Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Here's an interesting tidbit from the below article (post to follow); emphases added:

[Comprehensive Soldier Fitness] is based entirely on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, a member of the Defense Health Board, a federal advisory committee to the secretary of defense, and chairman of the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, who the Army calls "Dr. Happy."

Seligman, who once told a colleague that psychologists can rise to the level of a "rock star" and "have fame and money," is the author of "Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment." The Penn Resiliency Program, upon which the Army's CSF is based, "teaches cognitive-behavioral and social problem-solving skills and is based in part on cognitive-behavioral theories of depression by Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis" and Seligman.[/list][/size]
Y'all might recall discovering this part, in the course of unraveling the mindfuck left over from program:

Despite his "happy" reputation, in some circles, Seligman is best known for developing the theory of "Learned Helplessness" at the University of Pennsylvania more than four decades ago. As psychologist and torture expert Dr. Jeffrey Kaye noted in a report published in Truthout last year, Seligman and psychologist Dr. Steven Maier developed the concept of Learned Helplessness after they "exposed dogs to a situation where they were faced with inescapable electrical shocks."

"Within a short period of time, the dogs could not be induced to escape the situation, even when provided with a previously taught escape route," Kaye wrote. "Drs. Seligman and Maier theorized that the dogs had 'learned' their condition was helpless. The experimental model was extended to a human model for the induction of clinical depression and other psychological conditions."[/list][/size]
But ya might not be aware of this more recent development; then again, maybe you are:

Seligman's work in this area influenced psychologists under contract to the CIA and Defense Department, who applied the theory to "war on terror" detainees in custody of the US government, according to a report published in 2009 by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In May of 2002, the timeframe in which the CIA began to use brutal torture techniques against several high-value detainees, Seligman gave a three-hour lecture at the Navy's Survival Evasion Resistance Escape school in San Diego. Audience members included the two psychologists - Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell - who have been called the architects of the Bush administration's torture program.

Five months earlier, Seligman hosted a meeting at his house that was attended by Mitchell, along with the CIA's then-Director of Behavioral Science Research, Kirk Hubbard, and at least one "Israeli intelligence person." Seligman claims he was totally unaware his theory on Learned Helplessness was being used against detainees after 9/11 and denied ever engaging in discussions about the torture program with Mitchell, Jessen, or any other Bush administration official.[/list][/size]
And here's where it starts sounding more than a lil Orwellian:

Seligman, a past president of the American Psychological Association (APA), began consulting with General Casey in September 2008 about applying the research he and his colleagues have conducted over the past decade to the benefits of his theories on "Learned Optimism" to all of the Army's active-duty soldiers. Seligman then met with Cornum in December 2008 to discuss creating the foundation for CSF as a way to decrease PTSD.

"Psychology has given us this whole language of pathology, so that a soldier in tears after seeing someone killed thinks, 'Something's wrong with me; I have post-traumatic stress,' or PTSD," Seligman said in August 2009. "The idea here is to give people a new vocabulary, to speak in terms of resilience. Most people who experience trauma don't end up with PTSD; many experience post-traumatic growth."[/list][/size]
Full source article/investigative report to follow in my next post...

You too, Stack! As well as anyone and everyone else reading this thread!  

 :cheers:

Posted earlier today in the Bethesda Home for Girls thread:

Hello everyone, I heard of this place as a teen in high school at Oak Grove.  We went there several times to snoop around hearing about these old horrible stories not ever really thinking they were true.  But in reading this site gives me goosebumps finding out that it was all real.  Well, a few days ago somebody set fire to the school and it has been burnt to the ground.  I thought all you ladies would be glad to know this knowing that it was such a horrible place.  Here is a link to a video of the building after it had burnt down.  I am so sorry you all had to go through what you did and maybe this will help with closure or something.

http://http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/section/VideoNetwork#/News/Fire%20Destroys%20former%20Bethesda%20Girls%20Home%20dorm/46203239001/46206319001/713946068001

We always heard of these wildy horrible stories and would go thinking it was haunted after hearing of some girls being killed many years ago.  And like I said, I don't think anyone really believed it to be true but it is so chilling to find out otherwise.  Once again I am so sorry to hear of all of these stories on here.

Could Sue Scheff perchance be trying to capitalize on the current Narvin Lichfield animal abuse case for her own reasons?  

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Florida woman's crusade against school led to books, lawsuits

By Kirk Brown · Anderson Independent Mail
Posted December 10, 2010 at 8:05 p.m.


Sue Scheff and daughter Ashlyn

This story has been corrected from its original version.

When Sue Scheff's teenage daughter Ashlyn came at her with a knife 10 years ago, the single mother from Florida knew it was time for drastic action.

Scheff sent Ashlyn to Carolina Springs Academy, a boarding school in Abbeville County.

Her decision set in a motion a chain of events that would lead to a high-stakes trial in Utah, the publication of two books and a precedent-setting $11 million Internet defamation judgment against a Hurricane Katrina survivor.

