Help at Any Cost

Teenagers have been participating in tough love behavior modification programs by force or coercion since the 1960s. Many of these programs take place in the wilderness in the style of military recruit training (also known as boot camps) and the teenagers are subjected to rigid discipline, including mandatory marches, physical abuse, solitary confinement, and deprivation of food and sleep. These programs have little to no oversight from the United States federal or state governments. Teenagers' claims of abuse at these facilities have not been investigated because the programs are not regulated. ==Author==

Maia Szalavitz is a senior fellow at the Statistical Assessment Service (stats.org), She has served as a researcher for journalist Bill Moyers, and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog with Bruce D. Perry. ==Contents==

In Help at Any Cost Szalavitz investigates the teen rehabilitation industry and focuses on four programs: Straight, Incorporated, a copy of the Straight Inc. program called KIDS of Bergen County, North Star wilderness boot camp, and the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. Some of these programs cost parents over US$2,000 per month. Synanon claimed that it could cure addiction to heroin, and its methodologies such as attack therapy, forced confessions, and imposed powerlessness spread throughout the United States. Szalavitz uses first-person accounts from teenagers that participated in these programs, and asserts that the programs have potentially serious negative consequences, including post-traumatic stress and deaths. An emotional story in the book recounts the death of 16-year-old Aaron Bacon. Bacon had a treatable ulcer, and died after being out in the wilderness in Utah for weeks while in the care of the group North Star. Bacon lost in 20 days, but was called "gay" and a "faker" when he complained of abdominal pain, and was punished by North Star supervisors—his sleeping bag and food were taken away from him. The individuals responsible for Bacon were charged with negligent homicide, but did not serve any jail time. In addition to these first-person accounts, she also incorporates court reports and testimony in her research. Szalavitz highlights controversial practices used by these tough love teen industry programs which the Geneva Convention banned as being too extreme for prisoners of war. She states that there is no evidence that any of the programs are effective. Portions of the book are addressed to parents and provide resources and advice on how to select better choices instead of programs in the tough love teen industry, and the book includes an appendix aimed at educating parents on how to find help for their teenagers. ==Reception==

In his book Emotions: Mystery or Madness, psychologist and psychiatrist Robert John McAllister highly recommended Help at Any Cost, and called it "an excellent and informative book on the subject of the 'troubled-teen industry' ", and "important reading for any parent who is considering sending a teenager to a tough love program, a boot camp, or a wilderness program." In a review of the book in Library Journal, Linda Beck commented: "This book is excellent owing to its whistle-blowing approach: it exposes an unregulated industry and alerts adults to the severe harm inflicted by these 'schools.' " She called the book "chilling" and "Highly recommended for public libraries." Steve Weinberg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave the book a positive review, and described Szavalitz as "a talented, relentless investigator". Vanessa Bush of Booklist characterized the book as "a revealing, at times horrifying look at the troubled-teen industry." Publishers Weekly noted: "With a useful appendix discussing when and how to get responsible help for a troubled teen, this book, filled with first-person accounts, should be required reading in Parenting 101", calling the work "a courageous—if horrifying—study of the tough-love industry". Karen Karbo, author of The Stuff of Life, gave the book a positive review in Newsday, writing: "Maia Szalavitz's brisk investigation of America's so-called 'tough love' treatment programs, which bill themselves as the last hope for out-of-control, drug-taking teens, would be the stuff of a bad TV movie, if it weren't so smart, well-researched and even-handed." Mark Sauer of The San Diego Union-Tribune noted: "Some of the stories reveal physical and psychological abuse that rivals tales from Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison." ==Aftermath==

Help at Any Cost succeeded in bringing attention to deaths related to medical neglect and child abuse in the troubled-teen industry. On October 10, 2007, the United States House Committee on Education and Labor of the United States House of Representatives held a full committee investigative hearing chaired by Representative George Miller on "Cases of Child Neglect and Abuse at Private Residential Treatment Facilities". ==Notes==