Ive come to this discussion kind of late and as usual it has been derailed. But in response to Zen's original post, ST had always in theory been opposed to boot camps. (in spite of letting them advertise)
When Michelle Sutton died he did an editorial stating that what she went to was not "wilderness therapy" but a boot camp and that this was why some other kids of the era like Kirsten Chase also suffered similar fates. i dont know how he defined it as such as it did not according to Mrs Sutton have any paramilitary aspect. The trouble is that since those days so may kids have died in the industry so it has become harder for him to try and explain the difference. Here is the article Zen if you are interested
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... ews02.html
Thanks, Oz girl. Definitions in the TTI are nebulous, and if Lon limits his definition of "boot camps" to programs with a paramilitary style, he's got blinders on. Sorry to always cite PV, but experience dictates...Peninsula Village advertised on StrugglingTeens under the categories "Wilderness Therapy" and "Boarding School", with the two in my mind being far-removed from one another. PV does business as Peninsula Village School, Peninsula Village Treatment Center, Peninsula Village Behavioral Health(the name applied to the complex of mental health facilities PV is part of) and Peninsula Village, a division of Parkwest Medical Center(used when they want to appear "clinical" or they need to establish the source of their JCAHO certification).
The Special Treatment Unit at PV isn't a boot camp, it's worse. It's a level five lockdown facility, where the patients are told to
sit and think about the manipulations that brought them there. All the kids go through STU, regardless of what brought them there - STU is "one size fits all" treatment. So, what "manipulations" brought victims of sexual abuse, traumatic experience, depression, or eating disorders to the near-constant restraints they witness (or experience)? What's the purpose in placing a traumatized kid in seclusion? It's to "warehouse" them. Here's PV's admission criteria, and the program has been very flexible in the past with the "exclusionary criteria":
Admission Criteria
Patients come to Peninsula Village with a wide range of problems, diagnoses and symptoms including, but not limited to the following:
* Depression, Anxiety, and other Mood Disorders
* Alcohol and/or drug abuse/dependency
* Disordered conduct and oppositional behavior
* ADD/ADHD
* Effects of traumatic experience
* Disrespect of adult authority
* Inability to tolerate frustration or boredom
* Unhealthy self-centeredness
* Unwillingness to adhere to conventional values/standards
* Inability to behave independently and autonomously
* Self-mutilation and/or other self-harming behaviors
* Pattern of excessive passivity and clinging dependency in relationships
* Eating disorders that are medically stable
Exclusionary Criteria
Peninsula Village is unable to help every adolescent. Some problems that we cannot treat are:
* Intelligence below the average range (Full Scale IQ below 90)
* History of fire setting and pyromania
* Sexual Offenders / Sexual Disorders
* History of chronic/severe physical aggression including use of weapons
* Physical or medical condition that would hinder participation in vigorous, outdoor activities (diabetes, epilepsy)
* Homicidal intent at time of admission
* Psychotic Disorders
* Pregnancy (females)
* Impairment resulting from traumatic brain injury / Neuro-psychiatric issues
* Eating disorders that are not medically stable
We've seen PV take sexual offenders and kids convicted of conspiring to commit mass murder. The identities of these teenage "exceptions" are public knowledge, because they were convicted as
adults. PV admitted a young man who walked into a Knoxville-area high school with a
bomb, and his placement there stopped any criminal charges from being filed, PV was his "sentence". There's been one common link between these exceptions to PV's admissions policy: all of these kids were from wealthy families who paid out-of-pocket for their troubled teens to go to PV, shielding them from the fate kids with lesser resources committing the same crimes would face - prison, or the juvenile justice system, with neither being an "easy fit" for rich White kids. PV provides an expensive but viable alternative, with a much quicker return to the community for the offenders. Once the heat dies down and the media has moved on, a family therapist declares the kid "fit" and sends them home, sometimes in less than six months. Six months beats fifteen years in "grown-up" jail...
So what is Peninsula Village? A "last ditch effort" for the treatment resistant? No, I know first-hand PV will take kids who profit from outpatient treatment. Is PV a teen prison? Their exclusion list should rule that definition out,
but... Is it a school? Only if you're putting the program on the spot concerning their clinical methods, and since the GAO became involved PV is leaning heavily toward the "school" title and away from "treatment center", at least in their press releases.
Peninsula Village is whatever it needs to be to get a parent to sign the admission papers. Once PV admissions staff hear the troubles a parent is having, they paint a picture of PV as the solution to those troubles. It's a Summer Camp, it's a caring place for the traumatized, a lockdown rehab for the addicts, a penal camp for violent offenders, "warm and fuzzy" treatment for kids with eating disorders, sensitive therapy for cutters.
In reality, violent offenders and the victims of violence, the sexually abused and sexual abusers, depressed, passive kids and nascent psychopaths, are all thrown into the same milieu. To make matters worse, PV uses "peer on peer" as part of their treatment. How can a depressed rape victim be considered a "peer" of a sexual offender or a kid with homicidal impulses? What are the chances the traumatized patients will be victimized by their more aggressive "peers", and see the tormentors rewarded for cruelty by the staff for helping the withdrawn kids "get real", get "honest"
Right now, I have no doubt a kid is in PV who's terrified, has no business being there, and has no way to get help - absolutely none. Their parents have been warned by PV not to believe their kids if they claim they're being abused or their peers are "psycho". If a kid says the wrong thing during phone therapy, the family therapist ends the call immediately and the kid receives "care methods" for manipulation.
PV's not a boot camp, wilderness treatment, hospital or school, it's hell. Trying to pin a definition on programs is impossible.
