"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 naive 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