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Messages - Covergaard

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The Troubled Teen Industry / When fighting teenage pregnancies works too well

« on: January 03, 2008, 03:33:49 PM »

Yes, we have done it. In Denmark we have fought teenage-pregnancies (but not early sex) and both the high abortion rate and pregnancies are a past phenomenon.

So why are our arms not up?

Because we did it so well that we are going to be exterminate.

The average age of a mon bringing her first child into the world is now 30 years.

30 years!!!

Due to the high age of the mothers getting even two children is almost impossible.

So we are working on methods to keep younger people home in their beds:

Researchers seek foreign spark to help pep up drooping Danish birth rate, The Copenhagen Post

It seems that fixing one problem is creating another one. I have another example. Some seems that youth drinking before the are confirmed is a problem. I can see that it is a problem if the parent are not around to limit the intake. But some had to try to create a cure that works 100 percent and they found it!

By letting the youth use the computers more than 10 hours around the clock, the youth drank none alcohol. (Properly because no person can do well in a online game drunk.) So now we have a new problem. A raising problem with young adults with no physical fitness, diabetes and serious heath problems.

So my advice. Do not try to fix problems. You will create new ones!

The Troubled Teen Industry / Do they create troubled kids

« on: December 28, 2007, 03:24:20 AM »

They claim that the place is not for troubled teens.

But during my work on Fornits Wiki with places that is for troubled teens, I have interviewed many, who have started their journey at 2nd Nature.

So is it fair to say that they create a product that it suitable for these places? That the kids are not trouble when they enter, but made troubled so they fit the facilities they will be shipped to?

My friend got the Wiki entry completed and it looks like this.

Another question are whether they measure their quality. Do they have some kind of statistic about the number who needs "after-care". At a place like Anasazi only 10 % needs aftercare. At SUWS the number is 60%.

Source:
Theoretical Basis, process and reported Outcomes of Wilderness, Therapy as an Intervention and Treatment for problem behavior in Adolescents, by Keith C. Russell, Idaho University, page 23

Facility Question and Answers / Emancipate hiim?

« on: December 18, 2007, 01:12:32 AM »

What exactly happened in the Turnabout case, was that the family members sneaked into the church the teenagers was forced to attend, where they got her to sign the legal documents. The program had to let her go to the court or risk being held in contempt.

So the question is if it is possible to go the legal way. The have two programs - the ranch and the academy - the academy should be less a lockup according to the text on their webpage. And the forced church attendance do normally leaves an opening, so investigate.

As for the last remark made by my fellow country man, it was based on whether he is a physical strong person, because we have seen a number of cases where the abuse are done by other teenagers detained at the facility. Most resently for just a few months ago at Skyview in Nevada, which fortunately was shut down.

Discovery Academy works together with Pine Creek Ranch, which is a specialized place for teenagers with some sexual issues (Not necessary abuse, but same sex or just looking at porn). Are they overbooked at Pine Creek they perhaps could transfer what they regard as low risk (Independent status) to Discovery Academy, because most firms would not say no to income. If they are wrong at Pine Creek, then what?

Lighthouse of northwest florida (fka VCA )/ Rebekah / Roloff ) / Do not use this link

« on: December 16, 2007, 04:01:26 PM »

I hope that the pro-program people does not use this link to a spanking machine invented by a danish rev. who had 12 children in need of discipline. It can be seen in a museum.

Spanking machine website

Back to reality: We all have dark chapters in our history, but here in the States we are talking present.

Just think: In Denmark the law is made so, that every single time force are used against children placed by the state a report has to be made to the authorities. Failing doing so can mean that the manager loosed his or her job. Just today a manager of a group home was sent home for failing to send the reports alone.

The laws have to be improved.

World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) / Help need for Fornits Wiki

« on: December 16, 2007, 03:41:02 AM »

I so need help to place the facilty on a map. I have been able to locate every single of their prisons so far.

The only exception is High Impact and they have high quality maps on google of this area.

High Impact on Fornits Wiki

Who can help? It should right across the border according to some statements.

Aspen Education Group / I have kids

« on: December 16, 2007, 03:08:50 AM »

I have two. I understand the dangers.

