Carlbrook

[Truth Searcher]

The problem with "detox" programs is that they usually voluntary and therefore are not "locked down".  Our daughter was in desperate need of detox, but the only decent inpatient unit near us was strictly voluntary.  And the first time the drugs began calling her name she ran.  To a very dangerous area.  Once she ran the program would not take her back.  

It was such a catch 22.

So for some parent the thought of a wilderness experience means that kids will have to stay put, and detox from drugs.  Which then (as most parents believe) will lead to clearer thinking.  

We never did wilderness, because we believed that the last thing a child in crisis needs is to be thrown into a rustic environment where creature comforts are removed.

I'm just not sure what effective alternatives there are for kids who are very addicted .... and who lack the wherewithal to want to get off drugs.

[Oz girl]

OzGirl-   Do you really think we would have sent our son away just because he got kicked out of his school (the third one, by the way)?  If you think the "deadorinjail" thing is such a joke, I can show you the pictures of our Explorer lying by the side of the road on it's completely flattened roof, or the logs of the middle of the night calls from police and neighbors.  We also had a lot of resources, but like you guys keep saying, if the kid isn't willing, it isn't any good.

it is fair enough that you dont want to share your son's misdeeds in too much detail. i dont think the Dead insane in jail thing is a joke. i am aware that many parents really do think that this is the case. i also accept that theUS has some fairly tough laws for kids so out of the three "In Jail" is not always a totally unrealistic fear. But the fact remains that this industry has grown in spite of a falling youth crime, and pregnancy rate and that kids in the US are not out of step with their foreign peers. So it is not unreasonable to assume that the industry thrives on parents worst fears when it is unlikely that the kid will die or end up insane.
It is also not unreasonalbe to argue that it is in the interests of any of these schools financially to keep kids from doing too well. You said yourself that When you and your son decided that he was ready to move on from Carlbrook he was badly treated. i dont know of any therapist who gives their patient a hard time for ceasing therapy. Yet Carlbrook was not unusual in doing this because it was loosing a cash cow. it is hard not to be cynical toward an industry which profits from the sadness of kids and the despair of their parents.
It is also easy to believe kids when they say that being forced into "therapy" with people they dont necessarily like or trust fucks them up. Particularly when the therapy is frequent and it involves being forced to share with the group and excercises which invlove public shaming, like reading impact letters. In What it Takes to Pull me Through dave marcus mentions that some kids hear songs from their therapudic workshops years later and still cry. he said this as if this was a good thing. i thought it was unhealthy and perverse.

[Charly]

OzGirl-  Carlbrook has a waiting list, so the issue with kids leaving early isn't financial.  The principals strongly believe that the program has to be completed for there to be any chance of success. They also find it very disruptive if kids are leaving.  They try to keep the peer groups together.  I understand this to a certain extent-  if one kid leaves, it starts a wave of kids pressuring their parents to take them out.
I also want to mention that we tried (pulled out all stops) to get him into a school at home because he wanted the option of staying home after Carlbrook if he could be at a good enough school.  They wouldn't touch him, though, so it was off to boarding school, which was better anyway.

[Anonymous]

When people wake up and competent administration comes back(oh 2009 how I yearn for thee) all of this will be a very bad memory. Oversight and a media that does not have a set of Bush-derived blinders on would be pretty bitchin', don't you think?

You can't really believe that..?

[Charly]

For those of you who read Shouting At The Sky, did you find the program to be abusive?

