TRUTH CAMPAIGN
OFFICIAL WEBSITE
___________________________
New York State Education Department Records Show Long Standing Refusal to Intervene with Child Abuse and Fraud
UPDATE January 2012 - Our campaign requested all documents from the New York State Education Department relating to the Family Foundation School following a 2010 State multi agency investigation (which can be viewed here or at the bottom of this page) into child abuse spanning over twenty years at the school.
We are still going through all the documents we obtained at this time and working on legal channels to bring those responsible for allowing the abuse to occur to justice. Below are links to some important documents that is a glimpse into how extensive our request for records went, along with the extent of concern about abuse by State investigators outside of the Education Department. The documents linked below represent a small part of NY State's agency which licenses drug and alcohol treatment centers concerns with the school as early as 1990. It includes their concern for the children at the school as well as the school's lack of licensure to operate and market themselves as a drug rehab (the school is not licensed to treat children with substance abuse issues or with disabilities). THESE ARE THE SAME CONCERNS STATE INVESTIGATORS BROUGHT UP IN 2010, further disproving the school's claim that they embrace and are open to changing for the better.
The school also received a letter from the State demanding they stop operating and marketing themselves as a drug and alcohol treatment center. NY State's former director of nonpublic schools, Thomas Hogan (who retired after the 2010 investigation) told the other agency that its none of their business - exactly what our campaign heard him say at a 2010 marketing event run by the Family Foundation School, while he was praising the school's work during a speech.
In the Family School Employee Guidelines document, many of the guidelines contradict how alumni claim they were treated, but since the document was revised in 2008, we are interested to see the guidelines prior.
We also included an email sent to NY State in 2006 from a parent who was concerned with the treatment her son was receiving at the school. Again, the State did NOTHING.
The other records we obtained which will be published here on a later date include a 1998 State investigation into abuse after a New Jersey judge who sentenced a child to attend the school discovered that he was mistreated and was subjected to abusive conditions. The state once again passively took action and told the school to stop wrapping kids in blankets and duct tape as a form of restraint - the school told the investigators that using that method is less abusive than using mechanical restraints (like handcuffs).
Our campaign is disgusted with the continual lack of any real actions taken when State agencies have uncovered the same methods being used throughout the last 21 years at The Family Foundation School with three official investigations (the 1998 investigation will be published soon) all showing the same neglectful and abusive behavior by Family Foundation School administrators and staff.
Here they are:
1990 NY State Investigation
1990 Cease & Desist Order issued to The Family Foundation School
1998 Judge's report & parent report of child abuse at The Family Foundation School - investigation
2006 Letter from Parent to NY State Education Department reporting abuse concerns
2008 Family Foundation School Employee Guidelines
2010 NY State pre-onsite investigation
2010 NY State Multi-Agency Investigation into Abuse
2010 Retirement Paperwork from NY State Supervisor who oversaw Family Foundation School for over 20 years retires, just 12 days after multi-agency investigation into abuse
The investigation uncovered evidence that caused investigators concern, including:
- Overcrowded trailers and dormitories whose upkeep posed possible hygiene, fire, and safety hazards
- A practice called "landlocking," in which students deemed a flight risk are barricaded in their dormitories
- Inadequate nighttime staffing
- Students compelled to exercise inappropriate supervisory and clinical responsibility over other students
- Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) inappropriately supervised in accordance with New York State Education Department standards
- Students mandated to spend hours and sometimes days in solitary confinement, in a "time out / quiet room," which exceeds acceptable New York State and Federal guidelines and arguably constitutes aversive intervention practices in some instances
- Broad latitude given to non-credentialed and unlicensed personnel to make decisions regarding the use of time out/quiet rooms, particularly given the profiles of the students with serious emotional and psychiatric conditions at the school
- Staff utilizing face down or prone restraints on students, presenting a greater risk for the youth of positional asphyxia, a potentially deadly outcome
- Students inappropriately encouraged or allowed to take part in providing emergency assistance, including restraining other students (taking down peers in distress as well as holding another student’s legs until staff arrived, for example)
- Non-credentialed staff members illegally providing psychotherapy and other clinical services legally reserved and restricted to SED-licensed practitioners in New York State
- Non-qualified staff members sometimes placed in the position of making lethality assessments for students in a crisis
- Lack of protocol to ensure that comprehensive psychiatric screenings are conducted prior to admission
- False or misleading claims in the School's marketing materials, program literature, and website (for example, investigators found no evidence corroborating the School's claim that it provides Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to students; the School also advertises chemical dependence treatment services when it lacks valid state certification to provide these services)
- Inconsistently or erroneously documented student medical records
- The Family Foundation employs a number of "sanctions" against students, utilized for overt and perceived violations of the rules, which would not be allowed and could be considered harmful in licensed mental hygiene programs for individuals with significant histories of trauma and mental illness
- Group sharing exercises known as “table topics” that can sometimes be utilized in a manner that may compromise the mental health problems of some students
- The school does not have a system that reviews complaints of abuse and neglect
Founded in 2009, this campaign is a volunteer organization dedicated to exposing child abuse at an Upstate New York Boarding School