THERAPEUTIC BOARDING SCHOOLS DESICION

[shopgirl2005]

I'm a desperate parent looking for feedback on a few boardings schools I'm considering for my son.

I've read awful things on this site and i'm very concern.

The schools we are considering are: Swift River Academy or Hidden Lake Academy.

Can someone who have attended any of them give me their opinion, Please???

[Troll Control]

On 2006-01-09 14:15:00, shopgirl2005 wrote:

"I'm a desperate parent looking for feedback on a few boardings schools I'm considering for my son.



I've read awful things on this site and i'm very concern.



The schools we are considering are: Swift River Academy or Hidden Lake Academy.



Can someone who have attended any of them give me their opinion, Please???"

ShopGirl,

You are right to be concerned.  There is a long history of abuses and treatment failure at behavior modification centers like ASR and HLA.

I can speak directly to HLA and would strongly urge you not to consider this program.  They are a typical BM facility wrapped up in a shiny $7000.00 per month wrapper.  The methods they employ and hold out as "treatment" amount to nothing more than punishment for hire.

They use a Large Group Awareness seminar model which can be extremely psychologically damaging, especially to the developing mind.  They also use bizarre confrontational "therapy" groups.

The methods and techniques that both of these facilities use are on the abuse watchlist at ISAC's (International Survivors Action Committee) website.  They limit or eliminate contact between you and your child, censor mail and telephone calls, use extreme physical labor for punishment and many other suspect and/or illegal practices.  I'd suggest you look at ISAC's website and familiarize yourself with what abusive practices look like.

This exerpt form a recent article at AskQuestions.org tells a lot about this type of program:

"On October 15, 2004, the National Institute of Mental Health, an agency of the Federal government, released a study reporting that 'Get Tough' youth programs do not work and may make behavior problems even worse. The report instead recommends two treatment programs that offer intensive counseling for famlies and young people at risk, including Functional Family Therapy and Multisystematic Therapy. A press release about the study is posted at the NIH site http://www.nih.gov."

Recent releases of data from longitudianl studies of these BM programs shows them to be at best ineffective and at worst incredibly damaging.  You may want to read some of that research at NIH.gov.

As far as HLA specifically, when I worked there many staff were completely unqualified possessing no degrees at all.  Some employees, like the Director of Counseling, who was the "professional therapist" ultimately responsible for children's treatment had a phony doctorate degree from an unaccredited diploma mill called LaSalle College in Mandeville, LA which has been long shut down for issuing phony degrees.  Incedentally, I discussed this at length with the owner of the facility and he was well aware that the "doctor" was no doctor.

Recently there have been allegations of sexual relations between the current Administration staff and underage females under the care of the facility.  It has been reported that a high-ranking staff member was fired for sex abuse and quietly rehired and promoted after the girl left the facility.  Other former attendees of the program have reported on this site that other staff members had sexual relations and inappropriate relationships with them.

As far as ASR is concerned, they have had many problems as well.  They hired the former Headmaster from HLA as their director.  This man (I worked with him) came from the CEDU system which has been shut down due to lawsuits related to child abuse and fraud.  He was very abusive and inappropriate to the children and was known (he freely admitted it) to have killed a man in a drunken driving incident.  When I reported to this fellow that a colleague of mine was abusing cocaine, he took no action.

There is literally too much to list here in this post, but you should familiarize yourself with some of the horror stories from these facilities.

I would reccommend that you look into some kind of commumity based outpatient therapy.  If your son is in need of more care than this, then these facilities are not able, nor are they licensed to provide it.  If you do decide (with the counsel of a seasoned mental health professional who specializes in treating adolescents) that inpatient placement is needed (only about 1% of kids meet this threshold), be sure it is local to you so that you may monitor your son's treatment and progress.

OK, I think that's a good start for you.  I don't want to overwhelm you.  Do some more research and consult your child's therapist (DO NOT CONSULT WITH AN EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT IN REGARD TO MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT - they are paid by programs like HLA and ASR to refer to their facilities) about the best course of action for your child.  Remember, this is your baby and your responsibility.  Sending him off to strangers to be "fixed" is not going to work.

If you'd like to talk privately, feel free to Private Message me.

Take care and good luck.

