“Does my teen need help?”
The McGill Daily’s Nadja Popovich looks at abuse in “tough love” rehabilitation facilities for teens.
In 2006, Martin Anderson, a 14-year-old Florida teenager, died at a “boot camp” for troubled teens. When a video surfaced showing a group of guards repeatedly attacking the teen while a nurse appeared to look on, public outcry against this type of correctional facility came to a boiling point. Amid controversy over whether Anderson’s sickle-cell blood trait was the cause of death, the verdict was finally rendered that he had, in fact, died of suffocation from the guards’ abuse.
While Anderson’s boot camp was a state-run facility, privately-owned versions abound. “Tough-love” rehabilitation camps for teens are prevalent throughout the United States, with a disturbing lack of formal regulation.
“No one knows how many of these programs there are out there. They aren’t very regulated,” says Maia Szalavitz, author of several articles and books on abuse in tough- love programs and senior fellow for Stats.org, a media watchdog web site. “Many programs work outside the States too: in Mexico, Samoa, Jamaica, all over really. And they have these incredibly ironic names. like ‘Tranquility Bay.’”
Though not always manifesting themselves as a “boot camp,” all of these so-called tough-love programs seem to be based on the same approach: with enough confrontation, kids may undergo a sort of “reality check” that will allow them to put their past behaviour behind them when reintegrated into society. But according to many recent studies, including a National Institute of Heath State-of-the-Science conference statement on Violence and Related Health-Risking Social Behaviour, this is simply not the case.
“No matter what these places may call themselves – boot camp, ‘tough-love’ drug rehab, or emotional-growth boarding schools, or wilderness programs – the basic concept is always the same: break the kids down in order to fix them,” says Szalavitz.
Though much more prevalent south of the border, it would be naïve to think that Canada was devoid of boot camp rehab centres.
“I was shocked this place existed in Canada!” attests Rebecca Smith, a former “client” of a Canadian tough-love drug rehabilitation facility. “My Canada, which I know has a great human rights record. I could not fathom that this place was allowed to exist. While there, more than once I said, ‘You can’t do this! I have rights!’… and they said, ‘Druggies don’t have rights.’”
The breakdown
Szalavitz has traced the proliferation of most modern teen rehabilitation programs from Synanon, the first “tough-love” rehabilitation prototype, in Santa Monica, California. Initially a drug rehabilitation centre in the late fifties, Syanon gained cult status by the seventies, before it closed its doors in the 1990s. Its legacy still casts a large shadow on the drug rehabilitation field.
Founded in 1958, it was the first program of its kind, and it promised “lifetime rehabilitation.” The basic therapeutic idea behind Synanon was a “game” in which youths were encouraged to use humiliation and insults to break each other down. The organization, by then named the Church of Synanon, was raking in millions each year. It gained public infamy after a report was issued by a Grand Jury accusing the facility of child abuse – stunningly, no steps were taken to shut down the organization at the time. Synanon closed in 1991, however, facing financial problems and a multitude of allegations.
Since the closure of Syanon, a host of other tough-love teen rehab programs have come and gone. Even with crusaders like Szalavitz making their cases against these programs, the moment one centre closes, another one opens.
The latest in a line of controversies came from a rehabilitation chain named Kids Inc., a successor to Synanon’s breakdown model. Though no Canadian Kids programs were ever officially opened, so many Canadian youths were sent to Kids of Bergen County in northern New Jersey that a Kids of the Canadian West program, based in Alberta, was in the works in the early 1990s. But following several allegations of abuse against various Kids facilities, centres all over the United States were shut down.
Plans for such a Canadian Kids facility were scrapped. Instead, the man set to head the Kids camp in Alberta, Dr. Dean Vause, went on to found his own facility: the Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre (AARC), in Calgary. While there have never been any formal charges laid, and the AARC firmly denies any allegations, a preliminary report done in 2003 by the nonprofit International Survivors Action Committee (ISAC) concluded that the AARC bore an all-too-striking resemblance to its Kids predecessors.
“With respect to allegations of abuse, I have yet to encounter one,” an AARC representative wrote to The Daily in an email: “If this did occur, however, it would be considered a critical and urgent clinical issue to be addressed by our clinical committee.”
Confined to recovery
One of the biggest problems with many of these programs is that they promise a quick-fix solution to deep-seated psychological problems. Usually these tough-love facilities are not staffed with psychological professionals.
