FICAN

I sent Congressman Wamp an email (below) expressing my concern over his vote of NAY on H.R. 6358. Here is his response.



Dear _________:


As a parent and legislator, nothing is more important to me than the safety of children. We must do everything we can to protect them from abuse in residential behavioral programs, but parents have a right to be involved in treatment decisions. Thank you for sharing your personal story with me since this issue touches so close to home for you.



While I support the intent of the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act, it stopped short of requiring full disclosure to parents of the prescription drugs being dispensed to their children. Republicans offered an amendment that would require parental consent before any prescription drugs, including contraceptives, could be given to a child. Unfortunately, it was stripped from the legislation.



This bill ultimately passed the House and it is now up to the Senate to act on it. My hope is that a parental consent provision will be included in the final version.



Warmest Regards,

Zach Wamp
Member of Congress



[hr][hr]
Dear Congressman Wamp,

I am disappointed that you chose to vote NO on H.R. 6358, The Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008.


In June of 2006, ____________ had our daughter incarcerated at Peninsula Village. I am sure you are familiar with the Peninsula Behavioral Health subsidiary of Covenant Health. Peninsula Village claims to stand apart from many of the juvenile boot camps and programs for troubled teens that have recently been under investigation by the GAO. A press release by PV assured the public they "were not like the programs under investigation" I know from personal experience that Peninsula Village is certainly just like the other programs , and possibly far worse, hiding under a cloak of licensure and supposed regulation.

During the six months she was in Peninsula Village, my daughter was subjected to excessive seclusion and isolation, and extreme physical and verbal abuse.

I personally witnessed my daughter in an ILLEGAL face down restraint performed by UNTRAINED and UNDER QUALIFIED PV staff. In her records, Peninsula Village claims they were forced to restrain her because she was "running towards me". There are several accounts of the restraint in her records and each is different.

The treatment team at PV, a team of supposed "professionals" including Dr. Ad_m McL_ _n, Dr. Br_ _n Am_ _l, and Mr. J_bby L_rd R_df_ _ld, told my daughter that “I had asked for her to be restrained” and put her on "therapeutic mother restriction". She was not allowed to speak my name or talk about me. We were not allowed any contact at all except through monitored letters for the next five months. (I have communicated with several adolescent psychiatrists in different parts of the US and none are familiar with what PV described in her records as "the therapeutic technique of mother restriction".) She was however allowed to have regular "family therapy" sessions with her biological father. In November of 2006 her treatment team allowed him to confront her in a very hostile manner about allegations she had made against him nearly seven months before. In December of 2006, her guardian ad litem determined she did NOT belong there and indeed the emergency change of custody should never have occurred.

Congressman Wamp, Peninsula Village's motto is "Mending Young Lives and Restoring Families" Peninsula Village did neither for us. Why did a sixteen year old girl, guilty only of some normal adolescent upheaval sit on a bed eight hours a day for six months in the lockdown unit at Peninsula Village where merely trying to gaze out one of the two windows in the unit is cause for punishment? Being tossed suddenly into "the world of Peninsula Village" was one of the most frightening things that has ever happened to me. Six months of being isolated from my daughter with whom I shared a close and loving relationship has done irreparable damage to my physical and mental health. I can not look at my nearly nineteen year old daughter without wondering (and knowing in many cases) what it has done to hers.



Thank you for your time.

___________ ____________

Stoodoodog wrote:I sent Congressman Wamp an email (below) expressing my concern over his vote of NAY on H.R. 6358. Here is his response.



Dear _________:


As a parent and legislator, nothing is more important to me than the safety of children. We must do everything we can to protect them from abuse in residential behavioral programs, but parents have a right to be involved in treatment decisions. Thank you for sharing your personal story with me since this issue touches so close to home for you.



While I support the intent of the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act, it stopped short of requiring full disclosure to parents of the prescription drugs being dispensed to their children. Republicans offered an amendment that would require parental consent before any prescription drugs, including contraceptives, could be given to a child. Unfortunately, it was stripped from the legislation.