Some kids are not content with the number of bagsparties and they get access to alcohol from older buddies and then they party in a park outside my home, so I have off-course notified the night owls that there are a new unofficial party place, so they can monitor the activities from distance.

I will join the night owls myself once my oldest daughter has been confirmed in church and have been blessed to drink alcohol by God according with our traditions and culture. There will always be a period of dialogue and setting up boundaries in this difficult time until they can buy all the alcohol they wish to, once they have reached the age of 16 and can apply for their alcohol license down at the city hall.

I hope that you understand that the work is ahead of you and not behind you. It has just started and if I have to find a single good thing about what you did, it is the fact that you state that you brought her to the program on your own. That can the little factor that could result in one of the few success-stories over time.

The Troubled Teen Industry / Let me explain

« on: December 13, 2007, 03:38:23 PM »

We have rules about use of alcohol. Even in adults environments. At my work alcohol is only allowed whenever we have the Christmas party, freday after 14.45 and if an employee are starting, celebrate his or her 5 year, 10 year, etc. anniversary, or somekind of an official celebration.

Otherwise we do not allow alcohol consumption at my work and I send a employee home if he or she is drunk. The same goes for me. What we are working with can be dangerous if you are not sober.

The same goes for the schools. A lot of firms sponsors high schools etc. when they have their freday bars, so the students know what kind of firms they should seek jobs at. It is a competition for the various firms. We are talking of students aged 16 or older who according to ours laws can buy all the alcohol in shops they like if they obtain their drinking license down at the city hall.

When it comes to students younger than 16 and older than 13 or 14 regarding of what part of our country the teenager come from, it is the parents jobs to see to that you learn about the dangers of alcohol before the age of 16 (Our custom demands that you have been in church and have been confirmed so you have Gods blessing regarding drinking alcohol.).

But still the school have rules and because some of the education demands the use of tools, the students have to be sober so alcohol are totally out of the question.

As it is the case with alcohol outside the permitted times in the workspace where the ultimate consequence can be loss of job, there should be a consequence for bringing alcohol inside the school outside the permitted times.

But we have to weight the benefit of education up against the importance of a consequence. The education should be the most important. So we have to talk about a consequence that allows the child to attend school while still suffer the punishment.

That it what the RRN-program allows.

I hope that explained how we look at alcohol consumption in our culture and I think that we have found a solution what in fact can produce a lower number of murders, rape, DUI's and teenage pregnancies if you compare the numbers to a lot of countries.

The Troubled Teen Industry / I will try

« on: December 13, 2007, 02:01:44 PM »

A good program is one, which is used only if the law has been broken. For smaller violations of local rules like bringing alcohol to the school outside the evenings when the "bag-parties" are held, the city counsel should contact the police, so they can change the police regulation in the city, so it is a misdemeanor.

Drug use could be handled by the parents giving the authorities a secret hint so they can order a drug test in court.

A second demand to a program is that the child should be kept in the local school at all cost. No In-house suspension in a special boot camp styled school as they do in Texas where the punishment push aside any qualified education.

The punishment should take place before and after school. We have created this suggestion to a Danish first offender program.

Basically the daily schedule is:

*05:00-05:30 report in, get home work checked
*until 07.00 Physical Education & Breakfast (Parent / Child. Hour long walk followed by all eating together.)
*07.00 Off to School
*Until 15:30 School and if they leave before they should go to a homework cafe.
*15:30 - 16:30 Physical Education
*16:30 - 17:00 Some kind of community service
*17:00 - 17:30 Group conversation (Therapy)
*17:30 - 18:00 Departure for home

One or both parents should be present in the morning and the afternoon, because they also have something to learn once the partipation in the program is over. Some therapy meetings should be parents / children divided some where 2-3 families are put together with various topics.

The important part is that the child gets to spend his evening with the family.

If the child choose to leave the program by running, sanctions including sleeping at the kiddie jail could be imposed for a shorter period, so the family has to bring the child to the kiddie jail after dinner and get the child in the morning. But it should be a night stay only and after 3-5 nights the child should be given a chance to stand before the group and ask to return home if he or she wants to.

Missing homework or "Choosing out" should not result in nights outside the home but be punished with a longer stay in the program. We have a smiley system in Denmark. The punishment chould be 3 negative smileys resulting in an extra day.

