When we left our intrepid heroine (not heroin!), she had just instructed Bean to step out of the office....
me: How DARE you! You, as an authority figure, have just assured my daughter will NEVER come to an authority figure for help again!
Hop (with hand to chest): I'm not an authority figure! I'm her friend.
me: Her friend!? You've been in charge of her for the week, one of two adults.
Hop: Oh no. I'm a friend
Enter Grandma and Grandpa.
me: You are a pitiful excuse for a therapist. When is it acceptable for a therapist to force their own conclusions on the child? It doesn't matter what YOU think. She was groped and she was violated and you made her feelings irrelevant the second you said you thought the other child was teasing!
Hop (defensively): Our realities are formed by our feelings. I am trying to help Bean to have a more positive reality.
Grandma: No, the reality is that she was touched inappropriately and you're saying HER reality be damned.
Grandpa: What you did was the equivalent of a rape victim coming to you for help and you saying "Oh, he didn't MEAN to hurt you. He was just kidding."
me (angrily): Hop, because I would like this conversation to NOT be colored by my frustrations, I am going to step out of here and calm down.
Exit me, enter me into office where Hop's assistant is grilling my other child (Tater) about what she and her sister thought of the program, and why her sister wasn't there. She stops.
Things calmed down after that but so far this is what has happened:
We have asked, in writing, three times for the credentials of Hop and other people dealing with the kids in the program. We have also asked for an agreement between the school system and this organization and/or Hop. We have no responses, though this has been going on since February.
We have been to the school board and were yelled at by the superintendent that he has given this information to us. Yet again, we submitted a written request. Nothing. We have been to the school system office. Nothing.
The personnel director posed as the assistant superintendent at one point in time, and also created a phony web site for the organization's outreach program. He was stupid enough to put it on the school's main website. Even though he claims that the school system has NOTHING to do with the program.
We have found out Hop is a former principal, and has a Master's Degree (her own words). Yet she won't provide credentials. If she is acting in a therapeutic role, should she not have a degree in therapy? How much you wanna bet she has a Master's in Education?
We have found out this program is funded by a grant. After a LOT of looking, we found the grant. When in doubt about why our school board/system refuses to investigate, follow the money.
Hop herself said her plan was to put the kids through the program and then TRACK them through middle and high school. Sound like an outreach or a study? Conducting such studies is illegal without informed consent.
We asked both the principal AND the superintendent if other parents and/or faculty had complained or raised questions. Both said no. We have absolute assurance this is not so, from the very people who have complained.
Though my children have been removed from the program, it is still in existence. Indeed, followup "group sessions" are already happening with my children's peers.
We have had to put this on the back burner due to ANOTHER fight I'm fighting right now. But we will not let this go. There is too much hiding and scurrying around this issue for it to be legitimate. The children of our county need to be protected.
2 comments:
With friends like Hop, who needs enemies?
(When you say Grandma and Grandpa, do you mean your grandparents, or Bean's grandparents?)
Hop's notion of "helping Bean to have a more positive reality" would fit in fine in a fantasy setting. Maybe Hop thinks that Terra is just fantasy roleplaying? Whatever the cause, I think a handy little straitjacket and padded cell combination would serve her well... or if not serve HER well, then applying them to her would serve the rest of society well.
"Our realities are formed by our feelings". NO. Absolutely not. Our perception of reality is affected by our feelings, but reality IS. Reality simply IS. Just as God (the ultimate Reality) said "I am who I am" when asked to identify Himself, Truth has no need to justify or modify itself - it simply is. We don't have our own realities, what we have is five senses which allow us to find out certain things about reality.
Hop is actually destroying the whole meaning of the word "reality". If "reality" is just our feelings, then what can we trust? I believe Rene Descartes studied on this point... coming to a conclusion along the lines that if there's nothing I can trust, the only thing I can know for certain is that I must exist because I can think ("cogito ergo sum"). If reality is formed by my feelings, then what is the world? The world is but a figment of your imagination. You know... you could just reach out and strike her on the face, and then try to "therap" her (if that's a word...) into having a more positive reality. It'd be appropriate.
I SO admire the way you fight for what is right. I know it is hard but you persevere. I want to be more like that. I can learn a lot from you in this area, I think.
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