Contending that Ashlyn was mistreated at Carolina Springs, Scheff has waged a continuing campaign against the school.

While at Carolina Springs, Scheff said, Ashlyn "was put in a box for 17 hours as punishment."

"It took my daughter two years of intense therapy to get deprogrammed from what they did to her there," Scheff said. "Not only wouldn't I send my child there, I wouldn't send my dog there."

Narvin Lichfield, the owner of boarding school near Due West, says Scheff has spread lies about Carolina Springs in an effort to hurt the school's reputation and enrich herself.

Lichfield said Scheff told fabricated stories about his school to parents of troubled teens as part of a scheme to persuade them to send their children to other programs. In turn, he said, these programs would then pay her referral fees.

Carolina Springs Academy figured prominently in a book called "Wit's End" that Scheff wrote in 2008.

In one of the book's chapters, Ashlyn described her experiences at the boarding school near Due West.

"The scare tactics and intimidation started the moment that my mother wasn't around anymore," wrote Ashlyn, who is now the married mother of two children. "They never got better."

Ashlyn also was dismayed with living conditions in her dormitory at Carolina Springs.

"We didn't have windows and our rooms smelled of urine, mostly because the bathroom toilets were always overflowing," she said.

"Nothing that I was seeing in this place made sense to me — unless the entire purpose of the academy was simply to provide cruel amusements for the staff," Ashlyn said. "I suppose a lot of what went on would have been easier to understand if I had been sophisticated enough to see it as a matter of pumping the most money out of parents while spending as little as possible on the kids."

After removing Ashlyn from Carolina Springs, Scheff formed an organization called Parents' Universal Resource Experts in 2001. Its stated purpose was to educate parents about the loosely regulated "teen help" industry.

But officials with the Utah-based Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, which was affiliated with Carolina Springs and several other boarding schools, filed a lawsuit filed in federal court accusing her of defamation.

The case went to trial in Salt Lake City in August 2004.

Ken Kay, the president of the association suing Scheff, told jurors that her attacks against Carolina Springs and other boarding school had been damaging.

"Reputation is really about everything when it comes to helping families," Kay testified.

After hearing three days of testimony, the jury ruled in Scheff's favor.

In a 2006 ruling upholding the verdict, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Court of Appeals said Scheff's comments about the association's boarding schools were no more damaging than accounts that had appeared in The Miami Herald, Forbes magazine and the TV news program "48 Hours."

Scheff's referral business for parents of troubled teens led to another trial in 2006.

A parent named Carey Bock who was unhappy with Scheff began venting her feelings on the Internet, describing Scheff as a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud," USA TODAY reported.

Scheff responded by filing a defamation suit of her own against Bock.

Bock, whose Louisiana home was flooded after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, did not appear in court when the case went to trial in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The trial proceeded despite's Bock's absence and a judge ruled in Scheff's favor. A jury then returned a verdict ordering Bock to pay Scheff $11 million in damages.

Although it is unlikely that Scheff will ever collect the full amount, the experience provided the material for a second book. She and Internet law attorney John W. Dozier Jr. wrote "The Google Bomb" in 2009, which provides readers with advice on how to protect their online reputation.

Ashlyn now lives near Orlando, where she works as a stuntwoman.

There is still ill will between her mother and officials at the boarding school in Abbeville County.

Elaine Davis, the school's director, posted a blog in November accusing Scheff of "unethical, dishonest tactics."

In her blog, Davis said the real reason Ashlyn was removed from Carolina Springs involved Scheff’s sexual harassment dispute with another student’s parent.

Scheff said Friday that the dispute Davis mentioned was only a minor factor in her decision to bring Ashlyn home.

Scheff also said that two TV news programs have recently contacted her about appearing in their upcoming stories about Carolina Springs and other boarding schools.


© 2010 Anderson Independent Mail.

This is an old classic that I had a much harder time finding this time around, so here it is for posterity's sake...

Online portal for this document: http://nvs.sagepub.com/content/29/2/315

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Note: This text was the keynote address at the annual meeting of the California Association of Nonprofits, Oakland, CA, October 1999.

From: Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
June 2000, vol. 29 no. 2, pp 315-324

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Evolution Or Extinction: A Strategy for Nonprofits in the Marketplace

By Edward Skloot
Surdna Foundation, Inc.

THE VALUES QUESTION

How we break into this vast subject of privatization and competition is exceedingly important. Some of our nonprofit colleagues seek to discuss competition with the private sector in terms of morals and values. They say: "We have ours, which are nurturing and valiant and deeply American. They have theirs, which are grasping, mechanical, and destructive to individuals and community." Or something like that.

It is most important not to start this conversation from the point of view of values; whose are better and whose work better. If we do, we will speak in wholly different tongues. We simply will not be understood. The dialogue will quickly become polarized.

