Straight was mostly staffed by unpaid kids further along in their treatment. They were used to control, restrain, supervise, and elicit confessions from newcomers. Many kids who graduated the program stay on as paid (minimum wage or less) junior staff. With tenure, and more education, some of these eventually become senior staff. Senior staff are adult personnel with some level of college education in various fields.  By 1983 Straight was the largest provider of drug abuse treatment for juveniles in the nation.  Straight's claim to professionalism or quality clinical treatment is, at best, disingenuous, in at least one case, allegedly, criminally fraudulent. But that is not to say that it was benign or ineffectual. Indeed, Straight has had profound effects on individual clients and their families. If there is a walking personification of The Program, it's Father Doctor  Virgil Miller Newton,  so let's start with him.  

Father Doctor V. Miller Newton.  In 1976 while he was chairman of the board of a private boy�s prison in Florida, Miller Newton made his second unsuccessful bid for Congress. His father, Red Miller, was editor for the influential Tampa Tribune. His former business partner was the chief-of-staff for former Governor of Florida (later U.S. Senator) Bob Graham.    In 1979 Newton had been just another parent at Straight with virtually no experience or education in clinical drug rehabilitation. That year, perhaps in anticipation of a job offer from Straight, he attended a workshop on alcoholism. In January 1980 with virtually no other clinical experience than that seminar, he joined Straight as an assistant director. And before the year was out he was conducting intake interviews.  One of these was the intake interview of Michael Calabrese. Michael had been told he was going to a sibling interview in 1980 as a prerequisite to seeing his brother from a distance at an Open Meeting. Mr Calabrese claims his sibling interview turned into a high pressure intake interview from which he was not allowed to leave until he admitted himself into Straight. He says he got into a shouting match with Miller Newton during the intake. Father Doctor Miller Newton quickly became Straight's national clinical director.  Since the Straights are involved in brainwashing,  and since brainwashing is an experimental science in the Western world,  Father Newton will be mentioned under both medical researchers at Straight and under clinicians as he was the national clinical director.   Click here for the story of the notorious Doctor Miller Newton both at Straight and at his own KIDS' program in New Jersey.

The Development of a child counselor.   Under construction. 

Chris Yarnold.  During the Fred Collins� trial, which resulted in a $220,000 judgement against Straight for false imprisonment, Straight�s director Dr. Miller Newton presented Chris Yarnold as Straight�s expert on diagnosis for drug abuse. In fact Mr. Yarnold had been Straight�s senior intake counselor when Mr. Collins had been admitted. During deposition Mr. Yarnold admitted he did not know what laughing gas was, nor did he know the active ingredient in marijuana [THC]. When asked, in court, if he knew how the hallucinogenic factor in drugs worked, he replied, "No. All I knew was drugs affected people." He declared that he had known Mr. Collins had been smoking marijuana because his eyes had been red at intake! He admitted that contact lenses could make one�s eyes red, but on physical examination of Collins at the trial, he failed to notice that Collins was currently wearing contact lenses. Mr. Yarnold, a former Catholic priest, had joined Straight in Aug 1981. Sixteen months later he was director of the infamous Sarasota Straight.

Just prior to Straight�s opening in September 1976 Director Hartz had told a reporter with the Saint Petersburg Times, "I happen to feel that you can communicate with an individual without degrading him, humiliating him and without depriving him of all his uniqueness." He had reportedly said that "cussing and swearing" in therapy sessions to force clients to bare their true feelings--one of the criticisms of The Seed--is the product of "untrained, unsupervised and unqualified staff--it�s not going to happen here." Before the year was out five board members had resigned. Three resigned in mass in August 1977 and made a joint statement that, neither Hartz nor Petermann "have the necessary qualifications to rehabilitate preteens or teens who have a drug or alcohol problem". They concluded, "we feel we cannot recommend Straight Inc. to our friends or citizens of our community." Carolyn Henson was the wife of Straight board member L. Hap Henson and a program volunteer for Straight. When her husband resigned she told a reporter at the Saint Petersburg Times in December 1977 that, "they (juveniles) are Straight while they�re there, but it�s out of fear." She further stated that several former program counselors and clients had told her that juveniles have been mistreated while in the program. A former program volunteer told a Times reporter in December 1977 that she, Hartz and others once witnessed Mrs. Petermann maliciously kicking a youth who was passively resisting Straight officials.

When questioned by The Times regarding the disgruntled former board members, Mrs. Petermann had responded, "I sure wish they would get off my back. They would like to see this (program) go down the drain." Hartz had compared the disgruntled directors to small children. "If they didn�t get their candy, they would go home." In response to Mrs. Henson�s allegations of abuses, Hartz responded to a reporter that rumors of mistreatment constantly surface about Straight, but no incident has ever been proven. He did acknowledge to a Times reporter that three methods are used to discipline "disruptive" clients.

