http://wcpo.com/wcpo/localshows/iteam/92a2f60.htmlNov 13: Kids Helping Kids
Reported and Web Produced by:
Hagit Limor
Photographed by: Anthony Mirones
Updated: 11/13/05 22:48:36
Clyde Gray on set: Tonight, a rare look behind the walls of a controversial program to help kids kick drugs.
Carol Williams on set: The program is called Kids Helping Kids. It has support in high political offices.
But some call it a cult. What's the truth? The I-Team's Hagit Limor has been investigating.
Hagit Limor on set: Some say it saved their lives. Some say it scarred them for life. A program, or something to de-program?
For all the controversy, Kids Helping Kids let our cameras inside for an unprecedented look, behind the locked doors.
Penny Walker on videotape: "It is a secure facility. Our doors are locked."
Hagit Limor narration: YOU'RE ABOUT TO ENTER A PLACE OF DESPERATION AND HOPE.
WHERE THE TACTICS MAY SEEM BIZARRE
AND AT TIMES ROBOTIC.
BUT WHERE FUTURES, CHANGE.
Penny Walker on videotape: "We are a strong program. I won't deny that."
Hagit Limor narration: FOR THE BETTER?
Brandon Blaquiere on videotape: "I have a chance to get my life back."
Hagit Limor narration: OR WORSE.
Former KHK Graduate on videotape: "I feel like I've been trying to deprogram myself for years."
Hagit Limor on videotape: "Are you brainwashing?" Penny Walker on videotape: (laughs) "No!"
Hagit Limor narration: IN THE EARLY MORNING, A CAR PULLS UP TO THIS NONDESCRIPT BUILDING IN MILFORD.
IT IS NO ORDINARY CAR POOL.
ONE TEEN CLEARLY IS IN CHARGE OF ANOTHER.
HE'S THE OLDCOMER, A VETERAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS NEWCOMER, WHO JUST ARRIVED AT KIDS HELPING KIDS.
Martha Logan on videotape: "There was no place else to turn."
Hagit Limor narration: PARENTS SAY IT'S THE DRUG TREATMENT OF LAST RESORT.
Martha Logan on videotape: "He threatened (chokes up) He threatened suicide twice and was in the hospital."
Hagit Limor narration: MARTHA LOGAN DRIVES 240 MILES A DAY TO TRANSPORT HER SON AND HIS NEWCOMERS WHO SPEND NIGHTS IN HER HOME TO A PROGRAM THAT COSTS MORE THAN $20,000, INSURANCE MAY OR MAY NOT COVER.
Current KHK Staffer: "Today what we're going to talk about is previous attempts at sobriety."
Hagit Limor narration: THE KIDS SIT IN RAP SESSIONS MUCH OF THE DAY.
Current KHK client: "I couldn't associate with anybody unless I was high."
Hagit Limor narration: NEWCOMERS, ON FIRST PHASE UP TO SIX MONTHS, CAN'T: GO HOME OR TO SCHOOL, LISTEN TO MUSIC, WATCH TV, OR TALK TO EACH OTHER. IN GROUP? NO ONE TALKS WITHOUT PERMISSION, THEY GET THROUGH CERTAIN HAND GESTURES.
Hagit Limor on videotape: "When you first came in and you saw this, what did you think of it?" Brandon Blaquiere on videotape: "I thought everybody was crazy."
Hagit Limor narration: BRANDON BLAQUIERE'S BEEN HERE EIGHT MONTHS.
Brandon Blaquiere on videotape: "My use had started progressing to the point it was uncontrollable."
Hagit Limor narration: BLAQUIERE IS "WORKING THE PROGRAM." THAT MEANS RAISING YOUR ARM RAMROD STRAIGHT, IN GROUP SESSIONS, SINGING KIDS' SONGS AND ON CUE DOING THIS. THEY CALL IT: MOTIVATING.
YOU HAVE TO PARTICIPATE TO PROGRESS TO PHASE TWO - YOU GET TO GO TO YOUR OWN HOME AT NIGHT. PHASE THREE - YOU GO BACK TO SCHOOL. 5 PHASES IN ALL, TO GRADUATE.
Hagit Limor on videotape: "What about the motivating and the arm holding and the hand gestures has helped you kick drugs?" Brandon Blaquiere on videotape: "When staff sees me raise my hand all day long or staff sees me motivate 'til I'm about to fall out of my chair / It shows that I have willingness. You know these things are so simple that they mean so much."
Ed Norton on videotape: "The hand signals, the waving of your hands in the air, the sitting there all day is insane."
