New Directions For Young Adults, neutral review, not positive OR negative I'm a former New Directions client myself. I was at New Directions from February 2012 up until September 2016.  Boca Raton Florida

I'm a former New Directions client. I was at New Directions from February 2012 up until September 2016. Now, just for the record, I'm NOT saying Dr. Rubin is a bad person, and I'm NOT saying he's even HALF as bad as some of the negative reviews online about him and about New Directions in general make him out to be. However, I will say this. I distinctly remember when I first entered that program, I ended up with a roommate for a little while, and I noticed he had a box of 12 ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. Yes, I admit that I ate one of his ice cream sandwiches from the freezer because they looked delicious, which I admit I shouldn't have done. When Dr. Rubin and the other New Directions staff found out I ate one of my roommate's ice cream sandwiches, they made a BIG stink about that. Instead of simply making me replace the one individual ice cream sandwich that I ate, Dr. Rubin and the other New Directions staff made me buy my roommate a whole new ENTIRE BOX of 12 ice cream sanwiches, which seems a little too excessive a punishment for eating ONE stinking ice cream.

Then, later on, that roommate ended up leaving and transferring to a different apartment, and then I ended up with ANOTHER roommate. This new roommate turned out to be a 20-year-old male bulimic. Although bulimia tends to be more common in teenage girls, men and boys can sometimes have this eating disorder too. Anyway, this new roommate REPEATEDLY ate my food, over and over and over again, so many times. I actually lost count how many times he ate my food, and he repeatedly claimed he "needed" the food so he could purge it afterwards. Not even ONCE did Dr. Rubin or the other New Directions staff make this new roommate replace my food that he ate without my permission countless times. The point is, Dr. Rubin and the other New Directions staff, at least in that particular instance, were inconsistent with enforcing their rules. They made a big deal over me eating ONE stinking ice cream sandwich from my previous roommate, and instead of just making me replace the one individual ice cream sandwich, they made me buy him a whole new box of 12 ice cream sandwiches, and yet, meanwhile, they never ONCE made the next roommate replace my food that he repeatedly ate.

Also, that same 20-year-old male bulimic roommate of mine turned out to be a recovering drug addict. Despite the fact that the main reason he was in the program in the first place was to help him get OFF drugs, at one point, he relapsed IN the program, and smoked pot inside my apartment. Now, regardless of your personal stance on marijuana and whether you believe marijuana should or shouldn't be legal, at this moment, here in Florida, marijuana is ILLEGAL. If the neighbors had even SMELLED the pot, they could have called the police, and if the police had raided the apartment, they most likely would have arrested EVERYBODY, including me, even though I wasn't even smoking marijuana and was in my bedroom the entire time and my roommate was with friends smoking pot in the living room, nor have I ever used drugs even once before in my entire life, but during a police raid, they tend to arrest EVERYBODY, which would have included me as well. Sure, I probably would have gotten released from jail a couple hours later, but that would have been one extra unnecessary headache for my parents to have to bail me out as well as straighten out the situation at the courthouse. When Dr. Kellen found out about that roommate smoking pot inside my apartment, Dr. Kellen basically minimized the severity of the sitation and acted like this was no big deal by claiming, "But he (my roommate) is not a chronic pot smoker. He only did it the one time". In my opinion, Dr. Kellen didn't take the situation seriously enough. 

Also, there was one particular New Directions client who happens to be a bit lower functioning with his disability, and he is a vulnerable adult, and he happens to have a computer. I personally witnessed certain other clients at his apartment who happened to be restricted from having computer access for certain reasons, and now, they were using HIS computer at his apartment, sometimes for very long periods of time, and they were taking advantage of him by using his computer for long periods of time as if the computer were their own. That's all I'm going to say on this matter regarding how I feel about New Directions because I know Dr. Rubin and his company tend to get very sue happy when even the SLIGHTEST unfavorable thing is written about them online, and Dr. Rubin often tends to claim unfavorable reviews about him and about New Directions are slanderous/libelous, but all of this information I just posted is not slander OR libel because it's 100% true.