Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group
Mount Bachelor could reopen
Oscar:
DHS, Mount Bachelor Academy Settle Case, DHS Stands By Investigation; New School Eyed on Site, By Barney Lerten, KTVZ, October 2, 2010
If you have money and lawyers enough you can run state authorities over. HR 911 - despite its flaws - has not been more needed than now. It seems that it takes federal authorities and their ressources to stand up against organizations working across statelines and with massive ressources behind them.
blombrowski:
Oscar, I'm going have to disagree with you regarding the H.R. 911 part. The federal authorities were called on this one, and DHS had DOJ back=up. This is an extraordinarily depressing article. I'm not saying H.R. 911 wouldn't make things better in other states, but Oregon is not one of them. The only difference that I can tell is that H.R. 911 would stop parents from waving their children's rights vis a vis communication. But what good is allowing youth that communication if the authorities let programs off the hook.
Whooter:
On a good note, I think we can all agree that it is a relief to know that these kids were not abused at MBA and that the truth came out. I think the down side is that the kids in programs took a serious hit on their credibility. Once again a group of kids were caught lying about being abused and now the next time a child is abused the DHS will probably hesitate and not take action against the program right away because they were fooled and embarrassed with false allegations with the MBA case.
Lying and embellishing stories of abuse within programs with the intent of hurting the program only results in putting future kids at risk and eroding their credibility.
An important lesson here on fornits is to not jump to conclusions and wait for the investigation to be completed. We have seen here many times that the program is blamed for harming a child while the completed investigation proves otherwise.
"It is gratifying to see the settlement in which DHS admits what we parents knew all along - the state caused a completely unecessary disruption of a unique and successful school community by acting precipitiously and without gathering all of the facts first," Povich told NewsChannel 21.
"The state went off half-cocked," Povich added. "I hope especially that this settlement will mean that no other school will be subjected in the future to similar callous treatment by DHS."
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blombrowski:
I would be careful what claims I make about this case and the circumstances surrounding this settlement. The original substantiated claims didn't come just from a few students with exaggerated stories. It came from interviews with staff as well. Even supporters of the school claim that Lifesteps happened.
In all seriousness, this has the smell of a mob racketeering case falling apart due to witness intimidation. It happens all of the time. We know Aspen brought their lawyers in. We know DHS were being helped by the DOJ.
What we can agree on is whatever actually happened at MBA, and I'll let the public record speak for itself, this is a win for the industry and a blow to any youth who is actually being abused in a program.
Whooter:
--- Quote from: "blombrowski" ---
What we can agree on is whatever actually happened at MBA, and I'll let the public record speak for itself, this is a win for the industry and a blow to any youth who is actually being abused in a program.
--- End quote ---
I think we can agree here. The youth in Oregon, at least, have been placed in a much more vulnerable position. I think in hindsight the DHS should not have moved so quickly on shutting MBA down and spent more time gathering facts. Aspen is probably in a position to recoup a boat load of cash from the state that they lost in income and damage to their name. Not to mention all the kids who lost the benefit of getting the help they needed.
It will be interesting to see how the investigation concludes and if they will retain the name "Mount Bachelor Academy". That name may be considered tarnished at this point.
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