Troubled Teen Boarding Schools

Parents researching schools for troubled teens are naturally apprehensive. How to discern good advice from bad, how to determine which programs being offered are appropriate for their teen’s issues? Should the school be close to home, or far away? What will their insurance cover? How often will they see their teens? Is there follow up?

Teen Options offers an informative podcast that will help parents sort through their options. In fact, all of Troubled Teen Resource’s sites are replete with information for parents of troubled teens. But how do you evaluate the staff? These are the people who will study the teens in their charge in order to motivate, counsel and instruct them. What constitutes a good leader for youth?

Just so happens, I’ve run into some suggestions for that answer:

“…the five characteristics present in those who most effectively work with young people:

• they see genuine potential in youth.
• They put youth at the center of their programs.
• They believe they can make a difference with youth.
• They feel they are contributing to the community something they owe.
• They are “unyieldingly authentic.”

(source)

Having worked with youth, and long ago, having been one of those youth who were “worked with”, I can vouch for the desirability of the above traits. Authenticity can permeate even the most determined defenses. Teens may yet resist what they are being taught, but they have an instinct for detecting hypocrisy, at least they do when they take measure of those who will tell them how they need to live.

Likewise, passion for youth is almost mandatory, and you’ll find evidence of that passion in the resumes of the counselors and teachers at professionally staffed schools.

Can a cigarette ultimately lead a kid to teen drug abuse,land them in jail or in schools for troubled teens? Well, it’s a stretch, but the first step down that road has to start somewhere and a recently released report offers the opinion that it starts with that first cigarette.

“Compared to 12- to 17-year-olds who don’t smoke, teenagers who do are over five times more likely to drink and 13 times more likely to use marijuana, media reported quoting a U.S. study Wednesday.

Smokers aged 12 to 17 are more likely to drink alcohol than nonsmokers — 59 percent compared to 11 percent, the study found.

Compared to those who never smoked, those who began smoking at age 12 or younger are more than three times more likely to binge on alcohol — 31 percent compared to 9 percent, and nearly seven times more likely to use other illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine.”

If indeed the report proves to be accurate - and one always hesitates to accept these findings without further confirmations down the road - none the less, if it is true, then the sequence of addictions is one everyone is familiar with.

The question that has often been posed by parents asks if teenagers seek relief for their depression and anxiety via drugs or if drug use precedes the onset of those conditions. This suggests that smoking could set the teen up for both.

“Teenagers who smoke also have a higher risk of depression and anxiety disorders. Teens who reported early initiation of smoking were more likely to experience serious feelings of hopelessness, depression and worthlessness in the past year.”

(source)

These are exactly the kinds of adolescents that schools for troubled teens, brat camps and other programs for troubled teens are designed to catch. Those teens who are floundering in school, who haven’t strong family support. They are the ones who are vulnerable to the call of gangs of the temptations of drugs. These types of teenagers need a sense of purpose and programs like the community supported Silver Star Youth Program are indeed life savers.

“Larry Seta, 19, has a high school diploma, a job and a wife he married just two weeks ago. Seta says he owes everything to the Silver Star Youth Program at Rancho Cielo outside Salinas.
[…]
When Seta entered the Silver Star Youth Program at Rancho Cielo, he said, he spent the first two and a half years in and out of the court system.

Seta said he felt isolated and didn’t know how to apply himself. He only had a few credits of the 220 needed to graduate from the youth rehabilitation program.

But program officials guided him onto the right track, Seta said, and he was able to graduate and get his high school diploma 10 months ago. He now works at Salinas Steel Builders. Two weeks ago, Seta married, and in five months, he and his wife are expecting a child.”

(source)

Some troubled teens can’t be helped simply because they really do not want to apply themselves. But for those teens who have the heart to live a productive life, but no clue how to accomplish that, guidance and mentoring prove key to their learning how.

While Americans struggle with the notion of charging violent troubled teens as adults, New Zealand is considering lowering the juvenile prosecutorial age to 12 due to youth crime so pervasive that some say ignoring it “could blight the future for generations to come.”

“NZ First MP Ron Mark has what he believes is one significant answer - a bill before a parliamentary select committee that would lower the age of prosecution from 14 to 12 and introduce tougher penalties for young, serious criminals.”

