth sexual act, abusive or not, that has occurred under WestCare.
Corrective actions since taken by the company include adopting a zero-tolerance policy for "horse play" and assigning extra keys so counselors overseeing dormitories can keep watch over residents during shift change, according to documents in the file.
Also substantiating the assault were the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Augusta District Attorney's office.
Terrance Tafia Felder, 15, of Riverdale, Ga.; William Mark Richardson, 16, of Gillsville, Ga.; Zyheed Trevron Roberts, 16, of Marietta, Ga.; and Austin Sokol, 15, of Stockbridge, Ga., have been indicted on charges of aggravated sexual battery, one of the so-called "seven deadly sins" that automatically bump their case up to adult court.
Rosenbloom said there's no excuse for a sex crime to be committed on a child in state custody at any facility, especially a small one.
The WestCare program -- housed in four buildings surrounded by a security fence behind the Augusta Youth Development Campus -- has 30 beds, compared to the 120 at the long-term YDC or the 64 at the short-term Augusta Regional Youth Detention Center.
But these things happen, Rosenbloom said.
"You still have the dynamic of kids interacting with kids," he said.
That explanation isn't good enough for the victim's mother or the family's attorney, David Groover, of Calhoun, Ga.
"At this point," Groover said, "there is no indication that any steps have been taken by (the Department of Family and Children Services) or WestCare to ensure that children entrusted to their care are not subject to this kind of trauma and abuse, and that this never happens again to a child in protective custody of the state of Georgia."
ANOTHER CORRECTIVE action was for WestCare to repair its camera surveillance system, which according to e-mails had been knocked out by a lightning strike in early August and would have cost about $660 to repair.
Cameras were aimed at the open sleeping area in C dorm, but WestCare-Georgia Vice President Michael Langford said he doesn't think anything useful would have been captured had they been operable.
That's because the lights were out.
The attack occurred during shift change, about 10 p.m., according to the documents, while the dorm's sole residential counselor on duty was in the control room briefing his reliever, telling him that some of the boys -- there were 10 in the unit that night -- seemed "excited to see him" and might act out on him. The incoming counselor, Harvey Woody, let the other counselor out the main door, then noticed the commotion.
It broke up when he stuck his key in the door to the sleeping area, Woody told a Juvenile Justice investigator. He saw several boys grabbing at another, one of them holding a plunger, but no one had his pants down, he said.
Later, after Woody radioed for help, another counselor, Erika Jordan, turned the lights on and chastised the boys for horseplay. She saw the victim lying in his bed.
"He appeared to have a upset look on his face," Jordan wrote in her statement, "but resident did not say anything."
That was Saturday night. Two days later, the victim reported what happened to a therapist.
"The youth (the four accused assailants) told me that if I told what happened, they would jump me," the victim said, "but I was so mad that I told on Monday.
"I think I should be able to go home."
Of the four, only Felder and Roberts gave statements to the Juvenile Justice investigator. Both said that it was rowdiness that went too far. Felder said it started as slap boxing, but then they "kept messing with (the victim).
"It all started with playing," Felder wrote in his statement, "and it turned into something more serious."
WESTCARE'S OWN investigation, Langford said, didn't substantiate a sexual assault.
He noted that the victim waited two days to report it and cited conflicting statements in his account, but said the company alerted Juvenile Justice, DFCS and police anyway.
"Safety of clients and staff is first and foremost with us," Langford said. "We'd rather have an abundance of caution."
Some of those contradictions are apparent in the investigative file. In the victim's early statements, to the therapist and a WestCare nurse, he said he was fondled and one of the boys tried to assault him with the plunger, but no penetration occurred. The nurse and Trinity Hospital found no evidence of physical injury.
But later he complained of bleeding and changed his account. Visits to University Hospital and Medical College of Georgia Hospital also found no signs of injury.
District Attorney Ashley Wright and GBI Thomson office Special Agent in Charge Gary Nicholson wouldn't say what led them to conclude he told the truth in the second story. A memo from the Juvenile Justice Office of Investigations, reaching the same conclusion, cites corroborating statements by residents whose names are redacted.
GROOVER SAID he has uncovered other records showing that his client, whose name The Chronicle is withholding because he is a sexual assault victim, went to Trinity Hospital a few weeks before the incident, claiming he was hit in the crotch with a football.
"There's evidence in his medical records that he was treated for other injury to his genitals, and for infection, while he was at WestCare," he said. "And those are well-known symptoms, red flags, of child sexual abuse. And, at least, WestCare failed to monitor and supervise these children."
The boy's mother, whose name the newspaper is also withholding so as not to identify her son, said he got embroiled in the state child welfare system while his father was in state prison on methamphetamine charges and she was serving six months in a county jail for driving with a suspended license and giving false information.
"He was just lost without us, you know," she said.
While living with relatives, he repeatedly got in trouble for running away, skipping school and testing positive for marijuana. He was sent to WestCare after running away from a juvenile rehabilitation camp, she said.
He's now at the Georgia Industrial Children's Home in Macon, a group home, and she's petitioning Bartow County Juvenile Court to let him come home.
She said he doesn't want to talk about what happened in Augusta. "He just wants to forget it ever happened," she said. "He was really brave to even tell. I commend him for that. His life was in jeopardy."
Rick McDevitt, president of the Georgia Alliance for Children and a longtime critic of Juvenile Justice, said the incident shows why he opposes locking children up for small crimes. Only the truly dangerous ones should be incarcerated, he said.
TROUBLING NUMBERS of youth-on-youth sexual assaults were part of what led McDevitt to initiate a U.S. Justice Department investigation in 1998 that led to a memorandum of agreement to fix "egregious" conditions, which Juvenile Justice finally emerged from under last year.
"They still put kids in danger," he said, "not only in their own facilities, but with some of their contractors who don't do a better job.
"We've called it for years 'state-sponsored child abuse.' "
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010.
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Thanks, Ursus, I think the article makes it clear that they don’t utilize any Synanon methods (at this facility anyway). It appears to be an isolated incident according to the article:
According to the department's statistics on the center, this is the only youth-on-youth sexual act, abusive or not, that has occurred under WestCare.
The boy had access to a therapist who reported it.. and the school notified the authorities as soon as they heard…… this is not Synanon behavior.
I think many times we read into the various connections a little too much (or too quickly) which can be misleading.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Danny wrote:
Which should then give you a good picture of what this facility is like where this rape happened. I am only referring to this particular facility. My only argument here Ursus is "at the facility in question concerning the rape" I believe they are not trying to hard to implement any standard therapeutic modalities as you are say'in. That's all. Other then that little point I was trying to make, I'm on board with everything else you are say'in. Any help I could give to shut down this enterprise please let me know. WestCare is known throughout Georgia as a warehouse for criminals with very little rehab, how else could 4 goons manage to wrestle a dude down and shove a stick up his behind. Nobody heard this or saw this, where were the cameras ect....
