Care, Not Coercion Campaign (anti-Rothenberg)

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This isn't specific to autism, but just found out about this group called CAFETY Community Alliance For the Ethical Treatment of Youth (www.cafety.org) that is fighting abusive places such as the Rothenberg Center.

If you're on facebook this cause is in the running for a $1000 grant so cast your vote!
http://apps.facebook.com/speedgranting/ ... EyODA2ODk0

Community Alliance For the Ethical Treatment of Youth
The Problem / Need / Situation:
At this moment, youth are being subjected to inhumane treatment, mistreatment and being institutionalized unnecessarily. The growth of this largely unregulated or improperly monitored troubled teen industry has given rise to wide spread abuse of youth.
The Pitch:
The Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) is a volunteer, youth-driven effort in support of the protection of the human rights of institutionalized youth experiencing behavioral, emotional and mental health challenges.

Our primary focus at this time is to increase awareness of inadequately regulated or monitored facilities using harmful, punitive, or aversive practices and to increase accountability through organized support for substantive policy change and legislation that affirms the rights of youth . These facilities are often known as behavior modification programs, character building schools, wilderness programs, boot camps, therapeutic boarding schools, or non-traditional experiential programs.

We have begun by spearheading our 'Care, not Coercion' Campaign, in support of federal and state legislation through engagement in public education efforts, outreach, grassroots advocacy and organizing, and alliance-building.

This might be somewhat tangential to the topic but there are other types of programme that help troubled youth without resorting to cruel and unusual punishments that generally serve either to turn them into gibbering wrecks or people full of hate.

A local man had a ranch style place with horses and took on numbers of young lads, giving them training on how to look after the horses and other farm related activities. He had good success rates but unfortunately, he could not afford to run his place without government grants and had to close down when his funding was withdrawn. Some parents paid but others could not afford to, and other boys were wards of the state. Donations kept the place running for a while but sadly, weren't enough.