Post subject: No Talking behind backs
Appearance:
Client confidentiality. Family confidentiality.
Truth: This rule of the program offers to aid in covering up many program abuses, and also is used to intensify and exascerbate the "Lord of the flies" affect. It is so extreme of a rule to the point of you cannot even mention a persons name if they cannot her you say it and they are not standing in the same room as you. Therefore, if someone who has been abusing you at the host home is standing in the living room and you are in the kitchen with another oldcomer or program parent, you couldn't very well tell them about the said abuse behind that other persons back in private without violating a program rule and risk getting set back or worse consequences for breaking said rule.
Please feel free to chime in!
Oh, I remember no talking behind backs. We dubbed it TBB, so anytime the rule was in violation someone at household would yell, 'NO TBB!'. For us, it was taken to an extreme. There was no talking about anyone that was not in the room with you. There was no talking about anyone else in the program, no talking about staff, or program parents. This was one of the strictest rules. Anything that could be derived as heard/ or about anyone else is not allowed. For example, "i heard that....", "i know that..." . Alright, those are bad examples, but I can't think of anything at the moment. Basically, anything that could remotely refer to another in the program was asserted. These offenses were always brought up in group, and were taken very seriously, start over seriously. If I felt like old comer 'A' was abusing their power, then I couldn't talk to anyone about it. The only way would to bring it up in group, where staff might give it some consideration, maybe a set back for them. I would have gotten one as well because I wasn't displaying a proper amount of humility. That rule was definitely a control method, as well as a cover up for any abuse. It also made talking about anything a little dance, because we were surrounded by the whole group all day, but were not allowed to acknowledge that. Just one way to grip our minds a little tighter.
