http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,339 ... 44,00.htmlTeens taste TV reality
31 August 2005
By JOANNA DAVIS
TVNZ is planning to air a controversial New Zealand series featuring a boot camp for out-of-control teens, despite the objections of advocates for at-risk youth.
The TV2 series follows the April screening of high-rating programme Brat Camp, in which troubled British teenagers were sent to a military-style camp in Utah, billed as "perhaps the most boring state in America".
The New Zealand version, called Teens, will see 10 teenagers aged from 14 to 17 on a three-week boot camp, giving them "a taste of what could be waiting for them in the future, unless they change their behaviour", according to promotional material.
Children's Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro said the programme was exploitative.
"You are taking children who are labelled bad or sad or mad and putting them into situations which are basically focused around entertainment," she said.
Kiro said the filming of damaged young people as they went through the emotional extremes of a boot camp should be off-limits.
Joshua Leblang, clinical director of Multisystemic Therapy New Zealand, an intensive family-based programme for at-risk adolescents, said research showed boot camp-type programmes were not effective long-term in turning around troubled teenagers.
Shock tactics such as "tough love, breaking their spirit and heavy-duty control by drill sergeant-type people" did not work, Leblang said.
"My concern is that it's going to give a lot of parents misinformation. It will tell them they don't need to take responsibility, and that someone else needs to fix their child rather than the family themselves."
Leblang said mixing with other "troublemakers" often compounded teenagers' anti-social behaviour.
Successful youth programmes were those that changed the young people's environment, including peer group and family dynamics, and involved them long-term in structured activities, he said.
TV2 publicist Tim Aitken said the state-owned broadcaster was confident that Pro-Active Ventures, the youth-offending programme running the camp, was a "credible independent organisation".
"Their approach is a trusted and well-regarded programme for teens at risk," he said.