In addition, we have to build mutual confidence between proponents of different views—so that we can ultimately work together. Nonprofits must completely understand what others are doing in the marketplace before they can address moral concerns. We must dive into the subject fromthe empirical side first.

So what is happening? We are in the middle of major sectoral boundary shifts. They are incremental but undeniable. The service delivery map is changing. More and more, private entrepreneurs are taking over the work of both governments and nonprofits. Life is increasingly transactional, and nonprofits are increasingly vulnerable.


MARKETPLACE ECONOMICS

In the minds of most Americans today, the marketplace has triumphed. Market competition seems to be that longed for win-win solution—reduced costs and increased efficiencies leading to better results for all.

Simultaneously, governments are systematically degraded. They are no longer the agents of positive change that spanned the era from the Great Depression to the Great Society. Forces on the right have asserted governments are incapable, incompetent, or illegitimate—or all three. Sometimes they are right. As Alan Ehrenhalt (1999), the wise editor of Governing magazine, recently wrote: "Gradually, without most of us stopping to notice it, Congress is ceasing to be a serious legislative institution" (p. A27).

Think about health care for a moment. Most people do not know that health management organizations (HMOs) were created in the early 1970s as a mechanism to ensure community benefits and cover more of the poor. Federal legislation, sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy, required large employers to offer an HMO option. Nonprofit auspices were preferred.

But, federal financing ended in 1982, and nonprofit HMOs had difficulty raising capital for growth and expansion. Meanwhile, federal administrators began to encourage for-profits to enter the field. With easy access to capital, guaranteed reimbursement, and a natural drive to grow market share, private health care companies expanded ferociously. More than two thirds of HMOs are now privately held (as of 1993), covering a majority of enrollees.

The irony is stunning. Today, HMOs, created to ensure the average person could find quality health care, are hastening out of what they view as unprofitable markets. Last year, HMOs in 30 states began their retreat from Medicare, leaving 440,000 elderly patients to scramble for coverage. Today, nearly 45 million Americans have no insurance, including 11 million children. If the goal is decent health coverage at a reasonable cost for all Americans, then the marketplace and government regulators have both failed dismally.

Thus, our health care nonsystem lurches about while nonprofit deliverers of service, both hospitals and HMOs, steadily diminish in number through sale, conversion, or purchase.

It is easy to criticize or dismiss the encroachment of the private sector into roles traditionally done by nonprofits or government. But the fact is, competition and privatization, the right hand and the left hand of the marketplace, are here to stay. In health care. In corrections. In education. In human services.

Here are a few examples.

In September 1999, the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), decided to set up its first forprofit subsidiary to compete with Kaplan and the Princeton Review (New York Times, September 25, 1999).

In kindergarten through 12 education, the privately held Edison Project runs programs in 51 schools with 24,000 pupils. It recently announced its offer to give its teacher-employees stock in the company—a most intriguing incentive unimaginable in public schools.

Even the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has jumped in. It recently inked a joint venture with Stuart Enterprises, a major for-profit funeral chain, to build and run funeral homes on nine church-owned cemeteries. They share the profits (Forbes, June 14, 1999).

In these examples, it is easy to see for-profit companies doing well. It is also easy to see nonprofits doing well. The fact is, there are horror stories on all sides, but little conclusive data on who does a consistently better job. And absent better data, the beat to privatize services goes on.

I do not believe decline in the sector is imminent. But, I certainly believe that barriers to entry are shrinking and competition is growing and nonprofits have a lot of work to do.


THE HUMAN SERVICES SUBSECTOR

Whereas each subsector presents different challenges, I want to focus on human services—where most of you make your living. Here, competition and privatization are emerging as the dominant force of institutional life.

The primary reason for this shift is the passage of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 (formally known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996). As you know, the law essentially certified the outright failure of the welfare system as we knew it. Its most dramatic provision was a 5-year lifetime limit on public assistance and a 2-year deadline for most welfare recipients to get employment. Implementation of this law was devolved to the states.

The Welfare Reform Act gave an extraordinary boost to privatization and competition. The reasons have to do with the need for speed and the mandated integration of various postwelfare services.

In fact, one of the act's great accomplishments is that it compels local governments to break out of their destructive, artificial funding silos. Clients of the welfare system now have to be treated in a holistic way, connecting, for example, their transportation, child care, job training, substance abuse, and food stamps needs. When looked at from the view of the recipients, this is a tremendous win. For smaller, specialized nonprofits, however, it can be an insurmountable opportunity.

Many for-profit companies have been in and around the human services for a long time. The best known older player (since 1975) is Maximus, based in McClean, Virginia. Maximus is a human services company. It functions as an integrator of services for the numerous tasks bundled under the welfare law. It provides case management for individuals and families. It takes responsibility for emergency assistance. It does job training and referral. It handles placement transition services such as child care and transportation to work.

