POSITIVE PRESSURE

	March 28, 2000
	A different way to teach troubled teens. Tom Bearden reports.

TOM BEARDEN: 17-year-old Kenneth is from the Bronx. He's threatening to quit school and move back home with his mother. KENNETH: I am leaving. I am leaving today. I am being discharged. TOM BEARDEN: The staff and his peers are trying to convince him to stay. STUDENT: No, no, no. Why won't you listen to that? Why won't you listen to that? Why do you want to hurt yourself? TOM BEARDEN: Kenneth is one of 170 teenagers at the Edwin Gould Academy in Chestnut Ridge, New York, about an hour north of New York City. But Gould isn't what most people would think of when they hear the word "academy.' It's not a posh private school, but rather a publicly funded residential treatment facility for teenagers from New York City's toughest neighborhoods. Only a small fraction of the more than 40,000 kids in foster care or juvenile detention in the city get to be a part of the Gould program. About 25% of the kids at Gould have committed petty non-violent crimes. If they fail here, the alternative is either getting locked up in a juvenile detention center or being sent back to the same streets where they got into trouble. The other 75% have been abused or neglected by parents or relatives, and have been sent here as a refuge. All of them are troubled, and Gould offers a chance to turn their lives around. Tom Webber runs the academy. TOM WEBBER, Edwin Gould Academy: Edwin Gould Academy believes that kids can really become something great. And it sounds corny, and it sounds like words that we have in our mission statement, but we really believe it, and we try and get the kids to believe that not only can they be great, but they can be something special. TEACHER: Yeah, what's another word for "failure?" TOM BEARDEN: Outside observers think Gould is pretty special, too. Last year the school won the prestigious Harvard School of Government Award for innovation in government. Dr. Webber says the numbers show the school a proven success, with 150 kids graduating from high school in the last five years, and 50% of those kids go on to college or technical training. That's far higher than other programs in New York and elsewhere. Like most residential centers, the kids live together in a group house. This one is called the Alex Haley House, on the second floor of a building that was an orphanage in the 1920'S. The core of the Gould program is something called "positive peer culture." Each evening, students meet to discuss their problems and try to help each other solve them. The technique isn't new. But unlike most residential treatment facilities, the staff only observes the group sessions. The kids are in charge. The idea is to teach the teens to think about others before thinking about themselves. On this night Kenneth-- we omit last names because of the students' ages-- was despondent. He had just gotten his grades, and was failing everything. He was ready to give up. The group was trying to convince him to stay in school and graduate, so that he could achieve his goal of joining the Marines next fall. STUDENT: You... You have no discipline at all. KENNETH: I don't care no more. I just don't care no more, about the program... Nothing to do with the program. STUDENT: Why is the program... KENNETH: If I have a problem then I will deal with it myself, and if I can't, hey, hey, I have to deal with it. The program says we have to work to become independent. STUDENT: Yes. KENNETH: And I am leaving, and what has the program been giving me to become independent? Nothing. (Several kids talking) and I have tried... I have been working the year and eight months I have been here. STUDENT: That's your attitude right now... Change your attitude. Your attitude is not with us... Your attitude is with yourself, because you don't know how to handle your problems. If you really sit right there... Sit right there and observe yourself... You gonna say real good, you gonna say, yo, my problem is not with my head, it is within myself. STUDENT: It seems like you want things to just come to you... For people to feed you everything, and you just want to sit back and relax, but you got to strive just like everybody else is striving. You ain't the only one that got problems. If you're having so much problems, you need to find another way to deal with those problems, instead of acting childish, all right? LUIS: You hear us at the moment, but you are going to keep on using... Keep on saying... Keep on going, doing the same mistakes. Take the help we're giving you and keep on using it, every time you are about to get into a problem, you remember the help we've been giving you. Then you are not going to get in that problem and that's what you got to do. TOM BEARDEN: Positive peer culture is designed to counter the often negative peer pressure on the streets that got some of the kids in trouble in the first place. But it's not the only element staffers think contributes to Gould's success. Another key is the way the school is organized. The students are supervised by a coordinated team of adults that work with the boys to solve their problems in the classroom, at home, and with their fellow students. Each team consists of a teacher, a social worker, and a therapist. In most treatment centers, the educator and the social worker work in different departments, report to different bosses, and don't often communicate about the student. At Gould, they are all in the same organization. The team thinks that makes a big difference. KATHLEEN FORDHAM, Teacher: I think that's very important is the consistency, and that what you're talking about is working with a team. It's because we do all know what the strategies are for each student, and it's carried through so that we're all on the same page, and the students have no opportunity to slip through the cracks, if you will. TOM BEARDEN: In fact on this night, teacher Fordham took Kenny into a one-on-one session to give him additional help. KATHLEEN FORDHAM: And you are not even listening to what they're saying to you. You have to stop a minute. Stop and relax and to regroup and think about what they're saying to you... That you are making a mistake. Nothing will work for you, if you leave under these circumstances. Nothing will go your way. What is... What is the goal? What is your big goal right now? KENNETH: Finish school. KATHLEEN FORDHAM: Okay. You think if you leave in the middle of the semester that you're going to be able to finish up school this year? KENNETH: Hey, listen... I... KATHLEEN FORDHAM: Listen to me. Listen to me. I have 15 years in the system... 