AUTHOR: Betsy Carpenter
TITLE: Taking nature?s cure
SOURCE: U.S. News & World Report v118 p54-8 June 26 ?95
The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with
permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
Pretty, bedraggled Melissa, a 15-year-old from Houston, is one unhappy camper.
Huddled under an outcropping in the surreal, red-rock grandeur of southern Utah with
seven other teenagers, she misses her family, especially her baby brother. Her most
recent meal was an unappetizing mash of dried oats, powdered milk and cold water
from an enamel camp cup. She hasn?t showered in three weeks. The rocks provide
some shelter from the raw wind and sleet, but her clothes are damp from a wet night
and a long hike earlier in the day. ?Man, this really sucks,? Melissa says, shivering.
She is one of the growing ranks of troubled teens who have been packed off to
wilderness therapy camps by their desperate parents in the hope that the experience
will turn their lives around. (?Melissa,? like most of the youths and parents in this story,
asked that her name be changed to protect her identity.) The camps rely on a regime
of grueling hikes, outdoor camping, a spartan diet and counseling to force kids to
confront their problems. In Melissa?s case, those include running away from her
middle-class home and shooting heroin, though she steadfastly maintains she has ?total
control? over her drug use. As baby boomers? children enter their turbulent
adolescence, the number of camps has soared. There are about 400 wilderness
programs now, up from a handful a decade ago. Until recently, they catered mostly to
affluent families that could afford the steep tuition of around $15,000 for a two-month
course. But now, several states have started pilot programs for sending youthful
offenders to wilderness camps as an alternative to juvenile facilities.
These intense, short-term programs have become increasingly controversial. The
programs are barely regulated, and since 1990, three children have died while
attending wilderness camps. Moreover, many therapists argue that because the camps
treat kids without their families, they can?t deliver on their promise to straighten out
hard-to-handle youths.
Melissa and the other teens in the Utah desert are enrolled at one of the nation?s
more reputable programs, the Aspen Achievement Academy, based in Loa, Utah.
Founded six years ago, it has a staff of 100 and treats about 250 kids a year. But
most are not typical campers. Some have been dropped there by professional
abductors for hire, so-called child escorts, who, for a fee of about $1,500, will spirit an
unruly child off to a special school or camp (story, Page 58).
Aspen staffers maintain that the program isn?t a boot camp for juvenile offenders,
but the first few days, called ?impact,? are difficult. The seven-week course typically
starts on a Friday afternoon. The kids are outfitted, introduced to their counselors, fed
a meal and then, after dark, put on the trail. They hike much of Friday night, Saturday
and Sunday. When they are allowed to rest, they bed down under the stars, or a tarp
if it?s raining or snowing. Food is scarce: Saturday night?s dinner is two bananas and
Sunday night?s is a can of peaches. The youths also receive Gatorade and a bag of
granola in the mornings. Impact usually ends Monday night with a hot meal.
Some critics take issue with the stringent physical conditions at many camps. Aspen
staffers contend that the near fasting during the first few days purges the kids of any
possible drugs in their bodies and that the physical hardship helps counselors establish
control over children who have spent their lives manipulating others with their
out-of-control behavior. But Dene Berman, who wrote the recent book Wilderness
Therapy with his wife, Jennifer Davis-Berman, says kids who are focused on survival
1
have little energy left over for emotional growth. Tough regimes also may trample on
children?s rights, asserts Howard Davidson, director of the American Bar Association
Center on Children and the Law. ?Children don?t shed constitutional rights just because
they?re under the age of 18,? he says. ?You can?t deprive food to a serial murderer in
a maximum security prison anywhere in the United States.?
Yet even Davidson allows that there are not enough treatment options for America?s
troubled youths. According to a number of recent studies, at least 4 million adolescents
have emotional problems severe enough to warrant treatment. However, rebellious
adolescents often resist once-a-week talking therapy. Further, the legal system isn?t
much help to parents until kids have committed a serious crime. Courts and the police
used to collaborate with parents in scaring hard-to-handle kids straight. But today, they
often are too busy with serious youthful criminals to pay much attention to middle- or
upper-class kids who are punching their parents or stupefying themselves with alcohol
or marijuana.
No rules. Aspen staffers estimate that about one fourth of the kids who go through
the camp are adopted. Also, the youths often come from homes where rules aren?t
consistently enforced; their parents are fighting, working long hours or simply
overwhelmed by the task of raising children in a world rife with drugs, gangs and
violence.
