Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: Anonymous on August 23, 2009, 10:17:59 AM
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Does anyone have a picture of Dr. George Ross? Or does would anyone recognize him if I showed them a picture???
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Id know him,hes still "councelling" in lexington Ky.
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Ok, how do I show you the picture, so you can verify that it's him.
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post it ,or pm it to me.
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:ftard: Duh, I had forgotten how to post it.... or if we could.... I remember now.(http://http://www.signalsprogram.com/images/foundationfunds3pgcrop2.jpg) I think... Hopefully this works, if not the link is at http://www.signalsprogram.com/images/fo ... gcrop2.jpg (http://www.signalsprogram.com/images/foundationfunds3pgcrop2.jpg)
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He is 2nd from right,Im 100%,My father knew his father,I know much about him,both in and out of the programs he was involved in. Im surprised hes not greyer
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Ah shucks. I was gonna ask if this was the guy, but it's pretty clear that he is.
It would appear that he is quite involved with the Foundation For A Drug Free Youth, since he's presenting their checks...
(http://http://www.signalsprogram.com/images/foundationfunds3pgcrop2.jpg)
From Left to Right: Lane Stonecypher, Randy Coy, George Ross and Kathryn Gould.
Dr. George Ross presenting CEO of The Kentucky United Methodist Home's Randy Coy a check from The Foundation For A Drug Free Youth for continuing the research began by the Service to Science Project. (May 2008)
(http://http://www.signalsprogram.com/images/img_0283rosscastleattrainingwebsize.jpg)
Sam Castle from ALERT and Dr. George Ross discussing a point at the SIGNALS training in Summer-Fall of 2007.
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I need verification because George Ross, even Dr. George Ross, is a very, very common name.
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Once again :ftard: OMG, I already got my verification... duh! Sorry, Sundays must not be the greatest day for my brain to function... sheez!
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Oh and to Seamus... Thank you so much! :notworthy: I will probably be pm'ing you from time to time about him and his "career" if you don't mind.
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Seamus, is this the same guy at a perhaps younger age? His CV says that he's Founding Director of both L.I.F.E. and KIDS HELPING KIDS...
(http://http://www.georgerross.com/images/Ross_Headshot.jpg)
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good find, can I get a link to this page and the cv?
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omg YES he shaved off his lame-o 70s porn star moustache,by then. He was involved in str8 prior to miller newton,also.
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Kathy you feel free to.
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here is the link to the younger picture and cv ursus posted... (thanks ursus! :rocker: ) http://www.georgerross.com/ (http://www.georgerross.com/)
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Isn't it interesting, how he never mentions his work with Straight, Inc. I couldn't find it anywhere on his CV.. unless I missed it.
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yes it is kinda odd.
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Similar to Newton Miller, George Ross has also become an ordained minister.
Website: http://www.georgerross.com/ (http://www.georgerross.com/)
For the 3-page CV pdf download, click on page title below:
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CURRICULUM VITAE (http://http://www.georgerross.com/CURRICULUM_VITAE.pdf)
George Raymond Ross
Place of Birth: Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Date of Birth: May 30, 1949
Marital Status: Married
Address: 60 Summertree Court
Nicholasville, KY 40356
Phone (859) 223-5126 home (859) 223-5126 office E-mail [email protected]
EDUCATION Major Date Completed
B.A. Allegheny College History 1970
M.A. Allegheny College Education 1973
Ph.D. University of South Florida Education 1978
M.Div. Asbury Theological Seminary Master Divinity 2001
CERTIFICATIONS , LICENSURES AND ADVANCED TRAINING
Two (2) week training seminar with noted psychiatrist and educator, William Glasser
(Summer, 1972).
Certified Rational Behavior therapist (1978) having completed training under Maxie C. Maultsby, Jr., M.D., University of Kentucky, College of Medicine, Lexington, Kentucky.
Post-doctoral internship, Rational Behavioral Therapy Center, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington Kentucky (9/82-6/83).
Completion of Couples Communication Training Seminar (January, 1979, 1996)
Certified by the State of Florida Department of Education in Guidance and Counseling, at rank (1) doctoral level (1979)
Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor - Kentucky CCDC (1982)
Licensed Psychologist, State of Kentucky (1983)
APA Certificate of Proficiency in the Treatment of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders (1996)
Ordained minister (April 2002)
Ongoing continuing education credit in a variety of counseling skills and techniques (1979-2008)
WRITINGS
Reducing irrational personality traits, trait anxiety, and intra-interpersonal needs in high school students: A six-month follow-up Evaluation Report II, Project SELF, ESEA Title II-IV-C, Operational Grant #977, Pinellas County, Florida, July 1976. (A shortened version of this report was presented at the 1977 AERA Convention held in New York City. This report has also appeared in the Journal of Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance, April, 1978).
Validation of student needs questionnaire, a paper presented to the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida).
An examination of variables affecting teachers' estimation of elementary school pupils' projected level of educational attainment, a paper presented to the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida).
The application of an anthropological-sociological technique to program evaluation, a paper presented to the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida).
Current Status and perceptions of Florida vocational evaluators, a paper presented to the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida).
The development and validation of a scale of dysfunctional self-regard, Dissertation Abstracts, Vol. 39, No. 11, 1979.
Recognizing and treating the chemically dependent offender, The Advocate, December 1990
Cognitive-behavioral intervention for adolescent substance abuse, In A.J. Finch, et. al., Cognitive-behavioral procedures with children and adolescents: A practical guide, Allyn & Bacon, Needham, Ma., 1993.
Treating adolescent substance abuse: Understanding the fundamental elements, Allyn & Bacon, Needham, Ma., 1994.
WORK EXPERIENCE:
1980 – 1981 Founding Director of L.I.F.E., INC., Drug Abuse Center, Sarasota, Florida
1981 Founding Director of KIDS HELPING KIDS, Drug Abuse Center, Hebron, Kentucky
1983 - 1992 Founding Director of POSSIBILITIES UNLIMITED INC., Drug Abuse Center, Lexington, Kentucky
1992 Adjunct professor, University of Kentucky, College of Education
1994-1995 Adjunct professor, Eastern Kentucky University. College of Education
1994-2008 Adjunct professor, Asbury Theological Seminary, Department of Pastoral Ministry.
1992-2008 Psychologist in private practice
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Meet Dr. George R. Ross: (http://http://www.georgerross.com/about.html)
A persuasive speaker and trainer, Dr. George Ross is the founding director of three nationally recognized substance abuse programs for teenagers. He has conducted numerous workshops for professionals, business groups, civic clubs and churches. Dr. Ross has developed the "Treating Adolescent Substance Abuse" training program from his twenty five years of experience in treating over 1,000 chemically dependent youth and their families.
An experienced educator and counselor, Dr. Ross has taught at both high school and college level. He is a licensed psychologist, a certified chemical dependency expert, an experienced relationship counselor and an ordained minister. Dr. Ross has completed training in reality therapy with Dr. William Glasser, and rational behavioral therapy with Dr. Maxie C. Maultsby, JR and is a board certified christian counselor. In addition he has completed a masters in divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary and currently serves an adjunct professor in their counseling program. As a member of Toastmasters, Dr. Ross has achieved the level of Competent Toastmaster and has completed Leadership Lexington, a professional program sponsored by the Lexington Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Ross currently operates a private practice and consulting business in Lexington, Kentucky.
Dr. Ross is nationally recognized as a leader in the field of teenage substance abuse. Since 1978, he has conducted several workshops on this topic, as well as appeared on the national radio program, Focus on the Family, with noted psychologist, Dr. James c. Dobson. He was an invited participant at the White House Conference For a Drug Free America. He is the founding director of LIFE, Inc., KIDS HELPING KIDS, Inc.and POSSIBILITIES UNLIMITED, Inc.; all substance abuse programs for teenagers. He is also the author of Treating Adolescent Substance Abuse: Understanding the Fundamental Elements, upon which this training program is based.
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Interesting observation.... what is it with these reverend-doctors? I'm surprised he didn't change his name too! lol
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Interesting observation.... what is it with these reverend-doctors? I'm surprised he didn't change his name too! lol
The degree to which these people took to the waters of Straight, Inc., suggests that it was an ideology -- or a theology, you could say -- for them even back then.
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This is a SPLENDID thread!! :cheers: to all involved here... awesome! He looks like someone who you'd see in the movies, washing brains, doing experiments on kids, etc... yep...
I find this sentence:
"The application of an anthropological-sociological technique to program evaluation, a paper presented to the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida)."
to be quite intriguing, considering all the anthropological education of former straight inc directors/cohorts. How would someone gain access to such a paper? And, does Ross know that these programs are closed? No more checks!! He was directly involved in KHK admissions as recently as 1997 and Miller Newton as recently as 2004, so where do they go from here? The program cat is out of the bag, so to speak, so will they just quit or start something else?
What relationship is Penny Walker to Ross? They look similar in age, and is that her "real" name?
RG
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I find this sentence:
"The application of an anthropological-sociological technique to program evaluation, a paper presented to the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida)."
to be quite intriguing, considering all the anthropological education of former straight inc directors/cohorts. How would someone gain access to such a paper?
Damned if I know. That's over 33 years ago. Ya could try contacting the Florida Educational Research Association (http://http://feraonline.org/); it's possible they might have old conference material archived somewhere, but I kinda have my doubts. It's more likely that George Ross might have it.
Chances are, though, that he's just gonna tell you to buy his book Treating Adolescent Substance Abuse: Understanding the Fundamental Elements (http://http://www.amazon.com/Treating-Adolescent-Substance-Abuse-Understanding/dp/1592440002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251050159&sr=8-1) (hardcover edition ©1993 Allyn & Bacon; paperback edition ©2002 Resource Publications [OR]). You could probably pick up a used copy for under 5 bucks plus shipping.
Btw, this book has a Foreword by Dr. Robert Dupont. And, according to the index, "host homes" are detailed on pages 180-181.
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What relationship is Penny Walker to Ross? They look similar in age, and is that her "real" name?