Maximus is decidedly for profit. It was Number 22 on Business Week's "Hot Growth Companies" list last spring (Wollert, 1999). If it were a state, it would have the 29th largest social services caseload in America. According to Business Week, Maximus holds a 30%share of the booming privatization market in health and human services. Last year, it billed out more than $230 million.

Maximus is not the only big player. Lots of newer ones come to mind, including EDS, Ross Perot's old firm, Deloitte and Touche, and Lockheed-Martin Information Management Systems, to name the most active.

What these companies offer are deep pockets, apparent management acumen, and almost guaranteed results. When the welfare law hit, local governments needed to act swiftly. Under tight federal guidelines that state legislatures often made tighter, they began to look elsewhere to get the job done. They did not have the capability. The big private companies were ready to roll.


THREE MODELS AND FOUR CHALLENGES

Three different models of service delivery now seem to be developing. The first model is sale and merger. Consider Pittsburgh-based Abraxas. This was a respected nonprofit organization that specialized in working with the hardest to handle young people. Three years ago, its CEO, Arlene Lissner, saw the handwriting on the wall. She feared large for-profits "would roll over us and put us out of business" (personal telephone interview). So Abraxas put itself in play. It chose to be bought out by a for-profit company, Cornell Corrections Corporation. It is now part of this $200 million comprehensive services firm. It runs both adult and juvenile correctional facilities from coast to coast.

A second approach seems to be the joint venture. Here we can look to Milwaukee and the local YWCA, which was already a sophisticated multimillion-dollar organization. The Y set up a limited liability company called YW-Works with two for-profit partners. YW-Works provides welfare to-work services. With her two for-profit partners, Julia Taylor, the CEO, bid for and won a $39 million contract to provide all welfare services to 2,400 clients in part of Milwaukee. They committed themselves to performance targets and, so far, they have met them. Ms. Taylor is bullish on her joint venture and believes that the for-profit/nonprofit business is "working out great."

The third approach seems to be that of Lockheed-Martin or Maximus: the managing corporation. Here, a large integrator of services employs many others, both for-profits and nonprofits. They deliver a wide menu of comprehensive services. Lockheed-Martin has done this in Washington, D.C., Florida, and many other states. In fact, many nonprofits around the country now find themselves working for commercial businesses as subcontractors—not as partners with government. They are increasingly accountable to business. They have a bottom line and performance goals to meet.

Privatization and competition raise four specific challenges. I want to talk about each briefly and ask you to see where you fit in.

The first is access to capital. The for-profits I mentioned can raise money and bid on almost any contract they choose. They can accept considerably higher risk. This is important because a lot of the state and local contracts demand that winning bidders pay for cost overruns.

Most contracts are large and multifaceted. Successful bidding may mean having to open new offices, pay salaries for months before reimbursements arrive, and meet unforeseen start-up costs. In Washington, D.C., Lockheed-Martin had to put together a welfare-to-work office to serve 5,000 clients in 3 weeks. For-profits can go to the financial markets to raise working capital to front these costs (and expansions too).

As we know, nonprofits do not have this option. They are constrained by their 501(c)(3) status, which forbids the distribution of profit—or even making it. They cannot raise capital in exchange for stock; they do not have any. And, many would choose not to even if they could. High finance is foreign to the nonprofit culture. It is often seen as a distraction from getting the job done.

Many do not have the money or capacity to deliver comprehensive services. It is not surprising that entrepreneurial nonprofits are looking for ways to merge, joint venture, be bought out, or set up for-profit subsidiaries.

Second, information technology (IT) is critical. IT enables providers to operate at sufficient scale and detail to provide all these integrated services. This includes the most mundane activities such as bookkeeping and keeping case histories. It involves complicated tasks too, such as calibrating payments to several family members in transition off welfare.

The new law mandates that numerous strands of client information be aligned and integrated. Often, they are kept separately, in different agencies, at different levels of government, with different computer systems and protocols.

Again, the resource problem emerges. Few nonprofits—and few for-profits too—have the funds to buy and use the IT systems needed to manage hundreds or thousands of clients. But, the ability to aggregate and manipulate vast amounts of data (and money) is the bottom line.

Benchmarks are needed to hold providers and their clients accountable too.

More than hardware and software is involved. Skilled personnel are also necessary. These individuals, always in high demand, command high salaries. Increasingly, IT capacity will separate the successful vendor from the mere survivor.

Third, welfare reform requires building large-scale operations. Together with IT, size permits economies of scale over large service areas. Size lets organizations implement master contracts. It offers the ability to aggregate and use trend data. Maybe most important, it reduces headaches for government servants. Large contracts let government officials rely on others to bundle and oversee their welfare-to-work responsibilities.

The final problem is attracting and retaining the best employees.

In the Washington, D.C., welfare-to-work contract won by Lockheed-Martin, the company receives fees pegged to the length of time the client holds a job—$500 on placement, $500 after 3 months, and $1,000 more after 6 months. Such pay-for-performance requirements are growing in frequency. These incentives run counter to traditional partnerships between government and nonprofits, which are paid through lump sum contracts. The new arrangements epitomize a managed care approach to human services filled with incentives and rewards.

