Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

The meeting went fairly well, it is always hard to tell because the group home reps never say anything, they just listen and wait till later to talk to the committee members. Sen. Tom Hatch is welcoming all comments on the Draft Legislation they are going to present, It was not ready to present today, with both sides wanting adjustments made. It is headed in a positive direction at least. Several people spoke but comments were limited in the interest of time. Tom Hatch, Perry Arnett, Ken Stettler, Paul Bittman, Brian Steed, Robin Arnold-Williams and a couple others voiced opinions on the Draft.
I saw 2 problems in the Draft, one is that it does not ask for more inspectors for the office of licensing, so companies who already don't follow the law won't care if there is more law to not follow since they are rarely caught. Second, there is nothing to stop the companies once they have lost their license from doing what Max. Life Skills did and that is to fire the manager and change the name and claim they are a new company wanting to be licensed, and had nothing to do with the prior company. Even though the Board of directors and owners are the same people. They will still be able to get shut down for violations and be able to re-open under a new but similar name as soon as they want. Let me know if you are interested in putting imput for the Draft, they were talking about meeting  right quick to get it all hammered out so they can present it at the next meeting, I don't know when that will be.
Cedar city will try to set up an open public meeting to update those who want info, I will post when and where when I find out. Our city wants to find out alll the other cities out there who are concerned with similar situations. Any info would be great.

Has anyone heard of the Aspen acheivment academy in loa utah?

I know that Praxis has it's main office in Spanish Fork but has a Cedar main office and several homes. In Cedar and one that was in Parowon, They are just so sneaky and slip into neighborhoods claiming this is the best place to rehabilitate and intergrate the kids back to normal society and family life. The tell the residents that we are bigots and mean because we have no compassion for these kids who were so abused and neglected at home they ended up commiting crimes. Of course this company was specifically speaking of Sex Offenders when we were told this. Of course they don't announce or inform the neighborhood they bring these homes into because the they say"everyone sees the need for us but noone wants us in their backyards"(speaking of the Sex offender school they located 200 ft from our elementary school.)
Do you live in Utah Cherish?

You missed alot if you only looked under residential treatment. Some groups classify themselves as outpatient care or residential care or others, these people are very tricky. Praxis youth quest has a center with girls and they are listed next to the family support center in residential care, a non-profit , state run center that helps parents with day care type facility so the parents can go to doctors or job interviews or just a stress break. totally different that a group home. The state office of licensing said in the meeting we had in Cedar in may that there were currently 16 in Cedar, you just have to know what the group home classifies itself under.

I have been active in the situation in Cedar for the last 2 years, Alot of people think the citazens are just getting involved since the death Of Anson Arnett, this is not true. We have been fighting to get changes made in our state for a long time. We have had some new ordinances created locally and are happy that we were able to go before state officials to make better legislation. We have had support from our local state representatives for as long as i have been involved and if it wasn't for them we would not have been able to get scheduled into the interim committee meeting. We only found out about the meeting days before it was to happen and I personally contacted Anson Arnett's Sister and Brother, but the Family had prior commitments that made it unable for them to attend but they want to attend the next meeting in august where we will be able to present actuall legislation to be sent before the State legislature. A work group consisting of officials and some of the industries representatives will be working on this, a little scary but hopefully our officials won't be bullied into things they don't want. I know they feel the strong need for reform that alot of us do. I got to speak at the meeting and it was (scary) very insightful for the committee to hear how it is for the citizens dealing with these places.
Our city attorney who has been very helpfull let us know we finally got a spot before the committee. and probably the best part was towards the end when the committee members suggested that we get some representatives from the industry in to give their views and opinions and several of us said they had representation there who were in the back just listening. Several lawyers from group homes were in attendance but did not want to speak. The committee head sounded quite peturbed that they had not made themselves known from the begining.
At the start of the meeting Senator Hatch spoke followed by our city attorney Paul Bittmen and then followed Ken Stettler and Shannon Delaney from our school district and then a Duschene county resident and then myself. Virgin residents sent a memorandum since no one could attend. It was nice to actually have our voices heard. This is not a new problem for Cedar and we have been working for such a long time to get things accomplished.