Although this doesn't quite answer your question, I happened to stumble across the following potentially relevant reference. An interesting perspective is presented by PathwayTruth (http://http://www.pathwaytruth.org/frequentlyaskedquestions.html) *. The wording intimates that these Pathway parents think -- or would like you to believe -- that the philosophical underpinnings of Dr. George Ross's program expertise and that of Straight, Inc. are completely unrelated to one another :D :
Is the Pathway Family Center program based on the Straight treatment model?
What is Pathway’s relationship to the Straight program?
A group of graduate families of the Michigan Straight program founded Pathway Family Center after Straight closed in 1993. They took a program model developed by Dr. George Ross, a noted leader in the field of teenage substance abuse, a licensed psychologist and certified chemical dependency counselor, and the positive elements of the Straight Program to develop a "next generation" treatment model based on the most current knowledge and research of adolescent substance abuse experts. We did not duplicate the Straight Program, but we did retain program elements that were proven to help teenage clients. We eliminated the use of corporal punishment, reduced the ratio of peer counselors to professional staff, and identified clear requirements for teens admission to the program to ensure those who were not appropriate for our program were placed in a less restrictive level of care.
[/list]
What is the relationship between Kids Helping Kids and Pathway?
In 2006, Pathway Family Center acquired Kids Helping Kids and began the process of integrating best practices of the two agencies.
[/list][/color]
* "This website is a private collaboration by several graduate parents of Pathway Family Center and is in no way initiated, funded, authorized, or otherwise supported by Pathway Family Center. Content on this site has been compiled through personal experience and observations of the Pathway treatment program, interviews with graduate parents and clients, former staff and current staff of Pathway, and through extensive research and review of information in the public domain. The objective for presentation of this material is to provide truth to the much-distorted and false information found online about Pathway and its life-saving treatment.
James Meyers, graduate parent
William Reynolds, graduate parent"
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Dr. George Ross is mentioned a number of times in this article on the program Growing Together, which was started in 1987 by two of Ross's top assistants from the LIFE program. Absent, however, is any explicit reference to Ross's endeavors with the Kentucky branch of KIDS HELPING KIDS.
The article has a number of good pics, but since this publication is owned by the Village Voice, I am hesitant to post them (they yank them religiously).
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New Times BROWARD-PALM BEACH
Suffering Together (http://http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2004-12-09/news/suffering-together/1)
In Lake Worth's Growing Together, kids don't kick drugs. They're beaten and humiliated.
By Trevor Aaronson
Published on December 09, 2004
He was 16 and scared. Jason was a newcomer at Growing Together, a boot camp-style drug treatment center for adolescents in downtown Lake Worth. During the day, he attended group therapy at the program's two-story, banana-yellow building, which is equipped with security gates and barred windows. At night, he'd sleep at a private home endorsed by the facility.
In February 1997, during one of Jason's first days in the program, George Johnson (not his real name) arrived to pick up five boys who were to stay at his place in Palm Beach Gardens that night. Among them were his son, George Jr., and four others, including Jason.
On the ride home, the boys began to discuss what they would do to Jason that night. "The Naked Crusader was going to appear," Jason later remembered one of them saying. It frightened him; he pretended not to hear.
That night at 10 o'clock, after doing chores and eating dinner, all five boys went to the bedroom where they were to sleep. They wore only underwear. The rest of their clothing was kept in a different room. Three of them lay down on mattresses on the floor. Jason and another boy wriggled into sleeping bags.
Several hours later, Jason suddenly noticed some noise. The other four boys were masturbating. "The Naked Crusader is coming," one of them said.
Then George Jr., naked, suddenly jumped on Jason's back, according to a statement Jason gave to police. Another boy held down his legs. Two others slapped Jason in the face with their erect penises.
"Stop!" he pleaded.
They did. But the boys weren't finished. They returned to their beds and masturbated again. A few minutes later, they assaulted Jason once more. Again, two boys slapped Jason with their penises. One of them tried to put his penis in Jason's mouth. Jason clenched his jaw shut. Then he felt warm liquid on his back. One boy had climaxed. Another ejaculated in his hand and rubbed the semen in Jason's hair.
Finally, they were finished.
If he ever told anyone about the incident, the boys warned, they'd do it again. And worse. But three months later, Jason could no longer stay silent. He told his father what had happened. Together, they filed a report with the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department on June 18, 1997.
During the one-month investigation that followed, two of the boys told the detectives that they too had been victims of "The Naked Crusader" soon after entering the drug treatment facility. The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office filed misdemeanor battery and indecent exposure charges against the four boys but later dropped them. The records have since been purged, so there's no more explanation.
Growing Together's 17-year-old, nonprofit facility treats 25 to 40 children at a time. It rakes in roughly $1 million annually from donations and fees paid by parents of drug-addicted kids, some of whom are ordered by judges to attend. It has powerful friends and donors, including West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, banker Warren W. Blanchard, attorney Jack Scarola, and Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley.
Yet physical and sexual abuse appears to be common there, according to a New Times investigation that included reviews of state records, police reports, and interviews with about two dozen former patients and parents. Kids rioted at the facility in April 1997, and last year, state investigators found that Growing Together was too quick to use physical restraint on children. Moreover, police have written more than 800 reports related to the program since 1995.
"I still can't get the screams out of my head from hearing kids dragged down the hall by the hair on their heads," says a former graduate of the program who asked to remain anonymous. "The crimes that were committed there have never been told in public. Nobody has ever put these people on trial."
Rik Pavlescak, a former investigator with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), wrote reports on the program in the early '90s that detailed beatings, restraint, imprisonment, and systematic humiliation. He alleges that influential outsiders have undermined investigations of the group.
Growing Together Executive Director Pat Allard denied a request to tour the facility, citing laws that protect confidentiality of patients. In three phone interviews in November, she maintained that children are not abused and claimed not to be aware of any of the evidence uncovered by New Times. "We would never beat any child," Allard said.
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Every Friday evening, 50 to 100 adults and children, most ages 13 to 17, gather inside Growing Together's facility at 1000 Lake Ave. The open house begins the same way every week. Parents sit in chairs at one end of a large room. Their children, who are enrolled in the program, sit at the opposite end. At first, an accordion divider separates the two groups.
Then the session begins. The partition is pulled back. The music starts. The children sing:
I am a promise, I am a possibility
I am a promise with a capital P
I am a great big bundle of potentiality
And I am learning to hear God's voice
And I am trying to make the right choice.
I am a promise to be anything that God wants me to be.
[/i]
Vicky Butler, a Jupiter woman who enrolled her troubled, 16-year-old son, John, in Growing Together in the fall of 1999, remembers these sessions well. "The songs they made these kids sing -- and they were teenagers -- were songs intended for 4- and 5-year-olds," she says. "It was degrading. You just had to look at the kids. Behind their eyes, they would be saying, 'This sucks.' "
Butler says she began to wonder, when she attended her first open house, whether she'd made a mistake. "My son was no angel," she admits, "but no one deserves the treatment these kids receive." During the session, Butler remembers, staff passed around a microphone to parents, who would tell everyone in attendance about their children's misdeeds. There were drugs, illicit sex, violence, theft. The microphone would then move to the other side of the room. Assuming a child had behaved well during the week and earned the "privilege" to speak, he or she would then confess.
During one session in October 1999, Butler's son became agitated before she spoke. He stood up and flailed his arms. "He was totally flipping out," Butler remembers. John began to walk off. An alarmed Butler started toward her son. As she did, a large behavioral therapist parents referred to as "The Enforcer" also headed for John. Suddenly, the accordion divider rolled across the room and blocked Butler.
"All of a sudden, I heard my son screaming," she recalls. Butler panicked and confronted Growing Together staff. "That's my kid behind that curtain, and I don't know what's going on," she told them. They assured her that John was fine and that he would see a psychiatrist soon. Butler returned to her suburban home in Jupiter, convinced that John was in a safe place.
Meanwhile, she continued hosting other Growing Together children at night. She had modified her $169,292 home following directions from the program's staff. All pictures and mirrors were removed from walls. Knives were hidden. The bathroom was stripped, leaving only the sink, toilet, and bathtub. The windows and doors of the bedroom where five kids slept were rigged to an alarm system. Once they went to bed at 10 p.m., they could not leave the room until the next morning. "If any of them had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, they would have been in trouble," Butler admits. "It was like a prison."
Before bed, the children would write in their journals about what they had learned that day. Often, their entries involved confessions they had made during therapy. Growing Together refers to these journal entries as "moral inventories." To advance through the phases of the program, children must confess to illicit behavior or abuse they suffered, then describe the incidents' effects on their lives.
Butler recalls asking the kids about their entries. They told her that they made up most of their confessions because Growing Together required such admissions before graduation. Accounts that included sexual abuse or underage sex were particularly encouraged by staff, the kids allegedly told Butler.
The children also claimed staff had beaten and physically restrained them, Butler says. She even met one young girl who claimed a therapist had broken her arm. Other kids asserted that the building was always filthy. Growing Together administrators admitted to Butler (and later in court documents) that the facility had rats and that several urinals had been backed up for days at a time.
In March 2000, Butler and her ex-husband, Stephen, who shared custody, removed John from the program. Stephen Butler was moving to Arkansas and wanted to take the boy. Once free, John told his mother that he had suffered a sprained wrist at Growing Together when a therapist slammed him down on a table. Mickey Bowman, then the executive director of Growing Together, showed little concern for the injury. In a letter to Vicky Butler dated June 20, 2000, Bowman wrote: "Regarding the 'purported injury' to your son's wrist, he was laughing at the issue immediately following."
Soon after, a private psychiatrist examined John and determined that his problem wasn't drugs. He was bipolar. "You would think that, being in the program, someone would have said, 'Oh, by the way, your child is bipolar,'" Vicky Butler says. "Nobody picked up on that because no psychiatrist or psychologist ever saw him."
