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Congress May Regulate 'Tough Love' Boot Camps for Troubled Kids

Witnesses tell of abuses, deaths at unregulated camps

By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.com

April 24, 2008

• Congress May Regulate 'Tough Love' Boot Camps for Troubled Kids • Children Abused in Unregulated 'Boot Camps,' Critic Charges --- • News for Parents

Representatives and witnesses at a House hearing today discussed alleged accounts of abuse, murder and deceptive marketing at “tough love” boot camps and residential centers for disturbed children.

These largely unregulated and unaccredited residential programs for teens -- including boot camps, wilderness camps, therapeutic boarding schools and behavior modification facilities -- are blamed for thousands of instances of abuse and some deaths, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

In one of the eight closed cases discussed in the report, a 12-year-old boy was restrained and placed face down on the floor. He eventually suffocated and died.

In another case, a 16-year-old boy with asthma and chronic bronchitis complained of chest pain and trouble breathing. The nurse at the program said it was “in his head.” The staff later punished him for refusing an assigned task by forcing him to do push-ups and carry cinder blocks.

The teenager became unresponsive and died at a hospital from an accumulation of infectious pus in his lungs. His autopsy revealed more than 70 injuries including those from blunt trauma.

These residential programs, which cost between $2,800 and $13,000 per year, have also been blamed for deceptive marketing. Telephone recordings from an undercover GAO investigation were played at the hearing. In one, an agent posing as a parent on the phone was told to withhold information from his wife.

“I want you to tell her that it's a college prep boarding school,” the program representative said. “If she thinks that you want to send her daughter to a place where there are drug addicts and people that are all screwed up, she will look at you and say 'no way.'”

Another residential program told the fictitious father that the program's exercise regimen and whole wheat diet would make his child's bipolar disorder “just go away.”

Survivors' stories

Two of the witnesses at today's hearing in front of the Committee on Education and Labor were past residents of these programs and referred to those who make it out of these programs as “survivors.”

It took 10 years for Kathryn Whitehead to recover from the anxiety, depression and nightmares that followed her 18-month stint at Mission Mountain School in Condon, Mont., she said.

While there, the school's staff tied her to the other girls, put her into isolation, forced her to do full days of manual labor – sometimes for weeks at a time. She said she was once dropped off 25 miles from the camp and forced to hike back. When she tried to tell her parents of the abuse, her monitored phone conversations were cut.

During his four years at the Family Foundation School in Hancock, N.Y., staff members frequently restrained Jon Martin-Crawford with duct tape for as long as 12 hours, without an opportunity to go to the bathroom, and punched him in the face while he was restrained, he said. They then would force him and the other teenagers to restrain one another and abuse each other.

Both said their experiences made their conditions worst and made it difficult for them to function in the world as adults.

Not therapeutic

Christopher Bellonci, M.D., medical director and senior clinical consultant for the Walker School, a program for troubled youth, said these instances are disturbing, not therapeutic and that the industry needs more regulation.

Youth residential programs are typically loosely regulated by states. Almost anyone can open a youth program with little or no staff requirements or accreditation.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the committee, is trying to change that with his Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008.

The bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to randomly inspect the grounds of the program at least once every two years, potentially handing over the duties to states over time. It also would require that residential programs share with parents its staff requirements.

The bill would also require staff at these facilities to be trained in understanding what constitutes child abuse and neglect and how to report it.

HHS would also be required to come up with rules to regulate the deceptive marketing practices many of these programs have relied on to lure parents.

The bill is at the committee level but the tone of today's hearing indicated that much more will be added before a committee vote including a provision for an accreditation program and more stringent medical training for staff members.

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