Update from "former" program mom

[TheWho]

On 2006-04-30 04:15:00, Truth Searcher wrote:

"There is not a good way to apply scientific methods to this whole phenomenon of warehousing children.  Even with experimental/control groups, each child's individual perceived experience is so vastly different that there is no way to measure the outcomes.



And how do you "qualify" successful outcomes?  Is it academic success?  Not being drug addicted?  Being alive?  Success for our family is considered under achievement by others.



I've read the books, the studies, and viewed the whole experience first hand.  Sorry, the programs don't work.  The best outcome that I can see, is that it gives the teens a year to mature, to get away from drug heads, and possible stay alive.  I'm convinced that the costs outweigh the "benefits" even in a non-abusive, non Behavior-Mod program.  



In hindsight, it is my lowly, humble and non-professional opinion, and that these very costly programs(monetary and emotional costs) are no more effective, produce no lower recidivism rates than incarceration.  [ This Message was edited by: Truth Searcher on 2006-04-30 04:15 ][ This Message was edited by: Truth Searcher on 2006-04-30 04:18 ][ This Message was edited by: Truth Searcher on 2006-04-30 04:19 ]"

Yes, even the year away from drugheads and stay alive, as you say, is beneficial to some kids.  Not sure I agree that the cost outweighs the benefits, but all kids do not benefit at the same level, some not at all.

Measuring the outcomes of these kids from the programs will be a difficult task but I feel will be worth the effort if it can bring to light the non abusive and abusive programs.

Its good to see some people reading the studies and available books.

[MightyAardvark]

I'm sorry I disagree.
stripping away the freedom and rights of a human being without a credible diagnosis or a conviction is intrinsically undeniably wrong.
Just because we are talking about children does not take away their status as valuable human beings.
Further, the most unforgiveable abuse you can inflict upon someone is to impose upon that person ideas and thoughts that are not their own.
The very practice of involuntary confinement for children whose problems usually amount to simple growing pains and teenaged acting out is unsupportable. There are no "good" behaviour modification programs, there are only subtle programs and brutal programs.

[TheWho]

On 2006-04-30 05:49:00, MightyAardvark wrote:

"I'm sorry I disagree.

stripping away the freedom and rights of a human being without a credible diagnosis or a conviction is intrinsically undeniably wrong.

Just because we are talking about children does not take away their status as valuable human beings.

Further, the most unforgiveable abuse you can inflict upon someone is to impose upon that person ideas and thoughts that are not their own.

The very practice of involuntary confinement for children whose problems usually amount to simple growing pains and teenaged acting out is unsupportable. There are no "good" behaviour modification programs, there are only subtle programs and brutal programs.

"

Thats what makes this forum so powerful, the differences in opinion and debate, personally I think there are schools which work well and situations where kids need to be removed from their enviornment and allow them to grow.

[MightyAardvark]

On 2006-04-30 05:57:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2006-04-30 05:49:00, MightyAardvark wrote:


"I'm sorry I disagree.


stripping away the freedom and rights of a human being without a credible diagnosis or a conviction is intrinsically undeniably wrong.


Just because we are talking about children does not take away their status as valuable human beings.


Further, the most unforgiveable abuse you can inflict upon someone is to impose upon that person ideas and thoughts that are not their own.


The very practice of involuntary confinement for children whose problems usually amount to simple growing pains and teenaged acting out is unsupportable. There are no "good" behaviour modification programs, there are only subtle programs and brutal programs.


"

Thats what makes this forum so powerful, the differences in opinion and debate, personally I think there are schools which work well and situations where kids need to be removed from their enviornment and allow them to grow."

I agree, there is room to debate and disagree on these forums and that's very useful and healthy. I've already been persuaded to alter my position on a few things slightly since I've been here. There are good arguments to be had all round. Eventually I think we all need to start working towards a consensus position and working together to get something done but in the meantime healthy debate is great.
As to your final point, nothing I have ever said should be construed as disagreeing with your points there, however I think that it is important to note that there are ways of achieving your goals that don't involve incarcerating a child that has done nothing wrong.

[Dena]

Just to set the record straight, Straight, Inc. was not a school. It was a concentration camp where 99% of the kids (including myself) did not have a drug problem.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone else noticed the people who come here and take a position but were never involved themselves are easily swayed? Overlord for example. There is a reason why more program survivors don't post here.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-04-30 05:57:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2006-04-30 05:49:00, MightyAardvark wrote:


"I'm sorry I disagree.


stripping away the freedom and rights of a human being without a credible diagnosis or a conviction is intrinsically undeniably wrong.


