Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) is a member-driven advocacy organization that promotes and secures the human rights of youth in residential placement or who are at the risk of placement.
For more information, please see CAFETY's Annual Reports page, FAQ's and bylaws.
Our 'Care, NOT Coercion' Campaign
CAFETY's "Care, NOT Coercion Campaign" works to increase awareness of states that house residential programs that are coercive and operate under a philosophy or use practices that undermine the dignity of the youth entrusted in their care.
Many states do not have adequate regulation in place or do not effectively monitor residential programs. Some facilities escape regulation entirely and are often known as behavior modification programs, character building schools, wilderness therapy programs, gay re-education camps, boot camps, or therapeutic boarding schools. Our goal is to ensure that states and the federal government meet their obligation to institutionalized youth by ensuring that comprehensive regulation, effective monitoring and an independent system of review exist to ensure youth are safe and that placement is least restrictive, appropriate and nondiscriminatory.
VISION
The members of CAFETY envision the day that no young person is harmed in the name of treatment and when youth are empowered to be equal partners in their own care.
VALUES
As CAFETY members, we have come to know the suffering of those confined in residential programs and are moved to act.
- We provide support for program survivors through outreach, advocacy, and the sharing of common experiences.
- We acknowledge that present policies addressing the needs of youth struggling with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges are inadequate in scope and reach.
- We advocate for measures that would effectively help youth and families remain together and find treatment in their community.
- We recognize that some youth are inappropriately institutionalized and seek to prevent this type of segregation from the community.
- We also believe that, in the event youth are placed in an out-of-home setting appropriately, the basic human rights of youth must be protected.
- Appropriate care includes protection from harm and access to treatment by a qualified professional that is transparent, confidential, and non-coercive. It also means holding providers accountable for the services they provide.
We hope to achieve this by:
- Outreaching to survivors,
- Creating a support peer network to empower our youth survivors advocates,
- Utilizing the power of personal narrative to educate the public, mental health professionals, policymakers and stakeholders,
- Supporting, organizing and mobilizing our members/chapters
- Tracking and issuing reports and recommendations of the expereinces of youth in residential placement
- Coalition building with like-minded organizations.
CAFETY’s Goals and Advocacy positions
- General Advocacy Points
- Access to advocates
- The right to due process - independent review of admissions and continued placement
- Alternatives to aversive behavioral interventions - right to bodily integrity
- Alternatives to restraints and seclusion - right to bodily integrity
- Acccess to community-based care
- Lowering age of consent to mental health treatment - right to bodily integrity
- Routine reporting of abuse in residential treatment programs
- Federal government oversight and monitoring of residential treatment programs
- Ratification of the Children's Rights Convention
- Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol
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