I think this program has what it takes.

1) Bringing the parents into the program, so they learn something during the process and get a lot of extra time with their child.
2) Keeps the child in the school. No lost in merits. By forcing them into homework cafes they can use leisure time to improve their situation.
3) Unpleasant, so the children does not want to go back.
4) Exercise in a healthy way.

Appendix:

Bag-parties are parties where the parents make a bag with alcohol for their underaged child only - an old Danish custom. The parties are supervised at the school property by volunteer parents and the bags are guarded, so there is no cheating.
Homework cafe is a place where students, who can not be coached properly at home regarding schooling, can go and get help from either retired teachers or super-students, who are paid to help. They are founded by most city halls in the battle against the social heritage.

Aspen Education Group / Who are you talking about

« on: December 09, 2007, 03:06:46 PM »

We have no such programs where I live unless you have broken the law severely. We have about 50 murders in our country per year out of a population of 5,000,000 people.

We have 1/10 of the share of the population in prison your country can achieve.

And we have a 16 year limit on buying alcohol. We have bag-parties (Parties where a bag with the childs name contains the amount of alcohol the parents have allowed the child to consume when God have given the permission to drink as a part of the confirmation in church (aged 13-14)) We have every town filled with Night Owls (Parents and other adults who voluntary guide teenagers in town)

As result of our policies the number of murders are down, the number of people killed in DUI related accidents are down, the number of teenage pregnancies are down and drugs have a strong compeditor in alcohol also making deaths caused by drugs something which reaches the frontpage of all newspapers when they happen.

So I have never been in a program. I live in a civilized country where you have to be convicted in court before being separeted from your familiy.

I am CIO in a business with 230 employees referring directly to the CEO. I have a house, car, 2 children and a cat.

So who are you speaking about?

Why do you have to be a part of a program in order to be a success?

World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) / Fornits wiki entry

« on: December 09, 2007, 02:29:41 AM »

The wiki entry on fornits can been seen here

Aspen Education Group / Report it and care for your daughter

« on: December 09, 2007, 02:18:52 AM »

You have to get the rape reported or it will end up getting covered up like so many things over the years.

Then the next thing is to be there for your daughter. The unfortunately part is that the very treatment she need to come over it has been ruined by her experience at that place.

How can she ever trust psychological support from anyone in the business?

It doesn't matter whether the rape was done by a staff member or a teenager detained in the program. She should have been protected.

You will properly ask yourself why they have not called the police before you arrived. There are two good reasons for that.

1) All complains from the teenagers detained in such program will be regarded as manipulation.
2) Being able to treat all kind of problems according to their marketing, they properly believed that they could bury this "incident" deep inside her mind so there was nothing to tell, when she graduated.

Don't use time to understand why her letter sounded so happy during the course. All to many of the detained students at many program have over the years been told to rewrite letters, if they sounded too negative.

You will properly also blame yourself by letting her go to such a program, when there is programs out there which let parents go with them, so the treatment becomes shorter and more efficience because there is no filter of misunderstand when the progress / set-backs are reported through staff at the office.

But months ago, there was no Fornits Wiki page about this program.

So all you to go after was a TV program, which of course was heavily edited and included activities, which the program normally do not offer.

I don't know what made you choose this program and it is also not my business. But how did you bring her there? Did she go voluntary or do she now have to struggle with the memory of being forced to a place where she was raped?

If not addressed properly this feeling could end up being far worse for your relationship than the actual rape.

(I must say that it has been a bad year for Aspen with the boy who strangled slowly to death a Aspen Achievement Academy and the boy who died in pain isolated over night at Youth Care)

The Troubled Teen Industry / For some it could work

« on: December 07, 2007, 11:05:59 AM »

The student has to agree to go in order to go. That is good.

But in order to be considered they must have their back against the wall. I have been reading their student handbook.

They speak of an "else-if", which all students has to have before they can be considered. Such an "else-if" could be a court order but not always.

The staff need to have some else handy than restraining the student. What could you say if the staff said "Calm down or it is the juvenile hall." or "Calm down or it is Tranquility Bay".