Just because we are talking about children does not take away their status as valuable human beings.


Further, the most unforgiveable abuse you can inflict upon someone is to impose upon that person ideas and thoughts that are not their own.


The very practice of involuntary confinement for children whose problems usually amount to simple growing pains and teenaged acting out is unsupportable. There are no "good" behaviour modification programs, there are only subtle programs and brutal programs.


"

Thats what makes this forum so powerful, the differences in opinion and debate, personally I think there are schools which work well and situations where kids need to be removed from their enviornment and allow them to grow."

I believe it should be the parent who is removed from the home, forcibly taken against their will to a secret hidden-away facility where they will get the proper training they need to be a good parent. WWASPS for parents, have you not heard of them? The kid pays them thousands of dollars to keep their parent locked up, until they show that they can be a good parent. They are forced to take brainwashing sessions, and if they don't comply, they are punished severely. Behavior modification works, but not for kids, only parents.

[TheWho]

I believe it should be treated as a family issue, not just the parents or just the kids, but everyone together.  There should not be any lock-ups unless a person is a threat to themselves or someone else.

[Anonymous]

[qoute]There should not be any lock-ups unless a person is a threat to themselves or someone else.[/quote]

This is already law. Parents skirt the system entirely and engage in an unregulated business where they can lock up their child for anything they choose. It's a nice thought, but it's just that, a thought. So long as parents have the choice to send their kid to an abusive camp, I am betting they will. Who knows why though.

[Badpuppy]

Creating a good research design with a control group is not that difficult. You can two or three groups. For example residential treatment vs family therapy, and no intervention. You measure each group according a variety of success standards such as educational achievement, job attainment, social success, attitude twords the future, drug use, reincarceration rate, etc. Things like job status, education status, are verified by researchers and can be used as an internal validity test for the answers for the rest of the measures. Throw in a couple of matching subpopulations.  You check aditudes and relationships as well as psychopathology using a standard well validated test like the BASC, MMPI. Give the tests at entry into treatment, exit from from treatment and desired intervals such as one year three years etc. Combine results. You measures each groups performance at designated intervals.
Hell ya! I'd pay attention to a study like this. Now imagine how good a study could be designed by independent top researchers. I'm sure that my design has problems, it only took me 15 minuits to come up with it. I just put this out to show the type of research the industry refuses to do because they seem afraid of the results.
[ This Message was edited by: Badpuppy on 2006-04-30 10:28 ]

[AtomicAnt]

On 2006-04-30 05:57:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2006-04-30 05:49:00, MightyAardvark wrote:


"I'm sorry I disagree.


stripping away the freedom and rights of a human being without a credible diagnosis or a conviction is intrinsically undeniably wrong.


Just because we are talking about children does not take away their status as valuable human beings.


Further, the most unforgiveable abuse you can inflict upon someone is to impose upon that person ideas and thoughts that are not their own.


The very practice of involuntary confinement for children whose problems usually amount to simple growing pains and teenaged acting out is unsupportable. There are no "good" behaviour modification programs, there are only subtle programs and brutal programs.


"

Thats what makes this forum so powerful, the differences in opinion and debate, personally I think there are schools which work well and situations where kids need to be removed from their enviornment and allow them to grow."

"...removed from their environment..." is just newspeak for 'isolation and control.' It is a misrepesentation used on many programs' websites and in their literature.[ This Message was edited by: AtomicAnt on 2006-04-30 10:58 ]

[AtomicAnt]

Measuring the outcomes of these kids from the programs will be a difficult task but I feel will be worth the effort if it can bring to light the non abusive and abusive programs.

This does not make sense to me. Are you assuming that a good outcome is indicative of a non-abusive program or vice versa?
 
One must also ask what constitutes a 'good outcome.'

All of the medical/psychiatric/psychological studies I have read usually pertain to a very specific diagnosis and compare the effectiveness of very specific treatments on alleviating the symptoms and/or causes of the illness.

These tough-love programs are very general in that they are trying to change the core values of an individual subject. They believe by changing these core values, they can 'cure' a wide range of disorders (see their web sites for lists).

What they engage in is not really behavior modification so much as ideology modification.