This may be the most telling concern: With increasing frequency, for-profits are attracting accomplished public and nonprofit executives. They are anxious to break free from stifling work rules and inadequate—or perverse—rewards for performance. The brain drain from the nonprofit sector threatens its leadership.

Thus, in each of these four areas: capital availability, information technology, size and scale, and recruitment and retention, the nonprofit sector is at a distinct disadvantage. It has fewer resources, human and financial, less of a competitive urge, and a culture that is broadly anticompetitive.

Yet, there is a choice to compete or not to compete. If nonprofits choose to, they will need to refashion their organizations and show demonstrable results.


TOWARD A STRATEGIC RESPONSE

This means they will have to begin doing a number of critical tasks. The first is benchmarking, defining our current outputs and measuring them consistently going forward. Granted, the soft services are truly soft. But, we are in an era that demands greater accountability. Both the public and its public servants are asking, "Are we getting the most for our money?" They deserve an answer.

If for-profit companies can assign dollar values and outputs to their efforts, nonprofits must do the same. If not, they will be consistently outbid. Or, they will win contracts but lose their shirts. Nonprofits must do it for a second reason: Benchmarking helps them manage better too.

But, benchmarking without better information systems is a pipe dream. And, information technology is still a backwater in the corporate life of nonprofits. Yet one way or another, through the use of volunteers, donated hardware and software, graduate students and interns, and especially the determined application of institutional cash, the move toward computerization is absolutely essential. If nonprofits do not do this, they will forever be at the mercy of any institution that collects and controls the data they use.

This is one of the important messages of e-commerce. It could not operate without software to do everything, from taking orders to shipping purchases quickly. Successful dot.coms know that without profiling customers and meeting their needs with timely and efficient service, their efforts to attract faithful customers will be fragile.

The new economic rules make routine chores easier and faster. So, whereas computerized case management may look revolutionary to some nonprofits, it really is an evolutionary step. It creates efficiency and lowers cost through the use of new technology.

The Economist magazine recently reported that Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, recently ordered every senior manager to spend a couple of hours each week being bossed around by an "Internet Mentor," usually an employee from a younger generation ("The House," 1999). This is nothing more than a kind of knowledge transfer at which the best corporations excel. Nonprofits must do it too.

But think about it. IT is more than a tool for efficiency and for gaining a competitive edge. It can also help redefine and transform the relationships among nonprofits. When was the last time your organizations benchmarked best practices and then voluntarily shared the methodology with your colleagues? When was the last time you worked closely together to help each other out of service delivery jams? Could this be the beginning of a real competitive advantage?

Nonprofits can also form self-help networks. They can share information among different specialties to improve or reorganize services. They can create knowledge consortia as well as bidding consortia. They can treat clients better and share the secrets how.


CARE OF EMPLOYEES

If I were an executive director of a nonprofit, and I have been, I would couple investment in IT with a determined effort to support my employees.

Today, we cannot fail to notice the changes that have occurred in employment policies throughout the country. Short-term contracts and freelancing are increasingly the rule. Corporations are shrinking their commitment to employees, which includes providing health care, pensions, and related benefits. Employees are enticed or compelled to trade better short-term pay for meager benefits and job insecurity.

This is a hidden opportunity for the nonprofit sector. (It is also what makes the Edison Project stock options for its teachers so suggestive and so potentially threatening.)

Just as civil service jobs and teaching were seen as viable, enviable, longterm career choices for the post-Depression generation, there is every reason to assume that nonprofits could fill that role today. With a little imagination and hard cash, they can distinguish themselves competitively—and attract even better employees.

Human service institutions have not been known for their benefit packages or work rules. Why not do everything possible to improve them and make them attractive to new and current employees? Pay for professional courses. Support flex-time and home-based schedules. Offer financial and other incentives to enhance productivity. Pay for performance improvement. This approach is what the best for profits now do for their employees. It is part of the reason they pick off the best of the nonprofit leaders. It is time the sector did it too.

Just as TIIA-CREF was created to strengthen the college teaching profession by making pensions broadly available and portable, the nonprofit sector must look to the deepening of its own incentives and benefits. This will help it compete in the increasingly unstable marketplace and improve its own supply of talent too.

Yes, this takes money. Of course it does. But I would imagine, first, the cost is less than you think. Second, the sector now has more money pouring in than in recent memory. If not now, when? Finally, if we do not find the way to invest now, we may not be around to serve later.


JOINT VENTURES

Add joint venturing to IT and improved benefits and working conditions. If nonprofits can work out joint ventures with richer, bigger for-profits or other nonprofits, they could specialize. They could extend their reach and serve their clients better. Each could build off its core competencies.