Butler later refused to pay Growing Together the roughly $5,000 she owed for John's treatment. She claimed the facility had billed her for clinical exams that never occurred. "Kids got more messed up in there than they were when they went in," she says. The facility sued and turned the debt over to a bill collector. Butler eventually forked over a reduced amount.
"My teeth grit every time I hear the words Growing Together," she says. "They used to say, 'What goes on here stays here.' Now I know why. They don't want the outside world to know what's going on."
Growing Together Executive Director Allard says today that she has no knowledge of the "Naked Crusader" incidents or the types of child abuse alleged by Butler. "Could things like this happen in an institutional setting? Yes," Allard says. "Would it blemish the institution? Yes, it would. Would anyone condone it? Absolutely not."
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The history of Growing Together begins 28 years ago and more than 200 miles from South Florida. In 1976, Mel Sembler, who made millions developing strip malls throughout the Sunshine State, opened a nonprofit juvenile drug treatment center in St. Petersburg called Straight Inc. His reasons were altruistic: The only adolescent drug treatment facility in the Tampa Bay area had shut down, and Sembler wanted to give back. One of his own sons had been rehabilitated in such a program.
During the late '70s, Straight became a well-known and apparently effective drug treatment center. Its methods, which were designed by psychiatrists Miller Newton and George Ross, were a kind of hybrid of the common 12-step model used by Alcoholics Anonymous; but there were only six steps and a hierarchical system. Children who had been in the program for a few months graduated to higher levels and became "oldcomers." They were then put in charge of new attendees, known as "newcomers." Newcomers weren't allowed to move around the facility unless oldcomers held them by the belt in a technique known as "belt looping."
Privacy was elusive. Newcomers were watched at all times, even in the bathroom. Boys had to keep their hair cropped close to the scalp. Girls were not allowed to shave their legs or armpits. During the day, children attended hours of group therapy. At night, they went to host homes run by parents of other children in the program.
At its height, Straight operated three facilities in Florida and others in California, Georgia, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and Texas. They were based on a "tough love" philosophy that required a minimal staff because children did some of the disciplining and restraining.
The facility's success, coupled with Sembler's wealth, helped raise the developer's political profile. In 1980, he donated $100,000 to the Republican Party and exploited his network of wealthy friends to raise millions more. Eight years later, though Sembler had no political or diplomatic experience, President George H.W. Bush named him ambassador to Australia.
Ross, who would later write about his theories in a book titled Treating Adolescent Substance Abuse: Understanding the Fundamental Elements, left Straight in 1980 and formed two similar programs: LIFE in Osprey, near Sarasota, and Possibilities Unlimited in Lexington, Kentucky. Soon after Ross' departure from Straight, allegations of malfeasance surfaced. A state attorney's investigation shut down Straight-Sarasota in 1983 amid charges of child abuse. The organization also paid out substantial sums in settlements and judgments, according to court records and news reports. One former patient, Karen Norton, won a $720,000 jury verdict in St. Petersburg after she was strip-searched and humiliated by staff, then slammed against a wall by Newton. "Dr. Ross left Straight because he didn't like some of the shenanigans," Allard says, alluding to these abuse charges.
One of Straight-founder Ross' new programs also had problems. In 1985, the psychiatrist, who declined to comment for this article, was charged and acquitted of falsely imprisoning teenagers in Kentucky.
In 1987, two of Ross' top assistants from LIFE started Growing Together in Lake Worth. "In the LIFE program, there were so many people from the West Palm Beach area that were traveling across the state that they basically asked if they could start their own program on this side," Allard explains. To this day, Allard cites Ross' theories as the foundation of her program.
Children generally attend for 18 months. Parents pay a flat $14,000 fee, and financial aid is available. Additionally, a public school teacher visits every day so children in the program can progress to the next grade level.
Straight's militant style of drug treatment piqued the interest of Barry Lane Beyerstein, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Colombia. In 1992, Beyerstein penned a scathing report on Straight's methods for the Drug Policy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates changes to U.S. drug policy. He compared them to the mind-control techniques used by communists on American POWs during the Korean War.
"Straight tried to break down individuality," Beyerstein recalls. "That's what the Koreans succeeded beautifully in doing, making people dependent on their captors and removing any individuality and any ability to think about what they're being told. They never give any time alone. They keep them frantically busy all the time so they're always exhausted and hungry. That makes people more malleable. Straight was like a cult."
The same year Beyerstein released his report, Richard Bradbury, a graduate of Straight-St. Petersburg who had become a staff member after spending two years in the program, started collecting evidence of child abuse. In December 1992, the insider provided his findings to the state Inspector General's Office.
"I was brainwashed," the 39-year-old Bradbury says today. "As children, we believed it was for our own good when we were beaten or stabbed. We believed we were pieces of shit."
In April 1993, one month before Acting Inspector General Lowell Clary was to release his report, Straight closed its Florida clinics and moved the headquarters to Atlanta.
According to Clary's five-page account, Ambassador Sembler's political influence had kept Straight in business despite evidence that staff withheld medication and food, used excessive force, and deprived children of sleep in an effort to control them. "It appears that some [state regulators] experienced some degree of pressure to grant Straight a license," Clary wrote. That pressure included calls from Sembler and state senators, though the report does not specify which senators. Additionally, according to the Clary report, a top state official named Dr. Ivor Groves made it clear to his underling, Linda Lewis, that she should not take action against Straight. According to the report, when Lewis expressed concerns about child abuse, Groves told her, "If you do anything other than what I tell you to do on this issue, I will fire you on the spot." Groves then reportedly made the same threat to another state inspector.
Three months later, Straight went under. But some former staffers went on to form new facilities based on the program's model. Newton, for instance, formed KIDS of North Jersey, which closed in 2003 after the psychiatrist settled a lawsuit that alleged abuse for $6.5 million.
Growing Together is one of about a dozen facilities nationwide that continues to employ the controversial Straight model. The program's parent-patient manual and treatment method are similar to Straight's. The terms that Straight developed -- oldcomer, newcomer, and moral inventories, among others -- are used by Growing Together.
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In 1989, two years after Growing Together had gone into business as an offshoot of Straight, Rik Pavlescak began to receive complaints of abuse. The state's director of substance abuse services in the West Palm Beach regional office of DCF, Pavlescak inspected the facility during two days in March 1990.
"As a state employee, I had access to all client files, interviews with staff, and clients," the 42-year-old Pavlescak explains. "I could make unannounced visits to the program at any time and review their records for compliance with state laws."
New Times requested all Florida records about Growing Together, but the state appears to have purged papers related to the investigation. Luckily, before leaving his job in 1990, Pavlescak made copies of records related to the program. Among his findings: A female client complained that she had severe cramping and bleeding. Staff did not refer her to a medical doctor. Only days later, when her mother became aware of the condition, did she see a physician. The girl was pregnant and miscarried.
Another female client was forced to stand in front of a mirror and yell, "I am a whore, a slut, and a druggie."
When asked what would happen if he reported child abuse, a 17-year-old male commented, "I'd be ignored and told to shut up." That boy said he had restrained other children at least 15 times. Once, he allegedly witnessed a staff member punch a child.
A 16-year-old boy told Pavlescak that he regularly killed cockroaches during mealtimes and was not given privacy when showering or using the toilet. The boy said he did not want to be "brainwashed." Pavlescak wrote in his report: "He believes that is what has happened to other clients."
An oldcomer told him: "I sleep in front of the [bedroom] door... [to keep] newcomers from escaping."
A 15-year-old boy attempted suicide while in the program, and staff never referred him to a psychologist. "The [suicide] issue appears to have been dropped by the program staff," Pavlescak wrote. Months later, the boy said he still had suicidal thoughts.
Children were given lessons on how to restrain other kids. (Using patients to restrain patients is a violation of state law.) "They said to kick in their knees to knock them down if you have to," one girl said.
Following his visits in March, Pavlescak issued a probationary license that required the facility to address the state's concerns and undergo another site visit within 90 days.
Also in March, Karen Weiss, whose teenaged daughter Dana had been committed to Growing Together, complained to Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Michael Gersten. Weiss, who then lived in Coral Springs, said Dana had been a newcomer for 15 months. Two psychiatrists who examined Dana alleged the girl had suffered severe psychological trauma.
Stephen E. Moskowitz, a Coral Springs psychiatrist, told Gersten that Dana was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. "When discussing returning to the program," Moskowitz wrote, "she seemed quite fearful and seemed to project an image of a child whose spirit and sense of confidence had been totally crushed." Growing Together's psychological reports on Dana were "incomplete and really lacked a professional type of organization and presentation," Moskowitz stated.
What's more, Moskowitz recommended that Judge Gersten talk to Dana privately. "One must use the analogy of people who were part of a cult and felt indoctrinated into the cult and were fearful of repercussions," Moskowitz advised.
Gersten ordered the girl out of Growing Together, saying in court that he would refuse to send more children to the program unless its treatment improved. "Everything I see smacks of child abuse," Gersten said.
Growing Together refused to yield to either Gersten or the DCF. In a letter dated March 30, 1990, then-Board President Warren Blanchard appealed the probationary license. Blanchard also disputed nearly all of the state's findings. The only actions Growing Together had taken, according to Blanchard's letter, were to stop giving classes to children on restraining their peers and to define more clearly when staff should use physical restraint.
That's when Pavlescak discovered that Growing Together held sway in Tallahassee. The group's request for a review hearing went to Pavlescak's boss, program supervisor Linda J. Giesler, and then on to Pam Peterson, the state chief of alcohol and drug abuse in Tallahassee. Both of Pavlescak's superiors attended the licensing hearing with Growing Together's attorneys. That was unprecedented, he says. (Neither Giesler nor Peterson could be reached for comment.)
"We licensed over 90 different treatment centers in the area, and this was just one," Pavlescak says. "But the entire team was never involved with any of the issues with any of the other treatment centers."
The state ignored Pavlescak's reports and gave Growing Together full license. The buzz at the West Palm Beach DCF office was that the political push had come from the top. Gov. Bob Martinez was one year away from becoming the nation's drug czar under President George H.W. Bush.
