[mercyteapot]

I remember the court case mentioned in part 2 of this article. What stuns me about these articles is that from the descriptions of most of the teenagers mentioned, it doesn't sound to me like there'd even be reason to consider such harsh intervention. I am of mixed feelings about many ''boot camps''; not about the physical abuse, but about their value otherwise for kids with far more serious behavior problems- the kind that really would land them in either prison or the morgue. This place sounds like it would take any kid as long as the parents ante up the cash, whether the child has problems or not.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magaz...87172,00.html#

http://education.guardian.co.uk/scho...987933,00.html

[elkpark]

I've been a child psych CS/therapist for many years now, and I've had first- and second-hand contact with a number of these programs. I also worked as a psych surveyor/investigator for my state for a number of years and part of my job was inspecting the "therapeutic camps" in our state. Yes, many of them (the private-for-profit outifts) will take any kid whose parents are willing to pay the exhorbitant fees, whether the kid actually doesn't have any serious problems at all, or whether the kid's problems are far more serious than what the camp is qualified and prepared to handle (they usually have some sort of disclaimer on the website and in the literature about how they don't take kids who have significant psychiatric problems -- but then they take them anyway ...) I understand that many of these parents are desperate and grasping at straws, but I put a lot of blame on them, too -- what kind of parent would actually leave her/his child in a facility where the staff meet you at the main gate (far from the actual facility), take the kid from you, and tell you that you (the parent) are not allowed inside to see what the living conditions are like? And tell you that you're not allowed to speak to your child by telephone while they're in the program? (I don't mean that the kid is not allowed to call you -- I mean that if you, the parent, call up the camp and tell them you want to speak to your child, they will tell you no, that's against the rules.) (This actually was happening in facilities I surveyed in my state, and parents didn't seem to be bothered by this -- BTW, the conditions we found in the "camps" were like prison camps.) The whole "transferring custody" issue is v. sticky legally, too -- who in their right mind would sign over legal custody of their child to a bunch of strangers, sight unseen???

As my state and others have gotten wise and increased the oversight and regulation of these type programs, more and more of them have moved "offshore" to places like Mexico and Jamaica, where the authorities don't pay so much attention to how kids get treated. And they're making a fortune -- these programs cost almost nothing to run, and they charge outrageous fees.

There's not even any good evidence (that I'm aware of) that these programs are even successful -- sure, the kids change their behavior while they're at the facility and at the mercy of the thugs who staff the place ... But the companies that own these places don't want any follow-up studies that would look at whether they have any lasting impact, and, in the cases I'm aware of, the kids have slowly reverted back to the same old behaviors after they got home (unless the parents have made significant changes during the same time period and the home environment is changed, which doesn't happen that often). Plain ol' fear is not a good long-term motivator for behavior change -- as soon as people aren't afraid anymore, they're no longer motivated to behave differently ...

[mercyteapot]

Originally Posted by elkpark

I've been a child psych CS/therapist for many years now, and I've had first- and second-hand contact with a number of these programs. I also worked as a psych surveyor/investigator for my state for a number of years and part of my job was inspecting the "therapeutic camps" in our state. Yes, many of them (the private-for-profit outifts) will take any kid whose parents are willing to pay the exhorbitant fees, whether the kid actually doesn't have any serious problems at all, or whether the kid's problems are far more serious than what the camp is qualified and prepared to handle (they usually have some sort of disclaimer on the website and in the literature about how they don't take kids who have significant psychiatric problems -- but then they take them anyway ...) I understand that many of these parents are desperate and grasping at straws, but I put a lot of blame on them, too -- what kind of parent would actually leave her/his child in a facility where the staff meet you at the main gate (far from the actual facility), take the kid from you, and tell you that you (the parent) are not allowed inside to see what the living conditions are like? And tell you that you're not allowed to speak to your child by telephone while they're in the program? (I don't mean that the kid is not allowed to call you -- I mean that if you, the parent, call up the camp and tell them you want to speak to your child, they will tell you no, that's against the rules.) (This actually was happening in facilities I surveyed in my state, and parents didn't seem to be bothered by this -- BTW, the conditions we found in the "camps" were like prison camps.) The whole "transferring custody" issue is v. sticky legally, too -- who in their right mind would sign over legal custody of their child to a bunch of strangers, sight unseen???

As my state and others have gotten wise and increased the oversight and regulation of these type programs, more and more of them have moved "offshore" to places like Mexico and Jamaica, where the authorities don't pay so much attention to how kids get treated. And they're making a fortune -- these programs cost almost nothing to run, and they charge outrageous fees.

There's not even any good evidence (that I'm aware of) that these programs are even successful -- sure, the kids change their behavior while they're at the facility and at the mercy of the thugs who staff the place ... But the companies that own these places don't want any follow-up studies that would look at whether they have any lasting impact, and, in the cases I'm aware of, the kids have slowly reverted back to the same old behaviors after they got home (unless the parents have made significant changes during the same time period and the home environment is changed, which doesn't happen that often). Plain ol' fear is not a good long-term motivator for behavior change -- as soon as people aren't afraid anymore, they're no longer motivated to behave differently ...

The parent that struck me the most as needing a wake up call was the one who said he had twin boys with his new wife and his teenaged son was a "disruptive force" in the household. Yes, bringing a teenager into your new family is going to change the dynamic, Sherlock. It sounded to me like Dad just wanted to dispose of this kid and get on with his happy new life. None of this kid's behaviors sounded extreme at all. I've got a teenage son who is for the most part a good kid and God knows how much we love him, but honestly, there are days when I long for that sweet little boy he used to be. He can turn snarly and disrespectful in the blink of an eye, because that's what adolescents do. It hardly means we're going to send him away, though. I can't help wondering what the long term effects of this kind of treatment will be.