I hope they establish some teen boot camps and schools for troubled teens also. From these statistics, it appears as if they need them.

“In New Zealand 14 to 16-year-olds commit about 45,500 crimes each year, with children too young to be prosecuted involved in more than 8500 in one year.

Justice Ministry statistics show police picked up 700 children under 10 and 7900 children 10 to 13 last year for crimes including violence, drugs and burglary.

All too often police are powerless to intervene.

They say there is little they can do in cases like a 10-year-old who attacked classmates with a piece of timber, two 12-year-olds with 33 burglary charges, and a 13-year-old who attacked police with a baseball bat.
[…]
Under 14 they can only be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter.

After that, when police can deal with them, they are already career crooks.

One Lower Hutt 13-year-old in social welfare care for sexual offences abused two-year-olds four more times while in care, with police unable to act.”

(source)

Can violent juvenile offenders be rehabilitated? If there were enough schools for troubled teens, military teen boot camps and rehabs - not to mention funding - could you actually extract the killer from the teen who murdered a family, or the juvenile rapist who slit the throat of their victim?

That debate is ongoing, with one side insisting that violent juveniles can be rehabilitated, the other side stating that returning these youths to society, at any time, would place innocent people at risk.

The comments following the article excerpted below paint a clear portrait of how deeply divisive the issue of violent teens is.

“According to a new report produced by the Equal Justice Initiative (a non-profit group dedicated to helping prisoners denied fair treatment by the system), American prisons are home to 73 inmates locked up for life for crimes they committed when they were 13 or 14. Bump that age limit up three years and we have 2,225 prisoners locked up for the rest of their lives for crimes they committed when they were 17 or younger.

These crimes aren’t minor — and the nature of our violent culture is an entirely different story — but some of the children confess under duress or, worse yet, are developmentally disabled. They languish in lockdown, without hope.

But are they proof that these children can’t be rehabilitated, that they can’t benefit from help and that they are beyond redemption?”
(source)

You would think that a student who reported sexual abuse by a teacher would not be the recipient of her peers’ and teachers’ contempt and disdain. You would expect that the school would fire said teacher and make amends to her family. But apparently some teachers protect their own. That is what one family discovered after reporting a music teacher’s sexual advances.

“It’s a silent epidemic is what it is,” the girl’s father says. “People are protecting people who aren’t worth protecting. I hope our daughters will have that instilled in them, too — that you report what you know.”

Their daughter finished her education in private boarding schools, unable to endure the backlash her report unleashed.

“Immediately after news of Sperlik’s arrest hit in January 2005, people began questioning the girls’ motives: Why didn’t they come forward sooner? Were they really telling the truth?

Some think their parents simply want money from a lawsuit.
[…]
It was almost too much for the girl, who never anticipated such harsh public scrutiny.”

The troubled teenager dyed her hair black and began a ritual often associated with sexual abuse - cutting. Finally, an attempted suicide landed her in a psychiatric hospital.

“I just can’t take it anymore,” she wrote in a note to her parents.

(source)

And neither should parents. Read the article in full and understand that it must be parents who protect their teens’ best interest. Recent reports on sexual abuse perpetrated by teachers, like the one quoted, suggest that all to often, some in the teaching profession are far more interested in protecting their own.

When something becomes commonplace, does it all of a sudden become harmless? It is amazing how often you will read that phrase “it’s become common” - about teen drug abuse, drinking, and sex. And it is said as if to say, “Oh well, cats out of the bag now. Nothing we can do.”

And perhaps that is why there will always be a need for schools for troubled teens. As long as parents and teachers and the culture see the outrageous as common, and therefore acceptable, self-destructive behavior will continue to escalate, in all of it’s many manifestations.

Sorry to rant but this article on self-mutilation has, seemingly, the same attitude.

“The self-injury club for teens is not all that exclusive. Joining can almost seem trendy.

“There’s an incredible amount of kids who deal with these issues,” says a 16-year-old high school junior who knows all about membership.

