Deceptive Marketing Practices

Chairman Miller Asks FTC to Investigate Deceptive Marketing Practices by Residential Treatment Programs for Children

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, today asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate allegations of deceptive marketing practices by residential treatment programs for troubled children.

Last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office testified before the Education and Labor Committee that such programs – often called “boot camps,” “wilderness camps,” or “behavior modification facilities” – sometimes market themselves to parents by claiming they have “credentials in therapy or medicine that they did not have.”

“These programs are taking advantage of parents who are desperate to find help for their children,” said Miller, who made the request to the FTC in a letter sent this morning to Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras.

“The programs claim they have the resources and expertise to help troubled children, when really they lack any such resources or expertise. In fact, these programs are often operated recklessly, leading to the worst possible outcome – the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of children.”

The hearing last week revealed that many of these programs operate with no standards or regulations of any kind, and are marked by ineffective management and poorly trained staff. As a result, allegations of child abuse in the programs are widespread.

For more information about last week’s hearing, click here.

The full text of the letter to the FTC is below.

***

October 16, 2007

VIA FACSIMILE

Deborah Platt Majoras
Chairman Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20580

Attn: Ms. Claudia Simons

Dear Chairman Majoras:

Last week, the Committee on Education and Labor held an investigative hearing into cases of child abuse and neglect, including cases resulting in death, at residential treatment programs around the country.

At the hearing, disturbing testimony by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that several of these cases involved owners and operators of residential treatment programs who claimed to “have credentials in therapy or medicine that they did not have, leading parents to trust them with teens who had serious mental or physical disabilities requiring proper treatment.”

These disturbing and misleading practices have already put untold numbers of children at serious risk.In one example, although the program brochure claimed that its program employed counselors who were “highly trained survival experts,” these “experts” failed to recognize basic signs of distress resulting in a teenager’s death.

At the hearing, three parents – whose children died while attending residential treatment programs – also testified that they received deceptive marketing materials and heard “fraudulent” claims by program owners about the expertise and qualifications of program staff, which were intended to lure their troubled children to the marketed programs.

The Federal Trade Commission administers a number of our nation’s consumer protection laws; therefore, I respectfully ask you to look into the marketing practices of private residential treatment programs, often called “boot camps,” “wilderness camps,” and “behavior modification facilities,” among other names.

To assist in your efforts, I have attached a copy of the GAO testimony that identifies 10 closed cases where a teenager died while enrolled in a private program, five of which include facilities that remain open and continue to market to prospective families.

Deceptive marketing practices put at risk the health and safety of children attending residential treatment programs must not be tolerated. I ask that you keep the Committee apprised of your efforts and contact the Committee’s Chief Investigative Counsel, Michael Zola, at (202) 22X-XXXX with any questions.

Sincerely,

GEORGE MILLER
Chairman

cc: Senior Republican Member Howard “Buck” McKeon

Attachments

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SEE ALSO:

CASH FOR KIDS

GAO REPORT

Summary

Residential Treatment Programs: Concerns Regarding Abuse and Death in Certain Programs for Troubled Youth

GAO-08-146T October 10, 2007
Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 34 pages)

Residential treatment programs provide a range of services, including drug and alcohol treatment, confidence building, military-style discipline, and psychological counseling for troubled boys and girls with a variety of addiction, behavioral, and emotional problems.

This testimony concerns programs across the country referring to themselves as wilderness therapy programs, boot camps, and academies, among other names. Many cite positive outcomes associated with specific types of residential treatment.

There are also allegations regarding the abuse and death of youth enrolled in residential treatment programs. Given concerns about these allegations, particularly in reference to private programs, the Committee asked the General Accountability Office (GAO) to (1) verify whether allegations of abuse and death at residential treatment programs are widespread and (2) examine the facts and circumstances surrounding selected closed cases where a teenager died while enrolled in a private program.

To achieve these objectives, GAO conducted numerous interviews and examined documents from closed cases dating as far back as 1990, including police reports, autopsy reports, and state agency oversight reviews and investigations. GAO did not attempt to evaluate the benefits of residential treatment programs or verify the facts regarding the thousands of allegations it reviewed.

GAO found thousands of allegations of abuse, some of which involved death, at residential treatment programs across the country and in American-owned and American-operated facilities abroad between the years 1990 and 2007. Allegations included reports of abuse and death recorded by state agencies and the Department of Health and Human Services, allegations detailed in pending civil and criminal trials with hundreds of plaintiffs, and claims of abuse and death that were posted on the Internet.