1. "Time out" known by some clients as "solitary confinement" where, according to Hartz, a client is put in a room by himself while a counselor stands outside to periodically check up on him. [One former 16 year-old client during those early days claimed she was kept in "solitary confinement" for five days in a row. For three of those days, she alleged, her arms and legs were bound by large strips of canvas. Hartz denied that charge.]

2. "Running" where juveniles are exercised forcibly if necessary. [Several persons interviewed by the Times at the time say they saw clients kicked and grabbed by the hair during these exercises.]

3. "Marathon sessions" where a group of counselors yell remarks at a client designed to provoke the client into feeling guilty.

According to the Saint Petersburg Times of February 12, 1978 two former Straight counselors (in sworn statements) said they had seen Straight program director Helen R. Petermann repeatedly slap a small youth and yanked him by his hair in an apparent outburst of temper. "I saw maybe five good smacks," one ex-counselor had said.. Another bizarre allegation was made by two former Straight staffers who said that Ms Petermann once demonstrated different positions of sexual intercourse to a group of female clients, some in their early teens. When a Times reporter asked Jim Hartz about the alleged incident he said he knew nothing of the sex rap. But he said the subject of sex occasionally comes up. "Helen�s a very uninhibited person," Hartz reportedly said. If the session occurred, he said, "It might have been done better in private."

Two former counselors said that Ms. Petermann allegedly prepared two documents to scare clients into remaining at Straight. One was reportedly signed from the police department. After the kid had signed the document, the two had alleged, he was told by Ms. Petermann, "Ah ha! Now we�ve got you. If you don�t stay here now and you run away, we�re gonna� send you away to Marianna (state juvenile home)." An ex-counselor claimed that Ms. Petermann had threatened at least one other juvenile in the same manner. [Miller Newton once reportedly threatened a child in a similar manner in front of two HRS officers.]

In 197? HRS (Florida�s licensing bureau for juvenile drug rehab programs) made five recommendations in order for Straight to renew its license. The fifth recommendation had been "to make sure personnel and program policies are in written form and that staff members are frequently evaluated." So in the week before HRS was to make its decision on Straight�s license the Straight Board of Directors announced ratings for its program staff members. The report acknowledged that Helen Petermann once struck an "hysterical and out-of-control" program client. "We do not condone the action from Mrs. Petermann, but it is not such a severe infraction that would create (her) severance," board president Melvin Sembler had reportedly said. "Helen did not think it was an infraction at the time," he said. "These (clients) are people who are on drugs, and because of that they are not normal." The board said, "Mrs. Petermann states that . . . [she] only slapped one person; that particular person was hysterical and out of control." She states that she had "wrapped two persons in a blanket who (were) too aggressive to handle." But Jim Hartz had previously publically denied that Mrs. Petermann had slapped anyone. Sembler said that was because Hartz was unaware of the slapping incident. Sembler added that Mrs. Petermann had recently been given the Service to Mankind Award by the Northeast Sertoma Club for her work at Straight.

Dr. George Ross, The Johnny AppleSeed of the Straight Movement.

Besides agreeing to give staff officers periodic reviews the board acknowledged that Hartz was understaffed and agreed to hire an educational director to relieve Hartz of that responsibility. The man hired in 1979 for that important function was Dr. George Ross. Actually Dr. Ross�s Phd. is in education. Dr. Ross left Straight in 1980 taking Straight�s clinical director Helen Petermann with him to form LIFE, Inc. in Sarasota, Florida. I call George Ross the "Johnny AppleSeed" of the Straight saga. He left LIFE and formed another second-generation Straight called Kids Helping Kids of Hebron, Kentucky (which operates today as Kids Helping Kids of Cincinnati out of the old Straight facility in Cincinnati.) After leaving LIFE, Helen Petermann went on to become the program director for LIFE, Inc. In 1984 Helen Petermann teamed up with one Barbara Griffith, M.A., LIFE�s Director of Prevention and Education, and some other staffers at LIFE to write the paper, "Effective early intervention for adolescents harmfully involved in alcohol and drugs" for The Journal of the Florida Medical Association, Inc., Apr 1984, Vol 71, No. 4. Barbara Griffith would leave LIFE and head for Lakeworth, Florida to help setup another second generation Straight called Growing Together which operates to this day. Meanwhile Dr. Ross left KIDS in Hebron and moved to Lexington, Kentucky to set up Possibilities Unlimited, Inc.

Reporter Susan White of the Lexington Herald-Leader had written about Possibilities on May 27, 1985, page C3: "Not all of the kids come to Possibilities Unlimited eagerly, or even willingly. The walls of the intake rooms are decorated with jagged holes made by frustrated newcomers. Some sign their commitment papers only after long hours of persuasion by peer counselors, parents and Ross." In 1985 Dr. Ross and six others associated with Possibilities Unlimited were indicted and tried for keeping young people in the program against their will in a trial where assistant prosecutor Jack Giles told the jury he would seek a jail sentence for Dr. Ross. [LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, August 30, 1985, page B1 ] The complainants included a 23-year-old woman who alleged that Ross had threatened to have her "2-year-old baby taken from her if she didn't enroll in the program"; a 15-year-old boy who "alleged that Ross threatened to have him hospitalized and get a court order placing him in the program"; a 16-year-old boy; and a 19- year-old Frankfort teenager who alleged that "three Possibilities Unlimited workers came to his home and carried him back to the center after he had been allowed to leave".

During the trial Douglas Patrick Smalley of Frankfort, Kentucky testified that his intake lasted four hours in an interview room where he had been physically restrained by Ross to prevent his escape. Just as in an earlier trial against Straight in Virginia, Ross� attorney questioned Smalley about his admissions in Moral Inventories. [so much for the confidentiality clause] Smalley had said that much of what he had admitted to was lies saying that you had to invent things so they would leave you alone. [LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, May 17, 1987, page B4, SECTION: CITY/STATE ]

During cross-examination Fayette County Assistant Attorney Phillip Moloney was critical of Dr. Ross� method for determining whether a young person had a drug problem and faulted him for making a determination without using any sort of psychological test. But Dr. Ross had said those tests were not needed adding that it was not necessary to get a second opinion even though the parents of one of the accusers had told Dr. Ross they did not think their son had a drug problem.

One of the teenagers had filed a complaint that three boys had been sent to his house to forcefully take him back to the program. On that charge Dr. Ross had testified that he had ''chewed them out royally,'' and had told them ''That's the kind of situation that could close this program down.'' [LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, August 30, 1985, page B1 .] There were allegations that parents had been instructed to nail shut windows in their homes to keep kids in. But former program parent Dr. Robert Bain testified that "I never heard in all my experience of anyone who nailed their windows shut." Donna Wilson, a social worker with the Department of Social Services who had investigated a complaint that one of the complainants had been held against his will testified that she did not believe that to be the case. [LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, August 19, 1985, page A1.]

And Ross had other weapons in his favor. Larry Roberts his attorney, had been the commonwealth attorney for Fayette County. Then there were character witnesses Roy Durbin who was an Urban County Councilman and who became a board member at PU after his son completed "a similar drug program in Florida" and PU parent Carl Ross who was running for city council. Both spoke highly of Dr. Ross and his program. And then a drug expert who ran her own juvenile program down in Florida was called in as a character witness for Dr. Ross. That star witness had just published an article in the prestigious medical journal The Journal of the Florida Medical Association. Her name was Helen Petermann and the rest is history. [LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, August 28, 1985, page B1 ]

Dr. Ross was acquitted of three charges of unlawful imprisonment. Charges against the six staff members were either dismissed or dropped especially after a prime witness failed to show. So Dr. George Ross is the highest Straight official, former official, (or official tied to a Straight-related program) to be criminally prosecuted to date. Though found not guilty, the ensuing exposure of the trial probably had much to do with the ultimate demise of Possibilities Unlimited.

Other executive and clinical staff

Straight co-founder Mel Sembler had a B.S. in Speech while co-founder Joe Zappala has just a high school diploma. Program executive directors and clinical directors frequently, and perhaps misleadingly, are referred to as doctor. They are not medical doctors, rather they are often doctors of education as is Dr. Perry Ustik, Dr. Mel Riddile, and Dr. George Ross. Other administrators like Susan Hardman Byrd, have a masters in education. Hugh Burns, director of Straight-Sarasota was a former high school principal. Straight administrator Deborah Tychsen, M.ED., taught English as a Second Language to foreign high school students prior to joining Straight. Former Army supply sergeant Michael Scaletta who became director of Straight-Orlando a year after he joined Straight had studied business administration in college and was the business administrator for Lasalle Alco in Orlando just prior to joining Straight. Beverly Hardy, program coordinator for Straight-Cincinnati had an associate degree in business administration.

In 1991, Straight represented to Boston officials that Linda Creighton was a psychiatrist. She was actually a registered nurse. Straight-Atlanta was cited in 1992 for having a counselor who possessed only a general equivalency diploma, but then, Helen Peterman, who supervised Straight�s initial junior staff and later helped Dr. Ross found LIFE, Inc., is a high school drop out. Straight-Atlanta�s clinical director had a B.S. in "Social Rehabilitation-Social Services". Will Knisely, Straight-DC�s clinical director, had a Master of Divinity. Reverend F. Scotty Cassidy founded the Second Chance program. Bill Oliver, former National Executive Director of Straight had a B.S. in Business Administration and is a former preacher, and Chris Yarnold is a former priest.

Maryland health officials cited Straight-Maryland in 1992 for not having even one certified drug or alcohol abuse counselor on its entire staff!

And all of this is perfectly consistent with Straight's predecessors. Synanon founder Chuck Dederich flunked out of college. Seed founder Art Barker was a high school graduate with a mail order degree in psychology. Former Seed Administrator Dr. Jack D. Taylor (education) also has a degree in psychology.