1. What program(s) did you work for? Eckerds, Three Springs
2. What type of program was it? Eckerds youth alternatives is a long term wilderness camping program for adjudicated youth. Three Springs is Theraputic Boarding School.
3. How long did you work for each respective program? 2 years each
4. How much were you payed? 21,000 for Eckerds, and 25,000 for Three Springs
5. Did you ever witness physical abuse? yes
6. Did you ever physically abuse a student?yes
7. Did you ever witness psychological abuse?yes
8. Did you ever psychologically abuse a student?yes
9. Were there ever reports of sexual abuse at the facility?At three springs yes, but that was before my time.
10. Did any of the staff use drugs or alcohol while on duty? Not by me, not sure about others. I showed up a few times hung over though.
11. Were kids ever left unattended that should not have been? Question is to vague, but as a guess I would say no by me. I know other counselors at 3 Springs were far less dilligent.
12. Were meals limited? The meals sucked. They were limited by their poor taste, repititions, and institutional quality. However, they did provide most of the caloric content needed. Can't speak for how healthy they were though, cause I put on like 30 pounds working for 3 springs. Meals at Eckerd were actually good tasting, and very nutrious.
13. Did you help implement a level system or peer review system? yes.
14. Was isolation used as punishment? In an limited way yes.
15. Was contact for the student with society limited? In what ways? phone calls restricted to family members as was mail.
16. Did the kids seem happy or sad? What was the day to day mood like? Mood sucked, and the frequent escape and suicide attempts should indicate their happiness.
17. Do you feel your place of employment was the best place for the students in your care? No.
18. Do you keep in contact with students still? no
19. How common was physical assaults and fighting? Varied from group to group. The older groups wasn't very common, in my younger group at 3 springs it was pretty common. At Eckerds I saw maybe 5 fights in 2 years and all of them were split up pretty quickly.
20. Did you ever have to restrain a student, if so, how many times? yes, I believe at 3 springs I perfromed between 180 to 300 restraints. I stopped bothering to report most of them after awhile due to the paperwork. That and no one really cared if I reported them or not, and the administration did very little to deal with the situation. At Eckerds I had 4 or 5 restraints.
21. Were you properly trained to do restraints? Were they ever excessive? I dunno about what constitutes proper training, but I did get recertified every 6 to 12 months at both Eckerds and Three Springs. Training was typically a 2 day affair for when you first were certified and a 1 day affair for when you recertified.
Every single time you lay your hands on a child for any reason it is excessive. A restraint represents failure to keep communication open, and most counselors aren't trained well enough to communicate with people who are struggling with their emotions.
22. Do you regret working for a program? every single day.
