On 2005-12-03 18:40:00, Anonymous wrote:
"It may be 4 months old but it is still applicable to the general opinions on here and people are obviously still reading it! Why is everyone so easily inflamed and moved to attack?
And now, a question that is not 4 months old. And a question I am asking everyone. If not RTC's then what is YOUR solution? It is very easy to be a critic but much more difficult to actually solve problems. So thank you all very much for letting the world know that there are abuses at RTC's. Now let's figure out what parents can and should do when they are worried about their child.
That's my goal. "
Hello, parent. There are many on this board who can tell you "what not to do," as "it" has been done to them and either didn't help or actually hurt them. There are a few folks on this board who can tell you some real action steps toward finding the root of your child's ongoing difficulties.
I personally worked at two of these RTC's early on in my career as a therapist. I can tell you for a fact that I would never recommend this type of "treatment" for ANY kid at ANY time. I can speak factually about what I've heard and seen, and can extrapolate fairly accurately about other programs, as they are almost all built on the same "platform," if you will.
There are very specific criteria that need to be met at a certain threshold in order for any professional to recommend residential placement for an adolescent. You should take your child to a psychologist who specializes in assessing adolescents. DO NOT take your child to a psychiatrist who relies heavily on medication for treatment. DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, rely on an "educational consultant" for ANY PART OF ASSESSMENT. Remember, you are first looking for an ASSESSMENT, and when you have an accurate picture of your child's "issues" you will begin to make a focused, informed decision on a TREATMENT plan. No reputable care-giver would recommend residential treatment except in the most extreme cases (kid is actively suicidal or homicidal), and then inpatient treatment would only be for up to several weeks to stabilize the kid at which point he or she would enter outpatient treatment in your community.
OK, moving right along... Behavior Modification "schools," "RTC's," "programs," or whatever they like to call themselves, DO NOT WORK. There have been many difinitive studies, including one by the NIH that have lead the Surgeon General of the United States to release findings stating that RTC's generally don't help, often harm, and are responsible for an INCREASE in juvenile delinquency caused by "warehousing" delinquents without proper psychological care or supervision, where the "less problematic" residents learn even more maladaptive behavior from some of the more severely delinquent kids and often become victims of crimes within the facilities.
I can support the above statements through direct experience. The RTC industry is solely geared toward MAKING A PROFIT. They make most of that profit by taking advantage of desperate parents at their weakest moments, telling the parent over and over that their child will be "dead, insane or in jail" without immediate intervention by THEIR PARTICULAR program. Many facilities are owned by the same people or parent corporations. Many have been sued out of business or closed due to abuse, but they are such high profit businesses that the same people who just had to close over millions of dollars lost in lawsuits or the jailing of their staff members open up under a new name in a new state where they begin the same cycle once again.
RTC's are one of the biggest money-making SCAMS in the treatment industry, often billing themselves as "schools" to parents and "treatment centers" to insurance companies.
They rarely operate within the letter of the law and almost never within the spirit of the law. They are for the most part, unregulated and unlicensed and employ uneducated "guards" with no credentials to implememt their "programs" largely consisting of extreme punishments, both mental and physical, and some form of Large Group Awareness Training, used to make the subject fully dependent on the "program" for what they will be made to believe is their ultimate survival. The same bullshit is shoveled down the throats of the parents who are cautioned not to believe "anything negative" their child says about the program, no matter how disturbing the charge. Communications are always censored (in violation of Constitutional Law). Some inmates are not even allowed to speak at all for several months and any and all communication with parents (if allowed at all) is directly monitored by staff to insure the child cannot "manipulate" the parent into taking them home.
Completion of the "program" is arbitrary. It isn't based on any test, assessment, timetable or measurable goals. Children can be held indefinitely as long as the parents continue to pay the $5000.00/mo (and up) fees (I've seen up to FOUR YEARS then "POST-GRAD"). When parents run out of money, the children are immediately discharged, which, if there were a valid psychological reason for their placement, would be illegal and unethical. It's all about the money.
As far as education is concerned, nearly every single RTC is unaccredited or is "conditionally accredited" as an "alternative school" which means, quite simply, the education is worth dick. If there even are classes, they're taught by unlicensed, unaccredited teachers or are computer-based "self study," both of which yeild no legal diploma nor transferrable credits. Your kid will be further behind then before he went to the special "school." An example of this is one of the "flagship" programs, the Academy at Ivy Ridge in NY which was recently successfully sued by the State Atorney General and found by a judge to be "grossly misrepresenting their credentials" to consumers. They were issuing "diplomas" they said were valid and legal in NY, but in reality, they were not accredited by ANY agency whatsoever and the so-called diplomas were worth nothing. "Graduates" were barred from college entrance and had to either take the GED or repeat two years of high school. AIR was fined nearly $250,000.00 and ordered to repay tuition to dozens of "graduates" totaling over $1,000,000.00. Some "school."
In any case, parent, whatever you do, remember it is your CHILD'S WELFARE that comes first, even over the quality of your own life for the time being. Work with your kid and a good therapist. Be a loving parent and respect your child. Being a teenager is not a "disorder" that can be miraculously "cured" by some pseudo-therapeutic hack strangers with glossy brochures. Read up, ask questions and MOST OF ALL remember this is YOUR LOVING CHILD, YOUR BABY.
Good luck. Feel free to drop me a PM if you need more specific information.