The AARC, for one, touts its “teen-on-teen” care as integral to the rehabilitation process. “Addicts are adept at manipulating and conning others. But they can’t con a con,” reads the AARC web site. In fact, many peer counsellors are graduates of the program itself. “They know all the lines and have heard all the excuses – they’ve used them. Many counsellors have degrees, giving them a powerful blend of real life experience and clinical expertise.”
This model, however, cannot provide kids with adequate psychological help if they really do need it, asserts Szalavitz. Helpatanycost.com, Szalavitz’s accompaniment to her book of the same name, notes that one of the major questions parents should ask when considering sending their wayward children to one of these programs is: “What are the qualifications of the line staff who work directly with the teens?” According to Szalavitz, anything less than a Masters-level psychology degree for all group leaders should be considered a red flag.
Meanwhile, what Rebecca Smith and many other clients of tough-love programs find most unsettling about these facilities is the basic and uncompromising confinement that is integral to the rehabilitation models. As minors, teens have no control over their placement or stay at rehabilitation programs. As long as they are deemed “in need,” their parents can send them to any private rehabilitation facility, separated from friends, family, and the greater world, for an indefinite period of time.
This unconditional confinement is frustrating for those enrolled in these programs, but it can also be dangerous. Though she has grouped a wide range of programs into the tough-love category, Szalavitz argues that categorizing a program as specifically for “troubled” teens leaves youth stigmatized and vulnerable. When combined with a lack of control over their own circumstances, this labelling can prove deadly.
Szalavitz recounts a story from her book about a teen named Aaron Bacon who died of internal bleeding after a treatable ulcer ate through his stomach lining in 1994, during a “wilderness therapy” excursion.
“The ulcer could have been treated with over-the-counter medication,” she says, “but, instead, it ate through his abdomen over the course of several weeks. The program insisted he was faking.”
“An ‘outward bound’ trip with so-called normal kids can be very good and nurturing,” she continues. “But that’s with normal kids, so, [if you complain of something being wrong] you’ll be believed.”
Troubling labels
Tough-love programs’ remarkably low requirements for admittance is another troubling element, according to Szalavitz.
“I would call [what really drives admittance] a wallet biopsy,” she says. “If the parent can afford it, the child needs the program…[and] if you fill out any of the forms you can make a normal teenager seem troubled. These are not legitimate mental health evaluations.”
One web site, bootcampsforteens.com, offers a “Does My Teen Need Help?” section to guide parents through the process of evaluating their child’s “need” for these camps, concluding with: “When it comes to seeking help for a child in danger it is better to have sought help a little too early than a little too late.”
Not according to Szalavitz, however.
“Some [parents] have been terrorized by the drug war into thinking, ‘Oh my God, my kid is smoking pot, they’ll become a heroin addict.’ This won’t happen; the vast majority of marijuana users never even try heroin. People think, ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry,’ but these programs aren’t safe,” Szalavitz says.
She argues that most teens do not need medical attention for being “troubled,” arguing that developing better communication with teens and family therapy sessions with schooled psychiatrists, social workers, or psychologists as one route, and postsecondary education as another.
“If you actually want to prevent long-term addiction, get your kids through college!... Finding meaning and purpose in their life is the key to overcoming addiction, and you can’t force people to find meaning and purpose.”
Some names have been changed in this article to protect the privacy of those involved
Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily
Comments
Ursus wrote:
Interested readers of this piece would do well to check out an AARC Survivor forum containing several survivor stories from this criminal enterprise: http://fornits.com/smf/index.php?board=4.0
There are also other boards/forums on fornits pertinent to other programs/cults also mentioned in Popovich's article.
Thank you for bringing attention to this disgraceful history of abuse.
Apr 08 at 05:27 AM
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Greg Elliott wrote:
AARC uses a practise that is a hallmark of Kids, which had itself descended from Straight. The clients are separated from their families, spending nights in the family homes of other clients, called oldcomers. The oldcomer is given control of the newcomer, and in fact the oldcomers locks the newcomer in their shared bedroom at night. My spouse was in AARC from 1995 until 1997. She was sexually abused by a male oldcomer in his home. Additionally she was assaulted by several other female oldcomers in their homes. The host home practise is still used in a variety of Straight-descended programs. After being assaulted she was accused of self-mutillation and deemed to be suicidal. She did not, at any point in her stay in AARC, see a psychiatrist. Nor did she see her Probation Officer, despite the fact that she entered into AARC as a condition of a court sentence.