"It wasn't until later that I learned that Martinez had ties to the program," Pavlescak explains, "and that some strange things had happened." During his investigation of Growing Together, Pavlescak had personally reported one complaint to the state's child abuse registry. Upon inquiry, a state official later told him that no complaints existed.
Pavlescak left state employment in April 1990 following an unrelated dispute with one of his bosses, who was later chastised for a financial conflict of interest by the Florida Commission on Ethics.
Even after Pavlescak left public service, the state continued to document abuse at Growing Together. An August 1993 investigation by Pavlescak's successor, James Kouba, documented that "there appears to be a lack of clinical supervision" at Growing Together. Some staff members couldn't identify their supervisors, state officials learned, and the children complained about the "lack of adult supervision."
Growing Together also failed to correct the violations Pavlescak had cited three years earlier. Among DCF's findings in 1993:
Teenagers would restrain fellow patients by sitting on them.
In two instances, a group of parents who called themselves the "restraining fathers" kidnapped runaway girls and returned them to Growing Together. One girl's aunt reported that several men had pulled up to her house and dragged the girl into a van.
Kids of both sexes were forced to use a jar or pot in the bedroom if they needed to relieve themselves in the middle of the night.
The rigorous program is also associated with a suicide. Travis Stone, a 20-year-old African-American who had successfully graduated from Growing Together and become a staff member, told peers as early as January 23, 1993, that "he was feeling helpless and overwhelmed." Those remarks were not passed on to clinical or executive staff members, Kouba alleged. Six months later, on July 27, 1993, Stone took a combination of pills and alcohol and then put a plastic bag over his head.
Kouba blamed Growing Together, claiming that the facility did not send Stone to a psychiatrist or psychologist. "His feelings were discounted by peer staff as merely 'manipulative,'" the report stated. "Only a trained professional should be in the position of making this evaluation, which, in this case, may have been a life-and-death assessment."
The state ordered Growing Together to stop using children to counsel other children. "They are still involved in their own early recovery process and cannot be expected to take on the role of counselor while they are clients themselves," Kouba wrote. Allard claims that today, kids have easy access to licensed mental health professionals.
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In the past ten years, Growing Together has filed roughly a dozen lawsuits to collect fees that parents have refused to pay. In nearly every case, the defendants have cited Growing Together's lack of therapeutic value and abysmal treatment of children as reasons for not settling the debt.
In two cases, parents described a prison-like facility that emphasizes revenue over kids' needs. Ellen Decter, a single mother in Jupiter, said her son was examined by a psychologist in October 1999 only after she agreed to fork out the $14,000 tuition upfront. By then, Growing Together had a financial interest in seeing her son diagnosed as suitable for treatment, she alleged. The program was "a concentration camp for clients and parents," Decter wrote in a letter submitted to the court April 3, 2002.
Cathy Snyder of Fort Myers Beach told the Palm Beach County Circuit Court on May 21, 1997, that Growing Together misdiagnosed her son's problems. Rather than being drug-addicted, he had a chemical imbalance that an independent psychiatrist discovered after she removed the boy from the program.
Reports from the Lake Worth Police Department, which is located across the street from Growing Together's building, seem to substantiate parents' claims. Since 1995, police have written more than 800 reports related to 1000 Lake Ave. for incidents including assault, drugs, noise complaints, and runaway juveniles.
On April 27, 1997, at 8:30 a.m., teenaged patients rioted inside the facility, according to police reports filed that day. Three boys took chairs and shattered the second-story windows, spraying glass on construction workers and pedestrians. They then barricaded themselves inside a room. Police later barged in to regain control of the facility.
Since 2000, police have written 28 reports related to battery and 22 to missing juveniles. In some cases, officers documented instances of abuse or violations of state law but declined to pursue charges:
On June 1, 2001, an oldcomer beat a newcomer because he was reading a book.
On July 6, 2001, an oldcomer slapped a newcomer after finding that the newcomer had been innocently drawing.
On October 23, 2003, police reported that a teenaged patient was "enforcing the rules with other patients" -- the same violation Pavlescak cited in 1990.
On January 2, 2004, police observed Growing Together's 54-year-old clinical director, Laura Hughes, restraining a teenaged girl on the ground after she "had been disrespectful and disobedient to Growing Together staff throughout the day."
While DCF's investigations of Growing Together are less aggressive than they were ten years ago, the state agency continues to find significant problems. During the most recent inspection, on December 19, 2003, investigators discovered documents that suggested staff was too quick to use physical force and that children continued to sleep on mattresses on the floor. State law requires children to have a full bed and frame.
Both issues are misunderstandings, Allard says. She contends her staff does everything possible before using physical force. "I think what was happening was that the staff wasn't putting down [in their paperwork] everything that happened before a child was restrained," Allard says. As a result, Allard says, Growing Together started using a form that provides additional space for the narrative. "There are times when a kid needs to be restrained if they are a threat to themselves or others," Allard explains. "If a child picked up a heavy chair and was going to throw it at another client, I can tell you that they would be restrained... Restraining is the last resort. No one wants to restrain anyone. You don't want that for the child, and you don't want that for the adult."
Allard refuses to alter her policy on bed frames, claiming that children could use the metal to cut themselves. "We can't do that in good conscience," she says.
On July 27, Piotr Blass, a computer-science professor at Key College in Dania Beach, sued Growing Together after his 16-year-old son, David, was court-ordered into the program. In his lawsuit, Blass alleges that Growing Together "often kidnaps children from their parents and then employs draconian, sadistic, destructive, and highly damaging psychological techniques to destroy the relationship between parent and child, all for their own benefit and financial gain."
These types of allegations can also be found on an Internet bulletin board (http://www.fornits.com/wwf (http://www.fornits.com/wwf)) used by former patients of Growing Together and other Straight-based clinics. Most of the messages detail physical, psychological, or sexual abuse. Allard claims the allegations are "made up" and written by "people who are still involved in the druggie scene."
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It's noon on Friday, November 19, and Jessica Norris sits quietly on a bench near the fountains at the end of Clematis Street in West Palm Beach. An anxious, pretty 18-year-old with long brown hair and a disarming smile, Jessica (not her real name) considers herself a survivor. At 14, she experimented with cocaine. Her parents placed her in Growing Together, where she says she endured 18 months of physical and psychological trauma. "When I first got there, the other girls were telling me about Naked Crusader," she says. "Everyone in Growing Together knew there was abuse. But no one said anything. We were all too scared."
Inside the facility, Jessica says she witnessed beatings and child neglect. In the "white room," where children were sent to calm down, clumps of hair lay on the floor and blood was smeared on the walls, she claims. Every day, staff interrogated the kids, making them give more and more outlandish confessions about their past. "I made up that my uncle molested me," Jessica says. "It was the only way to move up."
Now a student at Palm Beach Community College, Jessica is still adjusting to life on the outside. During her time at Growing Together, she claims she couldn't take a shower in private. She believed she was worthless. She became accustomed to the sight of staff members throwing children to the ground. To this day, she hears the screams that rolled through the halls like thunder between buildings.
"I've tried not to look back," Jessica says, brushing a string of hair behind her right ear. "What we went through was a terrible thing."
© 2009 Village Voice Media
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Very Nice! Thanks Ursus!
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To the best of my knowlege Miller Newton was not a psychiatrist in 2004, nor at any other time in his storied life. Funny that he should be described as such twice in that article.
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What relationship is Penny Walker to Ross? They look similar in age, and is that her "real" name?
Wasn't Penny Walker responsible for the day to day operations of Hebron's KIDS HELPING KIDS?
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Umm, yeeessss!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfCXLdOAwk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfCXLdOAwk)
I'll never forget when I emailed her about her program being awfully similar to MIller Newton's Straight... and she completely denied any connections.
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Ross is a fucking asshole. He colluded with the shrink my parents were sending me to prior to straight so they would put me in the "program". That asshole belongs in prison.
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To the best of my knowlege Miller Newton was not a psychiatrist in 2004, nor at any other time in his storied life. Funny that he should be described as such twice in that article.
He does nothing to dissaude people from thinking he is a psychiatrist, though. He likes to throw the appellation "Dr." in front of his name, it makes him feel like his penis is very, very large. In reality, Miller Newton received a degree in divinity (like the ones lots of other crackpot theologians possess). He got it from a mail order diploma mill. Call him @ 727-392-3437 and ask him about his medical credentials and qualifications to diagnose and treat chermical dependency (or any other condition) in teenagers (or anyone else).
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What relationship is Penny Walker to Ross? They look similar in age, and is that her "real" name?
Wasn't Penny Walker responsible for the day to day operations of Hebron's KIDS HELPING KIDS?
Umm, yeeessss!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfCXLdOAwk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OfCXLdOAwk)
I'll never forget when I emailed her about her program being awfully similar to MIller Newton's Straight... and she completely denied any connections.
Here's a chapter from Finn Green's Senior Thesis for the 'Gaines Seminar in the Humanities' (May 1, 2002; University of Kentucky), titled "ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE USE AND ABUSE." The 104-page pdf download itself is titled 'Stages of Substance Abuse (http://https://www.uky.edu/Kaleidoscope/fall2002/green/green.pdf)'.
Mr. Green uses his daughter's "struggle with drug and alcohol abuse" and subsequent "rehabilitation" at KIDS HELPING KIDS (Milford, Ohio) as the premise and backbone of his thesis. Mears Green also subsequently became a "Senior Staff Counselor" at KHK, and cooperated/assisted in her father's thesis preparation.
The section on KHK history, which makes a number of references to both Straight, Inc. and Dr. George Ross, was allegedly provided by none other than Penny Walker herself.
Summary, Chapter Three: KIDS HELPING KIDS (pp40-54)
History and Personnel
Philosophy, Assessment, Admissions and Host Homes
Program Description, Open, Group, and Aftercare Meetings
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CHAPTER THREE
KIDS HELPING KIDS
…like their motto, 'If your kid is lost, then one of our kids will find them.' That's what they say and that's what happens. That's Kids Helping Kids. It's not like diplomas helping kids, or some clinical woman. I mean they play a big part, like Michelle played a big part in my program and in my treatment but if she would've been the only person I would have dealt with I wouldn't have been sober still…I wouldn't have made it.
