I would like to see some of these Universities come in also, like you said, Femanonfatal, to help confirm some of these numbers we are seeing. But overall the numbers look encouraging and as more and more of these studies are completed we should be able to get a better picture of the program models which are the most effective.
On your other note. I don’t think that the kids who do well outweigh or nullify the ones who claim they were abused. Quite the opposite I think people are well aware that abuse can occur anywhere and typically does. The programs need to just keep working to make the places as safe as possible the same as the public school sector and private school sectors do with a goal of eliminating all abuse.
...
See herein lies my point, it may seem that the "numbers look encouraging" because those are the "numbers" Aspen paid for... I don't have any problem with a program conducting an in-house customer satisfaction survey, in fact I'm in full support of such efforts but the only problem is that people like you go on public record referring to these numbers as "facts".
If we paid the same research company to take a poll here at fornits about the TTI I'm pretty sure our numbers would be discouraging, because that is the pool we are fishing those numbers from, and although I side with most of the opinions of my fellow fornitcators I would in no way use this outcome to refer to fact. I would need to have experienced something myself to refer to anything as fact, and that is exactly what I am doing. I don't have any experience with Aspen so you won't see me bashing them, but I do have experience with other programs that operate a very similar program structure and I believe it is a FACT that many of the methods used by these programs are unethical and DO NOT WORK.
I really feel that many people who are claiming the program worked for them are not willing or able to properly identify what techniques can be harmful, and especially those that violate the human rights of the patients. Most of them, parents and kids included blindly trust these programs without having any knowledge of what practices are appropriate for these types of environments. It honestly bothers me that anyone with a degree in psychology could choose to work at one of these places because many of the basic principles of the program go directly against what they should have been taught in college. This is the main problem I have with these places... the system is not based upon the healing type structure of what you would expect a "therapeutic boarding school" to be, instead it focuses on re-enforcing negative energy and controlling people with fear and judgment. You may think that I am biased because I believe all programs are bad, but I don't think that's all true. Actually, If there were a program that ran a completely different kind of "program" than the whole "tough love" model I could actually be in support of families seeking these services, but as it is, I truly believe they have the whole concept backwards. No amount of changes in their "safety policy" would fix the problems the TTI has had since its conception, what they need is to completely abandon their current strategy and be open to creating a whole new one... only thing is, most of these people are in such denial that their particular program is so different or better than the rest they haven't been open to ANY of our feedback. Instead they hate, blame, insult and even come after us legally even though we are simply making our experience with their company available to the public... in that way, Fornits is like the ultimate consumer report.
To be honest, most of us would be in support of complete irradiation of the Troubled Teen Industry because what's even scarier than the program staying the same ol duck factory we know and love, is the thought that these places through their self-moderation are mutating into what's being marketed as a "better program" all the while continuing to turn a blind eye to the fact that their core methodology is terminally flawed. So these places clean up on the surface, enough to convince the mildly suspicious critic and then they are really given free rein to fuck these kids up in ways you can't even imagine. They may instill a hands off policy, but when one form of control is removed from the tough love system they have to up the ante on the emotional and mental control... these are the kinds of things I can really see getting out of hand, as I'm sure they already are.
I can't tell you I have personal experience with every program, in fact it has been 8 years since I was in one, but I can tell you that too often does the evidence of the same program structure reveal itself in even some of the highest rated programs today. That's what we have got to see changing, we can't nitpick and tell them to change this little thing or that, somehow we have to prove that the fundamental principals of the tough love industry need to be changed or there is absolutely NO program that you could trust to treat these children appropriately. Forgive my lack of optimism for the ability of a program to shape up their act, but considering the people I dealt with, abuse and mind control are things so deeply ingrained into their lives that I don't believe they are even capable of coming to the realization of it all let alone be willing to make the appropriate changes.
