Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Ridge Creek School / Hidden Lake Academy
HLA is unethichal and feeds on parent's desparation and vulnerability
Anonymous:
Daryl Beard, the lead counselor, has finally, finally resigned from HLA.
Anonymous:
thats funny, D Beard was never lead counselor when i was there. He was not lead counselor material. HLA is really going down the drain if they appointed him. lemme guess, jonny lott was his assistant?
One time i was reading a thing about weed legalization efforts in time magazine, and was like "finnally, some progress!!", while at HLA. D Beard saw and ripped the mag out of my hands. Then i was like...if weed was legal, it would solve alot of problems, blah blah that whole spiel. then he was like "NO, weed will never be legal becouse it's "socially unacceptable"". what's socially unacceptable is being a nigger. I'm no racist, but i see a profound difference between black people and niggers. my neighbor is black. will smith is black. most of the NBA and NFL is black. Flava flav is a nigger, the crackhead on the corner is a nigger, and darryl beard is a nigger.
Anonymous:
I have been reading through all of the forum's on this website about HLA and I agree with most of what I have seen. I am a recent employee, and only lasted a month. In the beginning and throughout the interview process, the management/administration portrayed the school as an amazing place to work with great opportunities. At the time I began, the school was trying to go through some new therapeutic changes. Unfortunately, they were not very good therapeutic changes. Within the first two weeks, they had fired the one peer counselor that had been working with one of the peer groups for about a month, and threw the group and individual work on my shoulders (only being their about 2 weeks). They had very disgruntled parents because student were acting up due to all of the sudden changes, and their words were "you deal with the parents and kids, they are your responsibility, and smother the parents with attention." Every time I tried to make decisions therapeutically which I felt were appropriate, the administration were constantly made decisions over top of me without even knowing the children or how they had been progressing through the program.
Their was many other issues that I had felt were on the fence of being unethical. When monitoring student phone calls, we had to watch for what they called "manipulation." They always believed that when children told the parents negative things or about when negative things were happening at the school that the parents should be told the kids were lying. So it was always the responsibility of someone to call the parents back to tell those parents that their children were lying about what they had just told their parents and the school is great. The children were just lying to try and come home, which is normal; when in actuality 50 to more percent of what they told their parents was true. Also, the school has many of the counselors in dual-roles, which crosses a therapeutic line. When providing group and individual therapy, many of these students are working on and talking about difficult and emotional issues. They would have counselors many times work in different departments, most usually recreation department. One responsibility of the rec. dept. when student come back from breaks is to strip search the students, which I found highly unethical. It would be hard to imagine any student being searched by their therapist in that way, then coming into their office to talk openly about difficult subjects knowing that therapist saw them naked. There is much more I could talk about, but for now this is what I am posting. I am going back and forth in my head about what I can do to report some of what I feel are ethical violations and violations against the students. Also, when the parents of the students I had been working with knew I left, they asked why and inquired about if their was something they needed to know about HLA to pull their son. I am wondering if I have the authority to tell them. Any advice would help.
psy:
Thank you for the fascinating and frank staff perspective. You just confirmed what I always suspected about what was going on behind the scenes with staff (not necessarily at HLA, but at many similar facilities across the country). Speifically, this bit facinates me:
--- Quote ---They always believed that when children told the parents negative things or about when negative things were happening at the school that the parents should be told the kids were lying. So it was always the responsibility of someone to call the parents back to tell those parents that their children were lying about what they had just told their parents and the school is great. The children were just lying to try and come home, which is normal; when in actuality 50 to more percent of what they told their parents was true.
--- End quote ---
As staff how do you feel many of your coworkers justified this misrepresentation to parents? I'm not judging you, btw. I'm just trying to understand what is going on in the minds of staff members so I can put more of the pieces of the program big picture puzzle together. Was it "an ends justifies the means" line of thinking, self preservation (career wise), or what? I can't imagine most of the staff would naturally misrepresent things to parents if not instructed to do so. Were there definite higher up instructions to do so, or was it implied? In writing?
--- Quote ---I am going back and forth in my head about what I can do to report some of what I feel are ethical violations and violations against the students. Also, when the parents of the students I had been working with knew I left, they asked why and inquired about if their was something they needed to know about HLA to pull their son. I am wondering if I have the authority to tell them. Any advice would help.
--- End quote ---
Now this is a difficult question. If you talk to parents, who then withdrawl their kids, HLA finds out about it, and you become a thorn in their side... Worse case scenario: HLA could potentially sue you for any number of things, from defamation to interference with a contract (doesn't matter if they have a case... programs sometimes slapp sue critics to shut them up)... You could wind up in a long, stressful court case that you'll probably win, but will take a lot out of you. That being said, if you don't say anything about what HLA has been doing... and I hate to be blunt, you're participating it in by silence: letting it happen... Kinda like being an accessory to a crime. Think long and hard about what the kids have to endure, and know that you have it in your power to help stop it. It's really a question you have to look to your own conscience to answer. Do what you feel is right, which isn't always easy. I can't promise it'll turn out in the long run, but I can promise that you'll feel a lot better about yourself, and those you help will be forever thankful. That's priceless.
Oh. and at the very least, as mentioned above, contact Christine Hodakievic: hodakievicc@gao.gov . She's one of the few members of the government I can honestly say actually gives a shit (probably because she's looked so closely at the "program" issue).
Anonymous:
In reply to psy...
I really think that the staff goes along with the programming and the rules because some of them cannot afford to lose their jobs... And while reading your response to my blog, I kept thinking more about the past and how only back in the day soldiers would obey harsh leaders commands regardless of how they felt morally. The majority of what goes on by the way of punishments/consequences is controlled by the administration. It a staff disagrees with the administration it takes a lot to talk them out of their decision and more toward yours. The main reason why I left only after 4 weeks, was because I choose to be a therapist to try and help individuals get better and work through their issues and I felt in a way the administration was constantly going over my head and that can not make me work therapeutically to the level I was taught in school was appropriate.
Thank you for the advice about what to do at this point. I think I am in the process of talking to one of my ethics professors, and looking into more resources. I know how shady this school can be already from just being there 4 weeks, and I think it would take a lot to get it to a point that is healthy and therapeutic to the point that advertise and sell to the parents.
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