Many kids also have suffered painful losses. Bobbie from Kansas traces her
problems with her son Mark, who attended Aspen a year ago, to her separation from
her first husband when Mark was 6 months old. Even as a young child, he was very
strong-willed and, though bright, was constantly in trouble at school. In his sophomore
year, he joined a gang; he was arrested frequently for curfew violations, trespassing
or breaking into cars. One night, after she confronted him, he erupted. Screaming that
his gang was his family, he pummeled the walls. ?That?s when I knew I?d lost him,? she
says.
The academy also attracts its share of kids with learning problems. Jacob Trehune
of Santa Rosa, Calif., who attended Aspen a year ago, stuttered and had difficulty
learning to read. He also was a big kid, and his mother, Marianna, believes that adults
often expected more out of him than was reasonable for his age. Jake had a heart to
match his size, but he was constantly fighting. ?He didn?t go through the little steps,?
says his father, Mike. ?He just jumped in with a bazooka and it was all-out war.?
By age 14, Jake was 6 feet tall, weighed 185 pounds and was so disruptive in
class that he was suspended a dozen times over a three-month period. When he
started disappearing for two or three days at a stretch, his parents changed the locks
to the house. The final straw, says Marianna, was when he broke back in and made
off with several bottles of liquor. ?That scared the hell out of us,? she says. ?If he was
willing to cross that line, what else would he be willing to do??
Indeed, by the time parents contact Aspen, they often are at their wits? end. Some
have had their kids committed to psychiatric hospitals. Many have tried family therapy,
but for some, counseling only seems to precipitate a crisis. Jena from Upstate New
York says that her son, Jared, who attended Aspen a year ago, was a master at
dividing and conquering his parents. When as a result of therapy she and her husband
finally began making decisions jointly, Jared spun out of control. He stopped going to
school almost entirely and stepped up his drug use. When they would sit him down
to talk, he?d say, ?Whatever? or curse them. After Jena put Jared on a plane for Salt
Lake City, she sobbed for hours. ?It was like my child had a disease, and all of the
known medicines hadn?t worked, and now I was trying an experimental drug,? she
says.
Feeling safe. Advocates say wilderness therapy works because, when it comes to
parenting, Mother Nature has few peers. She?s inspiring; she makes slackers
Betsy Carpenter: Taking nature?s cure 2
miserable; coping with her many dangers can boost a child?s self-confidence,
and?paradoxically, despite these natural threats?she makes kids feel safe. There?s no
one around telling them they?re failures, threatening to beat them up or pressuring
them into doing drugs or having sex.
But children aren?t always safe at many of the camps operating today. In March
1994, 16-year-old Aaron Bacon of Phoenix died from a perforated ulcer while attending
the Utah-based North Star Expeditions Inc. State prosecutors argued at a preliminary
hearing last month that the boy often was forced to go without food and deprived of
a sleeping bag on nights with temperatures that dropped as low as 25 degrees. In his
journal, Aaron described his growing pain and fear: ?I am so scared here of everything,
staff, slickrock, nights, the cold.? In the last couple days of his life he had lost control
of his bowels and his vision was blurry, yet his pleas for help were met by ridicule
from the staff, authorities say. Eight of North Star?s owners and employees will go on
trial later this year on charges of criminal abuse and neglect.
Sheldon Wellins, the lawyer for North Star founders Lance Jaggar and William
Henry, says Aaron had access to ?sleeping equipment? and food at all times. As for
the boy?s pleas for help, ?he was sneaky and manipulative, and he?d cried wolf so
many times that perhaps [by the end] he?d lost some credibility.?
The three deaths since 1990 have prompted some states to put controls on the
growing industry. But oversight is still minimal. ?One of the scary things is that we don?t
know who?s out there doing it,? says Jeff Liddle of the Association for Experiential
Education in Boulder, Colo., a professional association for wilderness camps and
adventure, outdoor education and corporate leadership training programs. Moreover,
even in states like Utah that have imposed some controls, teens can suffer. A few
months before Aaron Bacon?s death, for instance, Utah officials had found North Star
to be in full compliance with state guidelines.
Professional organizations have only recently started developing standards and
programs for accrediting camps. Also, as is common in young fields, many of those
who run camps are resisting calls for oversight. In the meantime, many camps don?t
do enough to ensure the physical safety of kids, according to Liddle, who heads up
the AEE?s accreditation effort. For instance, he knows of programs that don?t adhere
to even the most basic rope-safety guidelines, such as replacing ropes periodically
regardless of how often they?ve been used.