For example, business could apply its technology, management tools, and bidding expertise. It could help upgrade the skills of nonprofit partners or subcontractors for mutual benefit too. Nonprofits, on their part, could do what they do best—skilled one-on-one personal involvement, assistance, and steady care. They could build community capacity and support and represent local needs.

This is also a lesson from e-commerce. Technology and speed alone cannot guarantee market dominance. Or market performance. You have to deliver a high-quality product or service to successfully compete for the long haul.

A prototype for this has occurred between Lockheed-Martin and the Urban League. It is in Baltimore, centered around child support enforcement and family unification. Under contract, the Urban League does the skills training for custodial parents. In 3 years, it has placed more than a thousand people in jobs. The organization is bullish on its partnership with Lockheed-Martin. Furthermore, the company has upgraded the staff's technical skills. In return, it got improved access to the community and to local politicians. This is a model very much worth developing.


THE NEED FOR ADVOCACY

But, you can ask, will all this lead to an inescapable role conflict for nonprofits? Can they serve two masters, a private sector contractor and a human services client at the same time? Can they serve the bottom line and at the same time advocate for changes in contracts or policies?

In New York City, in particular, we have seen how difficult it is to deal with a government that throttles the opposition. Service deliverers are often cowed by politicians and bureaucrats. Implicitly or explicitly, they threaten to cancel contracts for disagreeing with established policy.

I have spoken with numerous nonprofit executives who talk of the need to tuck in their advocacy sails. They are unsure they could keep their contracts if they became critics of government or private sector contractors. This is a very hard problem. It is the iron fist behind the Istook-type amendments (1) that seek to restrict advocacy by nonprofit organizations.

One possible response is for national offices of nonprofits to step up their advocacy on national and state policy. This might provide cover for locals who have to deliver on contracts day-to-day. One timely opportunity is to strenuously advocate using more than $3 billion now being sequestered by states in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money. Another is the billions more lying unspent for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Opening up these funding streams could literally transform human services. And, they could capitalize much of the internal management changes that nonprofits have to do.

It is in advocacy where the issue of values really rises up. In my view, nonprofits can do it much more effectively from the strength conferred by delivering excellent services. Some groups, of course, will do only advocacy. But, my reference point is those that choose affirmatively to engage in both.

At bottom, I am suggesting that nonprofits really have little choice. If they choose to compete, they must do it whole hog. They can distinguish themselves by systematically investing in IT, in management, and in their employees. By upgrading themselves, they upgrade their ability to compete and to advocate. When they do that, they will also advance their values of inclusion, civic engagement, democratic participation, and community building.

If we can join together and deliberately pool knowledge and strengths, I believe we can reach a new sectoral balance that gives a proper, important, and even enhanced place to the nonprofit sector. Most of all, I believe the sector can succeed if it starts first from the demonstrable quality of its work, not from the power of its vocal chords or its political muscle. As Christopher Marlowe once wrote, "Honor is purchased by the deeds we do." To that, I would add, robust health.


Note (1). Named after Ernest R. Istook, Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, who for several years has proposed legislation to restrict lobbying by nonprofits that receive government support.


References

Ehrenhalt, A. (1999, October 4). Demanding the right size government.

The New York Times, p. A27.[/list]

Fisher, Daniel. (1999). Grave Dancer.

Forbes (pg. 17.)[/list]

The house that Jack built. (1999, September 18).

The Economist, 23.[/list]

Wilgoren, Jodi. (1999, September 25). Aged Upstart, College Board, Is Joining Gold Rush on Web.

New York Times, p.A1.[/list]

Wollert, L. (1999, May 31). Maximus, Inc.: Welfare privatizer.

Business Week, p.76.[/list]

First, here's an earlier article from last year to provide some background.

The article below appears to be an updated version of one published two days prior; the earlier version was posted last November 3rd in the Mount Bachelor Academy Shut Down thread.

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KTVZ.com
November 5, 2009

Mt. Bachelor Academy Updates Its Defense
Says it will seek hearings, that some allegations pre-date changes

From KTVZ.COM news sources

The Oregon Department of Human Services has concluded a seven-month investigation into the programs of Mt. Bachelor Academy by ordering immediate closure of the specialty boarding school for troubled teens east of Prineville, accusing it of "abuse and neglect," and "serious violations of Oregon's licensing standards."

The closure of the school (http://www.mtba.com/) was deemed "temporary" in the announcement, but will continue "until further notice." The school said Wednesday it is working "dilligently" to place students elsewhere, but also revised and expanded its defense of its procedures, claiming it has yet to see the full state report but that some allegations apparently pre-date its revised procedures in 2002.

It's another major blow to the parent Aspen Education Group (http://www.aspeneducation.com),  which is dealing with an investigation of its Redmond-based SageWalk Wilderness School after a student died on a wilderness hike earlier this year.

Here is the full text of information about the Mt. Bchelor Academy investigation, provided late Tuesday by the state:

Mt. Bachelor Academy has been under investigation by the Department of Human Services Office of Investigations and Training (OIT) since March 2009, due to allegations of abuse. The OIT investigation is now complete and resulted in nine substantiated findings of child abuse and neglect against both the school's leadership and the therapeutic boarding school as a whole.