Apr 08 at 09:44 AM
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Greg Elliott wrote:
One of AARC's stated goals is expansion. For anyone struck by the notion that a version of AARC is needed in your area, here are a few facts: Prior to starting AARC, Dean Vause was not a doctor. He obtained a PhD from The Union Institute, after writing a Project Demonstrating Excellence about his own facility. He is not licensed as a psychologist in Alberta, and, as of this writing, none of the clinical staff are. The clinical staff is composed of former clients and Vause's step-daughter. AARC has never been licensed as a treatment facilty. It's only official mandate is to receive money as a registered charity. Three graduates, out of a total under four hundred in fifteen years, have been charged in relation to murders in the last twelve months. As for allegations of abuse, I reported a number directly to the Minister of Justice, whose ringing endorsement of Vause and AARC, given in the Alberta Legislature, feature prominently on AARC's website. The Minister referred me to a Deputy Minister in Health and Wellness, although Health and Wellness does not license nor regulate AARC. The Deputy Minister told me to call the child abuse hotline, after statting that it would be difficult to fully investigate "the disturbing allegations" I had made.
Coming soon to an industrial park near you.
Apr 08 at 11:04 AM
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Charles Carlin wrote:
I appreciate the concern the author is expressing about abuse in therapeutic programs. Those abuses are real and ought to be addressed. However, to say that the basic concept in all such programs is to break clients down in order to fix them is simply false and clouds the issue.
In wilderness programs, where I work, for example, there are a huge range of programs varying from the abusive programs described in this article to clinically sophisticated and supportive programs geared towards insight oriented therapy. Such programs utilize the healing power of wilderness in a caring and supportive way.
To simply lump all therapeutic programs in with the Synanon legacy dilutes the author's argument because it is so easily contradicted. It would be much more helpful to specifically identify abusive approaches, such as Synanon's, to identify where they are being used, and to advocate both for the closure of abusive programs as well as acknowledging supportive and successful treatment approaches utilized by other programs.
Charles Carlin Second Nature Entrada
Apr 08 at 12:45 PM
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Ursus wrote:
Not wishing to "simply lump all therapeutic programs in with the Synanon legacy" as Mr. Carlin suggests, it might nonetheless be helpful to point out to savvy readers that all four of Second Nature's Founder/Partners worked at Aspen Achievement Academy and/or Aspen Ranch prior to forming Second Nature.
While Second Nature's approach may appear clinically more sophisticated to some, to others it may feel more like "same old sh!t, different wrapper."
Apr 08 at 03:03 PM
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greg elliott wrote:
Among other sophisticated treatment techniques employed at AARC is the use of snitches. On a field trip away from AARC in 1996, the vehicle in which my spouse and her fellow AARC clients were travelling broke down. A passer-by picked up the group, and drove them back into town. My spouse sat in the front seat. Upon arriving in Calgary, one of the girls reported my spouse to AARC staff for failing to ask the driver to change the radio to ShineFM, the Christian station that was, at the time, the only station to which clients were permitted to listen. This infraction resulted in my spouse being set back in her "program of treatment".
Apr 08 at 03:36 PM
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Carey wrote:
This is a very good article. It addresses a lot of the concerns that we as advocates have with regard to the placement of teens in programs that are aimed at "modifying" behavior.
I say kudos to Popovich and Szalavitz for their hard work on this very controversial topic.
To learn more about this unregulated industry and the people who profit off of it visit my website at www.careybock.com.
Apr 10 at 02:15 PM
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Christine Melbourn wrote:
Addiction disorders affect 5 percent of the population. Programs like WWASP and those offered by PURE are fraudulent at best. True addiction requires intervention, not just a college education, as suggested by Szalavitz. Both the extreme approach of WWASP/PURE (the Sue Scheff model) and the author are simplistic and wrong. Get information from experts like those from the National Institute of Drug Abuse and those who are experts in psychiatric disorders. Keep your kids close to home, but get help from highly educated and trained medical experts. Neither PURE/WWASP nor Szalavitz are educated or trained in adolescent addiction or phychiatric brain disorders. Get the facts.
Apr 12 at 04:33 PM
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Greg Elliott wrote:
The Seed, the original spin-off of Synanon, was given one million dollars by M. Melbourne's NIDA. The founder of Nida, Robert Dupont, was a paid consultant of the Seed's spin-off Straight. Miller Newton, who started Kids, was the Clinical Director of Straight prior to starting Kids. Get the facts.
