This month, I am taking a closer look at Lesley Kopsick’s thesis ‘Removing the Blindfold: Survivors stories of academic and social-emotional learning within the troubled teen industry’ . In the course of her study, she interviews 10 ‘survivors’ about their experiences and her thesis begins with an extract taken from her own experience.
I wound up blindfolded and transported by two strangers, by airplane and car, into the infamous troubled teen industry. The programs were abusive. They met all the criterion of what institutional child abuse outlines. They were not therapeutic, but instead incredibly harmful, and to this day, trauma remains that I must process daily. Luckily, I survived. I also found support groups of other survivors who attended the same programs as me, and survivors of other programs who endured nearly identical psychological and physical abuses. I began to read about trauma, and I learned that it could resurface after years, and even decades. (Kopsick 2022:2)
I keep coming back to it. The accounts are disturbing and as a piece of research, I find her approach a fascinating, albeit flawed, attempt at explicit reflexivity.
Kopsick’s study relates to what she describes as ‘the troubled teen industry’. She states that according to the 2018 US Census, 137,000 children were in some sort of residential care with 57,000 placed there by their parents. A large part of this industry involves the children of the wealthy. She states that there are currently more than 5000 congregate care programmes in the US with majority being in Utah. She reports parents being encouraged to use private transportation companies and children being moved forcibly during the night by car and aircraft. The picture painted is of a largely unregulated industry targeting desperate families worried about their children. It is eye opening
Method
Kopsick used a narrative approach. Participants were interviewed, their narratives condensed and re-ordered chronologically in order that emerging themes could be identified. All had resided in US wilderness programs and/or residential treatment camps for at least 6 months and had memories of their experiences that they were willing to share. Kopsick questioned how being subject to such programmes can have long term academic and social-emotional consequences. The accounts were presented as stories to make them more digestible for the reader. At all stages throughout the interview and writing up process, Kopsick journaled and her own accounts are provided as introductions to each section of her thesis.
Conclusions
It was hard to pull straightforward results from the thesis. It felt more like an opportunity for people to tell their stories and the research questions felt secondary. It is the conclusions drawn from these stories which are emphasised. The study recommends that teens are not pathologised as ‘bad’ to prevent them being sent away by their parents and that staff in these programmes should be trained in trauma informed practices and that both staff and programmes need regular evaluation. Those conclusions and recommendations were clear from the outset. This study uses narrative accounts to add weight to the case.
Strengths and imitations
I am drawn to the narrative methodology of this work. It would be easy to dismiss as a group of people with an axe to grind but I am fascinated by the reflexive aspect of the work. There are layers upon layers to work through. Why choose this topic? why those questions? why those participants? Kopsick is in the middle of this and attempting to handle these stories as a survivor herself. I am fascinated by that struggle because it is so obviously one that is needed in this case. Her journal extracts at the start of each section add context and Kopsick comments that
‘I remained unbiased during the interview process and analysis, and I believe that my dissertation journals added evidence of the reflexivity processes taken.’ (Pg99/100)
I don’t believe that the account is unbiased but I do believe that the journals show a real effort at reflexivity. I think that Kopsick feels that her journaling fulfils the need to be reflexive and to be seen to be reflexive. In the section where she describes possible limitations to her work, she states that:
‘The researcher’s own bias and experiences as a survivor of the troubled teen industry may be viewed as a limitation of this inquiry. However, it is also a benefit…’ (pg252)
This isn’t explored enough. I want to know what the limitations are. The continual use of the term ‘survivor’ is loaded. There is a fantastic quote in which she states ‘I allowed myself to die so that I could survive‘(pg 20). This survival flavours everything that comes. She says:
‘My story is not unique. This is considered “therapy” and thousands of other children went through the same events and continue to every single day in America. This dissertation will tell their stories, uninterrupted, unedited. Their stories will tell the truth.’ (pg 21)
Kopsick goes into the study seemingly looking for children with the same story to tell as her . Here Kopsick states that:
‘Participants employed in similar fields may have a better understanding of the details and verbiage of each interview question.’ (Pg 105)
To me this feels like the author is not including the voices of another group. Over 20 participants were interviewed and only 10 were then chosen. Should the questions not have been more accessible?
Implications for practice
Through my English, primary school practitioner eyes, both the nature of the programmes involved and the experiences of the participants are shocking, however, I found myself drawing parallels with the systems that I know and work within. Parents desperate to help their children and accepting provision because they are at a loss as to what else to do. An industry set up to cater for need where companies need to make a profit. Kopsick implores parents to slow down before they place their child in some else’s care. It is hard to compare children being handcuffed, blindfolded and flown across the country to a child being transported across town to alternative provision each day but some of our children are very young and have little understanding of what to expect. It is daunting. I found parallels with Evanna Lynch’s 2021 biography ‘The opposite of butterfly hunting‘ which describes her being taken from Ireland to London to a residential treatment centre in her teens. This is not simply a US thing
Researcher reflexivity
We are inextricably linked to the process and we leech into the fabric of it. The subject we choose, the questions we ask, the language we adopt, the participants we use and the ones that we don’t. I enjoyed Kopsick’s thesis because I was able to account for her whilst reading her work. She is invested in it. That is clear and she does not attempt to hide it. But should that not also be true for every piece of research we read? Every researcher has a reason for writing. Every researcher has a reason for structuring their work in the way that they do. The language that they used was chosen for effect. The same is true for the driest, empirical, quantitative research as it is for first person qualitative practitioner research. There is a researcher and author working with agendas, employers, funding agencies and motivations of which they may not be aware themselves. Of course, the same is true of those of us reading the work. We all bring our life experience to bear on the way that we interpret the lines of text. That is another story. For today, I commend Lesley Kopsick’s thesis to you. These are stories that needed to be told.
Lynch, E. (2021) The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting. Headline: London