For example, during 2005 alone, 33 states reported 1,619 staff members involved in incidents of abuse in residential programs. GAO could not identify a more concrete number of allegations because it could not locate a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that collects comprehensive nationwide data. GAO also examined, in greater detail, 10 closed civil or criminal cases from 1990 through 2004 where a teenager died while enrolled in a private program.

GAO found significant evidence of ineffective management in most of the 10 cases, with program leaders neglecting the needs of program participants and staff. This ineffective management compounded the negative consequences of (and sometimes directly resulted in) the hiring of untrained staff; a lack of adequate nourishment; and reckless or negligent operating practices, including a lack of adequate equipment. These factors played a significant role in the deaths GAO examined.

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Congressman George Miller Press Release

Chairman Miller Statement at Hearing on "Cases of Child Neglect and Abuse at Private Residential Treatment Facilities"

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC -- Below are the prepared remarks of U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, for a committee hearing on “Cases of Child Neglect and Abuse at Private Residential Treatment Facilities.”

***

Good morning. Welcome to today’s hearing on “Cases of Child Neglect and Abuse at Private Residential Treatment Facilities.”For a number of years now, I have been deeply concerned about allegations of child abuse in private residential treatment programs, which are often referred to as “boot camps,” “wilderness programs,” or “behavior modification facilities.” These allegations range from neglect to torture – a word that I don’t use lightly.

Today, we will hear about neglect and abuse cases where the outcome was the worst one imaginable: the death of a child. We will hear testimony from the parents of children who died.

I thank them for joining us today and for having the courage to speak publicly about their ordeals. It is estimated that hundreds of private residential treatment programs operate nationwide.

The programs are governed by a weak patchwork of state regulations. In many states, these programs operate without regulations, licensing, or accreditation of any kind, despite the often exorbitant price of tuition.Parents often send their children to these programs when they feel they have exhausted their alternatives.

Their children may be abusing drugs or alcohol, attempting to run away or physically harm themselves, or otherwise acting out. They send their children to these programs because of the promise that staff members will be able to help children straighten their lives out. In far too many cases, however, the very people entrusted with the safety, health, and welfare of these children are the ones who violate that trust in some of the most horrific ways imaginable.

We have heard stories where program staff members forced children to remain in seclusion for days at a time; to remain in so-called “stress” positions for hours at a time; or to undergo extreme physical exertion without sufficient food and water.

Today, we will hear even more horrifying stories, of children denied access to bathrooms and forced to defecate on themselves. Of children forced to eat dirt or their own vomit. Of children paired with older children – so-called “buddies” – whose job it is, essentially, to abuse them.There is only one word for these behaviors: Inhumane.

This nightmare has remained an open secret for years. Sporadic news accounts of specific incidents have built a record that should never have been ignored, but shamefully was.The federal government has completely failed to grasp the urgency of this situation.

In 2003, I urged then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to begin an immediate investigation into reports of child abuse at private residential treatment programs. The Attorney General refused, as did his successor, Alberto Gonzales.

I also wrote to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell asking him to investigate the treatment of children in facilities located overseas but serving American children and operated by U.S. companies. Secretary Powell’s response was insufficient. We will learn today that a number of these programs actually operate on federal land.

Yet no federal agency – not the Bureau of Land Management, not the Department of the Interior, no one – has thought to review problems associated with these federal tenants, despite repeated incidents ending in the injury or death of a child.

No federal agency keeps official data about the number of children enrolled in private residential treatment programs, despite that fact that children are typically transported across state lines – sometimes even by force – in order to be enrolled in the programs. This is an outrage.

In late 2005, I asked the Government Accountability Office to launch an investigation of private residential treatment programs. The GAO agreed, and I am pleased that GAO has devoted significant resources to this important issue. Today, the GAO will present case studies of programs where deaths occurred.

Next year, GAO expects to release an industry-wide review, thus providing us with a comprehensive look at the industry.

In the past, it has been estimated that anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 children have been enrolled in these programs at any one time.I am sure that there are programs staffed by caring, professional, competent staff members, who do help to improve children’s lives. Yet there are clearly a number of programs staffed by untrained, unlicensed, poorly paid staff members who simply cannot be entrusted with children’s welfare.

