I have not posted on here in quite a while. I am the mother of one of the "teens", who was at HLA for a very long time and at her encouragement, I have periodically read on the website and a long time ago, posted some thoughts. I am saddened to see so much time wasted on accusations and banter that has nothing to do with addressing the sad state of options to parents with very dire parental situations, relating to their teens/family's health and well-being. Like most parents involved in deeply troubled home circumstances, I was in desperate straights, when I had a adolescent attorney, at the advice of Children's Hospital in Washington D.C., help me wrest my daughter from a placement at RICA/Mark Twain(coincidentally, this is the same place that the male teen minority, known sexual predator, allowed to attend her middle school, who sexually harrassed her attended, that I had had to pay an attorney to force the Montgomery County Court to make the public school get him away from my daughter, so she had the right to go to school and attempt to get an education, without the predator in her proximity), in Rockville, MD. The High School she attended fought me on services to assist her declining state of health, until they deemed her to be totally not serviceable and could refer her off to the highest level of public/mental incarceration. For the past 40 years, I have had knowledge of and experience with family challenges and no different than back in the 60's, 70's and on, there is still more fighting and misunderstanding of defining the problem, than there is in any appropriate dialogue about solutions. That goes for the institution, the parents, and the now adults, who endured placement at any "solution" that parents were "stuck" with in an attempt to address, what they felt was a "dire" circumstance.
My suggestion - parents truly want loving options, rather than fight about who is lying about stuff here, you seem like incredibly intelligent people, where are your alternative solutions to the next set of parents that come along with life-threatening circumstances or legal ramifications, where they are being forced by society, to "do something"?
That is what I'd like to see......