So please go on with your bad self and get'em.
Ursus wrote:
If you're implying or under the impression that I am or was saying that they make healthy use of "therapy" for these kids, you're sadly mistaken. Like I said, "They started as a hardcore drug rehab TC, yet another friggin' Synanon." That is to say, C-U-L-T. Just wanna make sure we're clear on thi
s
Danny wrote:
No I am not implying that at all the exact opposite concerning this program. Personally I can't stand this warehouse that tries to call itself a treatment center. It is not.
Ursus wrote:
I am not exactly a fan of therapeutic communities. Though... to each his own, I guess, presuming one is talking about adults exercising their own free will.
Danny wrote: make a conscious
Yes adults exercising their own free will with the exception that they are not disabled to the extent they can't.
Ursus wrote:
I think they can be incredibly psychologically destructive to kids.
Danny wrote:
Sometimes especially with owners looking to make money as their only goal.
Ursus wrote:
As far "where was the camera" is concerned? It was broken. It would have cost $660 to fix it. I think that pretty much sums up just where WestCare's priorities are, in case anyone's still wondering.
Danny wrote:
Not good....
Danny[/quote]
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Thanks, Ursus, I think the article makes it clear that they don’t utilize any Synanon methods (at this facility anyway). It appears to be an isolated incident according to the article:
Appearances can be deceiving as you well now don't be fooled.
According to the department's statistics on the center, this is the only youth-on-youth sexual act, abusive or not, that has occurred under WestCare.
Don't read to much into that whooter, this is a totally different type of treatment center it is a holding tank for kids who would otherwise be in juvie. They are not going to publicize more then they have to concerning youth on youth abuse happening at this facility. Not all of WestCare facilities are like this one either. Where the population is realistically incarcerated.
The boy had access to a therapist who reported it.. and the school notified the authorities as soon as they heard…… this is not Synanon behavior.
Com'on read the report they did not even believe the incident even happened.
I think many times we read into the various connections a little too much (or too quickly) which can be misleading.
Dude that is what you are doing on this one, sometimes the devil looses, know what I mean. This facility is bad news run by the wrong people. Keep looking into this one you'll see. They run it like a juvenile detention but try to act like it is a treatment center. These kids committed some serious crimes.
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Danny
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I read the report twice and here is what we know from it:
That was Saturday night. Two days later, the victim reported what happened to a therapist.
He noted that the victim waited two days to report it and cited conflicting statements in his account, but said the company alerted Juvenile Justice, DFCS and police anyway.
"The investigation did not substantiate any negligence on their part," said Rob Rosenbloom, deputy commissioner for Community Services and Intake, "and we believe the children are still safe there."
From what I have read about synanon they would not readily notify outside authorities or have therapists. These were not even conflicts with the staff…..I don’t see how this was handled poorly at all or how this reflects a model based on Synanon. If you think I am missing something point it out to me, but I don’t see it based on this report.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
I read the report twice and here is what we know from it:
That was Saturday night. Two days later, the victim reported what happened to a therapist.
He noted that the victim waited two days to report it and cited conflicting statements in his account, but said the company alerted Juvenile Justice, DFCS and police anyway.
"The investigation did not substantiate any negligence on their part," said Rob Rosenbloom, deputy commissioner for Community Services and Intake, "and we believe the children are still safe there."
From what I have read about synanon they would not readily notify outside authorities or have therapists. These were not even conflicts with the staff…..I don’t see how this was handled poorly at all or how this reflects a model based on Synanon. If you think I am missing something point it out to me, but I don’t see it based on this report.
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Whooter I am not concerned about synanon or any similarities (jesus would folks get off that dead horse). What I am concerned about is why that young 16 year old did not tell anyone for 2 days. Shit if you were held up in a place like this you would think twice about telling anyone and if you did you would be pretty nervous and embarrassed explaining the incident.
Folks these are criminals from juvie who they (Program) think have a shot a rehab, what that means is they behaved in juvie got a ticket to a less militant facility, they are jumping for joy. Food is better, beds are better ect....Fun time.
Children are never safe in a facility like this for obvious reasons, the clientele. These incidents are happening constantly, it is called bullying. The status of a individual or plural is of most importance with the juvie population gets you ready for prison life, the big time. How many treatments centers in the last 20 years have had a incident like this, this is "gangsta" shit.
That is what "I" thought you were missing.
Danny
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Whooter I am not concerned about synanon or any similarities (jesus would folks get off that dead horse).
That was Ursus, not you.
What I am concerned about is why that young 16 year old did not tell anyone for 2 days. Shit if you were held up in a place like this you would think twice about telling anyone and if you did you would be pretty nervous and embarrassed explaining the incident.
Maybe he was embarrassed like you said and wanted to wait to tell his therapist.
Folks these are criminals from juvie who they (Program) think have a shot a rehab, what that means is they behaved in juvie got a ticket to a less militant facility, they are jumping for joy. Food is better, beds are better ect....Fun time.
Children are never safe in a facility like this for obvious reasons, the clientele. These incidents are happening constantly, it is called bullying. The status of a individual or plural is of most importance with the juvie population gets you ready for prison life, the big time. How many treatments centers in the last 20 years have had a incident like this, this is "gangsta" shit.
That is what "I" thought you were missing.
I know some of these places are tough and basically warehouses. I just don’t understand why there is a need to say it is a cult, or is run like synanon when the signs are not there. Some people are obsessed with the whole perception that all these places conduct brainwashing on the kids. Some places may do that, I don’t know. But we at least need to produce some evidence or understand the thinking a little more before taking that position.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Whooter wrote:
I know some of these places are tough and basically warehouses. I just don’t understand why there is a need to say it is a cult, or is run like synanon when the signs are not there. Some people are obsessed with the whole perception that all these places conduct brainwashing on the kids. Some places may do that, I don’t know. But we at least need to produce some evidence or understand the thinking a little more before taking that position.
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Danny wrote:
Because there first thought when they/we hear treatment center is cult the mere word TC is a trigger. You know that from being around survivors, Whooter. Object of the debate don't hit the trigger. Then will have a better conversation. The Genesis "Synanon" makes me want to vomit. It is gone and we have to let it go.
There is always going to be some degree of conditioning, training, educating going on in these programs, the deal is don't force it on people to a point that it stops educating and starts dehumanizing.
Danny[/quote][/quote]
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Thanks, Ursus, I think the article makes it clear that they don't utilize any Synanon methods (at this facility anyway). It appears to be an isolated incident according to the article:
According to the department's statistics on the center, this is the only youth-on-youth sexual act, abusive or not, that has occurred under WestCare.
The boy had access to a therapist who reported it.. and the school notified the authorities as soon as they heard…… this is not Synanon behavior.
I think many times we read into the various connections a little too much (or too quickly) which can be misleading.