It is a good program because the first homevisit could be within 30 days. The dark side is that the home visit is probation where all those errors you make will cost you when you return to the Island.

Education is the old America. It is the one-room school where all are educated in one room regardless of their standard. It worked 100 years ago. Does it work today?

They speak very fairly about rewards and punishments in their Student Handbook. They also acknowledge that the program is a bad medicated students because of the remote location. If you become sick, dont bother but zip the bodybag from inside.

Worse programs are seen. At least the student can learn of the remote place before being shipped off. They can read the student handbook before arriving.

It does not make it a bad program if they stick to their belief and dont take a student due to the founds.

But .... Would you go to such a place if there was not an "Else-if"?

Try to answer this?

The Troubled Teen Industry / There is only one option - the police

« on: December 06, 2007, 02:48:27 AM »

I dont know whether Hephzibah House "owns" the police in Winona Lake like Spring Creek Lodge "owns" the police in Thompson Falls, but if they don't the police should be the first place to file a complaint of unlawful imprisonment once you are out.

I know that it is easier said than done, when your own family are pushing you by talking of cutting you of and of course the risk of them ending up in the justice system also because they were paying for the lockup.

But it is the only way to stop them or one day it will be normal to lock adults up without trial and conviction.

Lighthouse of northwest florida (fka VCA )/ Rebekah / Roloff ) / Sprogoe - the danish Roloff home

« on: December 05, 2007, 05:38:32 PM »

We have a dark spot on in our history.

The home for naughty women located on Sprogoe - an lsland in the Great Belt. Today you pass it when you use the brigde over the Great Belt but between 1923 and 1961 the island was without connection to the mainland and it was used to house women who were either pregnant outside marriage or just young girls trying to escape abuse at home.

The danish Lester Roloff was called Christian Keller and he ran two homes - one for young men and the one on Sprogoe. They were named "the Kelllerske facilities".

We never had a tradition for paddling. A teacher would use his hands to slap a student on the cheek or his ruler to hit the fingers, but this facility had isolation rooms (without music - just quietness.)

Beside the isolation rooms, they used belt and straight jackets to control its patients. Often the girls were sterilized before leaving the facility so they would not get pregnant with the first man they could meet once released.

It was an isolated place but some fishermen found their wife when they landed on the island covered by darkness and removed a girl or two from the island in order to marry them quickly. Regardless of how few teeth the fishermen had, the women often found it being married to an old distasteful man easier than remaining on the island, and followed them willingly.

Picture from a boat

The homes are now history but if we dont know our history we would not learn from it.

Feed Your Head / Danish Advent calender - info about foreign culture

« on: December 05, 2007, 09:54:38 AM »

From http://www.cphpost.dk/get/104672.html

Quote

A satiritical TV Advent calendar has some viewers asking 'what ever happened to Christmas?'

Julekalenderen, or the Christmas calendar, is an annual TV Advent calendar aired every day in December up to Christmas. This year is no different with a new julekalender that had audiences in an uproar after just one episode.

But instead of Father Christmas and trees, TV station DR2's 24-episode Advent calendar features two youngsters, Ali and Hassan, aged 12 and 13 respectively, who want to be the 'baddest' gangsters in the town of Yallahrup ('yalla' in Arabic means 'come on').

When they're not in school, they hang out in the school library which has been converted into a hashish-smoking club.

The library is headed by a manic-depressive Danish librarian who is forced into integration projects by the school headmistress, who is a closet racist.

Viewers follow the two boys around town, where they hob-nob with local Don Juan and pusher, 15-year-old Dennis.

The show has come under intense criticism for its overtly harsh language, discriminating tone towards immigrants and lack of association with Christmas.

Traditionally, the julekalender, has been a show made in the spirit of Christmas. In recent years, however, satirical Christmas programmes have become standard fare on DR2

See streaming video on: http://www.yallahrup.dk/Bextra/

Episode 1: Ali is by the doctor in order to be checked whether two stones have fallen down there they should be.
Episode 2: Creating a smoker club instead of weed they find something the dog had left.
Episode 3: They need more color in order to look like their heroes: 2Pac Shakur.
Episode 4: Ali gets his first pimple or is it herpes?

Merry christmas