There is more to these programs than efficacy. Even if they are proven to 'work,' one must question what 'work' means. Is it acceptable to use force to alter an individual's self-perception and set of core values? Is it acceptable to do this against the subject's will?

Who gets to chose which values are desirable? Who chooses what the 'correct' self perception should be?

Studies of efficacy only cloud the real issue, which is individual rights. More specifically, the rights of youth vs the rights of parents and programs to forcibly incarcerate and psychologically alter them. If it were illegal to forcibly incarcerate them, it is less likely they would be vulnerable to abuses.

[AtomicAnt]

On 2006-04-30 11:40:00, AtomicAnt wrote:



Measuring the outcomes of these kids from the programs will be a difficult task but I feel will be worth the effort if it can bring to light the non abusive and abusive programs.

This does not make sense to me. Are you assuming that a good outcome is indicative of a non-abusive program or vice versa?

One must also ask what constitutes a 'good outcome.'

All of the medical/psychiatric/psychological studies I have read usually pertain to a very specific diagnosis and compare the effectiveness of very specific treatments on alleviating the symptoms and/or causes of the illness.

These tough-love programs are very general in that they are trying to change the core values of an individual subject. They believe by changing these core values, they can 'cure' a wide range of disorders (see their web sites for lists).

What they engage in is not really behavior modification so much as ideology modification.

There is more to these programs than efficacy. Even if they are proven to 'work,' one must question what 'work' means. Is it acceptable to use force to alter an individual's self-perception and set of core values? Is it acceptable to do this against the subject's will?

Who gets to chose which values are desirable? Who chooses what the 'correct' self perception should be?

Studies of efficacy only cloud the real issue, which is individual rights. More specifically, the rights of youth vs the rights of parents and programs to forcibly incarcerate and psychologically alter them. If it were illegal to forcibly incarcerate them, it is less likely they would be vulnerable to abuses."[ This Message was edited by: AtomicAnt on 2006-04-30 11:43 ]

[TheWho]

"...removed from their environment..." is just newspeak for 'isolation and control.' It is a misrepesentation used on many programs' websites and in their literature

True it could mean many things, but some kids need to be removed from their present influences which are causing them to be at risk, they don?t necessarily have to go to a place that isolates them and controls them.

[TheWho]

On 2006-04-30 11:41:00, AtomicAnt wrote:

"

On 2006-04-30 11:40:00, AtomicAnt wrote:







Measuring the outcomes of these kids from the programs will be a difficult task but I feel will be worth the effort if it can bring to light the non abusive and abusive programs.

This does not make sense to me. Are you assuming that a good outcome is indicative of a non-abusive program or vice versa?



One must also ask what constitutes a 'good outcome.'



All of the medical/psychiatric/psychological studies I have read usually pertain to a very specific diagnosis and compare the effectiveness of very specific treatments on alleviating the symptoms and/or causes of the illness.



These tough-love programs are very general in that they are trying to change the core values of an individual subject. They believe by changing these core values, they can 'cure' a wide range of disorders (see their web sites for lists).



What they engage in is not really behavior modification so much as ideology modification.



There is more to these programs than efficacy. Even if they are proven to 'work,' one must question what 'work' means. Is it acceptable to use force to alter an individual's self-perception and set of core values? Is it acceptable to do this against the subject's will?



Who gets to chose which values are desirable? Who chooses what the 'correct' self perception should be?



Studies of efficacy only cloud the real issue, which is individual rights. More specifically, the rights of youth vs the rights of parents and programs to forcibly incarcerate and psychologically alter them. If it were illegal to forcibly incarcerate them, it is less likely they would be vulnerable to abuses."[ This Message was edited by: AtomicAnt on 2006-04-30 11:43 ]"

It is difficult to determine positive outcome when each persons measurement/goal is different.  A goal would need to be developed for each person (who determines the goal?) and then measurements would need to be taken at graduation and periodically after that to capture the long term effectiveness.
It would be difficult but I believe the key would be to agree on a way to measure (freeze the process) and then repeat this with each group and this will enable a school to view their trends from year to year to see if they are improving or not.  There are just so many variables.(i.e. the kids individual goals, improvements, environmental changes, leaving the program early, change in faculty, training, measuring techniques etc.)  to determine success for each graduating class.  Once a trend is established and you can effect change and see it in your results other schools could begin to bench mark the same measurement tool and we could start seeing the differences from school to school.

The chances of this happening is almost nil but to begin agreeing on a way to measure success/failure would be a start.