This bill ultimately passed the House and it is now up to the Senate to act on it. My hope is that a parental consent provision will be included in the final version.



Warmest Regards,

Zach Wamp
Member of Congress



[hr][hr]
Dear Congressman Wamp,

I am disappointed that you chose to vote NO on H.R. 6358, The Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008.


In June of 2006, ____________ had our daughter incarcerated at Peninsula Village. I am sure you are familiar with the Peninsula Behavioral Health subsidiary of Covenant Health. Peninsula Village claims to stand apart from many of the juvenile boot camps and programs for troubled teens that have recently been under investigation by the GAO. A press release by PV assured the public they "were not like the programs under investigation" I know from personal experience that Peninsula Village is certainly just like the other programs , and possibly far worse, hiding under a cloak of licensure and supposed regulation.

During the six months she was in Peninsula Village, my daughter was subjected to excessive seclusion and isolation, and extreme physical and verbal abuse.

I personally witnessed my daughter in an ILLEGAL face down restraint performed by UNTRAINED and UNDER QUALIFIED PV staff. In her records, Peninsula Village claims they were forced to restrain her because she was "running towards me". There are several accounts of the restraint in her records and each is different.

The treatment team at PV, a team of supposed "professionals" including Dr. Ad_m McL_ _n, Dr. Br_ _n Am_ _l, and Mr. J_bby L_rd R_df_ _ld, told my daughter that “I had asked for her to be restrained” and put her on "therapeutic mother restriction". She was not allowed to speak my name or talk about me. We were not allowed any contact at all except through monitored letters for the next five months. (I have communicated with several adolescent psychiatrists in different parts of the US and none are familiar with what PV described in her records as "the therapeutic technique of mother restriction".) She was however allowed to have regular "family therapy" sessions with her biological father. In November of 2006 her treatment team allowed him to confront her in a very hostile manner about allegations she had made against him nearly seven months before. In December of 2006, her guardian ad litem determined she did NOT belong there and indeed the emergency change of custody should never have occurred.

Congressman Wamp, Peninsula Village's motto is "Mending Young Lives and Restoring Families" Peninsula Village did neither for us. Why did a sixteen year old girl, guilty only of some normal adolescent upheaval sit on a bed eight hours a day for six months in the lockdown unit at Peninsula Village where merely trying to gaze out one of the two windows in the unit is cause for punishment? Being tossed suddenly into "the world of Peninsula Village" was one of the most frightening things that has ever happened to me. Six months of being isolated from my daughter with whom I shared a close and loving relationship has done irreparable damage to my physical and mental health. I can not look at my nearly nineteen year old daughter without wondering (and knowing in many cases) what it has done to hers.



Thank you for your time.

___________ ____________

Wamp doesn't sound too warm and fuzzy, but I guess he's not trained to be. That was an unimpressive display of talking out the side of his neck. I've been curious about the Republicans slimy stall tactic: dragging contraception into the parental consent amendment and putting a Pro-Life/conservative Christian spin on opposing the bill. Was the Pro-Life/Con-Christian noise an attempt to rally those folks against the bill? We all want full disclosure of medications, that's a given. The birth control whining? PV does not even allow eye contact between opposite sexes, so any debate over birth control being dispensed without parental consent at PV is unneccesary. If it is being dispensed, the staff counselors will be called upon to explain.

I really didn't expect anything more from Congressman Wamp. He is not the kind of politician who is going to have the ahem... guts to break file with his party. More than likely he was snoozing when the vote came up and was advised by his aide Mr. Greg McIlvaine* that all his friends were voting NO on whichever bill was up for vote (oh yeah H.R. 6358)
Covenant Health has most area politicians in pocket and Congressman Zach Wamp is so far in he resides with the lint balls.

*(202)225-3271 g.mcilvaine@mail.house.gov

I wonder if Wamp would still defend how he voted on H.R.6358 if we let him read a former PV patient's medical records? He would have trouble saying the survivor was lying about abuse and mistreatment when PV documented it in their own records.

Unfortunately Zach Wamp was re-elected on November 4.