Sorry, Whooter, I didn't post the article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=30566&start=15#p364378) in response to your previous post (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=30566&start=0#p364377), I simply posted it.
Moreover, I really don't see where or how you come to the conclusions that you've stated here. You seem overly eager to rationalize away any incidents of abuse as incidental or one-time-only, and to take the word of program operators as gospel when it comes to ascertaining whatever goes on in their program. Don't ya think there just might be some possible self-interest involved ... in their downplaying this incident as much as possible?
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Moreover, I really don't see where or how you come to the conclusions that you've stated here. You seem overly eager to rationalize away any incidents of abuse as incidental or one-time-only, and to take the word of program operators as gospel when it comes to ascertaining whatever goes on in their program.
Yep. That and his constant use of "we can gather", "we see from this", "we can assume", "we have learned"......to confuse or distract the reader, as if "we" agree with him.
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No, I saw it. I just didn't see where anyone said, or implied, that playing basketball was abuse.
Exactly, thank you, so you also didnt see where anyone said, in the article, that the coroner was being bribed or coerced.
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No, I saw it. I just didn't see where anyone said, or implied, that playing basketball was abuse.
Exactly, thank you, so you also didnt see where anyone said, in the article, that the coroner was being bribed or coerced.
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Yes, I saw that.....doesn't mean that anyone implied that basketball was abusive.
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No, I saw it. I just didn't see where anyone said, or implied, that playing basketball was abuse.
Exactly, thank you, so you also didnt see where anyone said, in the article, that the coroner was being bribed or coerced.
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Yes, I saw that.....doesn't mean that anyone implied that basketball was abusive.
.... or that the coroner was bribed and coerced. I think we agree here. Just wanted to make sure it was understood.
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.... or that the coroner was bribed and coerced.
Yes, saw that as well and it still didn't imply that anyone thought that having kids play basketball was abusive....which is what you said.
I think we agree here. Just wanted to make sure it was understood.
Yeah, we know. You twist things around in order to achieve that.
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Yes, saw that as well and it still didn't imply that anyone thought that having kids play basketball was abusive....which is what you said.
This is what my point is, Anne. lol I can say that someone implied Basketball is abusive and that catches your eye, but you accept “at face value” someone implying that a coroner is bribed or coerced and that gets a pass.
It shows how one sided you think. You cant see that?
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This is what my point is, Anne. lol I can say that someone implied Basketball is abusive and that catches your eye, but you accept “at face value” someone implying that a coroner is bribed or coerced and that gets a pass.
It shows how one sided you think. You cant see that?
No, I sort of dismissed the bribery of a coroner as reaching. I "accepted" nothing. But, par for the course for you, you insisted on attempting to make it seem as if I "gave it a pass".
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I read the report twice and here is what we know from it:
That was Saturday night. Two days later, the victim reported what happened to a therapist.
He noted that the victim waited two days to report it and cited conflicting statements in his account, but said the company alerted Juvenile Justice, DFCS and police anyway.
"The investigation did not substantiate any negligence on their part," said Rob Rosenbloom, deputy commissioner for Community Services and Intake, "and we believe the children are still safe there."
From what I have read about synanon they would not readily notify outside authorities or have therapists. These were not even conflicts with the staff…..I don't see how this was handled poorly at all or how this reflects a model based on Synanon. If you think I am missing something point it out to me, but I don’t see it based on this report.
What you (twice) refer to as a "report" ... is actually a newspaper article. Just wanna make sure we're clear on this.
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Richard Steinberg has been the CEO of WestCare since 1979 (i.e., for the past 31 years, in case ya just happened to gloss over that). Here's his bio from the Nevada Attorney General's website, color emphasis added:
-------------- • -------------- • --------------
Governor's working Group on Methamphetamine Use Members
Richard Steinberg, CEO of WestCare Nevada (http://http://ag.state.nv.us/meth/group/members/steinberg.htm)
(http://http://ag.state.nv.us/meth/group/members/steinberg.jpg)
For years, Richard (Dick) Steinberg has dedicated his life toward "uplifting the human spirit" by helping people build better lives. As a clinical specialist in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in South Vietnam, Dick demonstrated leadership abilities early in his career. In addition to supervising personnel, facilities, and health programs, Dick also developed substance abuse treatment programs for the troops and medical civic action projects in the villages.
Since 1979, Richard E. Steinberg has been President/CEO of WestCare and is responsible for developing a management team to operate all aspects of the respective agencies including, board development, program design and implementation, fiscal and legal matters, treatment protocols, resource development, and community relationships. Under his tenure as President/CEO of WestCare, WestCare has grown from a small treatment center in Las Vegas, Nevada, into one of the largest nonprofit substance abuse and mental health treatment organizations in the United States. Over the years, Dick expanded the agency to meet the growing needs for education and prevention services. WestCare now operates programs in seven states and off shore: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Nevada, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dick's insight into substance abuse and mental health treatment programs has prompted several communities across the country to model programs after WestCare.
Mr. Steinberg has demonstrated his expertise and knowledge of providing mental health, substance abuse treatment and recovery services and the benefits of the Therapeutic Community treatment modality in working with diverse populations through the variety of services developed under his leadership. Mr. Steinberg has made significant contributions to professional organizations in order to promote research and efforts to improve the quality of services for mentally ill and chemically dependent individuals and their families. He is a founding member of California Therapeutic Communities (CTC) and past Vice Chairman; Immediate Past President, after serving four years as President, of Therapeutic Communities of America (TCA); member of the American Correctional Association, the National Association of Drug and Alcohol Counselors and the Nevada Association of Drug and Alcohol Programs, Western States Youth Services Network, the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities, and the International Council on Alcohol and Addictions; has served as an appointed member of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) National Advisory Council as well as appointed to the Forensic Addictions Corrections Treatment (FACT) Board for the University of California San Diego Medical School. As President/CEO of WestCare, Mr. Steinberg has had prolonged and direct management experience with Therapeutic Communities, mental health and community-based substance abuse treatment programs, and treatment and recovery programs for specialized populations.
Mr. Steinberg received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In addition to his academic training, Mr. Steinberg holds certification as a Substance Abuse Program Administrator from the Nevada Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
©2010 Nevada Attorney General
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I read the report twice and here is what we know from it:
That was Saturday night. Two days later, the victim reported what happened to a therapist.
He noted that the victim waited two days to report it and cited conflicting statements in his account, but said the company alerted Juvenile Justice, DFCS and police anyway.
"The investigation did not substantiate any negligence on their part," said Rob Rosenbloom, deputy commissioner for Community Services and Intake, "and we believe the children are still safe there."
From what I have read about synanon they would not readily notify outside authorities or have therapists. These were not even conflicts with the staff…..I don't see how this was handled poorly at all or how this reflects a model based on Synanon. If you think I am missing something point it out to me, but I don’t see it based on this report.
