HEADLINE:
PROBE OF KIDS PROMPTS CALL FOR STATE REGULATION
BYLINE:
Laura Gardner, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED:
February 5, 1987, Thursday; Page B-1 {ill.) {21 in.) SECTION: NEWS
TEXT:
Bergen
County Prosecutor Larry J. McClure yesterday closed a nine-month investigation
of KIDS of Bergen County by calling for state regulation of all such unlicensed
drug-treatment programs.
McClure
said his probe of the teen-age drug program did not substantiate clients'
allegations, of physical mistreatment.
He
added, however, that his investigation uncovered "a very glaring
issue." "The real question here is regulation and licensing of nonresidential
programs," he said. "KIDS must be licensed."
Licensed
programs must meet standards for patient treatment and are subject to state
monitoring. But KIDS falls outside the categories of health care centers
licensed and regulated by the state Department of Health because it does not dispense
medication and is nonresidential.
KIDS
of Bergen County, a private, Hackensack-based program for teen-agers with
substance-abuse and behavioral problems, came under investigation early last
summer when former clients alleged they were abused while taking part in the
recovery program.
Controversial
since its start in 1984, KIDS' relies primarily on intensive peer counseling by
former addicts and on thorough supervision of the teen-agers' lives to wean them
off drugs and alcohol.
The
program lasts from six months to two
years, and clients spend a good deal of that time away from family and school.
They are sent to "host homes" at night, and their parents aren't told
where they are. During part of the program, parents are allowed to see their
children only during carefully monitored, weekly group sessions in which
communication may be forbidden.
Most
clients and parents who criticized the program faulted it for what they said was
a rigidity that bordered on imprisonment and a lack
of compassion toward the troubled youths.
Some teen-agers said they were beaten, pinned down
beneath counselors and fellow clients, and isolated in small rooms for days or
weeks at a time. Some distraught participants said they ran away to escape the
program, only to be returned by their families or KIDS staffers.
But
"the allegations of criminal wrongdoing levied against the program or its
director could not be substantiated," McClure said.
The
investigation did not find that any abuses in the program were systemic or
condoned by its director, Miller Newton, and McClure said he would not recommend
that a grand jury continue the probe.
However,
McClure found that there may have been instances of excessive force against
teen-agers. Some evidence suggested that peer counselors used more force than
necessary in restraining unruly clients. But in those cases, he said, the
teen-agers triggered it by their own "rebelliousness."
McClure
said he would recommend that the state attorney-general take action to license
KIDS and programs like it. He said he believed it is the intent of existing
state laws to require licensing of programs such as KIDS, even though the state
Health Department has so far declined to do so.
In
an interview yesterday, Newton, 45, clinical director and founder of KIDS, agreed that all drug-treatment programs
should be licensed. He said his attempts to get a license for KIDS were
unsuccessful.
McClure
said one difficulty of the investigation was that it probed licensure issues,
such as patient rights and treatment methods. "Had there been a proper
regulatory approach to [the allegations], this could all have been dealt
with," said McClure.
In
defense of KIDS, Newton said: "We are constantly monitoring what our peer
counselors do, and there have been times that peer counselors have been
sanctioned. It's a human system, and human beings are going to make mistakes,
but I don't believe real abuses occur."
<END>
CAPTIONS: Photo -Miller Newton, Founder of KIDS
TERMS: BERGEN COUNTY. PROBE. HACKENSACK. YOUTH. DRUG.
ALCOHOL.
ABUSE. AID. COUNSELING. BUSINESS. LICENSE
EDITIONS: All Bergen editions: Bergen South. Bergen
North. Bergen. Also in Passaic-Morris