Apr 13 at 10:41 AM
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Greg Elliott wrote:
All of the Synanons, including AARC, were founded by amateurs, and all received money from government agencies in spite of their complete lack of proven scientific merit. Chuck Dederich founded the Synanon. He was a failed stand-up comedian. Art Barker, founder of the Seed, was also a failed comedian. Miller Newton, Clinical Director of Straight and founder of Kids, had two PhD degrees from the Union Institute, the same Union Institute that provided AARC's Dean Vause with his PhD. The Seed and Straight relied on government grants, and AARC has received millions from the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, in spite of it's lack of a license, and the indisputable fact that it evolved out of Chuck Dederich's religious group. Get the facts.
Apr 13 at 11:30 AM
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Janyce Lastman LL.B., Education Consultant, Case Manager wrote:
I am an education consultant who has worked with youth and families across Canada for more than 20 years.
I share Ms Popovich's concern for the welfare of teens in care. She correctly asserts that indifference and neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, unethical business practices, corruption and greed have all occurred in publicly-funded and private programs purporting to help troubled teens. However, her one-sided article that categorizes all residential therapeutic teen programs as dangerous, corrupt and abusive. This is not only misguided but incorrect, and represents highly irresponsible journalism at that. Her article relies heavily on Maia Szalavitz’s well-intentioned but highly biased book Help at Any Cost which I reviewed for professional purposes when first published in 2006. http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/publish/article_5278.shtml
Families in crisis are vulnerable and often conflicted. They deserve understanding and support - not scorn and derision – for doggedly pursuing alternatives often at great personal sacrifice and financial hardship. Despite Ms Popovich’s off-handed references to “Canadian programs”, effective, appropriate and accessible placements or therapeutic growth opportunities for teens and families in crisis within this country, are few and far between. The families I see who seek assistance beyond our borders are exhausted and desperate. They have already tried multiple interventions, strategies and therapies, sometimes for years, only to see issues spiraling out of control. Just this month, frustrated parents forced to pay for private treatment for their children dubbed themselves The Tragically OHIP, and rallied along with their children to highlight the appalling shortage of funded residential therapeutic treatment in Ontario for teens with substance abuse and addiction issues and mental health challenges http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/414567 .
In her article, Ms Popovich maligns this very necessary and misunderstood industry as a whole, based on completely unacceptable actions of a few. However, the majority of adolescent residential therapeutic programs are licensed, regulated, well established and effectively run by dedicated, ethical and competent staff including psychologists, RN’s, MD’s and psychiatrists. These well-run, creative and compassionate residential treatment programs cannot be called “boot camps” any more than dedicated and caring teachers, religious or community youth leaders can be labeled child predators, despite some unfortunate crossover in both populations.
Without even a cursory attempt to investigate other views, Ms Popovich has not provided a cautionary tale. Instead, she exploits parents’ worst fears and uses the very scare-mongering and reactionary tactics that she criticizes in the marketing thrust of certain programs. Even more disappointing is that this piece does not reflect the high standards of thorough research and balanced reporting that generally characterizes our Canadian university presses.
Finally, for the record, I do not accept financial incentives from programs for referrals, nor do I work with programs that offer kickbacks. My education consulting practice is ethical, established and diverse, with high-risk adolescents forming only one portion. I have no vested interested in promoting any one “education experience” over another, but rather in providing information and advice that is balanced, practical and appropriate to each unique situation. Should Ms Popovich continue in journalism, I suggest she re-examine the importance of balanced reporting not just in terms of her professional responsibility as a journalist, but given her personal, moral responsibility as a Canadian.
—Janyce Lastman | Toronto
Apr 22 at 08:17 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in a facility where you aren't allowed private access to them "at any time" without any prior notice. You should be allowed to visit your child everyday, at any time you wish and also allowed to leave the grounds with them from day one.
Apr 22 at 08:22 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in any facility where they are isolated from communication with the outside world or are denied current events and media.
Apr 22 at 08:22 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in any facility that denies them the right to communicate, unmonitored, with you, an attorney or the authorities by phone at any time they wish.
Apr 22 at 08:23 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in any facility that is in another state or outside of the country.
Apr 22 at 08:24 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never sign waiver of rights or liabilities from physical or emotional harm done to your child. Never sign anything regarding your child without good legal counsel examining the contract to protect your family.
Apr 22 at 08:25 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in any facility where a level system is used as a means of progression. The first level or phase is where the nervous breakdown is incorporated and is a vital time to have access to your child to monitor their behavior yourself. You know your child best.