[/list]
KHK both changes and saves the lives of children. I disavow any claim or effort to fully describe the KHK program model. A claim of this nature would be both false and futile for the only way to provide a complete depiction of the KHK program is by actually experiencing it in person on an ongoing basis. I only sketch an outline that describes the program as it relates to its aspects or the participation by the KHK staff, kids, and parents.
History and Personnel
Kids Helping Kids (KHK), located in Milford, Ohio, is a unique long-term, day treatment, multi-modality, adolescent drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. Several factors attribute to KHK's uniqueness. Utmost, however, it's not called Kids Helping Kids for nothing. New adolescent clients, or "newcomers," are immediately placed under the guidance of program peers who have progressed to a point of earning the responsibility of helping others. KHK also employs their own program graduates, or "seventh-steppers," as Staff Counselors whose responsibility is to help current KHK clients through rehabilitation. KHK administers a hybrid treatment that synthesizes the family-based and multi-systemic, behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and twelve step intervention modalities. Parents and families are involved in many aspects of treatment, including the provision of nighttime housing for the adolescent clients. In this section, I describe these above notable factors in detail and provide information on KHK's history (KHK history provided by Executive Director Penny Walker), philosophy, personnel, and quantified data.
The late 1970's marked an alarming increase of substance use and abuse by American adolescents. In 1979, a study revealed that there were no beds in Cincinnati, Ohio rehabilitation facilities or hospitals for adolescents suffering from alcohol and chemical dependency. One evening, people packed a Northern Kentucky High School gymnasium to listen to George Ross talk about STRAIGHT, an adolescent drug and alcohol rehabilitation program based in Florida. Within months, more than sixty families from the Cincinnati area had admitted their children into the STRAIGHT program.
STRAIGHT required that family members attend meetings in Florida on a monthly basis, and if not their child would be dismissed from the program. This requirement prompted a proposal from the Cincinnati parents to STRAIGHT: open a STRAIGHT facility in Ohio. Although STRAIGHT had plans on going national, they initially declined the request. Some parents wanted to continue lobbying STRAIGHT while others wanted to start a new rehabilitation program. The two schools of thought split the Cincinnati contingent. In 1981, both STRAIGHT and KHK opened facilities in the Cincinnati area, STRAIGHT in Milford, Ohio and KHK in Northern Kentucky.
The two organizations experienced some nature of competition in the early years. In 1982, First Lady Nancy Reagan attended a STRAIGHT fund-raising event in Ohio that helped STRAIGHT net two million dollars in solicitations that year. STRAIGHT bought a land-tract and constructed a state of the art facility, specifically designed for adolescent rehab. The KHK Board of Directors hired STRAIGHT's George Ross to oversee KHK's operation. At times, STRAIGHT would be treating nearly two hundred adolescent clients while KHK might treat a dozen or so. However, as many things do, things changed. Ross remained with KHK for only a few years when Penny Walker replaced him as Executive Director. By 1986, STRAIGHT found it necessary to close the doors on their facilities, including the one in Milford, Ohio. The STRAIGHT facility in Milford, Ohio remained unoccupied and in foreclosure for seven years until KHK purchased it in 1993. The acquisition negotiations with the court system began in July and ended in September 1993. KHK held their first meeting in the renovated facility in November 1993 and continue to operate there today.
As Executive Director, Penny Walker guides a complete staff of relevant personnel resources. The staff currently includes but is not limited to Program and Clinical Director Michele Hoehn, M.A., C.C.D.C. III-E, a fully accredited Clinical Staff and Coordinator, a Medical Director, a Nurse Practitioner, a Staff Psychiatrist, a Consulting Psychologist, an Educational Coordinator, and a fully operative Executive Staff. KHK's Board of Directors currently consists of twenty members and is supported by an Advisory Board and an Honorary Board that includes four Congressmen and a Senator. I am forever indebted to and thankful for these people.
Philosophy, Assessment, Admissions and Host Homes
KHK is for kids between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one. KHK's philosophy supports a belief that
chemical dependency is a disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. We further believe that, with adolescents, chemical abuse is characterized by developmental arrest or deterioration which may be viewed in stages with characteristic physical, psychological, and social symptoms.
As a result of chemical abuse, the adolescent may experience inadequacies of personality, impairment of cognitive functioning, diminished motivation, interpersonal and social conflicts, emotional blocking and regression, and causal disregard for behavior consequences (www.kidshelpingkids.com (http://http://www.kidshelpingkids.com)).[/list]
The KHK philosophy identifies areas of concern that are addressed by basic treatment modalities including family based, multi-systemic, behavioral and cognitive-behavioral interventions. KHK helps adolescents to learn how to apply a set of principles that will better enable them to manage their behavioral and emotional responses to life's situations. A KHK goal is to return the adolescent client "to a healthy productive lifestyle (www.kidshelpingkids.com (http://http://www.kidshelpingkids.com)). How does KHK get the opportunity to give these kids a chance to live a healthy productive lifestyle?
I doubt that many kids, if any, wake up, or come to, one morning and say, "I want to go to a long-term drug rehab." For example, in our situation, that's not what Mears did. She only asked for help ("only" implies no shortcoming on her part, whatsoever). Furthermore, she told me later that if she had known that "KHK was the kind of help you were going to get me, I wouldn't have asked." The pattern of Mears' sad and destructive behavior had been increasing in both regularity and severity for some time. Making the decision to send Mears to KHK did not come easy. My first visit to KHK occurred eighteen months prior to the time when her mother Cere and I took Mears there in February 1999.
In the fall of 1997, KHK Program Director Scott Stacey and Admissions Director Pat Burfitt personally interviewed me to discuss the nature of the problem. They did briefly describe KHK's program; however, they focused on the problem, not on treatment. I began to both see and accept certain things while I verbalized my perception of the problem to them. I accepted then that Mears, who was not quite fourteen, had definitely been using alcohol and drugs. I also accepted that my previous behavior had been an example for Mears, not a good or responsible example either. For several years, Mears had watched me either trying to force solutions to problems or to altogether avoid life situations by drinking alcohol. I accepted that I needed help being a responsible parent. Scott Stacey and Pat Burfitt helped me to ascertain the nature of the problem and to realize that potentially I could be both a part of the problem and the solution. Mears, her mother and I were floating in ice-laden water. As I left, Scott said, "I'll see you later." He could not have been more correct, thankfully.
The next time I contacted KHK, I spoke to Pat Burfitt on the telephone Monday, February 22nd, 1999, and we made arrangements for Mears' admission to KHK. Pat remembered my previous visit to KHK and said we could bring Mears there anytime. Cere and I would take her to KHK the next morning, unbeknownst to Mears. Although I knew that we were being loving, responsible parents, I experienced a great deal of emotional pain and mental confusion with this decision and admissions process. When we arrived at KHK two kids took Mears off to our right behind a set of doors and Pat led Cere and me into a nearby room. Pat explained that
Mears is on the other side of this wall with four kids from the program and she, by now, has probably figured out a few things. The other kids will have told her that they have been here for ten months, seven months, fourteen months and eleven months and are here because of drug and alcohol abuse. Mears will be given the choice of telling you good-bye with the condition of being cordial, or not telling you good-bye.[/list]
We were only beginning to experience what Pat continued to explain—the nature and extent of the program. From Pat, I heard well-explained information about the KHK Open Meetings on Friday nights; however, I did not understand much of what Pat verbalized until experiencing the numerous situations that she depicted. For example, I understood what Pat told us earlier about it being Mears' choice to tell us good-bye only when Christopher, one of the kids on the other side of the wall, came into the room and said, "Mears wants to say good-bye." I had never been glad to say good-bye to Mears; in an odd way, a sense of relief engulfed me. She remained seated when her mother and I walked into the room. Cere told her "I love you Sweet-Pea" and Mears responded, "I know that." The three of us were crying. Glancing at me, Mears said, "Toodles" and I leaned over and held her face in my hands and kissed the top of her head. After a moment, Mears slightly recoiled. I let her go and left the room. By leaving Mears there, her mother and I had become parents of a KHK first phase newcomer client.
KHK recognizes two types of families, in-town or out-of-town families. Families who live within a fifty-mile radius of KHK are considered as in-town and families who live outside of that radius are out-of-town families—we were an out-of town family. That meant that Mears would be staying overnight with "oldcomer," in-town families or "Host Homes." An oldcomer kid and their family have advanced to at least the second phase.
Newcomer kids are supervised by oldcomers during their stay at night. The hosting family makes house rules and it is the responsibility of the oldcomers to assure these rules are followed. These host families provide a critical part of each client's treatment, by providing a positive role model and adult perspective as each kid works through their issues (www.kidshelpingkids.com (http://http://www.kidshelpingkids.com)).[/list]
In addition to being role models, the host families provide breakfast and dinner as well as daily transportation to and from KHK for numerous kids. These families help to change and save the lives of children. During the admissions process, KHK clearly defines the differing roles and responsibilities of in-town and out-of-town families.
Program Description, Open, Group and Aftercare Meetings
There are six phases that KHK adolescent clients and family members participate in, given that the client completes the program. Kids must satisfy specific requirements of each phase prior to advancing to a subsequent phase. KHK also requires that the adolescent client spend a minimum number of days in each phase.
First phase newcomer clients have few, if any privileges. Some privileges that are immediately removed are speaking without being spoken to, independently moving about, speaking to family members, wearing certain clothes, going home, going to school, talking on the telephone, listening to music, and watching television. KHK also teaches that being responsible is a privilege; for example, first-phase kids earn the privilege of helping to clean the facility. These privileges are bestowed or restored based on the individual's behavior, compliance to KHK rules, and consequent advancement through the phases. First phase kids spend ten and one half-hours per day focused on and participating in their treatment program.