[Anonymous]

Shouting at the Sky: Troubled Teens and the Promise of the Wild

From Kirkus Reviews
This tale of teenagers struggling to remake their lives in the wilds of southern Utah manages to be both deeply lyrical and seriously sappy. Nature writer Ferguson (The Sylvan Path: A Journey Through Americas Forests, 1997) spent several months as a kind of counselor-cum-observer with the Aspen Achievement Academy, a wilderness therapy program whose philosophy blends pioneer self-reliance with a generous helping of New Age blather. The students, plagued by everything from drugs to depression to attention-deficit and eating disorders, are grizzled veterans of countless failed therapeutic schemes. Now they are dumped in a particularly stark stretch of Mormon country, stripped, searched, and outfitted for a two-month, no-frills desert and mountain sojourn. Dividing his time between one group of girls and another of boys, Ferguson charts the participants' emotional and physical evolution, from their early days as ``mice,'' timid beginners who have to count aloud each time they use the bathroom so their counselors can keep track of them, into seasoned adventurers who can fend for themselves and, hopefully, bring some of what they've learned in the wild back home with them. Along the way, Ferguson hangs out with the hipper-than-thou staff and recounts stories of suicide watches, escape attempts , and countless therapy sessions. When he depicts the rigors and the beauty of the landscape, Ferguson's prose approaches poetry, and his stories about kids who can't concentrate long enough to finish a sentence mastering the painstaking art of starting a fire from a bow drill speak volumes about what these programs do best. But the author's thumbnail character sketches read more like allegories of American ailments than the real stories of troubled young people, and his ecstatic embrace of all things mystical and Native American sometimes verges on parody. At its best, this book testifies to nature's ability to heal and inspire. At its worst, it's like being stuck on a long camping trip with Shirley MacLaine. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

[Anonymous]

The problem with "detox" programs is that they usually voluntary and therefore are not "locked down".  Our daughter was in desperate need of detox, but the only decent inpatient unit near us was strictly voluntary.  And the first time the drugs began calling her name she ran.  To a very dangerous area.  Once she ran the program would not take her back.  

It was such a catch 22.

So for some parent the thought of a wilderness experience means that kids will have to stay put, and detox from drugs.  Which then (as most parents believe) will lead to clearer thinking.  

We never did wilderness, because we believed that the last thing a child in crisis needs is to be thrown into a rustic environment where creature comforts are removed.

I'm just not sure what effective alternatives there are for kids who are very addicted .... and who lack the wherewithal to want to get off drugs.

Have you read any of Maia Szalavitz's writings?  She discusses how toughlove programs don't work for kids, especially kids suffering from drug addiction, and offers a variety of reasons why.  She also provides a good sampling of alternatives and resources that are proven to be the most safe and effective.  Wilderness therapy is not on the list, nor any of the private lock down emotional growth schools, bm warehouses, etc.  Maia is a former addict and clearly has first hand experience with addiction and the struggles parents face.  She also has an excellent reputation as a researcher and has written two books, both highly acclaimed.  She is currently at work on her third book.  Here's a couple of links:

http://http://www.helpatanycost.com
See Resources Page

Article by Maia called "The trouble with toughlove"
http://[url=http://teenadvocatesusa.org/TroubledTeensIndustry.html]http://teenadvocatesusa.org/TroubledTeensIndustry.html[/url]

[Anonymous]

http://http://teenadvocatesusa.org/TroubledTeensIndustry.html

[Anonymous]

For those of you who read Shouting At The Sky, did you find the program to be abusive?

I think any program of this style has the potential to be abusive. The staff are all alone with the kids, very little oversight. The kids have no access to a telephone to call emergency services if needed. A kid could be in danger from staff, other kids, or even themselves and nobody would know it until it was too late. Taking someone completely out of their social network and safety net has it's positives, and it's negatives. I will call wilderness programs coercive, and ineffective without hesitation. It sounds to me like parents simply want an "out". They want a place they can send their kid to a place where other people have to deal with the problem child because they don't know what to do, or are tired of trying. I think there are thousands of individuals and business out there who will tell you that can do that, and will be effective and keep your child safe. I think every single one of them is lying. Every parent who utilizes these programs are both taking a shot in the dark that their kid won't be mistreated, and that it won't be a complete waste of time and money. I suppose it's up to the parent at this point in our history to make that decision, it seems to be the norm. A child's life is not their own in our culture until they are at least 18, in some parental cultures even older. When you are fighting any individual over their right to free will there will be conflict. Trying to put them in a box and redefine them, it seems kind of extreme to me. I understand why it is attempted, but don't expect it to be pretty. This type of thing is bound to leave a very bloody trail in it's wake. As we have seen, and everyone who uses programs needs to understand their copability in that progression of violence.