What you (twice) refer to as a "report" ... is actually a newspaper article. Just wanna make sure we're clear on this.
I am just quoting what the article stated... so it is a report. Unless there is something I am missing... Not sure why that bothers you so much... if someone reports something than I consider it a report. If it is stated in a newspaper, magazine or on the back of a napkin I think it should still be considered a report if that is what the victim did. If it were hearsay then I would have stated hearsay.
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Richard Steinberg has been the CEO of WestCare since 1979 (i.e., for the past 31 years, in case ya just happened to gloss over that).
Therapeutic Community treatment modality
Mr. Steinberg received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In addition to his academic training, Mr. Steinberg holds certification as a Substance Abuse Program Administrator from the Nevada Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
Thanks Ursus, that is impressive. I didn't see that. I can see that he has been well educated also.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Richard Steinberg has been the CEO of WestCare since 1979 (i.e., for the past 31 years, in case ya just happened to gloss over that). Here's his bio from the Nevada Attorney General's website, color emphasis added:
-------------- • -------------- • --------------
Governor's working Group on Methamphetamine Use Members
Richard Steinberg, CEO of WestCare Nevada (http://http://ag.state.nv.us/meth/group/members/steinberg.htm)
(http://http://ag.state.nv.us/meth/group/members/steinberg.jpg)
For years, Richard (Dick) Steinberg has dedicated his life toward "uplifting the human spirit" by helping people build better lives. As a clinical specialist in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in South Vietnam, Dick demonstrated leadership abilities early in his career. In addition to supervising personnel, facilities, and health programs, Dick also developed substance abuse treatment programs for the troops and medical civic action projects in the villages.
Since 1979, Richard E. Steinberg has been President/CEO of WestCare and is responsible for developing a management team to operate all aspects of the respective agencies including, board development, program design and implementation, fiscal and legal matters, treatment protocols, resource development, and community relationships. Under his tenure as President/CEO of WestCare, WestCare has grown from a small treatment center in Las Vegas, Nevada, into one of the largest nonprofit substance abuse and mental health treatment organizations in the United States. Over the years, Dick expanded the agency to meet the growing needs for education and prevention services. WestCare now operates programs in seven states and off shore: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Nevada, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dick's insight into substance abuse and mental health treatment programs has prompted several communities across the country to model programs after WestCare.
Mr. Steinberg has demonstrated his expertise and knowledge of providing mental health, substance abuse treatment and recovery services and the benefits of the Therapeutic Community treatment modality in working with diverse populations through the variety of services developed under his leadership. Mr. Steinberg has made significant contributions to professional organizations in order to promote research and efforts to improve the quality of services for mentally ill and chemically dependent individuals and their families. He is a founding member of California Therapeutic Communities (CTC) and past Vice Chairman; Immediate Past President, after serving four years as President, of Therapeutic Communities of America (TCA); member of the American Correctional Association, the National Association of Drug and Alcohol Counselors and the Nevada Association of Drug and Alcohol Programs, Western States Youth Services Network, the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities, and the International Council on Alcohol and Addictions; has served as an appointed member of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) National Advisory Council as well as appointed to the Forensic Addictions Corrections Treatment (FACT) Board for the University of California San Diego Medical School. As President/CEO of WestCare, Mr. Steinberg has had prolonged and direct management experience with Therapeutic Communities, mental health and community-based substance abuse treatment programs, and treatment and recovery programs for specialized populations.
Mr. Steinberg received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In addition to his academic training, Mr. Steinberg holds certification as a Substance Abuse Program Administrator from the Nevada Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
©2010 Nevada Attorney General
Ursus I you still trying to prove this is a TC, Well all righty then. It still does not make that facility in Georgia with State Juvie kids a TC, sorry. This is a warehouse for kids, I know the report said he went to his therapist to explain the incident, well I was also referred to as a therapist at 17yrs old @ Elan when I was working there. That doesn't make me a therapist though now does it.
Danny
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Ursus I you still trying to prove this is a TC, Well all righty then. It still does not make that facility in Georgia with State Juvie kids a TC, sorry. This is a warehouse for kids, I know the report said he went to his therapist to explain the incident, well I was also referred to as a therapist at 17yrs old @ Elan when I was working there. That doesn't make me a therapist though now does it.
Danny
No, from what I have read I agree, the place is far from being a TC. I think Ursus is trying to tie it back somehow to Synanon. Typically if he can find a person Stienberg had dinner with or he worked with who had ties to synanon or if Steinberg himself was involved early on then he would feel that is enough evidence to say WestCare-Georgia is Synanon based.
Its like trying to make the argument that 2010 Ford mustangs have no airbags and 8 track tape systems and lousy gas mileage because the CEO has been there since the 1970’s.
Any one of us can sit here and speculate but until we drive over to the dealership and take a look none of us really knows for sure. The same applies to West Care-Georgia.
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Ursus I you still trying to prove this is a TC, Well all righty then. It still does not make that facility in Georgia with State Juvie kids a TC, sorry. This is a warehouse for kids, I know the report said he went to his therapist to explain the incident, well I was also referred to as a therapist at 17yrs old @ Elan when I was working there. That doesn't make me a therapist though now does it.
Whooter wrote:
No, from what I have read I agree, the place is far from being a TC. I think Ursus is trying to tie it back somehow to Synanon. Typically if he can find a person Stienberg had dinner with or he worked with who had ties to synanon or if Steinberg himself was involved early on then he would feel that is enough evidence to say WestCare-Georgia is Synanon based.
Its like trying to make the argument that 2010 Ford mustangs have no airbags and 8 track tape systems and lousy gas mileage because the CEO has been there since the 1970’s.
Any one of us can sit here and speculate but until we drive over to the dealership and take a look none of us really knows for sure. The same applies to West Care-Georgia.
DannyB II wrote:
Like if it was a treatment center it would legitimize the abuse more and if Synanon was responsible for this program existence well then that would be tantamount to a conviction.
Ursus I am not trying to be a ass ( I don't have to it comes naturally....lol) but what is your point, is it that they are a treatment center with their unique modalities, OK. That WestCare-Georgia birthed itself from Synanon once again, OK.
The article was about a rape at a facility at the Georgia WestCare facility with juvie residents, not about the genesis of WestCare. I thought we were trying to dig into that story and if this goes on at other facilities.
Danny
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Like if it was a treatment center it would legitimize the abuse more and if Synanon was responsible for this program existence well then that would be tantamount to a conviction.
Ursus I am not trying to be a ass ( I don't have to it comes naturally....lol) but what is your point, is it that they are a treatment center with their unique modalities, OK. That WestCare-Georgia birthed itself from Synanon once again, OK.
The article was about a rape at a facility at the Georgia WestCare facility with juvie residents, not about the genesis of WestCare. I thought we were trying to dig into that story and if this goes on at other facilities.