15 years in education... I am telling you that that is not going to happen. You will not finish school on time if you leave here now. Even if you go to summer school, it's not going to happen. You will not graduate from high school this year. KENNETH: All I need is eight credits. KATHLEEN FORDHAM: Kenny, it is not going to happen. You have no credits right now. You have no credits. KENNETH: And all I need is eight. KATHLEEN FORDHAM: And you can get eight credits in a semester. KENNETH: Yes... I know. KATHLEEN FORDHAM: Kenny, it is not going to happen. What if you don't pass something? KENNETH: I am not going to fail. TOM BEARDEN: The staff says this approach often means working a lot more than nine to five. HEWTON FIDER, Team Leader: Well, you're supposed to work 40 hours a week, but again because of the dynamics, and because of the unique program we have, it sometimes... It never really happens to be 40. MICHELLE ISRAEL, Social Worker: It's a very emotional job. You're dealing with emotions all day long so, it can be stressful. But you have great days, and you have tough days, and then you have great days when you see some great things with them. And it just pays off. TOM BEARDEN: Keith thinks the program has helped make him a better person. Are you better prepared now than when you came here? KEITH: Oh yeah, a lot. I was a little hardheaded, you know what I mean? Didn't listen to nobody, didn't give respect, had no respect. I got a lot of respect now for other people. And trying to be successful, they are going to try to help me. TOM BEARDEN: Where did you get that respect from? Who taught it to you? KEITH: You got to give respect to earn respect, so that is what they taught us here. So by me giving people respect, I earn respect. TOM BEARDEN: Nancy Mahon, the director for the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, follows the juvenile justice in America. She says programs like Gould should be an alternative to incarceration. NANCY MAHON, Center for Crime, Communities & Culture: The Department of Juvenile Justice recently did a report in which they estimated that when a juvenile goes... basically falls out of high school system and goes into the juvenile justice system, we will pay, as a society, between $1.7 million and $2.5 million over the course of that juveniles life. Unfortunately, if we don't invest in kids at this juncture, and we put them in juvenile justice system instead of in facilities and programs and schools like Edwin Gould, we are going to be paying, as I said, for that child for many, many years to come in adult prisons. TOM BEARDEN: It costs the state between $65,000 and $80,000 to put a child in a regular juvenile detention center or a group home. Gould's program comes with a larger price tag: Almost $90,000 a year per student. TOM WEBBER: All of our resources are combined, so the educational money, which is in the neighborhood of $25,000, $27,000 a year per kid; the foster care money, which is in the neighborhood of $45,000, 48,000; the Medicaid or medical money to provide both health services-- some of our kids come here and with no immunization records. We have to provide all medical service sometimes from the beginning. The state's giving that to all of these programs already any way, so the money's already being spent. We're just using it wisely. We're putting all the program pieces together. TOM BEARDEN: New York's commissioner for children's service whose office gives the academy more than $9 million a year and sends them three-quarters of their students, thinks the money is well spent. NICHOLAS SCOPPETTA, Commissioner, Children's Services: You are really saving these children's lives. It is about $80,000 a year per bed. It is a very expensive program, but if you don't do this, and the kids go homeless -- end up in the adult criminal system, you will spend a lot more then. And as they say, "pay now or pay later." But that doesn't even begin to measure the human cost, if you don't intervene. TOM BEARDEN: Dr. Howard Polsky is a professor at the Columbia School of Social Work, who has studied and written about juvenile residential facilities for more than 30 years. He says the Gould program is working better than most and can be applied in many other situations. DR. HOWARD POLSKY, Columbia University School of Social Work: What they have learned there can be duplicated, not only in other residential institutions, but I think it also can be duplicated in public schools in the prime and criminalgenic neighborhoods that are falling apart. The concept of team primacy, where they emphasize staff participation in the decision- making of the institution, to involve them as part of the community, are all programs and mechanisms that could be useful to other institutions, and also to public schools. TOM BEARDEN: But academy staffers are the first to admit that they don't have a very good idea about what happens to the students who complete their stay at Gould. They've found it difficult to raise money for follow-up studies. Even so, the school has received more than two dozen inquiries from out-of-state agencies considering replicating the program. Back at the Alex Haley House, at the end of that tense group meeting, Kenneth decided to stay that night, attend more meetings, and try to graduate from high school.