10 Questions to Ask Yourself (When Using a Troubled Teen Help Web Site)

The past fifteen years has seen a major change in parents being able to find an effective, ethical and safe
source of information when needing a treatment program or wilderness camp for their at-risk youth.

Searching on the Internet is definitely a challenge. Many parents and even professionals are turning to the Internet to find solutions and support for struggling and troubled teens as well as young adults.

Advertising and marketing practices have created real challenges for a family when searching for information on the Web. There are hundreds if not thousands of return link sites to various websites that link to each other for the mutual benefit and FREE advertising with no oversight of the actual advertiser. They just list everyone that links to them. This is having an effect on parents and their children, giving them many more resources in which to turn when their struggling or troubled child needs help. These thousands of websites all promise to help with the crisis at hand. With all this information, and what many times ends up being mass mailings of brochures and countless telephone calls from a call center, parents are faced with the responsibility of not making a mistake when choosing what is in the best interest of their child. Listed below are ten of the most common questions I ask you to consider. I present this with the hope that parents and professionals who are making such a serious and perhaps life changing search will carefully and slowly look at whom they have connected with before making any choices that will affect them and their child.

1.) Who runs the site? Any reputable Web site will make it easy for you to see who is
responsible for the site and its content. Most will have a Contact, Privacy Policy, Site
Map and/or Services link.

2.) Who pays for the site? The source of a Web site’s funding can influence its content.
Sites ending in .gov represent a government-funded site. Sites with the .edu endings are
affiliated with schools. Sites with .org are run by nonprofit organizations. Other sites
may be sponsored by drug companies or financed through the sale of advertisements or
products. Many are independently owned by the person or a person providing services
and this does need to be stated.

3.) What is the purpose of the site? A site’s mission statement is often found under the
Contact or Services link or may even have its own Mission Statement menu link.

4.) Where does the information come from? Many struggling teen and troubled teen
help Web sites post information collected from other Web sites. The original source
needs to always be clearly labeled and referenced.

5.) What is the basis of the information? The site needs to describe the evidence
supporting the contents. Facts and figures need to have references, as do articles and
other references. Advice or opinions need to be clearly separated from information based
on evidence.

6.) How is the information selected? Do people with ethical and strong qualifications
review everything before it is posted?

7.) How current is the information? Web sites need to be reviewed and updated on a
regular basis. Somewhere on the site should be a statement about how often the site is
updated or when the last update took place. Check the Mission Statement.

8.) What information about you does the site collect and why? Any credible site that
asks you to become a member or register needs to tell you how it will use your data that
it collects. Beware of sites that will take your address and browsing history and sell it to
companies that want to contact you about all sorts of things.

9.) Does the information sound too good to be true? Web sites offering a guaranteed
miracle fix for a struggling or troubled teen, or suggesting they know how to work with
every child no matter what their struggles or diagnosis, and offer to have your child
back to the way you remember them before the crisis, are unlikely to hold valid
information. We do not recommend Boot Camps. There are no quick fixes that are long
lasting. Look for a staff page, contact page with address and phone number.
When these are missing, more than likely this is a telemarketing web site that is
connected to a call center looking for parents in crisis to make an immediate decision.
This is dangerous for you and your child.

10.) Is the site asking you to do something? Be careful of any site that wants you to take
immediate action. No matter how reasonable the advice sounds, no matter how quickly
they can get you a loan, no matter how fast they can come pick up your child. Do not
make any quick decisions about your child’s needs without checking references and even
speaking to another person you trust to make sure you are not over reacting or acting
too quickly and making a rushed decision.

Reputable web sites can provide instant access to high-quality information. However, please remember,
search engines are not designed to be applicable just to you and whatever it is you typed in while
searching for help. Google, for example, uses a complex formula with more than 100 factors, including
the popularity of a site, to determine the order of search results. The needs of your child and your family
must always be a priority, even during a crisis.

Our Mission and Our Vision

Changes, Changes, Changes!!!

When I'm really in the zone with my writing my brain works on the project at all times. The best evidence of this is when I've fallen asleep and I awake with an idea.

That's been happening lately. And while I bitch about having to write so much to keep up with this ever changing industry - program closures, staff leaving and ending up elsewhere - new programs starting - the truth is I live for those moments because it means I've reached a certain plateau in my writing and the view is pretty good from there.

I'm slogging through the editing of draft one of the current book, and it's been feeling sloggish. So the other day I made an announcement.

"The next thing I write is going to be a whole lot easier to edit. It's going to be an autobiography."

I mean people are crazy for autobiographies, right?

A Message to Parents

The Internet is now saturated with marketing web sites advertising Christian based programs, specialty schools, boot camps, wilderness programs, boarding schools, etc. that claim to be able to "correct" whatever ails your teen. They flaunt their exaggerated success rates and unidentifiable "testimonials" from so called parents.

Horizon Family Solutions has a policy of listing testimonials from actual parents and professionals who have given their permission to have their identity revealed. Websites with no identification of personnel and programs with no staff lists may actually be unlicensed or have previously been under investigation.