“Cutting is definitely the most popular. I did some of that, but that wasn’t my preference,” she explains. Instead, she usually engaged in bruising herself, sometimes banging her wrist against hard objects. Or, she scraped herself. She says she no longer hurts herself.
[…]
Exactly how much self-injury has increased is not known, but most researchers believe it has grown, along with a kind of acceptance.

“It does seem like it’s something that people don’t frown on quite as much,” says Lloyd-Richardson. Since her report was published, she has heard from many young adults who said cutting was common in their high schools.”
(source)

Teen crisis intervention via positive peer pressure is an effective method of teen help employed in many schools for troubled teens, with very good results. It is also employed, in various forms, throughout the country’s public schools via various programs - Teen Court being one most parents have heard of.

When a teen helps their peers by apprising them of the dangers of drug use, they are going to find themselves meeting with some opposition and hostility, but their efforts are valuable and commendable. That is how positive peer pressure is being deployed by Safe Teens Empowerment Project in one California middle school.

“That is going to be our target population,” said Badon. “Alcohol is available in many of these children’s homes, so they actually get alcohol just by tapping into the parent’s alcohol supply. Marijuana is available, too. If you are a middle school kid you can get marijuana from high school kids. So, these are not adult predators giving drugs to these young kids, they know how to get it.”

Participants in the program will also be present at DUI check points and participate in peer mediation. They needn’t be honor students to participate. The idea is to get a body of students that can relate to the many teen groups that they will encounter.

” Lisette Hernandez… said she wished she had a friend pull her aside to help steer her away from substance abuse…She admitted that she might not have listened at first to friends who didn’t drink or use drugs.

“But, there is always something that is going to stick in your head, maybe not today, but later on,” she said.”
(source)

Parents in the midst of coping with troubled teens need support, pure and simple. What do you do with your teen who is struggling to beat drugs, or the teen who keeps running away? Should you start looking into schools for troubled teens? Is there anyone you can talk to who has sent their son or daughter to a brat camp?

Well, yes there is. In fact, like all things on earth, the internet can be used for good or ill. On the plus side is the easy and instantaneous contact you can find with folks who are struggling with the same issues. Be it health problems, money problems, or problems with teens, there is usually thousands of people talking about the same problems in a forum or chat room somewhere on the net.

“…here I am, thrilled that there are dozens of online sites for parents of adolescents and teens. On my favorite sites I’ve asked other moms dozens of questions about the roller coaster ride of hormones, the survival techniques for homework blues, and the “is this normal” questions that come up all the time.

Soon I imagine myself once again awake in the middle of the night, worried about my son who is out past his curfew and isn’t answering his cell phone. Who am I going to call at that hour? Why, I’ll go online to Parents & Company or theantidrug.com or Teendriving.com and find some other moms in some other states also up at 1 a.m. worrying over their kids. And I bet we’d all rather be worried about a diaper rash, don’t you think?”
(source)

What is teen crisis intervention? It can be whatever it takes that will make the difference in a troubled teenagers life. It could be a specialty school, or schools for troubled teens, it could be a mentor, or it could be any of the various programs for troubled teens that are made available through various sponsors, grants and non-profits.

Some of the most effective programs are ones that first engage the teens heart and teases his creativity. Thus, programs that give at-risk teens their first introduction to the arts - to writing, photography,painting,etc - can often serve as the pivotal deal breaker in a teen’s burgeoning criminal career. When a teenager is introduced to their own gifts and talents, they have a new choice that can turn them away from drugs and crime.

“Best known for his role as a troubled teen on television, Edmonton-based actor Dakota House is using the arts to reach out to at-risk aboriginal youth.

House… held a fundraiser for his non-profit organization, Going M.I.L.E.S., last night in downtown Edmonton.

The name stands for Motivating, Inspiring, Leading, Empowering and Succeeding.
[..]
“It sets (youth) up for the future” by teaching them skills and giving them confidence, said House.
[…]
House, 33, found himself in trouble on more than one occasion in his younger days…Now drug- and alcohol-free for almost three years, the actor said he has learned from his mistakes and like other Going M.I.L.E.S. participants, including ReddNation and Dallas Arcand, makes a good mentor.

“Everyone on board is a role model,” said House. “Youth can identify with us.”

(source)