?Powerful methodology.? The psychological well-being of kids at camps also worries
critics. ?Wilderness therapy takes kids out of their comfort zones and strips them wide
open. It?s a powerful methodology, but in the wrong hands it can be very damaging,?
says Berman. He and his wife have surveyed the nation?s therapy camps and found
that though many accept kids with serious psychiatric problems, at most camps there
is a dearth of mental health professionals. Field staffers typically are very young, and
their supervisors usually have minimal formal training in treating emotionally disturbed
adolescents. ?By and large, these kids are being treated by people who couldn?t open
a [counseling] office in any city in the country,? Berman says.
Does wilderness therapy really help troubled kids? Several studies have suggested
that immediately after a program, youths are more self-confident and have a greater
sense of control over their lives. But it?s not yet clear whether this enhanced
self-esteem lasts more than a few months or is matched by improved behavior.
If the experiences of Aspen?s class No. 200 are typical, however, kids can quickly
slip back into trouble after a short-term wilderness program if they don?t get intensive
follow-up care. Jake, Jared, Mark and the six other children in that class graduated in
March 1994. In a four-day weekend that is part seminar and part wilderness
experience for the parents, the families were reunited in what Aspen calls a ?run-in,?
Betsy Carpenter: Taking nature?s cure 3
when the tearful youths are supposed to race the last mile of their trek into the arms
of their waiting parents. That is what happens in the video that Aspen sends to parents
of prospective students. But most of class No. 200 balked at the script. Still furious at
their parents for having shipped them off to Aspen, many sauntered across the
makeshift finish line.
Jill from Southern California admits that she felt hurt when her son, Greg, walked
in. Yet she was thrilled by how healthy he looked: Though he hadn?t bathed in two
months, his eyes were bright, his skin was clear and he exuded purposeful energy. But
when they drove out of Loa, problems set in. As is common, the return to civilization
was a shock to Greg?s system. He was carsick. At home, he felt claustrophobic
indoors. For months, he couldn?t sleep in his bed, so he sacked out on the patio or
with his dog on the living-room floor.
Greg was on his best behavior for about a week, but then he got angry. He told
his mother to butt out of his life; if he could survive Aspen he could survive anything.
She and her second husband tried to counter with some of the skills they had learned
from the weekend seminar and a workbook that the parents are supposed to complete
while their child is away. But when she would try to be a better listener and use
textbook phrases such as ?I hear what you?re saying,? Greg would blow up. ?That?s all
bull??!? he?d storm.
Like many of the other parents, Jill has an odd ambivalence about Aspen. On the
one hand, she says it didn?t help her son much; in fact, it gave him a ?new, negative
strength.? But on the other hand, she would do it all over again. Jill is like many of
the parents who say they were desperate for a break?to sleep, to cry, to pay attention
to their spouse again and to consider options.
They also say that the parent weekend was invaluable. For many, it was the first
time they had gone public with their sense of guilt and failure and also their anger?at
the way they had been labeled ?dysfunctional? by cops, courts and therapists, and at
their children for the enormous strains they had put on their marriages. Jill also is
convinced that at some point down the road, Greg will draw on the bonds he formed
with the staff. ?We all were blown away by their support and care,? she says.
Greg?s classmate Jake Trehune is back with his family on Ditty Avenue in Santa
Rosa, after a stint at Aspen and a year at a small boarding school/ranch in Fort
Bidwell, Calif. Wilderness camps aren?t the answer, Jake argues, but they can be a
?start to the answer.? Indeed, Jake may well be on his way. In the past several
months, life in the Trehune household has been blessedly uneventful. Jake reports that
he has been caring for a new puppy named Brutus, studying, washing dishes, taking
out the garbage, doing the kinds of things he used to do before ?the drugs and stuff.?
?Never again,? he says flatly.
[Photo quotations]: ?I miss my mom and dad a lot, but I like the staff; they?re cool.
I give them respect.? LESLIE. A camper near Loa, Utah ?Sure, the kids are
uncomfortable sometimes, but we?re not abusive or punitive. All these kids have been
hurt, and we?re not going to add to the hurt.? JOHN DEPUY. Team leader at Aspen
Achievement Academy ?These problems can happen in good homes. Let?s face it. It
takes a whole village to raise a child, and we?re letting kids down in droves.? BERNICE
CALLAHAN. A mother whose daughter had a good experience at Aspen ?I don?t want
people to think if they send their kid to a wilderness program it will fix them. . . . It?s
not the answer, but it is a start.? JACOB TREHUNE. He later attended a ranch school.
Picture: Leslie (Photos by David Butow?SABA for USN&WR); Picture: John Depuy
(Photos by David Butow?SABA for USN&WR); Picture: Bernice Callahan (David
Butow?SABA for USN&WR); Picture: Jaco Trehune (Ed Kashi for USN&WR)
WBN: 9517700296014
Betsy Carpenter: Taking nature?s cure 4