As a result, without regulations, the industry as a whole will continue to present unacceptable risks to the children it serves.That is why, in 2005, I proposed legislation to provide resources to states to help them create licensing standards for private residential treatment programs. The legislation would also boost oversight of facilities overseas operated by U.S. companies.

This hearing, as well as the ongoing work by GAO and by the Committee’s investigative staff, will help determine if that is the appropriate legislative response or if the situation demands something else.

One thing is clear, however: In light of the findings we will hear today, Congress must act, and it must act swiftly, to ensure the well-being of children participating in these programs. We can all agree that we have no mandate more urgent than keeping children safe.

I’d like to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. We look forward to your testimony and to working with you to put a stop to these abuses.

###


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tom Kiley / Rachel Racusen
181 Rayburn House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515
202-226-0853

SEE ALSO:

Committee of Education and Labor

Watch Video of Committee Hearing & Testimony Here

Tough Love or Teen Torment?

Tough Love or Teen Torment: Will the Industry Finally Be Regulated?
By Maia Szalavitz

Article

Congress is finally looking into the "troubled teen" industry and the deaths, human rights abuses and other problems that have occurred in teen "boot camps" "wilderness programs" and other "tough love" residential settings.

In many states, these institutions are less regulated than dog kennels and nail salons.On Wednesday, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, will hold a full committee investigative hearing and present results from a Government Accountability Office report that he commissioned. The investigation promises to be revealing-- and may be highly unfavorable to industry claims that it can regulate itself.

My book, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead, 2006), was the first to expose systematic problems in the industry and the complete lack of regulatory oversight on programs that are essentially private jails for kids.

The book helped spur Miller's push for legislation.As it stands now, there is more federal regulation protecting mule deer than there is preserving the rights of children in these institutions. Anyone can open one-- there are no qualifications required, nor criminal background checks.

Some owners have even made deals with prosecutors and regulators to stay away from their facilities, due to accusations of sexual and other kinds of child abuse. But they were not made to leave the industry!

And no legal authority is required to inspect these facilities or see to it that kids are well-treated in them.Teens placed in these settings do not have any right to appeal their confinement: they may be held without contact with the outside world until they turn 18.

Moreover, in the programs, they are often subject to "therapies" that many consider torturous: food deprivation, sleep deprivation, total isolation, punitive restraint and constant emotional and even sexual humiliation.

When such tactics are used on suspected terrorists, there is a human rights outcry-- but these programs have done everything short of water-boarding kids with impunity for decades. For example, one girl was made to dress as a prostitute, wearing a nametag that said "Shameful Slut." "Slut, 25 cents" was written on her skin in lipstick. Boys had to yell "slut" and "ho" and "bitch" at her. Others were made to wear diapers and boys were dressed in drag and called "faggot."

In another program, a girl was gagged with Kotex; another was made to clean toilets with her bare hands. Some children had to use their toothbrushes first to scrub the floors, then their teeth.That's not to mention the dozens of gruesome deaths that have occurred because "tough love" ideology does not accept the idea that teens ever have legitimate medical complaints. One boy lost control of his urine and bowels as he began to die-- and was humiliated for it by program staff, saying he was doing it deliberately.

Another, also accused of faking, had two and a half quarts of pus in his chest when he was autopsied.Right now, of course, seven boot camp guards and a nurse in Florida are on trial for manslaughter in another death-- that of a 14-year-old boy who couldn't complete required exercises and was beaten and forced to inhale ammonia to prove he wasn't faking. He died proving it.

I hope that these hearings will bring national attention to this issue. Hundreds of thousands of teens have been sent over the last 30 years-- and the industry continues to grow. There is no proof that its "product" helps anyone-- and a great deal of research suggesting that the programs may be causing significant harm.

We don't allow amateurs to diagnose and treat physical illnesses-- so why are we letting untrained people have total control, with no checks and balances, over vulnerable teens who have no way of contesting their confinement? I will have more after the hearings.

Committee Hearing October 10, 2007

October 5, 2007

Earlier this week, it was announced the House of Representatives, Committee on Education and Labor would be holding a full committee hearing on "Cases of Child Neglect and Abuse at Private Residential Treatment Facilities" on October 10, 2007 beginning at 10:30 a.m.

More details and information to follow including my own thoughts and opinions on both the hearing and H.R. 1738, Congressman Miller's proposed bill to end institutionalized child abuse through federal regulation.

Barbe Stamps