Kids continually both introspectively examine and discuss their history of alcohol and substance use with clinicians, peer counselors and oldcomers prior to earning privileges like talk-time. "Talk-time," a first-phase privilege, is a fifteen-minute monitored conversation with their parents or guardians that takes place after open meetings on Friday nights. Kids generally experience two or three talk-times, at a minimum, prior to advancing to the second phase. Second phase clients have earned the privilege of going home on the weekends with their family. Third phase clients return to school, taking classes at schools in Milford, and may work part-time for businesses in Milford. Fourth phase clients may talk on the phone, listen to music, watch television, and are gradually re-integrated into their home communities. Fifth phase clients have all privileges restored, even driving and visiting friends without being in the presence of parents or guardians. If a kid fails to comply with certain KHK guidelines they may be either not allowed to advance through the phases, or may in fact be "set-back" to first phase. Parents, guardians, and family members of KHK adolescent clients advance or regress through the phases as their kid does.
Parents, guardians, and family members attend two separate meetings held on Friday nights. Group meetings last ninety minutes and are held prior to the Open Meetings that may last several hours. Monday night meetings are offered for siblings.
KHK holds Open Meeting in a room the size of a junior high school gymnasium. Seating arrangements ceremonially identify four distinct groups. Kids are divided into girl and boy groups and face the parents who are divided by being parents of either a boy or girl client. Parents and family members of girl clients sit directly opposite of the boy clients and family members of boy clients sit directly opposite of the girl clients. In other words, parents and family members sit in a diagonal quadrant to their kid. The primary purpose for this aspect of the seating arrangement is to reduce attempted eye contact and potential manipulation of the family member by their newcomer child. Newcomer kids sit in the front rows of their respective sections and parents of newcomers sit in the back rows of their respective sections. As the kid advances through the phases they move back in the rows, eventually to stand in the back row. The parents, on the other hand, move to the front of their respective section as their child advances through the phases, eventually ending up on the front row as a parent of a fifth phase kid or a seventh-stepper. The seating method produces an effective nuance.
I have both a clear memory of and notes about our first KHK Open Meeting on February 26, 1999. The kids were in place as the parents filed into the room and found their seats. That night there were less than twenty girl and close to thirty boy clients. KHK personnel introduced themselves, then monitored and led the meeting. Next each newcomer kid stood and introduced him or herself. When someone handed Mears the microphone she stood and said,
I'm Mears Green and I'm sixteen years old. I've been here for three days. My drug list is alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and mushrooms. I've used for three years. I've learned the first five steps, and my goal is to learn them all. A time from my past is Christmas and I went to my Grandmother's high on cocaine and had been drinking…just so I could be with my family. I was in the bathroom that night swallowing down pills with alcohol. I'm really ashamed of that.[/list]
Mears sat and wept. I wept also, knowing we had done the right thing. I lived this couplet numerous times. After all of the newcomer kids and one boy and one girl oldcomer finished their introductions, the monitor asked if there were any phase changes. Kids who had phase changes shouted them out, one by one, "Third Phase," "Third Phase," "Fifth Phase" and so on. At that time, I didn't realize what those announcements meant.
KHK literature defines three purposes of Open Meeting as
[li]To provide a therapeutic environment, where parents can identify the many ways they have been affected by their child's chemical dependency, AND the feelings they each have about this.[/li]
[li]To productively confront your child with the seriousness of his/her disease, by relating episodes from his/her drug-using past which vividly demonstrate an affect of family and others.[/li]
[li]To provide a time and place to celebrate the progress you and your child are making toward recovery. (KHK: Your Role as a Parent of KHK Handout).[/li][/list]
KHK stresses that parents should verbally express their feelings and avoid lecturing their child at all. After the kids announced their phase changes, the parents and family members spoke beginning that night, as every Friday, with the parents of first phase kids. Mears stood when Cere and I stood. Mears wept. We all wept. Cere recalled to Mears the "night I had to help you into the car from the party at Fasig-Tipton when we were with _____ and _____. I love you." And then, I told Mears
I'm so glad you are here. I believe that God will heal you. I don't remember a specific incident from the past. But, I am so sorry for having hurt you and for neglecting my fatherly responsibilities to you. I love you.[/list]
Mears said, "I love you Mom, I love you Dad." We all sat down and the kids chorused, "We love you Mears." We continued to weep. We didn't spend anytime alone that night with Mears. At the end of the meeting, Mears and the other newcomers were led out of the room by oldcomers who held onto the belt-loop of the newcomer. As I stated earlier, you can only understand the program model when you attend KHK on an ongoing and regular basis.
The purpose of the other group meetings is to focus on the family member's part in, or responsibility to, both the problem and the solution. Group meetings are designed to cover six separate areas and are identified by the titles of basics, group, coming home, fourth phase, fifth phase, and seventh-steppers or program aftercare.
Basics and group meetings introduce and educate family members on the fundamentals of alcohol and substance use or abuse, and treatment—specifically KHK's program model in terms of parent involvement. Parents are exposed to a set of principles and skills that may help them to better understand the basis of their thoughts and feelings so that they may more effectively communicate with their children. KHK makes many demands of parents because they believe that parents are critical to their child's success at KHK. KHK exposes parents to the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA's Twelve Steps are essential to the KHK program model. Parents learn how to write a "moral inventory" (MI), based on the suggestions found within and throughout AA's Twelve Steps. Parents only write a couple of these inventories, while the kids write inventories on a daily basis for their program's duration. These MIs include the recognition of three good points of the individual's character and a statement of five well-defined and achievable personal goals. Some people who are unfamiliar with the Twelve Steps find their introduction to the Steps similar to that of learning a new language. A vital factor of KHK's success rests on both the kids and their parents learning and using this Twelve-Step language.
Parents are instructed during "Coming Home" group meetings on how to prepare their homes for their child's return. Kids return to their homes for the weekends upon their advancement to the second phase. KHK provides and reviews an in-depth instruction text on "Home Preparation" and a set of rules for parents to both refer to and follow. The instructions and rules include suggestions for sleeping arrangements, what to do with your child's belongings, security requirements, fire safety, how and who to communicate with at KHK, and what to do in case your child runs away from home. In addition, the kids are familiarized with these instructions and are held accountable for their adherence and also for reporting any violation of the rules. Parents' failure to comply with these guidelines can result in the kids being setback to lower phases.
As important, if not more so, during "Coming Home" meetings parents are versed on fundamental personal skills like how to establish a new relationship, how to commit to communicating, and learning the arts of both listening and talking to your child and other family members. For example, KHK identifies "Stumbling Blocks to Listening," and claims that,
listening to your child can do nothing but good! Unfortunately, so many of your own thoughts can get in the way of really hearing what your child has to say. Common and negative thoughts that can crowd your mind are 'I've heard this all before,' 'I think the child likes to hear himself/herself talk,' and 'When is this kid going to get the point?' (KHK Preparation for Coming Home Handout).[/list]
As KHK does consistently well, after identifying problem areas they then identify and provide solutions to these common problems. KHK identifies skills to "The Art of Listening" that suggest parents
[li]Focus your listening by choosing to ignore negative thinking.[/li]
[li]Focus your listening by not thinking about what you want to say next.[/li]
[li]Focus your listening by not interrupting.[/li]
[li]Focus your listening to particularly "sensitive issues" by giving your child your complete attention.[/li]
[li]Focus your listening by use of eye contact. (KHK Preparation for Coming Home)[/li][/list]
Following these and other KHK suggestions helped me to establish and restore my side of the relationship with Mears.
Kids join their parents in Fourth Phase, Fifth Phase, and Program Aftercare meetings. All group meetings are led and monitored by KHK clinicians, kids, or former program parents who share their experiences with a particular program aspect.
Fourth phase meetings focus on discussing real life situations that the families are experiencing. The meetings provide not only a format to follow but also a safe environment for the kids, who occasionally bring up difficult subjects that relate to their relationships with family members. The impetus behind this safe environment may well stem from the presence of other recovering kids. The child both relates to peers and may well have previously discussed their situation with them. For the most part, there exists a general comradely atmosphere between the kids and parents. There are, however, heated discussions as well when people deal with problematic matters they deem of great importance. When these situations arise, the KHK clinician oftentimes provides sound guidance and several options to consider as solutions to the specific difficulties. These solutions may be presented in the forms of suggestions, instructions, or by merely sharing their own experiences. KHK attempts to provide their clients and family members with skills that are effective and vital in dealing with life's situations.
Fifth phase meetings are mainly devoted to assisting the kids and parents in discussing, drafting and agreeing on contractual issues for the program aftercare phase. This agreement "formalizes various decisions about family life that have been made between the parties while at Kids Helping Kids," and is executed by the parents, the adolescent, and KHK (KHK Seventh-Step Contract). The term of the contract is for six months following the graduation of the adolescent from KHK. There is an optional renewal period of six months unless otherwise agreed to by the parties. The contract negotiations offer an opportune time for unspoken misunderstandings to arise. The contract details cover many areas including but not limited to time spent together as a family, the adolescent's responsibilities at home, curfew, advising parents of plans, school and work issues, structured leisure time, financial responsibilities, and automobile use. It also addresses arrangements for living outside of the home, support meetings or church activities, "druggie" friends and inappropriate places, and the consequences for failure to abide by contractual agreement. Not unusually, parents and kids experience great difficulties with these negotiations—we did not. We executed our contract during our last family meeting with our family counselor and clinician Michele Walton (now KHK's Program Director Michele Hoehn). We had had four or five family meetings with Michele during the eleven-month course of treatment. Graduations held during Open Meetings mark the end of the first five phases. Then the kids become Seventh-Steppers and are required to attend a six-month aftercare on a weekly basis, with monthly parental attendance required.
Aftercare proves to be the phase or period when most kids and family members experience great apathy, in turn potentially abandoning program responsibilities. Completing the first five phases requires a great deal of fortitude and commitment. The task may emotionally, physically, and mentally drain many participants. Possibly, a tendency exists to believe that by completing the first five phases that you have completed the KHK program. Aftercare proves to be when and where the rubber meets the road. Kids and family members are no longer nurtured in the security that lends itself to them while in treatment. Once again, they are truly tested by real life.