The DHS investigation revealed abuse and neglect, as well as serious violations of Oregon's licensing standards. As a result, DHS has determined that there is a serious and immediate health or safety risk to the children and Mt. Bachelor Academy. At this time, parents are being asked to begin making arrangements for their children to be removed from the Mt. Bachelor Academy.

November 2, 2009

Background Information: Mt. Bachelor Academy

Children, Adults and Families Division, Oregon Department of Human Services

Investigations conducted by the Oregon Department of Human Services at Mt. Bachelor Academy (MBA), a therapeutic boarding school located near Prineville, have resulted in nine substantiated findings of child abuse and neglect against the school's leadership and therapeutic program.

As a result of the abuse investigation and violations of Oregon's licensing standards, the state has ordered Mt. Bachelor Academy to temporarily cease all therapeutic, educational and residential services to children until further notice.

The abuse and neglect findings centered on the program as a whole, as well as the school's Executive Director, and involved five children who attended Mt. Bachelor Academy during 2007-2009. The results of the investigation are being provided to local law enforcement officials.

The investigation was conducted by the Office of Investigation and Training (OIT) at DHS. Investigators with OIT reported that all students at MBA were required to participate in "emotional growth" workshops, called Lifesteps, which included activities that were coercive, intimidating and humiliating -- including sexualized role play and reenactment of past traumatic events, such as prior physical or sexual abuse.

While the initial reports described concerns about Lifesteps, the investigation ultimately revealed serious safety concerns about MBA's curriculum and program as a whole. The experience of the five students was consistent with that of other children enrolled at the school. The report concluded that the experiences of "these five youth are exemplars of the program's treatment of its students as a whole."

As a result of the OIT investigation, DHS Children, Adults and Families Residential Treatment Services and Licensing found violations of state licensing standards for therapeutic boarding schools, and state officials will require MBA to cease providing therapeutic, educational and residential services to children.

The licensing program determined in its investigation that there are conditions present that immediately endanger the health and safety of the children enrolled at MBA. The program found that MBA's methods of educational instruction, emotional and behavioral intervention and daily interaction with students create an immediate threat which places all children at risk of harm.

Further, the investigation revealed that MBA has subjected children to Lifestep workshops as a therapy technique that is harmful and damaging to their health or welfare. In addition, that MBA has not provided the therapeutic treatment necessary for children to overcome or improve with substance abuse issues, mental health issues, eating disorders and other issues, nor provided qualified staff to treat such conditions.

The substantiated incidents of abuse or neglect are shown below:

• Mt. Bachelor Academy Executive Director neglected the care of four children by failing to ensure individualized and therapeutic treatment plans were developed to address past abuse and significant emotional and behavioral issues.

• The Mount Bachelor Academy program abused a child in 2007 by requiring the child to engage in sexualized role play in front of staff and peers.

• The Mount Bachelor program abused a second child in 2009 by requiring the child to make obscene and self-degrading comments out loud, in front of staff and peers. In addition, the Mount Bachelor program neglected the same child during 2008-2009 by failing to provide adequate medical care and supervision.

• The Mount Bachelor Academy program neglected a third child in 2009, by failing to provide adequate supervision during an international trip.

• The Mount Bachelor Academy program abused a fourth child in 2008 by requiring the child to engage in degrading activities such as acting out sexualized role play and physical abuse, and by being subjected to obscene and degrading comments by staff in front of other staff and peers.

• The Mount Bachelor Academy program abused a fifth child during 2009 by requiring and/or permitting staff to use derogatory names, phrases, ridicule and harassment.

• The Mount Bachelor Academy program neglected five children between 2007 and 2009 by failing to provide individualized treatment to meet their diagnosed mental health needs.

• The Mount Bachelor Academy program abused five children between 2007 and 2009 by requiring them to engage in activities that were coercive, intimidating, harassing, and/or humiliating.

The substantiated incidents meet Oregon's legal definition of child abuse because they were inconsistent with recommended and appropriate treatment or care, used derogatory names/phrases, profanity, ridicule, harassment, coercion, and/or intimidation that was likely to endanger the child's health or welfare. In addition, the activities subjected children to a substantial risk of harm to their health or welfare, and the adults failed to supervise or intervene when the child needed assistance or care, in an activity that was likely to endanger their health or welfare.

An expert in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry consulted by DHS as part of the investigation concluded: "In general, coercive, degrading and humiliating treatment is harmful to young people, especially those with psychological vulnerabilities. Young people (male and female) who have been victims of abuse often hold themselves responsible for the abuse, and develop sexualized behavior for reasons they often don't understand. To confront them and humiliate them about these behaviors in an effort to force them to see themselves more clearly and consequently change their behavior can be very destructive. It has the risk of reinforcing self-blame and self-loathing attitudes already present in traumatized individuals. It is essentially retraumatizing."

