DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
CHILDREN’S DIVISION
P.O. BOX 88
JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI
January 28, 2008
MEMORANDUM
MEMORANDUM FOR ALL CHILDREN’S DIVISION STAFF
FROM: Jim Harrison, Deputy Director
Children’s Division
SUBJECT: CHANGE ACADEMY LAKE OF THE OZARKS
130 Calo Lane
Lake Ozark, Missouri 65049
(573) 365-2221
This is to advise staff that effective immediately, Change Academy Lake of the Ozarks is licensed as a residential child care agency and meets the standards for basic core residential treatment services. Change Academy is licensed to care for up to sixty-four (64) males and females, ages thirteen (13) to eighteen (18), but does not have a contract with the Children’s Division to provide residential treatment services for children in the custody of the Children’s Division. Instead, Change Academy serves private placements from around the United States. Dr. Ken Huey is the Chief Executive Officer.
Please feel free to contact Fred Proebsting, State Supervisor, Residential Program Unit, at (573) 751-8926, if you have any questions or comments regarding this matter.
JH:JR:ct
Ok, so I quote this little tidbit to show two things. One, CALO isn't exactly the same thing as the other Missouri program that gets rightly pounded on this forum (Thayer). Two, it took them until the winter of 2008 to decide to become a licensed facility.
So, what to make of this entire exchange. First, Mr. Huey, thank you for coming into this little corner of the universe and identifying yourself. For that alone you deserve at least some measure of recognition. You didn't have to come here and try to make your case. "Try" however is the operative word.
Here are my questions. I have data from New Jersey which identifies the different restraint and seclusion techniques they use in that state. Of their 92 programs that use some kind of control system, none of them use Positive Control Systems. Of the systems they use, the models are Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI), Handle With Care (HWC), Managing Aggressive Behavior (MAB), The Mandt System, Professional Crisis Management (PCM), Safe Crisis Management (SCM), The Smart System, and Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI). Furthermore, it appears that PCS is used almost exclusively by private programs, particularly programs based in Utah.
1. Why use PCS instead of one of these other crisis intervention models (which is not necessarily and advertisement of the other models, just how your decision was made)
2. Why not have a contract with Missouri DSS?
3. Why take youth from all over the country, whereby taking youth from places outside Missouri and surrounding states, you invariably make the transition home more difficult than if they were at least in the vicinity of their communities.
Mr Huey, while I appreciate the effort to show that you are trying to move your program in a more positive direction, in particular your stated refusal to work with escort services is a good sign. If nothing else I hope you can convince your counterparts to distance themselves from some of the practices you've identified as problematic. But I can guarantee you that you're not there yet. And I know that I would personally not be satisfied until further dramatic changes took place within your program. If you're serious about moving towards these best practices I would actually refer you to the juvenile justice system within your state. From what I hear they've done a lot of good work moving all of their adjudicated youth into community-based programs that are actually relatively non-coercive despite being part of the juvenile justice system. But who knows, I haven't actually been on the ground in Missouri to see for myself.
Anyway, thanks for the conversation starter. I'm sure this won't be my last post on this thread.