New Directions for Young Adults Deceptive, disorganized and lacking in real treatment. Deerfield Beach Florida
I am a former employee of New Directions for Young Adults (resigned) and feel it is my moral responsibility to make the public aware of the unprofessional, disorganized and dangerous nature of this program. The vast majority of staff members are not properly trained or prepared to work with the clientele which includes individuals with mental or behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, histories of drug abuse and autism spectrum disorders. New employees are not even properly trained for their positions at the company, which causes confusion and frustration for both the employees and the clients.
The program currently enrolls far more clients than it can effectively treat, leaving the clients who may need the most help to fall through the cracks. New Directions accepts young adults with serious drug problems and other inappropriate types of clients without putting together treatment plans prior to their arrival. Many clients fall through the cracks, fall in with the drug crowd, or start neglecting their own mental and physical health. The higher functioning clients are mixed in with the lower functioning ones who can be easily manipulated and mistreated by the others. I saw no evidence of two separate programs for the high and low functioning individuals as the New Directions website claims.
There are other legitimate negative reviews of New Directions on the Internet that the owner has managed to stifle or sensor. He has even encouraged his current employees to write positive reviews for the company on various websites.
The owner makes it painfully clear to his employees that his priority is keeping up appearances in order to keep the contracts (and money) rolling in. It is my opinion that this money goes straight to his pockets as he seemed to spend as little as possible to better the program. Employees, including myself, have been ignored when making reasonable requests for the resources needed to do our jobs effectively. He even demands that staff administer urinalysis drug screenings to all clients, even if they have zero history of drug use and no suspicions are present. This is because he apparently receives some sort of kick-back or financial gain for each test that is submitted for urinalysis.
The owner has promised prospective parents and clients extra services that the staff is unable to provide. In addition to his own words to parents, clients and staff, the New Directions website also presents dishonestly. For example, most staff members, although quite dedicated, are usually not trained and experienced professionals as the website claims. Some of the newer Life Management Skills (LMS) and mentoring staff hires tend to be high school grads or college students who are quickly and hastily hired when needed and have no experience working with the particular type of clientele. They work hard and legitimately care about the clients, but without the proper training, it is inevitable that the employees will end up in situations for which they are unprepared. A second lie made by the website is that there is a New Directions Counseling Center that is free to all enrolled students. There is no such thing!
Another blatant inconsistency between the website and reality is that concerning the location and nature of the facility that is New Directions' headquarters. It composed solely of two small, cramped suites in an office building. The suites aren't even connected; clients must exit the building and walk around the outside to move from suite to suite. The small size of the suites combined with the fact that there are only enough private offices for about half of the therapists means that confidentiality is constantly compromised. The employees do what they can to keep a client's business private, but it is impossible when therapists or financial counselors have to conduct appointments with the clients out in the open where they can easily be overheard. I also frequently found documents with private client information simply sitting out in the open where any other clients can see them. The New Directions office does not feel therapeutic, but more chaotic, stuffy and often foul-smelling.
While this program has been failing the vast majority of its clients, the owner has been focusing on advertising and getting the second location of New Directions open in southern California. At the top of his priority list is making money, not successfully treating your loved ones. Two clients have passed away while they were supposed to have been under the care of New Directions and its owner. I was deeply saddened and troubled by the practices of the owner, as well as his apparent neglect for the mental well-being of the clients.