In one well known case a program actually had worthless accreditation, and parents and students did not find out until they went to to transfer the "credits" and found out they were worthless.

So, when your child needs help for some kind of behavioral problem, get OFF these Internet websites and look only for those sites that are identifiable by listing the owner of the site with name, address and phone number, have known associations to which they belong, share their mission statement and can provide both personal and professional references.

Coming soon -

One Size Does Not Fit All

‘Who knew!’

Therapeutic residential and wilderness programs are not
all the same
and neither are educational consultants or youth transport companies

For nearly 17 years, Dore Frances,M.A., Child Advocate and Independent Educational Consultant and Founder of Horizon Family Solutions, has assisted families and helped professionals find appropriate and best matched programs and schools for their at-risk preteen, teen and young adult.

TroubledTeenHelp.com offers Educational Consulting and other
specialized services to parents and professionals.

Yup, I’m still behind schedule

- - Bear with me, I should have the E-Book ready by October.

Thanks for your patience, and for all of the interest!!

The word count for One Size Does Not Fit All has been ratcheting up steadily over the last five weeks, and I’m well within sight. Today, however, I took a step backwards. I cut a huge chunk out of one chapter because I’m in severe danger of overshooting that target. I cut 2,500 words, but then wrote 1,000 so the net loss wasn’t too dramatic. It was mainly undigested notes pasted in, so not a great loss.

My style is hardly terse, in fact it’s rather discursive (but not flowery, heaven forbid), so my editor will be able to trim some fat, but if I go too far over the top the page count of the book will go up, costs will rise, and that will either put pressure on my margins or the finished price of the paper book.

Not a problem for the pdf version, except perhaps for bandwidth issues.

Quality words only from here on in. I’m beginning to think about pictures and illustrations. Another bridge to cross (in due course).

A School Where One Size Doesn't Fit All

Educator Hopes to Create Student-Centered Model

By Jay Mathews - Thursday, July 17, 2008; Page DZ03 - Washington Post Staff Writer

Growing up in Montgomery County, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and getting a law degree from Harvard, Alan M. Shusterman had been called brilliant but didn't feel that great.

He got a job in corporate law with a large Boston firm, but that didn't work for him, either. Gradually, he realized he wanted to teach children.

After three years introducing middle-schoolers at Sandy Spring Friends School to social studies, he decided on his life's work: starting a school like none the Washington area has ever seen.

Shusterman, 43, has assembled a board of advisers, found 15,000 square feet of commercial space a mile southeast of the White Flint Metro station and begun to recruit students for the private School for Tomorrow, scheduled to open in September 2009. Shusterman plans to start with about 50 students in sixth through ninth grades and expand through 12th grade. He said he expects to charge about $25,000 a year in tuition, the typical amount for independent schools in the Washington area, but the schedules and lessons will be radically different.

"The model is inspired by the success of home-schoolers," he said. Students will set their class schedules, enabling them to learn at their pace and in their styles. Teachers will act as advisers, not taskmasters.

As for homework, "the one-size-fits-all [model] mandated in today's schools is largely counterproductive," Shusterman says in a slide presentation he uses to sell his idea. School for Tomorrow will have a home reading requirement and "encourage and support individualized, student-initiated homework."

Much of Shusterman's plan is inspired by John Dewey, a 20th-century educational philosopher whose devotees have called for teachers to be "guides on the side, not sages on the stage."

Dewey led a movement called progressive education in which, he said, children learn best when pursuing individual projects that allow them to explore their world. Many teachers, in both private and public schools, use project-based learning to a degree. But at School for Tomorrow, Shusterman said, every course and project will be linked to this question: What does a high school graduate need to know and need to be able to do to thrive in college, the workplace and life in the 21st century?

Old divisions are to be discarded, he said. Students will ally with teachers to decide what and how to study.

Subjects such as math and science might be studied together when it makes sense. Class periods won't necessarily adhere to strict time frames as students take large chunks of time for individual or group projects.

Students of different ages will work together and learn from each other. Shusterman said he developed his ideas for the student-centered system during four years of research, which included home-schooling his daughter when she was in fourth grade in 2006-07.

She and his two sons are looking forward to "going to Dad's school," he said.

Shusterman said that he has found some teachers who share his view of educators as coaches and that he is looking for more. He said he is recruiting students mostly in Montgomery County and the District but is welcoming applications from elsewhere.

The school plan says there will be "widespread use of parents and community members" who will be trained to volunteer as mentors and sources of expertise.

Like all private school founders, Shusterman is spending a lot of time raising money. Many teachers with his ambitions start charter schools, because, as public institutions, they receive tax dollars for support.

But Shusterman said he wants to avoid the limitations and red tape that taking government money would put on his ability to do what he wants. Launching an independent, private school is something few in the region have done in recent years.

Elizabeth Downes, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington, said that 11 schools have joined her private group in the past eight years, two of which were recent start-ups.

Shusterman said he hopes his school will set an example. It is important, he said, to serve "as a model for others with the long-term goal of causing widespread change in American secondary education, both private and, more importantly, public."