[Oz girl]

OzGirl-  Carlbrook has a waiting list, so the issue with kids leaving early isn't financial.  The principals strongly believe that the program has to be completed for there to be any chance of success. They also find it very disruptive if kids are leaving.  They try to keep the peer groups together.  I understand this to a certain extent-  if one kid leaves, it starts a wave of kids pressuring their parents to take them out.
I also want to mention that we tried (pulled out all stops) to get him into a school at home because he wanted the option of staying home after Carlbrook if he could be at a good enough school.  They wouldn't touch him, though, so it was off to boarding school, which was better anyway.

Sometimes kids get a lot out of regular boardings school, particularly if it is one with many exeat weekends and an extremely relaxed policy toward family visits etc. I missed home as a boarder but did not have a terrible time. One thing that strikes me tho whilev we are on normal boarding school, is that  in light of the sex abuse scandals which have recently come to light in the Catholic Church both here and in the US, they have been forced to make their schools open shops. This is because they have realised that a clandestine environment where contact with the outside world is limited is the best way to breed abuse. Wilderness programmes and  TBs environments are by their nature this way. if someone is supervising your phone calls home or seeing mum's letters, you are not likely to report abuse. This should be considered a major red flag.
The fact that the school felt insecure about a kid and their family deciding that the programme was no longer for them i think illustrates my point. At nomal school if one kid leaves, the others are not likely to all want to jump ship. This is quite telling. The fact that they set up these peer groups to be surrogate families buts undue pressure on a kid and their family to not leave. Does this not strike you as cultic? I would say that there is a big financial incentive for a school to set things up this way.

[hanzomon4]

I hear what you(parents) are saying, but are you completely deaf to what survivors, experts, and advocates are saying. Why is it that you will accept what unregulated, unqualified, and unproven(disproved in many cases) programs have to say about your kids and what they need. Is it because they make promises that traditional therapy won't? You do realize that anyone, if given complete control over your kids, can get them to say and believe anything? That's why prison, jail, and punitive lock down facilities are not called therapy. Kids don't workout problems in places like this. It takes patience to raise kids, especially teens, and sending them off to private prisons when you're at the end of your rope is hardly a virtue patience.

I was easily "program material" in my teen years, clinical depression, tourette's syndrome, and OCD. I used painkillers, withdrew socially, missed alot of school, and was very unpleasant to be around. But my mom did not just ship me off to some facility, we went to a psychiatrist who gave me meds that made somethings worse. But still she did not just give up and now I'm fine, I still have the same conditions I just grew up. I can tell you with a great degree of certainty that shipping your problem off is at best a cop out and in most cases dangerous. You got lucky(debatable) because your kids are fine(debatable), but your desperate choice is not justified by  the success of your children. That poor choice was not sending your kids off, it was sending them off to an industry with not one shred of oversight to own up to their mistakes but not you and yours. I don't want you to grab your head in regret, but I do want you to to read the horror stories and know that they could be your children's stories. I also want you to keep in mind what survivors say about realizing the harm done to them only years and years after being locked up in a program. I would love for you all to understand now the problem with these programs, but I'd much prefer that you take your time and not "fake it till you make it"

[Truth Searcher]

I think one component not touched on here is how many teens are court ordered to programs.   Often, juvenile judges will tell parents "either send them to this program or your child will face the juvenile court system IE: incarceration".   I know of parents who pondered these two choices and chose a placement believing that it was a far superior choice on several levels.  

