"How do we break the cycle of abuse when we maybe are contributing to it? You don't need to abuse anybody. You don't need to yell at anybody. Care and concern is what changes people's hearts."
HARRAY VORRATH
Developer of positive peer culture program
By Karina Bland
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 27, 1998
The Arizona Boys Ranch says its methods of helping delinquent children are partly the result of an approach called "Positive Peer Culture," according to its site on the World Wide Web.
Which really offends Harray Vorrath.
Vorrath, of San Diego, developed Positive Peer Culture, hailed for decades as an effective method of treatment and in use in more than 18 states.
On Wednesday, the child-development expert and two colleagues flew to Phoenix after hearing that Boys Ranch officials claimed they used his treatment methods at the site where a 16-year-old boy was killed.
"There is not a paragraph in my book that speaks to any form of punishment, because it is counterproductive," Vorrath said.
"You can get superficial changes in behavior by harassment and physical abuse, but you can't really turn around youngsters with that."
His colleagues, Bill McKay and Barry Blevins, use Vorrath's philosophy to run three programs for delinquent children in Texas and New Mexico. They say they never lay a finger on a child.
"You are providing a safe environment for kids to get well in," McKay said. "Safe is not only safe from staff but safe from peers. You have to be able to feel safe to be able to deal with the social problems you've got."
Vorrath called the treatment of Nicholaus Contreraz, who died at the Arizona Boys Ranch in March, "barbarian."
"Our youngsters have to be taught how to have care and concern, but that means someone has to have care and concern for them," Vorrath said.
"You have to teach it."
That, he said, can mean hours of counseling. And because these children have experienced so few successes -- in school, with their parents, with police -- the goal is to give them chances to succeed and feel good about themselves.
What they need, Vorrath said, is a regular schedule, responsibilities such as jobs or projects, and privileges for good behavior.
Supporters of Arizona Boys Ranch contend that tough children need tough methods of treatment. But Vorrath said he has worked with the worst -- street kids in Detroit, kids who set one another on fire -- and he never hit any of them.
"How do we break the cycle of abuse when we maybe are contributing to it?" Vorrath said. "You don't need to abuse anybody. You don't need to yell at anybody.
"Care and concern is what changes people's hearts."
But Frank Kush, executive administrator at the Ranch and former football coach at Arizona State University, noted that almost half of the boys who come to the Ranch can barely read, yet almost all graduate from high school. They arrive with little self-confidence, yet they learn job skills in 14 vocational and technical programs, including computer science and a print shop.
"They say they don't want to do it because they failed at it so many times," Kush said. "Those kids have to learn what it means to be successful. They have no idea what it takes."
A lot of troubled kids have learned it since the program started in 1947, Kush said, adding, "They just do a commendable job with these kids."
Still, Ranch officials and others say, these tough kids need to be restrained to keep from hurting themselves or someone else. They learned to fight on the streets, and they keep fighting once they get to the Ranch.
"These are not Boy Scouts or altar boys," Kush said. "When you first get them in there, they are just no-good rascals."
These are children with long criminal histories who often never have been held accountable for what they've done, Kush said. They learn they can get away with it.
Not at Boys Ranch. If they do something wrong, they face the consequence -- calisthenics, extra chores, loss of privileges.
"We get some nasty kids. I think everybody has to be aware of this," Kush said. "They're not sent here from Indiana to see the Grand Canyon."