Will they choose the new way, or the old way? Kids are asked to spend ten hours a week during aftercare at the program "participating in group sessions with clients and a two-hour Saturday support group for graduates (www.kidshelpingkids.com (http://http://www.kidshelpingkids.com)). Meeting this commitment instills a sense of personal accomplishment and responsibility in addition the kids remain accountable to their peers. Each kid who continues to progress through aftercare earns additional program privileges. Kids must complete aftercare in order to work as KHK counselors.
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This thread is givin me NIGHTMARES. Brings me back to an absolutely horrendous time.swear to god I get pains in my stomach from thinking about this shit.
reminds me of how much I hated my mother.and why I cant keep a relationship,and my fucking failure to trust anything.Why I am such a jealous prick.
My wife is divorcing me,I m probably gonna lose my dogs and a lotta$$$$$. Once I cool off IM taking a road trip.Goddamn am I disgusted.
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Here's a 30-year old article on Dr. George Ross and the Sarasota L.I.F.E. program within its first few months of existence.
This article is accompanied by an extremely grainy pic of Ross on the phone (see link below).
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Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Area Parents To Be Given Facts On Drug Rehabilitation Program (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=mJwcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2mcEAAAAIBAJ&dq=george-ross%20kids-helping&pg=4842%2C6800873)
By LINDA GROTKE · Herald-Tribune Reporter
Wed., Oct. 29, 1980
A new drug or alcohol rehabilitation and counseling program based in Sarasota will be explained to Charlotte County parents on Nov. 13.
The LIFE (Life Is For Everyone) program is designed to help families from Manatee to Collier County. The keys to it are family involvement and kids helping kids get off drugs and redesign their lives.
LIFE's director, Dr. George Ross, is speaking to service clubs, such as Rotary International and other groups before the adults-only parents meeting in November at 7:30 p.m. at Port Charlotte Junior High School.
Since the program began its services in June, 51 youngsters between the ages of 13 and 21 have been enrolled, and eventually LIFE plans to serve 250 at a time.
Ross says the non-profit, state-licensed organization is funded by community donations and individual fees. While the cost of the nearly year-long program ranges from $600 to $2,000, depending on ability to pay, Ross said, no family is turned away for lack of funds.
The program incorporates what Ross calls the practical successes of Alcoholics Anonymous, along with the latest scientific methods in counseling and rational behavior therapy.
THE COMMITMENT BY THE youngster's parents is a key to the program. Before a youngster is admitted, the parents must come to an open meeting, and an individual screening session. After that their child is seen and evaluated. If accepted, the parents must continue to be involved, and if they too have a drinking or drug problem, the program aims at helping them as well, he said.
Siblings are seen in a special Saturday session, said Ross.
But besides the family involvement, Ross said, teen-agers who have already been through the transformation from a life on drug and-or alcohol to a drug-free life are an essential ingredient to the programs success.
These "kids helping kids" work under the careful supervision of adults [who] receive intensive training before assisting.
Each participant in the program learns how to implement six goals in his or her own life: build meaningful family relationships, pursue educational and occupational interests, develop meaningful friendships, creatively use leisure time, and share of themselves and give to other people.
AFTER ACCEPTANCE IN LIFE, the teen-ager attends the center for counseling sessions for 12 hours per day, while living in a foster home with another teen-ager, who is further advanced in the program.
Ross said during this phase, which lasts 14 to 21 days, the teen-ager experiences the awareness and commitment stages of rehabilitation and is encouraged to be honest with himself.
He said the honesty means letting go of some beliefs such as "pot is not harmful," "continued marijuana usage does not cause cancer," etc.
Ross explained that for a person to change his life, he needs to have a spiritual quality to it. While the program does not try to define the nature of this quality, it encourages belief in "something greater than one's self," he said.
THE PROGRAM ALSO concentrates on teaching the criteria for rational thinking, and gives the youngster a chance to practice working on the goals, such as developing family relationships, and learning how to constructively use drug-free leisure time with new friends.
While the teen-ager is re-shaping his or her life, the families are also learning the same basic goals and how to apply them. They are encouraged to serve as temporary foster homes for other children in the program, which enables them to experience the workings of the program first-hand, said Ross.
For more information about the November meeting, contact Bob Waldrop, community education director at Port Charlotte Junior High School, or the LIFE program in Sarasota at 966-5684.
Ross spoke Tuesday morning to the Charlotte Harbor Rotary Club and has additional meetings scheduled with other Rotary Clubs and Charlotte County minsters.
# # #
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It is amazing how incredible this KHK program sounds if I were to view this information from the perspective of someone not familiar with KHK and the Straight Inc. programs. A LOT is left out and a lot is twisted to appear benign.
Multi-systemic...cognitive behavior therapy...it sure sounds nice when the majority of the details about what really happens is left out of the description. And it seems like these details were intentionally left out to soften the image.
If I hadn't been through the hell of it myself, I would almost consider this a model for an improved program. At least from the description given. How is it possible to separate a possible good program from all the bad?
So penny Walker took over when George Ross left, very interesting. I wonder where she came from?
I agree with seamus, makes a person kinda sick to read the spin and happy happy/joy joy theme that the paper was written in. I'm gonna take a walk...
Thanks for posting Urs. Good info!
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My introduction to George Ross was when Helen Peterman brought him in front of the group, not unlike a ‘newcomer’. Helen Peterman explained that George Ross would be her equal in the Chain of Command. He was a weasel like looking guy, he had that funky 70’s look kinky hair (kinda like Mr. Brady from the Brady Bunch) with that ridiculous mustache. There was lots of fan fair on his arrival, Helen Peterman seemed besides herself with her typical over enthusiasm, rather, over zealous manner.
I recall the group getting caught up in the enthusiasm and there was a short lived pseudo-euphoria that enveloped the entire group. He was to be accepted, and embraced as Helen Peterman was (or thought she was). As Helen Peterman and George Ross left the group room, the dismal drudgery of the daily routine continued as if nothing had happened.
George Ross’s contribution to Straight Inc. was the RSA (Rational Self Analysis) and RET (Rational Emotive Therapy). If memory serves, I was on 4th phase, about to go on 5th phase.
Soon after George Ross’s arrival, he initiated his “Rational Self Analysis. 5th phasers were chosen to be the first to undergo “special sessions”. People were picked out of group to “act like 5th phasers” while the 5th phasers were taken to a separate room for the special session.
On their return, all eyes were on them as they made their way back to their respective positions, relieving those who had assumed their roles during that time. Some thing was different about our 5th phasers. They looked baffled, confused, as if they had been informed that 2+2=5.
The entire group (if I may be so brave) took notice of the odd behavior of the 5th phasers. Of course their were murmurs and later, questions were certainly asked. And to my knowledge, most refused to explain, or were unable. The “Special Sessions” continued. Each time, the 5th phasers would return looking bewildered and secretive.
The time came when I was put on 5th phase. During the time from when George Ross came to Straight Inc, until the time I made 5th phase (3-4 months) I had already come to have a strong dislike for George Ross. Not for any thing he had done to me or even effected me. But I had a seething disgust for him.
Prior to being placed on 5th phase, I was called, with several other males to escort a female (at the bequest of George Ross) to the “Green Room”.
I was jaded, calloused to the things that went on at that time, so pulling someone out of group to “confront” them was common place. The violence of Miller Newton’s regime had not come to life as of yet. The individual would be verbally assaulted, accused of unmentionable acts. This would go on for hours. In my own mind at the time, to me, it was just time outta group.
Per my usual, I was only acting as if I were paying attention in group. My mind was on anything but what was happening “in group”. I presume I had that 1000 yard stare I still get accused of…Hmm.
Quickly it became glaringly apparent what had been happening in the group. Staff had received “intel” that the female had been raped. She was stood up, confronted and had refused to discuss it. After a lot of probing from staff and members of the group, it was announced “Take her out of the group”.
Once in the green room, it was obvious that George Ross was enraged. I have a vivid memory (in 3D HD Techno-Color with 5.5 Dolby Surround Sound) His face was blood red, I had never seen anyone’s face that red before. I had never seen jugular veins bulge before, nor had I actually seen a vein bulge across a persons forehead. He shrieked in rage, high pitch shrieking, like that of witch with holy water thrown on it.
His anger/rage with the young girl was remarkable. There was spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed in her face. What looked like wads of cotton had formed at the corners of his mouth. Like myself, the others, all male, stood silently, presumably in shock, as some of us looked milk white about the face. I was sickenly fascinated with this fully grown adult male…DOCTOR…behaving in such a manner.
Somehow, the young girl landed on the floor of the “Green Room”. How it happened remains unclear, even after hours and hours of trying to piece the sequence of events over the last 30 years. As suddenly and as quickly as he back hit the floor. Dr. George Ross was just as quick to pounce upon the young girl.
What probably took place in a matter of seconds, seemed endless. Endless in that somehow, time had stopped. Although the time element of the situation had stopped, movement persisted. In that moment of realizing there was a stop in time, I recall thinking he is simply trying to pin her down, to restrain her. Because this young girl was coming unglued at the seams at this point.
Its given that perception is sketchy, (30 years since the incident) the events seem skewed, all relative to time. The actions I saw were without a doubt real. The demonic voice of Dr. George Ross I heard was just as real.
As everything seemed to have stopped in time, it was movement that brought me back to awareness. I realized Dr. George Ross was not trying to restrain the young girl. Dr. George Ross was trying/succeeding in mounting the girl. Fully clothed, he began to physically mock her attacker, by acting as if he was the attacker. He was dry humping her. His blood gorged forehead was riddled with sweat and gravity soon brought these droplets of sweat onto her face, along with the spittle from his incessant screaming.