I'm not trying to say they are a treatment facility which is a replica of Synanon. Just wanna be clear 'bout that. But they do do business with Amity Foundation, and may have in one form or another over the years as well. The machinations and manuevers of Amity over the years does not impress me as being too squeaky clean, if ya get what I mean. Organizations that start out corrupt as all hell, don't tend to become magically above reproach in their later years. Where WestCare got the TC modality from might be of some interest whether you like it or not. Incidentally, at least one of those TC organizations under Steinberg's belt is the same one Father O'Brien and David Dietch from Daytop is heavily involved with. Jus' sayin'.
Ya know how some politicians do something with one hand, and then something with the other to seemingly compensate? Ever wonder how the availability of hard drugs in this country greatly increased after 1971? What was Nixon up to? And what really did happen to Jimmy Hoffa?
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Like if it was a treatment center it would legitimize the abuse more and if Synanon was responsible for this program existence well then that would be tantamount to a conviction.
Ursus I am not trying to be a ass ( I don't have to it comes naturally....lol) but what is your point, is it that they are a treatment center with their unique modalities, OK. That WestCare-Georgia birthed itself from Synanon once again, OK.
The article was about a rape at a facility at the Georgia WestCare facility with juvie residents, not about the genesis of WestCare. I thought we were trying to dig into that story and if this goes on at other facilities.
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Ursus wrote:
I'm not trying to say they are a treatment facility which is a replica of Synanon. Just wanna be clear 'bout that. But they do do business with Amity Foundation, and may have in one form or another over the years as well. The machinations and manuevers of Amity over the years does not impress me as being too squeaky clean, if ya get what I mean. Organizations that start out corrupt as all hell, don't tend to become magically above reproach in their later years. Where WestCare got the TC modality from might be of some interest whether you like it or not. Incidentally, at least one of those TC organizations under Steinberg's belt is the same one Father O'Brien and David Dietch from Daytop is heavily involved with. Jus' sayin'
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Danny wrote:
I am not sure still what you are trying to tell me with all of this. I can read I know the obvious. But why????? I wanted you to find more on this rape, how could something like this happen in a facility today. Four guys holding down a resident so they can insert a plunger up his behind. That had to take what 20 -30 mins nobody saw anything.....eh hem....bullshit.
Ursus wrote:
Ya know how some politicians do something with one hand, and then something with the other to seemingly compensate? Ever wonder how the availability of hard drugs in this country greatly increased after 1971? What was Nixon up to? And what really did happen to Jimmy Hoffa?
Danny wrote:
The ole` yankee two step, drugs being transported by US aircraft, "Golden Triangle" Vietnam....Afghanistan Opium trade through Russia and other countries up 70% since America in middle east. Jimmy Hoffa is busy running a Union com'on man, Oh that's Jr. The other one is looking up in Giants Stadium. [/quote]
Danny
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WestCare is known throughout Georgia as a warehouse for criminals with very little rehab, how else could 4 goons manage to wrestle a dude down and shove a stick up his behind. Nobody heard this or saw this, where were the cameras ect....
how could something like this happen in a facility today. Four guys holding down a resident so they can insert a plunger up his behind. That had to take what 20 -30 mins nobody saw anything.....eh hem....bullshit.
How could this happen? Gee... might that have something to do with the possibility that the place might be as corrupt as the day is long? That the term "warehouse" is more than merely pejorative?
Maybe, for all we know, the founding of this place had more to do with it being a public relations front or a dolled-up laundromat for some characters who sure could use some cleansing. ...All the while and all in the name of ostensibly waging a "war on drugs" and crime.
Just whose pockets and whose bank accounts got enriched by this place? And whose continue to be so well fed?
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How could this happen? Gee... might that have something to do with the possibility that the place might be as corrupt as the day is long? That the term "warehouse" is more than merely pejorative?
I don’t see how you can say the program was corrupt. The kid was raped by his own roommates. They waited for the staff to change shifts and then the boys attacked him.
Maybe, for all we know, the founding of this place had more to do with it being a public relations front or a dolled-up laundromat for some characters who sure could use some cleansing. ...All the while and all in the name of ostensibly waging a "war on drugs" and crime.
Sure it could be, the place could be totally corrupt but the report says that it had nothing to do with the program. He was attacked by his own roommates.
Just whose pockets and whose bank accounts got enriched by this place? And whose continue to be so well fed?
I don’t see where anyone profited off of this boy being abused. I read back over the article twice and no one made a dime. In fact they lost money because the boy left and that means that WestCare will not be receiving funding for him anymore. So they didn’t profit at all, they lost money. So WestCare had no motive at all.
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WestCare is known throughout Georgia as a warehouse for criminals with very little rehab, how else could 4 goons manage to wrestle a dude down and shove a stick up his behind. Nobody heard this or saw this, where were the cameras ect....
how could something like this happen in a facility today. Four guys holding down a resident so they can insert a plunger up his behind. That had to take what 20 -30 mins nobody saw anything.....eh hem....bullshit.
How could this happen? Gee... might that have something to do with the possibility that the place might be as corrupt as the day is long? That the term "warehouse" is more than merely pejorative?
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Maybe, for all we know, the founding of this place had more to do with it being a public relations front or a dolled-up laundromat for some characters who sure could use some cleansing. ...All the while and all in the name of ostensibly waging a "war on drugs" and crime.
Just whose pockets and whose bank accounts got enriched by this place? And whose continue to be so well fed?
DannyB II wrote:
I thinks I am going to do a little more snooping around to find out exactly what political wagon is being funded by this shame.
Your right Ursus somebody is getting "paid" besides the obvious.
I'll be back.
Danny
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I thinks I am going to do a little more snooping around to find out exactly what political wagon is being funded by this shame.
Your right Ursus somebody is getting "paid" besides the obvious.
I'll be back.
That would be great info, Danny. If you could find evidence that this boy was raped for monetary gain then that would really change the discussion. So far from all the articles that are available it seems like the kid was raped by his roommates and that West-Care called the authorities as soon as they found out.
If you have some inside info that could add more light to this that would be great!
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People meet Whooter aka STICC Founder John Reuben. STICC has many collaborative partners that include some of the most notorious abuse therapeutic programs in the country. This industry fag advocates for ASPEN because he claims it did his daughter good. The fact is he really had two sons he sent to programs. Whooter did not send a daughter to a program. This is a blatent lie. Whooter is an industry scam artist.
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People meet Whooter aka STICC Founder John Reuben. STICC has many collaborative partners that include some of the most notorious abuse therapeutic programs in the country. This industry fag advocates for ASPEN because he claims it did his daughter good. The fact is he really had two sons he sent to programs. Whooter did not send a daughter to a program. This is a blatent lie. Whooter is an industry scam artist.