Hagit Limor narration: ED NORTON'S PARENTS PULLED HIM OUT OF THE PROGRAM HE CALLS:
Ed Norton on videotape: "It's a cult. / They tell you it's a long term program. They don't say it's a brainwashing camp."
Former KHK Graduate on videotape: "I didn't know who I was any more. I identified with them so much I lost who I am."
Hagit Limor narration: THIS GRADUATE TOOK 16 MONTHS TO GET THROUGH THE PROGRAM.
Former KHK Graduate on videotape: "I call it brainwashing. I call it cult-like tactics."
Hagit Limor narration: WHY? FIRST, THERE'S "CONTROL" BY OTHER KIDS.
Former KHK Graduate on videotape: "Oldcomers have complete power over you."
Ed Norton on videotape: "They'd throw me to the ground. Usually my head would hit the ground pretty hard and everyone's got to turn their head the other way."
Hagit Limor narration: THERE'S NO "PRIVACY", ANYWHERE, EVER.
THEN THERE'S WHAT WE HEARD IN THIS SMALLER SESSION FOR KIDS IN LATER PHASES:
Current KHK client: "It's really hard / saying I can't talk to you."
Hagit Limor narration: THEY CAN'T TALK TO OUTSIDERS NOT APPROVED BY KHK.
Former KHK Graduate on videotape: "This is why I do classify this place as a cult, because you're not allowed to make any contact with people outside the program. If you do the other oldcomers that are with you at school are supposed to tell on you."
Hagit Limor narration: AND THAT COULD GET YOU STARTED OVER, FROM PHASE ONE.
Diane Norton on videotape: "No one should be abused emotionally or physically in the name of treatment."
Hagit Limor narration: ED NORTON'S PARENTS SAY HE STILL HAS NIGHTMARES ABOUT HIS TIME AT KHK. HE'S SOBER NOW, IN JAIL.
Penny Walker on videotape: "We don't abuse our kids!"
Hagit Limor narration: PENNY WALKER'S RUN KIDS HELPING KIDS FOR 23 YEARS.
Penny Walker on videotape: "We deal with difficult kids and sometimes difficult families and we're not going to please everybody."
Hagit Limor narration: WALKER SAYS THE PROGRAM HAS CHANGED OVER TIME, ELIMINATING SOME OF THE EXTREME RESTRAINTS FORMER CLIENTS DESCRIBED TO THE I-TEAM.
Hagit Limor on videotape: "When kids have power over kids, can that be abused?" Penny Walker on videotape: "It can be. We watch very diligently for that. / What has changed is we don't tolerate violence any more. We used to."
Hagit Limor narration: SO WHY NEED ALL THOSE RULES AND STRANGE BEHAVIORS?
Penny Walker on videotape: "It's part of the discipline and the structure. / Certainly I understand that motivating looks bizarre / It's good exercise. I mean, the kids sitting in there in group for long periods of time, it really gets their blood moving and that kind of thing."
Hagit Limor narration: BOTH THE STATE OF OHIO AND BUTLER COUNTY RECENTLY INVESTIGATED KIDS HELPING KIDS, AND FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF ABUSE OR NEGLECT. THE PROGRAM TOUTS SUPPORT FROM LOCAL SENATORS, REPRESENTATIVES AND BUSINESS LEADERS.
WALKER SAYS THE PROGRAM IS NOT A CULT.
Hagit Limor on videotape: "Are you brainwashing?" / Penny Walker on videotape: "No! I don't think we're brain washing them. / We're not trying to control their minds. We're trying to give THEM control. We're trying to empower kids to make good decisions for themselves."
Hagit Limor narration: THE LONG DAY ENDS AS THE KIDS MOVE TO THEIR HOST HOMES, WHERE THE RULES REMAIN, AS DOES THE CONTROVERSY.
Hagit Limor on videotape: "Without this where would your son be or where would you be?" Martha Logan: "Dead. Either I'd be dead or he'd be dead."
Hagit Limor narration: BUT SOME PARENTS DISAGREE.
Peter Norton on videotape: "I was appalled at the stripping away of all rights."
Hagit Limor narration: WHILE SOME CALL IT THERAPY
Brandon Blaquiere on videotape: "I would not have finished school. I don't think I'd be alive today."
Hagit Limor narration: OTHERS CALL IT OVER THE LINE
Former KHK Graduate on videotape: "I feel like I've been trying to deprogram myself for years."
Hagit Limor on set: The director of Kids Helping Kids also sent us a follow-up email to stress: "Kids Helping Kids is a community, not a cult." She says all those rules provide the structure these kids need to kick drugs.
And I want to point out, we blurred the faces of teens to hide the identities of all but those whom Penny Walker told us we had permission through the kids and their parents.