[Anonymous]

Shopgirl,
I would recommend posting on the HLA forum where others are more likely to see your request and respond.
There is an abundance of information there if you are willing to selectively wade through the threads.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewforum.php?forum=41&3910

[Anonymous]

I know someone who was sent to Swift River.  They deprived her of *books* to *read*.

They deprived her of contact with friends and family other than her parents.  Not just drugged up friends.  I know one of the friends they cut off contact with and she (the friend) was not only a couple of years older and a young coed--so not a "bad influence" through immaturity, she's one of the sweetest, most clean-cut girls you could hope to meet.  Beautiful girl, sweet, done well in school--just what any parent would want their child to be.

The girl who was sent there was *also* beautiful, sweet, clean cut.  In her case, it was her parents who were nuts.  She didn't like her step dad and he was real offended that she didn't want to tell him "I love you."

She came out of Swift River having learned one fundamental thing about herself.  That her parents were really dysfunctional and she never wanted to live under the same roof with her mother ever again.

Which, in her case, I guess was a pretty healthy thing to learn, but learning it sounds like a happy accident.

From all accounts I've heard, my personal opinion is that Swift River is less bad than HLA, and *much* less bad than any WWASPS facility.

But "less bad" doesn't mean I'd send a kid there.  Mine or anyone else's.

Facilities are *not* one size fits all, and (obviously) they aren't the only solutions.

It might help a lot if you could tell us what kind of things you're scared about with your daughter.

I have a ten year old.  I'm convinced that all parents are frequently scared spitless for our children.  Parents who aren't must not be paying attention. :wink:

I'm not minimizing your concerns and fears.

What I'd suggest you do first is take advantage of the wealth of experience a lot of the other parents here, and people who were placed in programs as kids, have to get their advice.

They may not come up with anything you haven't already tried.  On the other hand, they might.  Or they might come up with ways of trying the various options that are different from what you've tried before.

The truth is that nobody has a magic solution to anybody's serious problems---whether the person with the problems is teen or adult.

The Programs sure don't have it, but we other parents don't have it either.

What we can do is help you find choices and options that are the most likely to give you the best chances of good results helping your daughter do the best she can.

A lot of people on here, like Ginger, who posts as Antigen and runs this board, have grown children and have already been through the whole teenagers scaring your hair white thing.

Julie

[TheWho]

Hello shopgirl -- My daughter went to Swift river and did very well.  She was there for about 16 months and some of what you heard form the above posts were true.  She was denied access to her old friends (which in her case was a good thing) access to certain books and music were not allowed.  She spent a great deal of time working on herself and catching up on her school work.  They have an approval process and your son will need to be evaluated prior to acceptance.  The place is very safe, no fences, you can walk through and speak to students walking around which will give you a sense of whether it will be a good fit for your son.  She has been out for 2 years now and is doing great.

If you want more info let me know

[Anonymous]

Okay, let me elaborate on "access to certain books and music."  This child was a science fiction fan and wasn't allowed books to read.  We are not talking about Aleister Crowley's "Diary of a Drug Fiend," we're talking about garden-variety commercial fiction.

"Certain books" doesn't mean books that have any kind of "bad influence" content.  Some of the books on her "approved list" were science fiction.  

What they were doing was limiting her access to new reading material in the sense of depriving her of things to read, just for the sole purpose of keeping her from having anything to read.

I sent her a box of the "approved" books anonymously, at Christmastime.  She had been there since Summer, so was presumably more thoroughly indoctrinated by then.  Most Programs put kids in states of deprivation and use removing small bits of that deprivation as a tool to train in mindless, blind obedience.

So initially, not being allowed stuff to read was part of putting the kid in that state of deprivation.

It's not psychologically healthy to do that to a human being.

Being in a state of deprivation because you're poor, or from hard times, or a natural disaster, or shortages is different from having someone do it to you, on purpose, to tamper with your mind.

Pay attention to the kid who said that even though he "feels helped" he still has nightmares about the place.

ASR is one of the few places that made the mistake of allowing an actual scientific study to be done of a sample of its graduates.

A huge majority "felt helped" about mental health stuff and felt that ASR had been good for them, and reported feeling better, less depressed, etc.  And a huge majority of parents of the sample felt their kid had been helped.

When the researcher applied objective methods and tests, their rates of clinical depression, suicide attempts, etc. were completely unimproved.

So the bottom line is that they "felt helped," but objective, scientific measures found that it was all illusory.  The things they said they felt helped about, they in fact had not been helped about.  At all.