Apr 22 at 08:25 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never take any organization at their word, always demand evidence. If all of your questions aren't answered in full, there is probably something being hidden.
Apr 22 at 08:26 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never interview with "hand-picked" kids and parents, insist on talking with every child involved in the program in private. If this isn't allowed, leave immediately, this is a sign of hidden abuse.
Apr 22 at 08:26 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never allow your child to be placed in any section of a facility that you are not allowed to visit at any time.
Apr 22 at 08:27 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never give allegiance or obedience to any program, you are paying them for a service, they work for you. You are the boss. This is a sign of cult-like requests and is not an acceptable behavior from a legitimate organization.
Apr 22 at 08:28 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never make decisions based on emotions especially when amplified in an environment constructed purposefully to do just that. This is a well known tactic used to imply a false urgency in an admission interview.
Apr 22 at 08:28 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never believe false excuses produced by any organization about why you aren't allowed to see your child, speak to certain children or an explanation of your child being manipulative. These are all signs of secrecy and deception. These are trademarks of an abusive facility.
Apr 22 at 08:29 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in any facility where they aren't allowed to attend school or church from day one (in an environment apart from the facility).
Apr 22 at 08:29 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never place your child in any facility that claims to use treatment or therapy based on confrontation, a peer group, or getting the child to "open up and share personal information about themselves". These are tell-tale signs of brainwashing and should not be overlooked.
Apr 22 at 08:30 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never believe that you cannot be fooled. This industry is based on trickery, these tactics and methods have been used to deceive the most intelligent of people and have been refined over the years to specifically target desperate parents.
Apr 22 at 08:31 AM
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Tony wrote:
Never deny your gut instinct, even if everything seems emotionally pleasant, professional and logical, your gut instinct may be sensing something that your other capacities do not perceive. My father still remembers how his gut instinct was telling him something was wrong when he put me in the program, and wishes he had acted upon this instinct by taking me home.
Apr 22 at 08:32 AM
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Tony wrote:
I would like to personally thank Nadja Popovich for writing this article. Having been placed in a program at age 14, I realize the importance of exposing the damaging methods that this industry continues to employ. I have thoroughly researched a vast array of programs for the last 6 months and have yet to find a program that I would consider effective or beneficial. Having experienced the insidious ways of a torturous program, I am keen to the warning signs of such programs and can identify detrimental methods, whereas others may not. Survivors of abusive programs might be hired as regulators to accompany State and Federal officials to investigate programs due to their innate ability to locate signs of psychological abuse in programs. We are interested in the safety and welfare of children and adolescents. We wish to put an end to the hidden abuse that we ourselves endured.
Apr 22 at 08:53 AM
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Gillian Findlay wrote:
To any who read this -- Tony and Greg in particular: As a journalist working for a Canadian current affairs program, I am interested in knowing more about the experiences of those who attended AARC. confidentiality assured. pls contact:
gillian.findlay@cbc.ca
May 06 at 02:47 PM
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Greg Elliott wrote:
Fortunately for Janyce the same kind of people who shipped their offspring from Calgary to Kids of Bergen County still exist.
May 07 at 02:06 PM
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T. Brown wrote:
I am the mother of a young man currently in AARC. He's been in this facility since the summer of 2007 and has recently turned 18.
We were grossly deceived by this program, it's destroyed my family.
The program claims a client's home is not safe to live in until further in treatment so the client stays with another family until the whole family has gone through therapy. The key issue with this concept is that to restore the family unit the family needs to talk to each other. This does NOT happen at AARC.
AARC claims you speak to your child, but it is a closely monitored exercise in which the client explains an experience of drug or alcohol use. The parents say "I love you" and that is all. I don't consider this conversation and I don't consider this therapy. This type of exercise would not restore the family unit. In addition to this, the "Talk" exercise is only allowed if the client has "earned the right".
My son has an autistic sibling. I was under the impression that my son and I would meet at the program twice a week for family therapy. This is not what happened. We were required to attend the program twice a week for a lecture by Dean Vause which didn't vary much from week to week. Even though the topics would change the content was the same. We are told our children are bad, they hurt us, they have an incurable disease and we need to detach from our children and work our own program to protect ourselves when our kids hurt us. Example after example of former client's "gone wrong" were given to us, those who took their own lives, took the lives of others, were in jail or for whatever reason no longer with the AARC program. The only former clients who seemed to be ok after graduation were those still directly connected to the program. We are told some our kids will die in treatment, this is terrifying! They hold the parents hostage through fear, guilt and manipulation. They withhold information and gain your compliance bit by bit. Once you comply with anything they ask you are basically hooked.
