Author Topic: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client  (Read 4195 times)

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Offline Oscar

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Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« on: April 21, 2010, 04:18:31 PM »
This article once again question the value of residential treatment.

"I’m back to 29 stone. Please help me. I know this is my fault but it’s out of Control", by Sharon Hendry, The Sun, April 21, 2010

They took her to the United States as marketing for the planned boarding school in the United Kingdom. But it seems that their marketing stunt backfired because first they couldn't detain her at their wilderness program as they can with U.S. clients. Second they failed to educate her parents. Parents who were so weak from illnesses that they should need treatment themselves.

Once again we have evidence showing that the decision to let someone enter residential treatment should be based on both will, determination and possibility among the parents to change. Otherwise it is money wasted.

I can't help thinking that this poor girl could have been helped way better by one of their other solutions - their Wellspring Fit Clubs. A combined effort from a social worker, a coach and a local fitness center could have helped this family better and Aspen could have earned their 5 minutes of attention in the media without risking a failure like this.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Whooter

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2010, 09:20:09 PM »
Oscar, This woman took herself out of the program before she completed it.  She is well aware of this and knows this is why she failed.  

I will read the article again, maybe I missed something.



...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline kirstin

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2010, 09:44:50 PM »
Quote
I can't help thinking that this poor girl could have been helped way better by one of their other solutions - their Wellspring Fit Clubs. A combined effort from a social worker, a coach and a local fitness center could have helped this family better and Aspen could have earned their 5 minutes of attention in the media without risking a failure like this.

OR maybe she should not have eaten so many pizzas, donuts, potato chips, chocolate, ice cream, cake, candy bars, buttered popcorn fatty foods.  This is her fault.  Wellspring did not fuck her life up Oscar.  Interesting you did not mention she did this to herself.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2010, 04:13:14 AM »
When I hire some people for a job here, I do some background check. Do they have family etc.

Wellspring should have checked up on her. In general I believe that her enrollment at Wellspring was a marketing stunt. They are in the planning process of a wellspring academy in U.K.

It was her choice to leave the program before time. However if a good kid hears that the parents are ill and unable to cope on their own, what kind of good kid would not choose to return home in order to to support the parents?

Second Wellspring should have visited U.K before accepting her. They should realize what they were sending her back to even if she had managed to graduate the program. I have been in the U.K. I was somewhat surprised with the layout of their supermarkets. In Denmark about 20 to 25 percent of the entire store is for fruit and vegetables. Our health care department have urged the supermarkets to change the layout of the stores so that candy are not placed directly in front of the checkout lines where children would use the time waiting to bully their parents into buying candy with their tearful doggy blue eyes. (They are selling contact lenses with color even to children today). The supermarket chains listened because the next step would have been legislation.

I didn't see what I call a modern supermarket while I was in London and I was around in several parts of this city. Some years back some kids from the U.K. participated in I know what you ate last summer filmed at a wellspring camp in California including visits to Wellspring Academy also in CA. Also these participants had difficulties returning to a country where the food culture suffers. Because the schools want to feed the children as cheap as possible, chicken nuggets and fries are served to children even in elementary schools.

The department of education in U.K knows that they have a problem but have not the money to do anything about it. They blame the city administrations and the city administrations blame the department of education for not giving additional funds for food.

Teenagers like Georgia Davis have 10 years of education telling them to eat chicken nuggets and fries on daily basis. Food served by her school! To image that a year in a boarding school should change that when her parents cannot support her and she wasn't given immigration status so she could leave the damaging environment she lived in makes me call the people who decided to use her for marketing naive at best.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline kirstin

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2010, 04:19:28 AM »
Oscar we can blame the program all we want but it boils down to her putting crappy food into her body.  Nobody put a gun to her head and forced her to eat garbage.  She made herself sick.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2010, 06:10:37 AM »
I would like to see a how child who is denying the food served by her school and her parents would be described by the school administration and the parents.

I would guess that she would be labeled as a troubled teenager.

This girl is fat because she is a pleaser who willingly eat what her parents and the school have served to her for 10 years at least. I don't deny that it is her fault that she is a pleaser.

But when should a child start denying to eat the unhealthy food the school and her parents serve her? When does it stop being the parents/schools problem and her problem instead? Age 8, 10, 15, 17,18?
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Offline Che Gookin

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2010, 07:39:12 PM »
Quote from: "Oscar"
When I hire some people for a job here, I do some background check. Do they have family etc.

.

Wow, that's fucking nosy as hell. Since when is an employee's family your business?
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Offline Oscar

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2010, 05:29:02 AM »
Quote from: "Che Gookin"
Wow, that's fucking nosy as hell. Since when is an employee's family your business?

It is my business, because every person can only function 100 % if their foundation is in order.

If the spouse or the children of an employee is ill, I cannot expect 100% performance and it is too costly to fire and hire all the time. The job-functions we do is not learned over night. I want problems put on the table and I want to know if they stay away form the job because they don't like me, the customers, the suppliers, if they are ill or if their family is ill. Something I can change, other things not.

I have no problem creating a work place in their home if they need to be home to watch somebody. I have no problem if they do their work in the middle of the night because they have spent their entire day in the hospital with their family. I had cancer patients working for me until their last day and dispite their illness they were happy to come in and do just 10 % of their normal work instead of being kicked out. Every business decision is a gamble. The cancer patient I lost could have survived and I could have gotten a employee which would have gone through fire for the firm.

However in order to make profit I need to know as much as possible about the things going on in the firm. If that includes invasion of privacy I have no problem with that. What I learn about my employees, stays with me. What my boss learn about me, stays with him. We are not sitting in a group sharing our problems. That is something we leave to the threatment industry.
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Offline Oz girl

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2010, 10:27:46 PM »
I think there is a bit of a cultural difference here. I am all for a family friendly workplace but it crosses a line to expect people to have to give information about their family or their health. I think criminal back ground checks when working with kids should be mandatory though. I think countries like the US and Australia are far bigger on the concept of personal privacy and individuality.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
n case you\'re worried about what\'s going to become of the younger generation, it\'s going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation.-Roger Allen

Offline Antigen

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2010, 11:08:26 PM »
I never had a problem telling an employer or customer if something was going to effect my performance. When my daughter became seriously ill, I contacted my customers to talk about future implications and to decide whether to farm each one out or to keep them depending on the demands of each project. I've never had any trouble taking up the slack for other employees when they had things to deal with either.

I can't quite wrap my mind around this concept. You trust these people with so much responsibility. You have a huge investment in each one. But you don't trust them to fill you in on things that effect your business relationship? And these people don't take umbrage at the implicit accusation of withholding pertinent information?

So far, I have refused to work for any company that does drug screening. Not that I couldn't pass it. There are many ways to do that. It's three things.

I don't want to begin a business relationship with an implied accusation of criminal activity and I don't want to invest my time, energy and talent in an enterprise run by people who conduct themselves in such a rude manner.

The other issue is just one of common sense and logic as opposed to blind, stupid groupthink. You simply cannot determine someone's future productivity based on which substances they use. Time and again employers complain that they had to let such a good employee go behind a dirty drug screen. The screening programs never deliver on increased productivity, reduced sick leave, increased safety or overall profit. The only way in which they turn a profit is in the government mandated insurance and tax breaks to companies that do this police work.

All these screening programs do for the companies is eliminate perfectly good employees, making room for mediocre employees who haven't got the sack to take offense at this kind of insult and take their business elsewhere. But government gets a pretty low cost scorched earth maneuver against anyone who dissents in the drug war.

I don't really want to work for people who can't figure that one out. I want to support commerce and trade among people who can.
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« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2010, 11:20:16 PM »
Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010
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Offline Oscar

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring client
« Reply #11 on: May 18, 2010, 12:44:29 AM »
Quote from: "Joel"
In the United States Oscar, this is why you would get sued.

Then I am happy that I live where I do.

We do a little checkup on criminal backgrounds. We don't work with kids so we just check if the drivers license is valid before we hand out a car. Also in Denmark you have to drivers license to trucks, even the small one which cannot raise the goods to a high shelf. We have to check up if they are valid. Otherwise we could get fined by a control unit working for the state to monitor safety in the work environment. Both the physical and the mental working environment is monitored by the state in private firms. We don't drug screen but we do include in our written contract that an arrest for DUI regarding whether it is alcohol or drugs may bring up the question if you are going for work for us. If your job include driving you cannot do your job without drivers license unless you pay for an alternative yourself. If fact we had an employee who got his son to drive for him while he took the classes so he could drive himself. Any possible prison time he did during his holidays.

In Denmark the punishment for DUI is rather simple. The State doesn't care if you do the alcohol education classes. You only have to take them if you want to drive again. If you acknowledge that you have a problem and doesn't want to deal with it, it is fine. But as long as you don't do the classes you cannot retake the license. Our politicians have correctly assumed that it would be waste of time to force people do the classes if they really don't want to. They can pay the mandatory fine of a months pay multiplied with the BAC, do the prison time and then go on in their life - walking. BTW Because we have a bridge to Sweden we have a BAC limit of as little as 0.5. Binge drinking in Denmark is a rite of passage you have to do in high school because if you really want to do a career you don't have the time in a normal work week.

I believe that we are far from the original subject. Now where I have explained a little about our culture, it must be clear the Wellspring should have looked at the background the girl had. As I wrote above in a previous post, the general diet served in UK schools are not healty. Jamie Oliver did a documentary about it a couple of years ago where he introduced other stuff than the ordinary fish and chips for the student. Some of them didn't even know how a carrot looked like and didn't consider it food. We are talking of food served by the government in public schools as it is tradition in UK. How is the girl going to maintain a healthy diet in that country without daily support?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Oscar

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Re: Focus on aftercare - article about former Wellspring cli
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2012, 09:53:40 AM »
Here is a recent update showing that in-patient weightloss programs is a failure unless the parents are the one being shipped off to the program:

UK's fattest teenager Georgia Davis hits 45 stone
Aug 28 2011 by Nada Farhoud, The People

BRITAIN’S fattest ­teenager has reached a horrendous new milestone as she eats her way to destruction.

Georgia Davis, who has been warned repeatedly she won’t reach the age of 20 never mind 45, has hit 45 STONE.

The despairing 18-year-old, who guzzles enough junk food every day to feed a family of six, knows she is eating herself to death.

Less than a year ago she told The People she had hit 34 stone and feared for her future.

Since then she has piled on more than one stone A MONTH and now weighs nearly a third of a ton.

But Georgia, who can barely walk, is still remarkably positive about her future.

After putting behind her a bout of severe depression when she contemplated suicide, she is now cutting back on the biscuits and crisps and has completed an NVQ training course.

Georgia told The People this week: “This year has been pretty tough, but finally I think I’m mentally in a better place.”

She still gets through nearly 13,000 calories a day – the ­recommended average for a healthy woman is 2,000.

Strict

But Georgia knows she can slim if she tries.

At the age of 15 when she weighed 33 stone, she left home in Aberdare, South Wales, to join a fat camp in the US.

Through a strict diet where she ate just 1,500 calories a day, Georgia shed 15 stone and shrank from a size 38 to a 22 in just nine months.

But the figure she was once proud of is now a distant memory.

She says her latest weight problems started in late 2009.

She said: “My mum Leslie has osteo-arthritis and had worsened while I was away.

“And my stepdad Arthur had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer and was not expected to live long.”

Devoted Georgia left the American college that had begun to turn her life around so she could be her parents’ live-in carer.

She said: “I knew I had no choice other than to look after them because they’re my family and that’s what family do for one another, but God it was hard.

“I was looking after them all the time and I was also trying to cope with feeling so sad that they were both going downhill so fast.

“I believed one or both of them would die any time and I stopped taking care of myself.

“I was no longer watching what I was eating. And my ­exercising, which I had done every day in America and had started to really enjoy, went out the window.”

As Georgia put back on all the weight she had lost and more, she was struck down by ­depression.

She said: “Over Christmas last year, I was the most miserable I’d ever been.

“I hated what I’d become and I hated the life I had here.

“I seriously thought about ending it all.

Hurt

“I thought my life was simply not worth living any longer and I believed suicide would be the best way out.

“I even got to thinking about how I’d kill myself and decided that slashing my wrists would be how I’d do it. I was really serious.

“Of course I loved my family and wanted to care for them, but I knew that I could only sort my own health out if I was away from Aberdare and on my own, or at least with people who’d coach and motivate me to lose weight and exercise.

“I felt pulled in every direction and I felt so wearied by it all. I just wanted to be dead, to be honest.

“Then one morning I woke up and realised I couldn’t go through with it ­because it would hurt my family and my friends too much.

“From that morning on, I decided I’d stay alive, if only for their sakes.” Georgia, who was 18 on April 1 this year, believes her potentially-lethal obsession with food was ­triggered by the death of her real dad, musician Geoff Davis.

He died from the chronic lung condition emphysema when she was just five. Georgia said: “I have never got over losing dad. He was my world.

“He was the most lovely man I have ever met.

“I have only happy memories of him. My favourite memories are of us playing tea parties with my teddies for what must have been hours and hours.

“When he died, I think part of me died too.

“I suppose I ­started eating more after he died. I was eating for comfort, though I’ve only lately realised that.”

By the age of ­seven, Georgia weighed nine stone and by 14, she was a whopping 28 stone. She admitted: “Eating loads of the wrong stuff just ­became a habit.

“At my worst during my teenage years, in a typical day, I’d eat a couple of loaves-worth of ­sandwiches filled with jam or cheese or meat, five bags of cheese and onion crisps, two packets of ­chocolate bourbons, sponge cake, trifle, chocolate cake, four ­sausages and loads of mashed potato and baked beans for ­dinner and fizzy drinks all day and night.

“I’d be snacking until 10 in the evening, then start all over again the next day. That was basically my diet since returning from America until a month or so ago, but now I hope I’m eating much less.”

Although Georgia is feeling stronger it is clear that she needs some proper help and structure to help her get back on track.

She said: “I haven’t had any serious depression since April this year and I’ve started making some plans for the future.

“I’m going to move out of my mum and Arthur’s house and into my own flat in the town soon and I’m on the waiting list for ­counselling, which I believe will be a huge help. I’ve also ­completed an NVQ1 in child care and I’m trying to find a job in the child care sector.

“These are all such positives for me and I know they will help motivate me to start eating the right foods and exercising again.

Help

“I’ve lost weight before and I know I can again.

“In the past few weeks, I’ve cut down on the unhealthy food I was eating – bread, biscuits, chocolate, cake and crisps – and I eat nothing before midday.

“My stepdad’s lung cancer is in remission thank goodness and between us I’m sure we can look after Mum.” Georgia claims that this time she’s taking the ­doctors’ warnings seriously.

She said: “They have been warning me from the age of 13 that if I don’t curb my ­eating and lose a lot of my weight, plus do regular exercise, I will be dead before I’m 20.

“I’m aware that I’m running out of time. I don’t think about the warnings constantly, but it is certainly there all the while, niggling away at the back of my mind.

“I don’t want to die so young any more because I’ve got people who love me and who need me.

“ I’m starting to realise that I can beat my demons – with a bit of help.”
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »