Courtesy of Sue Scheff
www.helpyourteens.com
Written: January 2004
Laws Needed to Protect
Families and Children from "Program Fraud"
Some private children's programs in the United States and
overseas have a long-standing pattern of program closures,
government investigations, claims of abuse, neglect, and fraud up
through and including the present. Yet, federal laws are totally
lacking. We have federal laws to
protect our children and families from dangerous toys, dangerous car
seats, and other products on the market. Isn't it time we protected
our families and children from the profitable ‘business' of
dangerous private children's programs too?
"(Congressman George) Miller, (ranking member). . . Committee on
Education and Workforce . . . said his interest in the WWASPS system
stems from allegations of abuse from within the system. ‘The reports
of abuse of these children never stop coming in,' he said. The
WWASPS has schools in Utah's Washington and Rich counties, Jamaica,
Mexico, Montana and Canada. In May, the system once again came under
public scrutiny after the Academy at Dundee Ranch was shut down by
Costa Rican officials who alleged widespread mismanagement and abuse
. . . .. WWASPS has invited Miller to come to Utah to check out the
schools. Miller said he was uninterested, calling such tours ‘dog
and pony shows.'" The Salt Lake Tribune, November 8, 2003.
(Emphasis added.)
Did you know there are no federal laws to
protect children and families against private abusive and
neglectful children's programs?
Did you know that anyone, no matter how poorly
educated, poorly trained or profit-driven, can begin a children's
program in the U.S. or abroad?
Did you know there are no legal requirements as to how much
of your monthly tuition must be used to feed, clothe, and educate
your child within a privately run children's program?
Did you know that abuse, neglect, and fraud of privately
operated children's programs have been a long-standing tragedy in
America, resulting in life-long trauma for some children?
Did you know that children may receive little or no
meaningful education while in a private children's program, even
while in the United States?
Did you know that businesses sometimes seek locations for
children's programs in Third-World countries having high
unemployment rates and corruption in their governments to avoid
accountability, such as Jamaica, Mexico, and Samoa?
Did you know our U.S. Department of State has only relatively
recently issued WARNINGS about enrolling children in out-of-country programs?
Did you know that our U.S. Department of State is
very limited in its jurisdictional
powers to investigate, intervene and help children who are abused in
children's programs on foreign soils?
Did you know that children are moved freely across state
lines and out of the country, sometimes from one profit-affiliated
program to another, without any meaningful governmental
accountability, making it virtually impossible to track and
investigate abuse and neglect allegations?
Did you know that children can return to our country from
abusive children's programs with crippling trauma that may result in
additional financial burdens to U.S. taxpayers (such as dependency
on social security disability income, public health care, mental
health treatment, repeated psychiatric hospitalizations, drug abuse,
jail, prison, and homelessness)?
Isn't it time our Congress acted?
Isn't it time Congress enacted consumer protection laws for
children and families who may be victimized by the fraud, neglect,
and abuse of American children being used for profit-making
activities at home and overseas?
Isn't it time we asked our Congress to:
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(1) Prohibit the placement of American
children, for their own protection, in out-of-country
children's programs;
(2) Enact specific federal laws to
protect our children and families from deception, fraud,
child abuse and child neglect by programs privately operated
in America that are using our families and children for
their own financial wealth;
(3) Require training, education, and
federal certification for any person claiming knowledge or
expertise in referring families and children to programs for
children (yes, this includes me, the founder of PURE);
(4) Require official, independent boards
with qualified members to review, investigate, and license
all privately owned and operated children's programs,
including transports and those making referrals;
(5) Require that anyone operating or
associated with a children's program has adequate training
and education, including transports and those making
referrals;
(6) Prohibit forever the corporate "shell
game" practiced of hiding affiliations of persons involved
in abusive and neglectful children's programs by simply
popping up another corporate name;
(7) Require strict mandatory disclosures
of abuse and neglect allegations, severe penalties for
failing to disclose, and more severe penalties for any
operator or associate who retaliates when a current or
former employee attempts to report abuse and neglect to
unaffiliated or government authorities.
(8) Require free, immediate, and
uncensored telephone communications by children confined in
children's programs to immediately report concerns of abuse
and neglect to parents and outside government officials at
any time, creating strong criminal and civil damage
sanctions for any communication interference.
(9) Prohibit the political contributions
by individuals and organizations running, or otherwise
affiliated with, private children's programs to ensure the
independence and safety of our American children in private
children's programs.
(10) Require that all written agreements
between parents and children disclose the truth of the
program's operations, allowing parents time to reflect and
rescind any agreement hastily entered into, and to provide
for damages within the parents' place of residence, instead
of the soils of a foreign country or a place thousands of
miles from the family's home, but convenient for the
business.
(11) Prohibit the interference by
children's programs of allowing concerned parents and
children from communicating with one another (enacting
tougher anti-SLAPP laws). |
"Lon Woodbury, publisher of Woodbury Reports, which rates
schools and programs for troubled teenagers inside and outside the
United States, said one reason that American programs have moved
abroad is ‘to avoid the laws and regulations of the States.' He
added, ‘They can hire minimum-wage staff and still charge
stateside prices.'" New York Times, 2003 (first of a
series of news articles about WWASP/S by the NY Times in
2003). (Emphasis added.)
In a news article in The Rocky Mountain News, by reporter
Lou Kilzer, the current WWASPS President Ken Kay proclaimed, while
"between jobs," that:
"These people (referring to WWASPS) are basically a bunch of
untrained people who work for this organization . . . So they don't
have credentials of any kind. We could be leading these kids to
long-term problems that we don't have a clue about because we're not
going about it in the proper way. How in the hell can you call
yourself a behavior modification program? - and that's one of the
ways it's marketed."
After making this statement, just having left WWASPS' Teen Help, Ken Kay was re-hired and is now
the President of WWASPS.
Jay Kay, son of Ken Kay and Director of WWASPS' Tranquility Bay
Academy in Jamaica, said the following on national television about
the children in his care: "Do I have pepper spray? You bet I do! And
I haven't had to use it in 5½ to 6 months." Primetime, Diane
Sawyer. Jay Kay admits to being a college dropout who ran a gas
station convenience store before joining the "business" of the
for-profit children's programs.
In 2003, on the Texas television station, Kens News, Cross
Creek Manor (another WWASP/S program) was described "like a prison,
like you would see in a prison . . . . ." Similarly, WWASP/S' former
President, Karr Farnsworth, now running Cross Creek Manor, has no
formal education pertinent to the children's programs he now runs.
A young girl died at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica (another WWASP/S
program)---a children's program located in a Third-World country
totally lacking in American standards.
"PLEA FOR INQUIRY ON SCHOOL NETWORK Representative George Miller,
Democrat of California, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to
investigate a network of 11 behavior-modification schools for
troubled teen-agers, citing accusations of child abuse, human rights
violations, deceptive advertising and fraud. The network, the
World Wide Association of Specialty Programs of St. George,
Utah, oversees programs for more than 2,200 young people in the
United States, Mexico and Jamaica...." National Briefing:
Washington, Published: November 5, 2003
New York Times (Emphasis added.)
Isn't it time we protected our families and
children from the profitable ‘business' of dangerous private
children's programs?
Isn't it time our Congress
acted?