While in AARC my younger autistic son was being counseled without my knowledge or consent, he was given a workbook to complete that was totally beyond his reading and comprehension level. This workbook has been evaluated by professionals and deemed to have no therapeutic value and could only be detrimental in the context of family therapy. In addition to this the leading questions only isolate the family members opposed to uniting them.
The program was highly bizarre in that as a parent you are required to provide increasingly more of your time and resources to the program. The time commitment is more than 2 days a week as originally stated. The program decides what a parent can afford to pay even though they claim they don't turn anyone away due to financial difficulties. And the program restricts what a parent can earn due to time constraints as well as not allowing anyone else to live in the household. Some people such as me rely on this help with the rent.
Parents do not volunteer their homes as host homes. There is no choice or option here. Running a host home is a requirement of parents with the expense that goes along with it.
These "host homes" are unlicensed, if they were licensed they would violate city fire by-laws. The homes and the people in them do not undergo a child welfare check or a police record check.
Parents are told not to participate in the treatment clients receive in the host home; the newcomers are directly the oldcomer's responsibility.
The "oldcomer" clients participate in "oldcomer training week" which prepares them for their job as an oldcomer in which they are directly responsible for "newcomer" clients.
One week of training to look after the "worst of the worst" drug addicted kids who are, apparently, too destructive and disruptive to be treatable at any other facility.
I have personally seen "oldcomers" falling asleep in their chairs at meetings due to sheer exhaustion.
Once on level 3 (of 4) of the program the clients are attending the school at AARC, they are still oldcomers responsible for newcomers and they may (in the case of my son) work for another family in the AARC program. These clients are paid a very low wage compared to the labour market and they are required to open a joint bank account.
Even before my son was back in school it has been decided for him that he will travel to another country and study addictions. His only drug related charge was removed from his charges to accomplish this.
I know my son lost his independent counsel and was appointed a new lawyer who is also on AARC's "legal committee". At that point I lost any say over what happened to my son who was still my dependant and still under the age of 18.
Any deviation from the program requirements will result in a termination from the program and complete alienation from your child.
Siblings who can not participate in the program are required to be removed from the household. If this can't be arranged the parents will be terminated from the program, deemed unwilling to co-operate with what is expected of them and they will lose contact with their child.
This child is then convinced they need to avoid contact with their family for their own sobriety. This is what happened in our case.
100% compliance is expected and if the parents for whatever reason can not comply they are considered sick, unhealthy and in denial. Program participants are told that the other parents not in attendance don't care if their child lives or dies, or else they would do what is required to be there. I know of several parents, including me who have been terminated from the program.
Parents who place their children in this program have the option to remove them.
Children who are court ordered to this program without parental consent do not have this option.
According to the Gov't of Canada, private treatment facilities are a completely unregulated industry. It's a "Buyer Beware" industry.
This being the case and since there is no protection for youth as there would be had they been ordered to attend a regulated facility, it is my belief that the courts should not have jurisdiction to order youth to such facilities. There is no accountability.
These youth in particular have no protection through Children's Services. The onus is on the parents to protect their children, and parents of these court ordered children are unable to protect them. The Child Advocate can not help them as they are not "child welfare" clients and the youth lose all rights.
During my short time with the AARC program I witnessed and heard accounts of many serious abuses, including but not limited to: Rape, beatings in the host homes, clients being spit on, and clients cutting themselves in treatment and receiving no psychiatric or medical help. I've witnessed clients being absent for several meetings, clients being "set back to step one" for frivolous reasons that have nothing to do with the 12 steps of AA. I've witnessed people's values being shredded and horrible public displays of humiliation.
This program has deceived the clients, the parents, the public, the media and the Province of Alberta.
From my own experiences with the AARC program, I agree with Greg and Tony's statements.
I would like to mention that from reading this article it doesn't seem that the author is discrediting licensed and regulated facilities; it's the deceptive, unlicensed facilities that are of concern.
As a parent of special needs kids, I was completely blind to the fact that a facility such as this one would not have to be properly licensed and regulated by at least Alberta Health and Wellness or AADAC or even Alberta Mental Health.
Brainwashing vulnerable kids and their families to join the ranks of these facilities and holding them hostage psychologically is simply unethical they need to be stopped.
Thank you for writing this article.
May 12 at 04:02 PM
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