Officials seek answers on youth drug center

[Anonymous]

http://www.post-trib.com/news/228911,vapth.article

Officials seek answers on youth drug center

January 25, 2007
BY TOM WYATT Post-Tribune
Everyone Porter County Board of Commissioners President Bob Harper has heard from locally had a positive experience with the Pathway Family Center.

But he and other county officials still have questions about the adolescent drug program proposed for Porter County.

The Community Action Drug Coalition hopes some of those questions will be answered Tuesday when the group hosts a 7 p.m. public forum at the Porter County Administration Building to discuss Pathway Family Center.

"There's been a lot said about this program," Harper said. "Right now, from the people I've talked to locally, I haven't had anyone tell me they've had a bad experience."

The CADC has committed $100,000 to bring Pathway to Northwest Indiana. It would be the fourth Pathway program, joining programs in Southfield, Mich., Indianapolis and Milford, Ohio.

Pathway has told the county it needs an additional $200,000 to get the program up and running.

"I have a few questions I need to get answered," Porter County Council President Dan Whitten said. "I haven't gotten them answered yet, but I will. It sounds like a good viable alternative to what we've had here in the past."

Dr. Mann Spitler III, president of the CADC, said the program is unique but proven.

Spitler's daughter Manda died in 2002 of a heroin overdose. She was 20.

Since his daughter's death, Spitler has been vocal about teen drug addiction issues.

Spitler said the program takes a long-term approach, between 12 and 18 months. It places the addicted teen in the home of another family facing the same issues. The adolescents are home-schooled and provided with professional counselors, Spitler said.

"It's one aspect of the families learning how to deal with this problem without having to wrestle through it with their own child," Spitler said.

Spitler said he has visited the Indianapolis Pathway program on three occasions in the last couple years.

The CADC board visited the Indianapolis program about two months ago, Spitler said.

The Tuesday forum will include Pathway CEO and President Terri Nissley, program director Dan Franz and director of marketing Barbara Towner.

Spitler said a couple Pathway clients and one or two parents involved in the program also will be on hand to answer questions.

Contact Tom Wyatt at 477-6017 or [email protected]

[Anonymous]

 Here's one answer  


Settlement reached in KIDS abuse case
Thursday, January 25, 2007
By ALI WINSTON
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
A settlement has been reached in the civil suit against the former directors of KIDS of North Jersey, a now-defunct drug treatment center in Secaucus, brought by Antonio Carrera, 26, a former patient.

The agreement was reached before Carrera was to take the stand, but Superior Court Judge Maurice Gallipoli agreed to allow him testify about his five years at KIDS.

The agreement, which involves an undisclosed sum of money, is the latest in a string of multimillion-dollar settlements that Dr. Virgil Miller Newton III, the former director of KIDS, and his wife, Ruth Ann Newton, a former assistant director, have paid out to former patients. Rebecca Erlich won $4.5 million in a 2000 suit and Lulu Corter settled for $6.5 million in 2003.

Newton, who ran drug rehab centers from North Jersey to California throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has been heavily criticized for his methods and has been repeatedly accused of physically abusing, brainwashing and falsely imprisoning his patients.

Carrera claims he was misdiagnosed as having drug and alcohol problems - a former staffer at the facility admitted on the stand that he had badgered Carrera during his intake interview into admitting that he'd used them - and spent five years at the facility, leaving only when he turned 18. During that time, he was prevented from going to high school and lived with a foster family.

During most of his stay at KIDS, Carrera was stuck between the first two stages of the five-stage program, often restricted for months from speaking unless spoken to and forced to ask permission for every action.

When Carrera refused to participate in sessions and other activities or was otherwise deemed "uncooperative," other patients would pin him to the ground, sometimes for several hours.

"I just had to lay there and stare at the ceilings. Sometimes I used to wish that I was dead," Carrera said, before seizing up and holding his face in his hands.

After getting out of KIDS when he turned 18, Carrera obtained his GED within months and now works as a driver at a Meadowlands hotel.

He had scathing words for Newton: "I don't know if he is in his sick head, he thinks he helped people out. He conned everybody."

The Newtons left the courtroom before Judge Gallipoli's closing remarks. Stephen Ryan, their attorney, declined to comment.

The various facilities Newton opened around the country are now closed, but Phil Elberg, Carrera's attorney, said similar programs still exist.

"In reality, they're private jails in which con artists prey on the fears of frightened parents," he said.




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