Ha,Ha,Ha you remind me of DJ (and others). He use to get so pissed off because I wouldn’t side with him or join the "group think" that HLA was evil and that “All” programs were abusive. People like you get so threatened by open discussions where you cannot control the outcome or force people to think the same way you do.
So you resort to trying to paint the person as an evil soul to discredit their words…hide in the shadows and throw rocks like a coward because they threaten your world. “Oh, no, whooter killed his 2 sons by putting them in programs!!”lol... He killed his wife too!!
Wouldn’t it be an awful thought if kids were really helped by programs and you and a handful of others here were the only ones who didn’t do well. That would mean that you were responsible for your own lives all along and you couldn’t justify blaming someone else anymore. What would you do then? You would have to create a fantasy world where all programs were evil and you were just part of the happy majority and that nothing was your fault…. Oh wait, I think you already did!!
lol
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I thinks I am going to do a little more snooping around to find out exactly what political wagon is being funded by this shame.
Your right Ursus somebody is getting "paid" besides the obvious.
I'll be back.
The original founding of this place seems to have had a fair amount to do with the Teamsters union. More specifically, at the behest of or to the benefit of Jimmy Hoffa's primary rival during the brief period between when Hoffa got out of jail, and when he subsequently "disappeared."
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I thinks I am going to do a little more snooping around to find out exactly what political wagon is being funded by this shame.
Your right Ursus somebody is getting "paid" besides the obvious.
I'll be back.
The original founding of this place seems to have had a fair amount to do with the Teamsters union. More specifically, at the behest of or to the benefit of Jimmy Hoffa's primary rival during the brief period between when Hoffa got out of jail, and when he subsequently "disappeared."
You will have to explain this post, I feel like 6 yrs. old.
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Let's not forget that Danny was an ASSISTANT DIRECTOR at ELAN.
Here is a liitle story from around his time so you can "Taste" it.
Just a little reminder for his sanctimonious ass.(excuse my spelling disorder)
http://http://www.bykevingray.com/stories/story.php?page=culture/badcompany
Bad Company
Once upon a time, when a very different Lord of the Flies haunted the classroom.
On a February morning in 1979, deep in the piney woods of Maine, 20-year-old Liz Arnold watched as a houseful of teens berated a weeping girl who'd just wet her pants. The girl's name was Kim. She was 17. Moments before, she'd been spanked with a paddle in front of the 100 fellow delinquents and drug addicts—more than two thirds of them men—who made up the student body of the Elan School, a therapeutic community of last resort that, during its seventies heyday, may have been something far from therapeutic.
As the residents surged over the scuffed linoleum of the dining room, knocking over metal chairs, Kim curled into a ball. "You fucking bitch, fucking whore, fucking fuck-up!” Kim was enduring a "learning experience." She'd mouthed off to the school's senior residents, and at Elan in the seventies, this was the response. But the lesson was getting out of hand. "[We] were whipped into a mob," says Arnold, an ex-speed addict who'd arrived at Elan in 1978 after a phony suicide attempt forced her affluent Ridgewood, New Jersey, parents to seek professional help. "It was brainwashing. People like Kim were gonna be junkies or hookers if we didn't make them get their shit together." Arnold soon added her voice to the eardrum-breaking sound of 100 young adults caught up in the adrenaline rush of anger. To an outsider, it must have looked like madness, a Lord of the Flies outpost with castaways who were regularly dressed in tinfoil, diapers, and "hooker" skirts. Some had signs around their necks that read: I’M AN EMOTIONAL VAMPIRE or ASK ME WHY I’M A BABY or CONFRONT ME AS TO WHY I’M A WHORE. All were red with rage. "Kim," Arnold recalls, "was semi-catatonic."
No one can say what became of Kim after she left Elan five months later. But her story, and dozens like it, continues to haunt many former students. Some three decades later, there is a growing chorus of voices waking as if from a bad dream. Many say they were paddled; others say they were put into boxing rings, chained to chairs, restrained in straight jackets, all in the name of “personal growth.”
For 31 years, Elan—which remains open to 184 residents at $44,596 a year for a two-year program—has been among the most controversial of the nation’s residential therapeutic communities. Though the school no longer employs such Draconian methods, its administrators claim that the behavior modification they practiced was the only effective way to salvage delinquents. The approach—tearing down destructive character traits through relentless peer pressure—has even been praised by several parents and by some of the psychologists who treated the students; a number of former residents claim to have found emotional and mental calm through Elan’s rigidity.
But many Elan survivors say they’ve suffered lasting psychological scars. In 1975, deep in the heart of the flower-power, bell-bottomed sexual revolution, a team of investigators from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services accused the school of abusing the eleven Illinois residents in its charge. After removing them, the team issued a report detailing “an atmosphere of pervasive fear and suspicion,” in which residents become “automatons.” The report charged Elan with starving its children, forcing them into useless labor, handcuffing them to chairs. Elan’s practices, it concluded, “violate…civil rights and liberties and deprive…children of their self-respect and dignity.” Another 1975 inquiry, by the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, noted that residents were subjected to “severe humiliation” as well as “painful” punishments, including putting “bullies” in boxing rings to fight other residents (in one case, the bully was a pregnant girl).
Despite the charges (which were later disputed by Maine’s Department of Human Services), the attention eventually faded. And no one looked very closely into what happened to the young men and women of Elan for nearly a quarter century.
Now Elan is once again under scrutiny, this time thanks to activity surrounding the school’s most high-profile alumnus; a former teen preppy from Greenwich, Connecticut, named Michael Skakel.
Skakel, a nephew of Ehtel Kennedy’s, is charged, as the tabloids have repeatedly trumpeted, with the 1975 Halloween Eve murder of his neighbor Martha Moxley, who was found bludgeoned and stabbed with a golf club on her family’s estate. Skakel was 15.
Last year, Connecticut prosecutors filed charges after two former Elan residents told a grand jury that Skakel, now 41, confessed to the killing in 1978, when he was a resident at the school. Skakel enrolled at Elan as a 19-year-old alcoholic and spent two years dying out (he’d later call the place a “concentration camp for kids”). A fellow resident claims to have heard him brag: “I am going to get away with murder. I’m a Kennedy.”
It turns out the Kennedy name didn’t help much at this very undemocratic enclave: According to a classmate, Kennedy was pummeled in the boxing ring and forced to wear a degrading five-foot dunce cap and model a sign that read I AM AN ARROGANT, RICH BRAT. CONFRONT ME ON WHY I KILLED MY FRIEND MARTHA. Skakel’s attorney has said that any alleged admissions at the school were simply attempts to avoid more abuse.
In an effort to look back at the three decades of similar practices, Details talked to more than 30 former residents and staff members, as well as several adolescent therapists. Oddly enough, Elan opened amid the peace and understanding of the seventies counterculture. But left to its own devices, the school became and emotional cauldron of peer pressure and humiliation, scorching some of the very souls it was meant to save.
