Thanks for the encouragement. The important thing is to find a way of helping these people that works. I'm near L.A. in So. Calif. and unfortunately all that has transpired with the gangs has given these rehabs an excuse to become more severe. After all, if that 14 year-old kid has shot 20 people in his past, noone is really gonna cry if he's being beaten up in a rehab or not.
I think it is a mistake to mix these kids the way CEDU was doing at least when I was there. They had to make concessions and enforce a level of discipline to control probationary placements while the private parental placement kids probably could have seen a different program and would not have become violent. They really could have split the groups into different schools and customized the programs for each.
Secondly with respect to drugs and alcohol, it has become a known fact to medical science that alcoholism and drug addiction are diseases and you can't just tell people that they need to take responsibility and stay off drugs using willpower. If they haven't already, CEDU should really integrate the AA program into what they are telling people about drugs and alcohol.
Thirdly, the conditioning theories they had are nonsense. I mean that stuff they said about "everything about you has some psychological cause as a result of conditioning". We are finding more and more genetic and physical causes of a person's makeup. Sure, events can shape you too but that is not the complete story. As a result, when I attended there were people who had mental illnesses such as schizophrenia who were told that if they "dealt with their feelings" they would be fine and this is an obvious crock. There are hoards of Phd scientists who support the genetic and physio-chemical contribution to our makeup. Who are you going to believe, these folks or some counselors with mail order degrees at CEDU?
To be honest, I don't resent CEDU as do others on the board. I really didn't stay long enough to form that type of opinion. You probably could rebuild it, taking the good parts and discarding the rest.