I don’t recall any of the males making an effort to assist Dr. George Ross. Sadly, I don’t recall any of us making an effort to stop Dr. George Ross. I fail to believe, although as adolescent males (assumable to think, raging with hormones) in anyway got pleasure from the experience. Personally, even at that young age I was stunned beyond words. I recall looking at our faces (of which I have no recall) and when I remember doing that now. I see it as a group aliens staring blankly, with grayish skin and large black eyes at a ‘procedure’ by a truly sinister spawn of evil itself.
I have since corresponded with this young girl. Now, a survivor. I expressed my heart sickened remorse to her for my lack of action. With open heart and mind she accepted what was on my own heart. Around that time, I kinda did some math. The young girl & myself. Two (2). Being way generous with time. Lets assume 25 years of suffering for each of the two. That’s 50 years of suffering. I recall 8-10 guys. Again to error on the side of caution; 8 @ 25 years, that is an additional 200 years of suffering.
So, in one act of Dr. George Ross, conceivably there are some 250 years of suffering. In one fraction of our lives, Dr. George Ross brought a life time of horrid memories for at least a dozen people, collectively…250 years.
I wish much Peace
I wish much Healing
woof
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The post by Woof above was tough to read. The visual I get of the madness and terror unleashed in that intake room makes me angry and really sad at the same time. The years of suffering manufactured in seconds by "Dr" Ross is sickening. Woof, even though our contact with each other has been limited I feel like I know you. We have spoken personally and share many things in common. I know if you had a time machine, could put yourself back in that room, the outcome would be vastly different. I envision "Dr" Ross being slammed to the floor and his disgusting spittle dripping mouth being properly smashed. Sadly dude we don't have that time machine and we have to live with what we saw and did. It sucks. I am glad you haven spoken to the girl involved, Im sure that was good for both of you. I wish you well.
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His face was blood red, I had never seen anyone’s face that red before. I had never seen jugular veins bulge before, nor had I actually seen a vein bulge across a persons forehead.
Miller Newton fit this description every Monday and Friday, during Open Meeting Review.
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His face was blood red, I had never seen anyone’s face that red before. I had never seen jugular veins bulge before, nor had I actually seen a vein bulge across a persons forehead.
Miller Newton fit this description every Monday and Friday, during Open Meeting Review.
True dat!! :flame:
How much interaction did Ross & Newton have? Did Newton 'train' under Ross or vice versa?
Woof....wow. I'm glad you got to speak with her and hopefully it helped heal a small part of the wounds.
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How much interaction did Ross & Newton have? Did Newton 'train' under Ross or vice versa?
This is not so much an answer as it is a compilation of some relevant reportage:
Seamus states (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28352#p341739) that George Ross "was involved in str8 prior to miller newton,also."
According to Ross's CV (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28352&start=15#p341747), he got his PhD in Education from the University of South Florida in 1978. He also presented three papers at the Twentieth Annual Conference of Florida Educational Research Association (January 31, 1976, Orlando, Florida). One of those papers was titled, "The application of an anthropological-sociological technique to program evaluation."
According to Ross's website (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28352&start=15#p341749), he conducted several workshops on the topic of teenage substance abuse since 1978.
According to Finn Green's 2002 senior thesis on Adolescent Substance Use and Abuse (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28352&start=30#p343030) (University of Kentucky), which is essentially a love letter to KHK, George Ross helped provide the ultimate incentive to later open a Straight program in Ohio by way of a talk he gave in 1979 or shortly thereafter:
The late 1970's marked an alarming increase of substance use and abuse by American adolescents. In 1979, a study revealed that there were no beds in Cincinnati, Ohio rehabilitation facilities or hospitals for adolescents suffering from alcohol and chemical dependency. One evening, people packed a Northern Kentucky High School gymnasium to listen to George Ross talk about STRAIGHT, an adolescent drug and alcohol rehabilitation program based in Florida. Within months, more than sixty families from the Cincinnati area had admitted their children into the STRAIGHT program.[/list]
According to one of the footnotes on Wes Fager's Virgil Miller Newton (http://http://thestraights.com/people/medical-doctors/newton/newton-theclinician.htm) page:
Miller Newton became an assistant director at Straight on January 15, 1980, though he was a parent member before that. His resume shows him as the director of Straight, St Pete in 1981. In a press release on July 13, 1982 Board Chairman Mel Sembler announced that Miller Newton had been officially appointed as Straight's national clinical director on or about July 4, 1982. However, he told reporters that much of the clinical responsibilities for Straight were already being handled by Newton. Even Newton boasted that, "The local programs are responsible to me. That was going on before. [Source: St. Petersburg Times, July 14, 1982, p. 3B.][/list]
According to this article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28352&start=15#p341849) in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times published in 2004 about the Straight spin-off Growing Together, George Ross and Miller Newton both contributed to the design of Straight's methods. Whether they worked together or separately on that is not made clear:
During the late '70s, Straight became a well-known and apparently effective drug treatment center. Its methods, which were designed by psychiatrists Miller Newton and George Ross, were a kind of hybrid of the common 12-step model used by Alcoholics Anonymous; but there were only six steps and a hierarchical system. Children who had been in the program for a few months graduated to higher levels and became "oldcomers." They were then put in charge of new attendees, known as "newcomers." Newcomers weren't allowed to move around the facility unless oldcomers held them by the belt in a technique known as "belt looping."[/list]
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To the best of my knowlege Miller Newton was not a psychiatrist in 2004, nor at any other time in his storied life. Funny that he should be described as such twice in that article.
Neither was George Ross. Yet he was also thus described. Funny that...
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He holds a doctorate in education, is not a psychiatrist.And now he's doing the "man of the cloth" hustle, just like another character we all know, must be all the rage amongst that type.Cant believe my parents fell for this guys horseshit.Un-real
To the best of my knowledge,Newton and Ross never worked together,nor did Ross train Newton.I knew both of them.
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HIs picture is on his website. It also mentions LIFE, KIDS, DFAF etc.
http://http://www.georgerross.com/about.html
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HIs picture is on his website. It also mentions LIFE, KIDS, DFAF etc.
http://http://www.georgerross.com/about.html
Yep, check out the first page of this thread. There are a number of pics there.
His curriculum vitæ is spelled out in this post (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28352&start=15#p341747); another program mentioned is Possibilities Unlimited (KY).
You'll like this part: "Ordained minister (April 2002)."
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yep, that is a pic of the son-of-a-cunt. And the ordained minister thing . . .imagine that? Ross a minister. I'm not suprised . . .he is after all the same as Newton, total fraud. Interesting that on his CV/Resume, he left out his time working at Straight.
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yep, that is a pic of the son-of-a-cunt. And the ordained minister thing . . .imagine that? Ross a minister. I'm not suprised . . .he is after all the same as Newton, total fraud. Interesting that on his CV/Resume, he left out his time working at Straight.
Hey Sherm,
How goes it?
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going alright thank you. Hope the same with you diva. :cheers:
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This thread is givin me NIGHTMARES. Brings me back to an absolutely horrendous time.swear to god I get pains in my stomach from thinking about this shit.
reminds me of how much I hated my mother.and why I cant keep a relationship,and my fucking failure to trust anything.Why I am such a jealous prick.
My wife is divorcing me,I m probably gonna lose my dogs and a lotta$$$$$. Once I cool off IM taking a road trip.Goddamn am I disgusted.
Yo, Seamus...I am with ya on the nightmares. And also the day-mares. I can also see how my relationshits have suffered horribly. The kick in the head, aside from, simply poor descions I have made, most of those bad descions are based on emotional strife which I can trace directly back to....you know where.
I have already re-hashed all the stuff I know of GEORGE ROSS, and would rather not continue to pick at the scar tissue left over from that time period. I am not one to bury my head in the sand, nor am I one to deny/repress the realities of the nightmares. But I think I have enuff wits about me to know when to leave well enuff alone. I said my piece way back when this thread started. Anything I would say now would only be redundant.
The one redeming thing about this whole shit storm is that during my "interview" process. I directly addressed those issues I discussed earlier in the thread. I thought (pardon the expression), that I "had my shit in one sock"...I was astonished at the uncontrolable sobbing that flowed out of me, not unlike explosive emotional diahrrea. And ya know what, I got no regrets. Someone asked me if I was concerned with reprisal, via defamation of character comming from George Ross. Pfft! I will gladly stand/sit in any court room USA and swear, attest, affirm or otherwise tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now, if this cretin is concerned about defamation of his character.....Perhaps he should make an effort to build some character, so that it could be defamed in the first place. Other wise, the truth would be like scortching sunlight....the best deodorant known to man kind.
Oddly, I am not infused with anger and or hatred. I have come to some peace with the worst George Ross had to deal out. I have connected with the ones he harmed directly. I have made my amends ( for my actions...directed by George Ross) and they were graciously accepted. All thats left is for GEORGE ROSS to make his amends/apologies,or defend himself. Personally, I think he is too much of a chicken shit to examine the destruction he inflicted on scores of young people...who are now full grown adult individuals.As I have said before, I may be discredited...a few others may be able to discredited...But they can NOT discredit all of us!
Much Peace
Continued Healing
woof/dave
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To the best of my knowlege Miller Newton was not a psychiatrist in 2004, nor at any other time in his storied life. Funny that he should be described as such twice in that article.
He was NEVER a psychiatrist. Ever.
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I am new here....but just have had a week of thinking about my days at Possibilities Unlimited, in Lexington, Kentucky. So many of your thoughts and accounts (KHK) have brought me back to those days! Wow. It is really hard to believe....everything that you guys have said about Dr. Ross is correct. At the time, I truly was messed up. Wow. You have all brought me into a new way of thinking about this whole thing. I think that I was just moving on from it, although my intake date of Dec. 29 (1990) always crosses my mind in some strange way every year. I would love to hear more about all of this. I never realized that there was such an outcry and even litigation over all of these programs' philosophy and approach. It certainly was....well....traumatic to say the least.
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man, was Ross scummy or what? urgh, just thinking of that disco looking idiot with his faggot mustache makes me wanna puke.
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The sad thing is RBT had some very valid useful parts that will forever be tainted because of how it was used to validate George Ross as a mental health professional,something he never was.