Today's report also includes a substantiated allegation of child abuse against the Executive Director of MBA as "the individual responsible for delivery of therapeutic care to MBA students."  In that role, the Executive Director "administers through staff an ‘emotional growth' curriculum in which all students must participate regardless of their emotional, behavioral or mental health needs, and regardless of their own trauma histories.  This curriculum is delivered by staff who are not trained to treat the broad range of issues the children bring, and who routinely degrade and humiliate them." The report concludes that the Executive Director, "knew or should have known what happens to students in [the] program."

Mt. Bachelor Academy is a licensed Therapeutic Boarding School, located in a rural area, 26 miles east of Prineville, Oregon, licensed originally in 1988. The school admits both male and female students who are from age 14 to 17.5 at the time of admission, although some children are admitted pursuant to an exception as young as age 13. The total capacity is 125 students and the average length of stay is 14-16 months. Tuition is $6,400 a month with an additional up front, one time $2,200 enrollment fee. Other service fees are not included. In 2008, Mt. Bachelor was reorganized and became a program of Aspen Education Group. Aspen was recently acquired by CRC Health Group, Inc. In March of 2009, MBA had approximately 77 staff and 88 boarding students.

Last March, the state received reports of child abuse against Mt. Bachelor Academy, initially concerning the Lifesteps program at MBA. OIT is a division of DHS that investigates allegations of abuse by paid staff in various therapeutic or treatment settings, and OIT handled the investigation of the reports of abuse at MBA. There were two investigators primarily assigned to go to Prineville and interview people on campus. In addition, the office used three other investigators to conduct witness interviews of people in- and out-of-state. The investigators conducted interviews involving 65 witnesses, including MBA students and staff, along with licensed therapists familiar with individual students. Investigators consulted with a medical expert certified in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and they reviewed documents and photographed materials used as part of the MBA therapy program.  

At the same time, the DHS Licensing program investigated standards for health and safety and looked at the school's compliance with Oregon Administrative Rules related to their license as a therapeutic boarding school. Licensing notified MBA that they were prohibited from conducting their own investigation into the allegations of abuse reported to have occurred; prohibited from destroying or otherwise concealing school or student records; prohibited from disciplining or threatening discipline to students interviewed during the investigation; prohibited from conducting Lifesteps activities until further notice. Parents of students were notified of the investigation.

A "Therapeutic boarding school" is a program that is primarily a school and not a residential care agency (as defined in OAR 413-215-0506). Therapeutic boarding schools are licensed to provide both educational services and care to children for 24 hours a day and hold themselves out as serving children with emotional or behavioral problems by providing therapeutic services or assuring that children receive therapeutic services.

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Revised statement from Sharon Bitz, Executive Director, Mount Bachelor Academy

"The state's action on Monday was deeply disappointing to Mount Bachelor Academy after all of our cooperative efforts these past months. We intend to do everything possible to defend the excellent record of our staff of dedicated professionals built over more than 20 years at Mount Bachelor, and to refute these erroneous allegations.

We are told that the state's order to suspend operations at Mount Bachelor was largely based on a 200-page report that we still have not been given. However, from what we read in the media, it appears that the report includes allegations that date back as far as 10 to 12 years, many of which were based on a prior treatment process that was overhauled in 2002.

Mount Bachelor places a high value on compliance and being viewed by the state as a good operator. As a result, our staff cooperated fully throughout the DHS inquiry, and made a number of changes based on the limited information the state shared with us about its concerns.

The state's sudden action was not only erroneous but also created an unnecessary burden of distress and disruption for our students and their families. At this point, we are doing everything we can to protect our students and assist our families in making orderly and appropriate arrangements for their children in alternative programs.

At the same time, we are aggressively pursuing legal options, including requesting hearings to overturn the order issued by DHS and to contest the findings by the Office of Investigations and Training.

For decades, Mount Bachelor Academy has enjoyed a solid reputation as a quality, accredited therapeutic boarding school for teens with behavioral, emotional or motivational problems or special learning needs.

We remain proud of Mount Bachelor's record of life-changing, positive results for young people in our care, and confident in the professional conduct of our staff who have committed their careers to making a difference in the lives of young people and their families. Mount Bachelor has been recognized for comprehensive therapeutic best practices and safety protocols, and has independent verification of its success through participation in third-party outcome studies with oversight by the Western Institutional Review Board.

Throughout the inquiry, we have been heartened by the overwhelming support from Mount Bachelor Academy alumni and current students and families. More than 100 individual letters and a letter with roughly 200 signatures were filed with the Oregon DHS in support of our school."


Copyright 2010 KTVZ.

The Portland Press Herald
October 3, 2010

Panel reviewing discipline in schools
Are Maine's laws vague and inconsistent or do they allow for discretion when appropriate?

By Kelley Bouchard · [email protected]


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