Program seeks to turn around unruly kids

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Program seeks to turn around unruly kids

Eckerd Youth Alternative is a $220-a-day private program for teens with emotional, academic and behavior problems. The small four-month-old camp, affiliated with a larger program based in Florida, hopes to more than triple its enrollment, now at eight boys and six girls.

Eckerd Youth Alternative is located in an idyllic setting in the north Georgia mountains near Suches. It's a $220-a-day private program where parents send unruly kids.

Andrew Sherman from Acworth grabs some last-minute items as sister watches. His parents placed him there after he frequently skipped classes at Kell High School, lost his drivers license, briefly ran away from home and dabbled with illegal drugs.

Mike and Phyliss Holland of Valdosta sit with their daughter Claire, 17 during parents day at Eckerd. Claire will stay in the program until she meets her goals of performing better in school and improving the relationship with her parents.

Claire would like to leave the program by summer. If she remains through the summer, she could likely get through her 11th grade curriculum and be at grade level when she returns home.

Girls walk to their cabins. "Kids typically are angry when they get here, angry at their parents for sending them away, angry at us for being here, just angry," says director Tim McMahon says. "We address that on Day One, asking them why they are here and helping them with their initial treatment plan, then their master plan."

Tim McMahon was formerly the director at Appalachian Wilderness Camp in 2005 when Travis Parker, 13, died at the state-run camp for troubled boys near Cleveland. He stresses that Eckerd isn't a boot camp. Eckerd does not take court-appointed cases, a distinction that organizers say separates them from the more publicized state-run "boot camps" that help teens avoid prison.

Billl Collins of Poolesville, Md., hugs his son, Chris Collins, 17.

The cabins where the students live are small, with room enough for four cots, two on either wall, a gas heater, a few teddy bears, and almost nothing else.

Families line up for lunch during parents day.

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Eckerd Youth Alternative is located in an idyllic setting in the north Georgia mountains near Suches. It's a $220-a-day private program where parents send unruly kids.

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