Route 26 is a two-lane highway that winds from the town of Gray, nineteen miles northeast of Portland, to the fire roads of Polan Spring, home to America’s favorite bottled water. The drive takes you past car-repair shops, plastic deer on tidy lawns, and swimming holes abandoned by tourists on this warm September day.
The Elan campus is a cluster of cream-colored cabins and trailers set on 33 acres of lakeside forest. On a picnic table, four teens chat with happy intensity. The place seems otherwise deserted. It’s a pleasant picture, making what once transpired here all the more unbelievable.
Elan was conceived in 1971 by Joe Ricci, a former addict and petty criminal from Port Chester, New York, and Gerald Davidson, a Boston psychiatrist. The pair set out, with one house and thirteen residents, to create a moneymaking venture; their small operation would grow into a multimillion dollar business with 100 staff members, fifteen buildings, and 184 residents from 26 states and three foreign countries.
More than anything, Elan was forged by Ricci’s swaggering charisma.
Raised by blue-collar grandparents just 32 miles outside New York City, Ricci was hooked on heroin by 15 (thanks to a car accident that started him up the painkiller ladder); he was busted for robbing a mail truck at 18. A judge gave him an ultimatum: seven years in federal prison, or time at the residential rehabilitation facility of Daytop Village in New Haven, Connecticut. Ricci chose rehab.
At Daytop, Ricci ran smack into a boot-camp-style commune. There was a rigid chain of command, menial jobs, and placards on addicts describing their faults, a device Daytop had adopted from California’s Synanon, the granddaddy of all therapeutic communities. The goal was sel-discipline combined with the grueling reshaping of personality through fierce confrontations. The emphasis was on pain.
At the time, corrections officials across the nation—with the blessing of sociologists—had begin to question conventional rehab, turning instead to hard-core therapeutic communities. These programs seemed to accomplish what few others could: a profound change in outlook and behavior that allowed hopeless junkies to begin their lives anew. With a surge of government money, they sprouted across the country, many of them run by Synanon graduates.
Ricci became convinced that such programs would make him rich. But it wasn't until he met Davidson, a psychiatrist and Harvard lecturer, that he found his true calling: his own full-blown therapeutic community, where he could implement his particular brand of in-your-face psychotherapy. The Elan School opened for business on May 30, 1971.
Ricci was soon ministering to the nation's hardest of hard-luck cases (many of whom were provided for with state money), addicts and criminals who'd bounced from jails to group homes to hospitals to rehab and back again. Alongside these felons, Ricci welcomed refugees from America's affluent suburbs—kids whose social rebellion had led them from Hendrix to heroin. Youngsters from Harlem slums worked out their pain with the children of CEOs from Chicago's wealthy North Shore. After the first year, Elan had 40 residents. Ricci was soon presiding over a student body in which residents were regularly shouted down by dozens of their peers. "I've never seen a sponge like you." "You've been a parasite all your life." Meanwhile, Ricci dug into the emotional core of his targets. "If you didn't come here, you'd be in a mental institution," he would growl. "People weren't put on earth to accommodate you."
"Joe was a Doberman," says Everett Dulit, emeritus professor of psychiatry at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who referred several Elan patients in the seventies.
"He'd say, 'Now, you listen to what I'm going to tell you, asshole. Because it's gonna save your worthless piece-of-shit life.'"
"Joe was very challenging in groups," adds Stuart Berry, who entered Elan as a 20-year-old junkie on opening day and became its first graduate in 1972; he briefly became a therapeutic director the following year. "There were some pretty bad guys; he needed them to understand their facade wasn't working."
Berry was a typical Elan elite: white, middle-class, and strung out from "living on the lunatic fringe" of the sixties. A grandson of a Cape Cod pharmacist, he'd found his way into Grandpa's medicine locker after a book on the Hell's Angels triggered his curiosity. Drugs turned out to be a great chaser for youthful alienation.
But as Berry soon learned, Ricci had his own cure for apathy. It began with hard work and peer pressure, using the strict hierarchy of a military outfit. Newcomers toiled on kitchen and grounds crews, working their way through the ranks, from "ram- rods" (crew foremen) to department heads to expeditors (who acted as a secret police that "booked incidents" of bad behavior on notepads), and, finally, coordinators, who were charged with overseeing such house activities as group therapy.
"The goal was responsible citizenship," says Dulit, who remains committed to such tactics. "It's fighting fire with fire. These are people who have caused enormous trouble in their lives. And I think people who tiptoe around these adolescents are wimps. You need a powerhouse to fight a powerhouse. And Joe was that model for me."
If a resident disobeyed an order, or if he failed to "relate" his feelings on a regular basis, punishment could come in the form of a "haircut." At Daytop, this meant shaving one's head in atonement. At Elan, it became a verbal firing squad.
Ken Zaretzky was Elan's 22nd resident. He was 15. He'd come from swank Highland Park, Illinois, hooked on heroin. Though the program set him straight, he has many complaints about Elan's tactics—including the time he was accused of stealing cigarettes. The punishment for such a crime? A "general meeting," the highest form of retribution, in which, he says, he was forced to eat four packs of cigarettes—coated with ketchup—in front of the entire house, until he got sick.
"Things could be out-and-out abusive," Zaretzky recalls. Now 45, he owns a suburban Chicago software company and runs a Web site, ElanAlum.com, where former Elan residents (and their parents) compare experiences. "They were nuts from time to time," says Zaretsky. Stuart Berry claims the kids' value as dollar signs outweighed any cause for concern. "Joe was accepting them because of the money," he says.
When Ricci began ordering quarrelsome residents to dig pointless ditches and created a boxing ring as a learning tool for bullies, Berry was appalled. Students were suited up with headgear and sixteen-ounce gloves. Then the entire house would form a human ring as the bully was forced to duke it out with four or five people in a row, until defeated. "There would be blood, there would be crying, there would be cheering," says Cindy Rob-bins, a suburban-Chicago runaway and chronic truant who entered Elan in 1982, at the age of 16. "A lot of people were just afraid. But it's not like you could step in and stop it. You'd be punished."
"I didn't like that at all," says Berry of Ricci's ring. "But at this point, Joe was out of tricks. Sometimes I think he did it for his own amusement."
As the years progressed, Joe Riccibecame a millionaire, a larger-than-life evangelist who'd strut through Elan in a leather coat, fedora, and aviator sunglasses, his silver Mercedes parked out front. "He called himself the god of therapy," recalls Liz Arnold. "But he looked like a pimp. He was cocky as hell."
As Ricci's demeanor became more eccentric, so too did the tenor of his therapies. Promiscuous young women (even kissing is not permitted at Elan) were tarted up in hooker costumes with garish makeup and forced to carry poles with signs that said 42nd street. Their male counterparts were dressed like hustlers. A person who acted like a child would be put in diapers and given a rattle. If you "reacted" negatively, you were encased in a tinfoil box with nuclear-reactor symbols and red buttons. One guy, caught peering into the women's dorm, was forced to wear a Peeping Tom raincoat.
