Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group
Academy at Swift River - Split from TTI
Deborah:
--- Quote from: ""TheWho"" ---We were talking about if kids could call home in privacy or not and we established that they can.
--- End quote ---
"We" did no such thing. We established that the survivor and ex staff have more credibility than you.
--- Quote ---So now you want to see if they have 24 hour access to a phone... we need to review the law... does it apply to boarding schools?........
--- End quote ---
So, ASR is back to being a boarding school. Now, when you and other parents want insurance/IEPs to pay for your "disabled" child's "treatment", they will be a treatment facility.
Fact is, they aren't a boarding school. They are providing mental health services to minors in a residential facility for 14-19 months.
There's a reason hotlines are required in such facilities. History has shown there is a high risk of abuse. Patients need to be able to report abuses, and not to the staff that are abusing them.
--- Quote ---I dont believe they are breaking any laws, because I dont check for you doesnt mean they are guilty. Tough crowd around here...............
--- End quote ---
That's true, as long as they remain classified as a "school". Technically they are violating the law in more than one instance. They need to be licensed as an RTC. And since when do "schools" qualify for insurance reimbursement and tax write-offs for visits to see your "disabled" child?
What a gravy train and absolute fraud this industry is. You and all the rest are beyond pathetic.
TheWho:
--- Quote ---You contridict yourself. It clearly isn't working for the kids if they want more phone time. Is that so much to ask? Why the blanket policy? Even severely mentally distressed get more phone time. Why didn't you want/ demand more phone time with your daughter?
--- End quote ---
The system seems to be working well as far as the children’s privacy is concerned. Which is where that comes from. I haven’t heard of any feed back where this was a big issue. My daughter indicated that if she could change one thing about her stay at ASR it would be to increase the telephone time. I don’t see this as a big thing to ask for either, I tend to agree,
As far as severely mentally distressed people go, I wouldn’t know how much communication would be best for them, I am not a doctor. If they are allowed more time on the phone there must be a reason. It must assist with or accelerate their recovery I would imagine.
The parents often talked of the rules they had and we weighed in and discussed our concerns with the counselors and head master etc. More phone time was one, scheduling SAT testing more often was another, I recall. More off campus visits etc. Communication was tough but we understood that they were trying to keep their world small and focused on themselves. Many parents commented that their kids talked to them more from ASR then they did when they were home Ha,Ha,Ha, so I guess it is relative and different for each family.
TheWho:
Deborah Wrote:
--- Quote ---So, ASR is back to being a boarding school. Now, when you and other parents want insurance/IEPs to pay for your "disabled" child's "treatment", they will be a treatment facility.
Fact is, they aren't a boarding school. They are providing mental health services to minors in a residential facility for 14-19 months..
--- End quote ---
TBS (Therapeutic boarding school). I don’t think many of the parents are seeking IEP’s or that their kids fell under the title of “Special needs”. Of all the parents I spoke with, none even attempted to claim insurance recovery, they were all out of pocket expensise. I would be willing to bet they dont take kids with IEP's because of extra requirements that go along with it.
--- Quote --- There's a reason hotlines are required in such facilities. History has shown there is a high risk of abuse. Patients need to be able to report abuses, and not to the staff that are abusing them
--- End quote ---
They may or may not meet this requirement, I just don’t know. We would have to pull this law out and take a look at it and see how ASR compares against the requirements.
--- Quote --- That's true, as long as they remain classified as a "school". Technically they are violating the law in more than one instance. They need to be licensed as an RTC. And since when do "schools" qualify for insurance reimbursement and tax write-offs for visits to see your "disabled" child?
What a gravy train and absolute fraud this industry is. You and all the rest are beyond pathetic.
--- End quote ---
I cannot speak to what parents write off on their taxes. None of us would know that, even some of the parents don’t know, their accountants take care of most of the details. I wouldn’t crucify them for that. Why wouldn’t they be classified as a school?
I am not familiar with all the laws but I would lean them more towards a boarding school than an RTC, but that is my opinion. I’ll leave the definition up to the state.
TheWho:
Psy referenced :
--- Quote ---I don't know if anyone ever got their phone call completely taken away. I got my right to "private" phone calls (a counselor was always in the room monitoring anyway) taken away. I had to have conference calls for a few weeks.
--- End quote ---
It appears the child lost their phone privilege but still kept communication with the family only it was on a conference level. This happens; the child could be dealing with a specific problem in this area.
--- Quote --- 1)I think my counselors personally held bachelors degrees. At the time when I was there we had no live-in staff. At night we had "night staff". I think the only qualification for this was a background check.
--- End quote ---
I believe they have 24 hour staff now.
--- Quote --- I don't think it was. At all. I can honestly say that when I was younger pre-ASR there were times when I did use hurting myself to hurt other people, but I grew out of this pretty quickly and what I did at ASR had nothing to do with getting back at anyone
--- End quote ---
I don’t know about kids that cut themselves and how this is classified. I don’t believe each event is classified as a suicide attempt, though, I think it is more towards inflicting pain on themselves vs taking their lives. I havent done much reading in this area.
I may get hammered for missing the mark on that one
Deborah:
--- Quote from: ""TheWho"" ---As far as severely mentally distressed people go, I wouldn’t know how much communication would be best for them, I am not a doctor. If they are allowed more time on the phone there must be a reason. It must assist with or accelerate their recovery I would imagine.
--- End quote ---
No, Patient's Rights. Ring a bell?
You can't hold people incommunicado in the 'real' world without proving it's in their best interest.
--- Quote ---Communication was tough but we understood that they were trying to keep their world small and focused on themselves.
--- End quote ---
Doesn't cut the mustard in a mental health facility.
Excerpts:
Massachusetts law defines the rights of mental-health consumers in state facilities with respect to mail, visits, and telephone calls as follows:
Any mentally ill person in the care of the department....... shall be provided with stationery and post-age in reasonable amounts and shall have the right to have his letters forwarded unopened to the governor, to the commissioner, to his personal physician, his attorney, his clergyman, to any court, to any public elected official and to any member of his immediate family. The superintendent may open and restrict the forwarding of any other letters written by said person when in said person's best interest.
A mentally ill person has the right to be visited at all reasonable times by his personal physician, his attorney, and his clergyman, and the right to be visited by other persons unless the superintendent determines that such a visit... would not be in the best interest of the mentally ill person and incorporates a statement of the reasons for any denial of visiting rights in the treatment record of said person. In addition....a mentally ill person in the care of the department shall have....reasonable access to telephones to make and receive confidential calls.....provided, however, that....[this right] may be denied for good cause by the superintendent or his designee and a statement of the reasons for any such denial entered in the treatment record of such a person.2
The DMH Human Rights Handbook makes clear that restrictions of rights must be based on specific, documented clinical judgments made in the here and now, not blanket presumptions based on diagnostic categories or historical generalizations:
The determination to restrict any of these rights is a clinical decision, made by the head of the facility (or designee) in order to avoid serious harm to the consumer or for other good reason in the consumer's best interest. Unless this explicit determination is made for the particular consumer, there may be no restriction. Restrictions should be as limited as possible and still avoid harm to the consumer, and should not occur if there is an alternative, less restrictive way of avoiding the harm.4
Mental health facilities generally assert a duty to prevent residents from harming others. Advocates counter that clinicians do not have a duty to protect third parties from emotional harm and that they have a duty to address behavioral issues raised by the exercise of rights through therapy rather than through control mechanisms.
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