 

1.  A program does not follow the child in the same manner that a felonious record does.  Of course, anyone who has tried to enroll a child in a public school system, or university ... or even apply for a job in retail knows that a program record does indeed follow a child.  My daughter quickly learned to "alter" such applications to dis-include her "private school" experience.

2.  A program will not expose the child to hard core criminal type juveniles.  Of course, we now know that some of these kids are in these places because of their criminal activities.

3.  A program does not just incarcerate ... it rehabilitates.

4.  If the court has ordered it, it must be in the best interest of my child.

Unless a parent is an anarchist .... they could mistakingly believe that the government really does have the interest of the child at heart.  

Too bad it's not true.

[Nihilanthic]

OzGirl-  He WAS at the local public school (horrific) when all the anger and depression got the better of him (and us).  The school was so "beneath him" that he acted out there, cut school, stole our cars and other things....... I'm not going to go into it all here.   Please just take my word, that like 70s Punk above, we tried everything.  Do you really think we would have sent our son away just because he got kicked out of his school (the third one, by the way)?  If you think the "deadorinjail" thing is such a joke, I can show you the pictures of our Explorer lying by the side of the road on it's completely flattened roof, or the logs of the middle of the night calls from police and neighbors.  We also had a lot of resources, but like you guys keep saying, if the kid isn't willing, it isn't any good.

Whats funny is you have still yet to demonstrate that this coersive wilderness program did anything anyway, so you can't argue that it's a valid option when you are out of choices.

You also seem to disregard what actual mental health professionals have had to say on this topic which has been posted repeatedly in this thread.

I was depressed, pissed off and felt school was 'beneath me', so I went to college and I did fine!  :roll:

PUBLIK School is a joke, the academics are tertiary compared to running the gauntlet of the other little shits your age and the cynical teachers, plus the county/state criteria for 'achievement' and a million and one multiple choice tests.

Sometimes "what it takes" is to stop controlling and restricting and let the kid grow the hell up already. Sitting on your hands might suck at first, but eventually you'll realize hes not a child in a teenagers body, he's an adult in a teenagers body.

[psy]

OzGirl-  Carlbrook has a waiting list, so the issue with kids leaving early isn't financial.  The principals strongly believe that the program has to be completed for there to be any chance of success.

verbatim benchmark.  check this out:
http://http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=234653#234653
it might help you to understand the differences between what the parents are told, what is actually happening, and why the kids eventually shut up about it.
parents tell a far different story than students.

They also find it very disruptive if kids are leaving.

Jeez.  It's the same crap from all these schools.  Again, verbatim Benchmark(and practically every other program i have heard of).  The pattern really really fits.

[Nihilanthic]

It was The Wall Street Journal- and I was just interviewed- I didn't write a piece.
Sharing your story and your parents' "version" before a group of your peers in the exact same situation may bother some kids, and it might be uncomfortable, but one of the first steps in ANY therapeutic process is owning up to what you did.  The kid is free to counter what the parents said (mine did), both to the parents and to the group.  My son thought this was a minor inconvenience compared to being hauled out of his life by escorts.

The first thing we've repeatedly said that you've disregarded is they only allow this AFTER they've had the child under their control and manipulation for weeks. They will not say what they don't feel they can say or they should not say, because they're usually not stupid enough to risk being made to start over by that stage!

I do find it good he did admit having his life put on hold by the escorts... hopefully he's gotten back to it by now.

Abusive- only in good ways in terms of the physical demands and restrictions

There is no such thing as 'good abuse'. Physical demands and restrictions are not therapy and don't help a kid 'change for the better' or 'grow'. The only character development is learning to withstand suffering and not complain. That is not 'thriving' or 'growing'.

Or, to be succinct, he learned how to say what they wanted him to say, and believe what they wanted him to believe - or at least act like it.

Coercive- Are you kidding me?  Do you remember how I got there?"

 :roll: See the pattern here yet? Oh it wasn't coersive, I CHOSE to get here though my actions!