The physical punishments also took on a more severe character. In between the paddling and the boxing ring, says Harry Kranick, who entered Elan at 16 in 1977 with a taste for Quaaludes—and mourning the recent death of his father—"[residents] were thrown into a cold shower. When they came out, they were spanked again. This went on for days." Kranick himself—who says the program straightened him out, though he remains bitter about its tactics—was the target of humiliating punishments. After the Elan football team lost several games against local high-school rivals, Ricci screamed at them "for being a bunch of pussies," recalls Kranick. "And I said, 'You know something, Joe, we're not here to play football. We're here to get our shit together.' He made us sleep naked in the dorm, guarded by guys with bats. I had to wear a sign around the house that said I’m a pussy and I can't express my feelings." But that wasn't the worst for Kranick, a witness in the Skakel case. After getting belligerent with a senior resident one day, Kranick says, he was stripped to his underwear, forced to put on a diaper "made of a nasty rag," and ordered to climb into a Dumpster and clean it with a spoon and a toothbrush. The task took two days. When investigators from the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services made their visit in 1975, they were horrified by what they found. Jerry Docherty, a member of the team, says Elan's "born-again" philosophy was well-meaning, but that he had doubts about any positive effects. "You're reinforcing negative behavior with negative behavior," says Docherty. "I had real problems with that."
Ironically, the 1975 state investigations at Elan— and the later exoneration by Maine health officials who ruled that its therapy was "innovative, appropriate, and beneficial"—only emboldened Ricci, says Zaretzky, who claims to have helped cover up practices during the Illinois review process.
"We lied through our teeth," says Zaretzky, a five-year Elan vet who started out as a resident and became a therapeutic director by the time he was 20. "That was my family. And my family was under attack. But everything the investigators said was true. That should have been a warning to mellow out. But we let it get worse." Zaretzky believes Elan's practices violated residents' civil rights—especially when they ran away and were hunted down. "We'd break into shooting galleries in the Boston slums, places where our guys had run off," he says. "We'd just grab them and say, Anybody that wants to fuck with us, you're welcome to.'"
By 1975, Elan's Gerry Davidson, the program's psychiatric director and co-founder, had begun accepting "full-blown" mentally ill patients, says Zaretzky. One of the biggest indignities newer residents suffered was the "electric sauce." Rumored to have contained feces, it was a simple goo, says Zaretzky, of kitchen trash, syrup, mustard, and ketchup. Upon being coated in sauce, some residents would scream, rip off their clothes, and lash out at counselors and fellow residents.
"We could not deal with these people," Zaretzky explains. "[They] should have been in a nice, warm hospital. We were absolutely not equipped."
Last January, Elan founder Joe Ricci died of lung cancer. He was 54. During his entire, 31-year tenure, Ricci had vehemently defended his practices (Elan claims that 80 percent of its graduates go on to college, though the school does not follow up on alumni academic success thereafter). Ricci also denied that Skakel ever confessed to the Moxley killing. Current school administrators, still reeling from his death, refused to comment.
Though Ricci can no longer defend his school, understanding what drove him may explain what took place there. Over the years, as residents swapped stories of abuse, Elan, with its autocratic leader and his demand for complete devotion, has drawn comparisons to cults—such as the People's Temple and the Unification Church—with Ricci standing in for Kool-Aid shillers like Jim Jones. "The group process was very powerful," says Professor Dulit, "and in some respects, very cultlike."
Ricci's rigid insistence on absolute faith in his tenets seems to have created an army of true believers. But instead of producing believers, says Daytop co-creator David Deitch, now a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, Ricci may have been turning out "closet fascists." Elan, it seems, empowered aggressive young men—and women—to crush the weak and fragile. Its residents learned to crave that power; many became emotional despots.
"You run the risk of training sociopaths," says Dulit. "They're people who operate just this side of legal. The other person never counts for much unless he can be used or exploited."
Over the years, say former Elan staff members and residents, Ricci himself became cruel and vicious—and he freed others to do the same. "It all got crazy," says Berry of the early seventies. "He'd unleash this rage on someone in a meeting for hours." An Elan consultant, Marvin Schwarz, now chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Glen Oaks Hospital in Illinois (and a Harvard classmate of Davidson's), referred more than 100 adolescent patients to the school. But by the decade's end, he says, "the tactics were destructive rather than therapeutic," with the school's infamous haircuts little more than "symbolic castrations—and these were sick kids." He later quit in protest.
By the early eighties, several former residents claim, Ricci was getting drunk and smoking pot regularly. Though never proved, this tainted the program's credibility and made residents cynical. One day, in 1984, the internal attitude was so bad (by this time, Ricci had bought the state's largest harness racetrack, Scarborough Downs; he would later suffer two unsuccessful runs for governor) that several Elan staff members were busted to entry-level positions. Ricci sauntered in, says Ben Foster, a former truant and suburban "burnout" who was 15 at the time, and delivered a hypocritical soliloquy. "I'm going to go home, pour a nice glass of wine, and smoke a joint," he told a general meeting. "And you're all going to be here scrubbing floors."
In 1987, a woman named Bethany Berry claimed that she'd suffered sleep-and food-deprivation as well as assault as an Elan resident between the ages of 16 and 18. She later filed a lawsuit against the school, Ricci, and the state of Maine, charging abuse (it was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum). No other former residents who spoke to Details say they have any interest in suing; most only want to put their toxic memories behind them. "They wasted two years of our lives," says Barrie Hughes, who entered Elan in 1983 at 14 after her mother placed her in a psychiatric hospital. "That pisses me off. But it's done."
Former residents wouldn't have much recourse if they changed their minds anyway: The Maine statute of limitations for physical or emotional abuse expires after six years, a term that begins for minors on their 18th birthday.
Nevertheless, wary perhaps of such lawsuits, Elan has changed many of its practices over the years. The school no longer forces its residents to wear humiliating signs. There are no more spankings. And the boxing ring hasn't been used in over a year, stopping, coincidentally, when the Skakel media coverage was at its height. (General meetings are still held here on occasion, as Elan's attorney, John Campbell, told Details in a brief letter, "when a student has not been responsive to other learning experiences.")
Meanwhile, the harsh glare that came with the Skakel case may be fading. A critical witness, Gregory Coleman, one of two former residents who claimed to have heard the alleged confession, died of a heroin overdose in August, a development that has weakened the prosecution's case. As Details wentto press, Skakel's attorney was seeking to return the case to juvenile court, where, if convicted, the Kennedy cousin would likely face little or no jail time.
And back at the Elan School, safe in the woods, a new student body is learning how to get along.
Thank you Danny :shamrock: