I know a little about these guys although i spoke to them about 2 yrs ago. I spoke to their staff board members and about 10 kids. It is not for profit and takes at risk kids or kids who are from under privileged backgrounds and do not get opportunities for any kind of adventure based leisure activity. They also have a modified course for disabled kids. They pretty much take kids away for a week. It is a pretty physically tough course and i have some concerns about how well the kids are fed but the kids I spoke to were pretty positive about the experience. i did get the names of the initial kids i spoke to from the program so obviously they would give me kids who were positive about it but the same kids gave me a few other names and nobody I personally spoke to had a negative experience. One kid said he wouldn't do it again but said he did get some good things out of it.
It is something that requires the full consent of the kids and their families if they have them as a lot of kids are in the foster system. They go to about 3 seminars on what to expect before actually doing the course and can opt out at any time before embarking. The kids said that the course was tough but that they were very explicitly told this. They all had positive things to say about the staff. There is no "therapy" component as such. The idea is that kids learn team work and have self esteem boosted by doing the course itself. None of the staff pretend to be therapists although some have a counselling background. The kid can take a diary along and write in it and some of the girls did. None of the boys did. They spend one day with an aboriginal ranger learning about dreamtime stories and cooking bush tucker and there is a bbq that night. Most kids spoke of this as a highlight.
Some reported that they did come back with a greater focus on school but these kids all had relatively stable homes and parents. Others said they had a good time and it was worth doing but they were going home to a pretty screwed up environment so it didn't really change their lives.
The medical back up is done by the local hospital's ambulance team who volunteer rotating staff to be on call. The kids all said that they came promptly when called and mainly treated issues like minor sprains or athsma attacks that were a little bigger than usual. The issue of kids "faking" did not come up and most kids looked puzzled that I asked if being accused of this was an issue. The adults all said that a better safe than sorry approach was taken and that most kids who wanted ambulance assistance for minor ailments like head or stomach aches pretty much wanted to stay by the time help had arrived and they had been treated. Sometimes in those cases treatment was a pain killer and a pep talk about how well they had done. Occasionally kids did drop out of the course due to illness or injury and would be taken back by the ambulance crew.
Ask any questions and I will answer obviously though I have not seen the course in action so I m not an expert. There may be some kids who have done the course that take a very different view but this looks pretty harmless and even potentially useful