4 Updates & Rebuttals
JT
United StatesNDFYA
#5Author of original report
Fri, April 19, 2019
I hereby retract all of the negative statements that I made about Dr. Andrew Rubin and New Directions for Young Adults, Inc. Some of the statements I made were untrue, and I was upset at the time I made them. I apologize to those who I have negatively affected. I have removed my negative review from other websites but was unable to remove this one from Rip-off Report as the website would not allow me to do so.
parent
Deerfield Beach,Florida,
Sad to see ex employee unrest
#5Consumer Comment
Sat, April 19, 2014
As a parent of a young adult in the New Directions program, I simply want to say how completely satisfied I am with the program of New Directions for Young adults. What "julie" does not mention is most of our young adults are incredibly difficult to deal with. They have multiple issues and I have experienced an incredibly talented staff, particlularly the clinical directors. Absolutely every phone call I have made has been responded to and every question answered. My only negative experience was with the educational part of the program from which "julie" was a member. Her superior is no longer there and I actually am glad of that. She was a nice lady but not capable of managing the strong personalities of the young men that make up most of the clients of New Directions. This is in no way to imply that "julie" was not well liked by the young men and quite capable of managing her job. However, it seems aparent to me that she lacked the ability to understand the cost of managing such a program that is obviously experiencing exponential growth. Success for this type of program has many measures. As a parent, I measure success as the ability of my young man to live independently and over time increase that independent decision making skill to where he will be able to support himself. This will take some time but I am beginning to be confident that with the direction of Dr. Rubin, Dr. Kellen and Dr. Harris and other clinical and operational staff, that this will happen. My son continues on his academic pursuits now that the issues created by the previouse staff have been resolved. I give New Directions for Young Adults a high five for successful intervention. They have provided consisitent and structured behavior management while offering my young adult the independence he so desires. I have changed my location as I seriously desire that Julie not know where I am from as I happen to know that I am speaking for several parents and wish to remain anonymous. Dr. Rubin has NO knowledge that I have writtent these comments but I hope that he sees them.
Julie
Deerfield Beach,Florida,
Shocked & Saddened
#5Author of original report
Fri, April 11, 2014
I should be shocked that the owner blatantly lied about me in his rebuttal, but I'm not. This is apparently very typical behavior of him. First of all, I was not disgruntled. I was one of his best employees until my very last day and he informed me of how valuable I was several times during my employment there. All of the clients and other employees would say the same, while maybe only one or two clients/parents who don't know any better could be pressured to give positive reviews of this company. Dr. Rubin even urged his own employees to post positive reviews of New Directions around the Internet on multiple occasions (which is a big no-no), but not even they were willing to do so.
There are a couple of legitimate positive reviews for New Directions on the Internet, meaning a couple of clients had overall positive experiences at New Directions. However, these few clients hardly make up for the 100+ clients that did/will not have positive outcomes. Dr. Rubin claims on his website that New Directions has "one of the highest success rates of any transitional program in the United States." I would love to see the data that backs this claim up.
Nothing in my report was defamatory. I told the truth, and the truth just so happens to be very hard for Dr. Rubin to handle. He will stop at nothing to keep his image clean on the Internet, when he could put all of that energy and money towards making New Directions the amazing program he claims it to be.
Former and current employees, as well as current clients, have contacted me to thank me for speaking up by filing this report on Ripoffreport.com. I made the report knowing that Dr. Rubin would likely first try to convince me to recant (which he did) and then resort to legal measures (which he is).
Dr. Rubin is acting like a childish bully. I feel like things aren't going his way, so he is throwing a fit. He has multiple frivolous lawsuits in progress against people who have made legitimate, truthful negative reviews online. Again, I'm not sure why he has chosen to squander all of this time, energy and money to protect a false image instead of using it to make New Directions amazing! This situation makes Dr. Rubin's priorities painfully clear to anyone.
The New Directions Team
Deerfield Beach,Florida,
New Directions is Awesome!
#5REBUTTAL Owner of company
Fri, April 11, 2014
New Directions is Awesome! The review "New Directions for Young Adults Deceptive, disorganized and lacking in real treatment. Deerfield Beach Florida" was written by a disgruntled and unstable individual. Legal action has resulted as a result of the defamatory nature of the statements made by this individual on multiple websites.
For the real story, please call New Directions and request current parent references. Current parents and students will be able to provide you the accurate information about the wonderful services currently being offered at New Directions.
Thank you,
The New Directions Team