ASR by its own admission has a teacher sitting listening in to phone calls. It also goes through mail and packages deciding what families can and cant send their kids. This is not free open communication.
Yes this is, your not just going to let your kids get mail and packages sent to your house without getting interested and at some point asking your child what they have there.
Well kids are sent to programs for specific reasons, some of those reasons are not so good, so to make sure they are safe and other children are safe, packages and mail is monitored.
Ya know, I went through Elan back in 1975 and I never had my mail or packages opened, I always got them in the original condition and we all opened them in the dining room. Yes everyone was there to see but I did not feel intimidated. If you got food it was put in the frig with your name, Elan did not like it when parents did this so it did not happen often, maybe around holidays or birthdays. They fed us well enough.
Phone calls to parents were never a question, whether you were doing well or not you got your phone call on your schedule time. Joe even encouraged this believe it or not. He was so arrogant he could care a less about what you said about Elan, he also felt it was important for kids to talk with their parents.
Now I don't know if this happened in all the houses of Elan, there were (5) when I was there, it did happen in the house I was in and the houses I worked at.
Visits by parents were scheduled and very seldom broken. Home visits also happened on schedule. Parents came for groups with there kids.