I know, there are other things you can ask about besides depression: drug abuse, school performance, etc.

But nobody ever got to ask those questions in clinical studies, because ASR never okayed another scientific study.

Most Programs don't want to cooperate with scientific studies, because the various scientific research that does exist on them shows they don't work.

They're expensive, and they don't work.

The thing is, there are other solutions to most of these problems that *do* have scientifically provable good success rates.

"Feeling helped" is not the same thing as really being helped.

I'm not saying this woman, if she is a parent (some program employees have posted here in the past claiming to be parents), doesn't genuinely "feel helped."  I am not calling her a liar.

I'm just saying there's a huge difference between feeling helped and being helped.

One reason a lot of parents "feel helped" when they send their child to one of these places is the, "Oh, Johnny, how much you've grown!" effect.

When an aunt or uncle hasn't seen your six year old since he was four, it looks like he's grown really fast.  When you're raising a child from age four to age six, you can see that he's growing, but the change isn't so dramatic to you.

Teenagers grow up, not because anybody's necessarily done anything for them.  Even teenagers who have horrible circumstances grow up a lot just by getting a year older.  There isn't a program out there that won't take credit for the entire growth or improvement in a kid they've had for a year, if there is any, while encouraging the parents to never think about how much of the kid's improvement is just being a year older.

This is made easier by the normal feelings of any parent of any kid going through a difficult patch---it feels as if your kid will *never* grow out of it.

You'd do better to send your child to a traditional boarding school.  You find them by googling "prep school" instead of "boarding school."  Boarding school gets you places like ASR, prep school gets you traditional boarding schools.

If what your kid needs is time away from home, and time away from a rough crowd he's getting in trouble with, prep school is a much better choice.  If he has mental health problems on top of that, then paying for him to see a therapist or psychiatrist (both, if needed) in town while at the prep school is a better and probably much less expensive choice.

I'm not saying don't get your son help, I'm not even saying don't send him to a boarding school.  I'm just saying there are better choices.

These Programs cost the Earth and they don't work.  There are other things out there that do work.  Those things frequently cost less.

Which particular choices are better for your son depends on what kinds of problems he's having.

The thing with a Program is that even if your kid comes out undamaged, you're usually paying too much for too little.  

As with most things, you can't trust the advertising brochures.  Only with Programs, the track record for how much you can't trust the brochures is a lot worse.

At worst, your kid can get really harmed.  At best, you pay too much money for getting too little.  

Which is especially sad when there are options that cost less that actually work.

Julie

[TheWho]

Shopgirl -- As you see you will get many sides to each story.  Julies' friend probably wasnt helped by the program from the sound of it, not everyone does benefit.  If you get time take a look at http://www.davemarcus.com.  Dave spent a year and a half following a group of kids through their entire stay (independent writer who has written many books on family issues).  You will get to see the good and bad, ups and downs of the place from an outsiders perspective (one more point of view!!)
Most kids that are there call it "The Bubble"  because their world is so small (limited access to external stimuli) that they feel safe and can work on themselves,  ASR is nice also because they include the whole family not just the child.  They dont feel it is necessarily the child who is in crisis, but the whole family.

Good luck

[Troll Control]

On 2006-01-10 05:39:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Shopgirl -- As you see you will get many sides to each story.  Julies' friend probably wasnt helped by the program from the sound of it, not everyone does benefit.  If you get time take a look at http://www.davemarcus.com.  Dave spent a year and a half following a group of kids through their entire stay (independent writer who has written many books on family issues).  You will get to see the good and bad, ups and downs of the place from an outsiders perspective (one more point of view!!)

Most kids that are there call it "The Bubble"  because their world is so small (limited access to external stimuli) that they feel safe and can work on themselves,  ASR is nice also because they include the whole family not just the child.  They dont feel it is necessarily the child who is in crisis, but the whole family.



Good luck"

I have read the Dave Marcus article.  One thing I want you to understand is that everything in the article comes froma single source - ASR staff.  Mr. Marcus failed to do any research whatsoever to uncover the facts that contraindicate what ASR fed him.

It's worth noting that his primary source, Rudy Bentz, is a career child abuser who came up inthe CEDU schools (now closed for abuse), was fired from HLA, was (subsequent to the article) fired from ASR and who is now no longer working in the industry - his abusive reputation and utter incompetence having "caught up with him."

It is ironic that Mr. Marcus uses a notorious abuser as his single source for painting the program in a positive light.  It shows clearly that this is a shill piece bereft of and investigation r fact-checking.

You might want to look to a real source, like the many studies done that prove what Mr. Bentz states in Mr. Marcus' article is patently false.

[Anonymous]

On 2006-01-10 05:26:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Okay, let me elaborate on "access to certain books and music."  This child was a science fiction fan and wasn't allowed books to read.  We are not talking about Aleister Crowley's "Diary of a Drug Fiend," we're talking about garden-variety commercial fiction.



"Certain books" doesn't mean books that have any kind of "bad influence" content.  Some of the books on her "approved list" were science fiction.  



What they were doing was limiting her access to new reading material in the sense of depriving her of things to read, just for the sole purpose of keeping her from having anything to read.



I sent her a box of the "approved" books anonymously, at Christmastime.  She had been there since Summer, so was presumably more thoroughly indoctrinated by then.  Most Programs put kids in states of deprivation and use removing small bits of that deprivation as a tool to train in mindless, blind obedience.



So initially, not being allowed stuff to read was part of putting the kid in that state of deprivation.



It's not psychologically healthy to do that to a human being.



Being in a state of deprivation because you're poor, or from hard times, or a natural disaster, or shortages is different from having someone do it to you, on purpose, to tamper with your mind.



Pay attention to the kid who said that even though he "feels helped" he still has nightmares about the place.



ASR is one of the few places that made the mistake of allowing an actual scientific study to be done of a sample of its graduates.



A huge majority "felt helped" about mental health stuff and felt that ASR had been good for them, and reported feeling better, less depressed, etc.  And a huge majority of parents of the sample felt their kid had been helped.



When the researcher applied objective methods and tests, their rates of clinical depression, suicide attempts, etc. were completely unimproved.



So the bottom line is that they "felt helped," but objective, scientific measures found that it was all illusory.  The things they said they felt helped about, they in fact had not been helped about.  At all.



I know, there are other things you can ask about besides depression: drug abuse, school performance, etc.



But nobody ever got to ask those questions in clinical studies, because ASR never okayed another scientific study.



Most Programs don't want to cooperate with scientific studies, because the various scientific research that does exist on them shows they don't work.



They're expensive, and they don't work.



The thing is, there are other solutions to most of these problems that *do* have scientifically provable good success rates.



"Feeling helped" is not the same thing as really being helped.



I'm not saying this woman, if she is a parent (some program employees have posted here in the past claiming to be parents), doesn't genuinely "feel helped."  I am not calling her a liar.



I'm just saying there's a huge difference between feeling helped and being helped.



One reason a lot of parents "feel helped" when they send their child to one of these places is the, "Oh, Johnny, how much you've grown!" effect.



When an aunt or uncle hasn't seen your six year old since he was four, it looks like he's grown really fast.  When you're raising a child from age four to age six, you can see that he's growing, but the change isn't so dramatic to you.



Teenagers grow up, not because anybody's necessarily done anything for them.  Even teenagers who have horrible circumstances grow up a lot just by getting a year older.  There isn't a program out there that won't take credit for the entire growth or improvement in a kid they've had for a year, if there is any, while encouraging the parents to never think about how much of the kid's improvement is just being a year older.



This is made easier by the normal feelings of any parent of any kid going through a difficult patch---it feels as if your kid will *never* grow out of it.



You'd do better to send your child to a traditional boarding school.  You find them by googling "prep school" instead of "boarding school."  Boarding school gets you places like ASR, prep school gets you traditional boarding schools.



If what your kid needs is time away from home, and time away from a rough crowd he's getting in trouble with, prep school is a much better choice.  If he has mental health problems on top of that, then paying for him to see a therapist or psychiatrist (both, if needed) in town while at the prep school is a better and probably much less expensive choice.



I'm not saying don't get your son help, I'm not even saying don't send him to a boarding school.  I'm just saying there are better choices.



These Programs cost the Earth and they don't work.  There are other things out there that do work.  Those things frequently cost less.



Which particular choices are better for your son depends on what kinds of problems he's having.



The thing with a Program is that even if your kid comes out undamaged, you're usually paying too much for too little.  



As with most things, you can't trust the advertising brochures.  Only with Programs, the track record for how much you can't trust the brochures is a lot worse.



At worst, your kid can get really harmed.  At best, you pay too much money for getting too little.  



Which is especially sad when there are options that cost less that actually work.



Julie"

You surely can't mean that not being allowed to read science fiction is deprivation? You can't really believe that changing any aspect of a kid's life that they happen to enjoy is deprivation? Do you really think that the term "deprivation" has different meanings for different people?

Either you have your basic needs met (a la Maslow, for instance), or you don't. Your claim is silly.

[TheWho]

On 2006-01-10 07:08:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2006-01-10 05:39:00, Anonymous wrote:


"Shopgirl -- As you see you will get many sides to each story.  Julies' friend probably wasnt helped by the program from the sound of it, not everyone does benefit.  If you get time take a look at http://www.davemarcus.com.  Dave spent a year and a half following a group of kids through their entire stay (independent writer who has written many books on family issues).  You will get to see the good and bad, ups and downs of the place from an outsiders perspective (one more point of view!!)


Most kids that are there call it "The Bubble"  because their world is so small (limited access to external stimuli) that they feel safe and can work on themselves,  ASR is nice also because they include the whole family not just the child.  They dont feel it is necessarily the child who is in crisis, but the whole family.





Good luck"

I have read the Dave Marcus article.  One thing I want you to understand is that everything in the article comes froma single source - ASR staff.  Mr. Marcus failed to do any research whatsoever to uncover the facts that contraindicate what ASR fed him.



It's worth noting that his primary source, Rudy Bentz, is a career child abuser who came up inthe CEDU schools (now closed for abuse), was fired from HLA, was (subsequent to the article) fired from ASR and who is now no longer working in the industry - his abusive reputation and utter incompetence having "caught up with him."



It is ironic that Mr. Marcus uses a notorious abuser as his single source for painting the program in a positive light.  It shows clearly that this is a shill piece bereft of and investigation r fact-checking.



You might want to look to a real source, like the many studies done that prove what Mr. Bentz states in Mr. Marcus' article is patently false."

Wow you really have it out for this school, you must have had a bad experience, but you have been misinformed. What you say is false.  Dave Marcus wrote a book not an article.  I know him and I was there during his stay and he wrote it thru the eyes of the students there and their experiences, not Mr Bentz. Rudy wasnt fired.

Reading the book is a great way to see what a child may go thru during their stay there.

[TheWho]

When the researcher applied objective methods and tests, their rates of clinical depression, suicide attempts, etc. were completely unimproved.

So the bottom line is that they "felt helped," but objective, scientific measures found that it was all illusory. The things they said they felt helped about, they in fact had not been helped about. At all.

I know, there are other things you can ask about besides depression: drug abuse, school performance, etc.

But nobody ever got to ask those questions in clinical studies, because ASR never okayed another scientific study.

Julie -- If this is true it is huge!!  Who conducted the clinical Studies?  What types of measures were used? Which agency?  Are you just making all this stuff up?

[Troll Control]

So they didn't fire Rudy Bentz?  How would you know this?  Also, if they didn't fire him, why would they keep someone there who has a long, documented, serious history of abusing children in his care?  

How do you explain a man like Rudy Bentz being the director of a therapeutic facility when he has absolutely no credentials whatsover to provide or oversee therapy?  How could he have been hired in the first place?  Was his employment and criminal history not properly vetted?  If not, why not?

Let's also be sure to let people know of ASR's ongoing problems with licensure and accreditation.  There are some serious ethical questions raised by their behavior in this respect.

All in all, ASR is not licensed or accredited to perform the services they (falsely) claim to deliver, nor do they do proper vetting of staff background.  This certainly isn't the type of place I would send my child.

[TheWho]

So they didn't fire Rudy Bentz? How would you know this? Also, if they didn't fire him, why would they keep someone there who has a long, documented, serious history of abusing children in his care?

This is something you made up.  He has no documented history of child abuse.

How do you explain a man like Rudy Bentz being the director of a therapeutic facility when he has absolutely no credentials whatsover to provide or oversee therapy? How could he have been hired in the first place? Was his employment and criminal history not properly vetted? If not, why not?

I know the man personally, what type of credentials did ASR asked for?  I dont think we know, He was hired on as "head master" and did a great job as far as we know.  I havent seen him in court or jail for all this abuse you claim.  In Massachusetts a person would be in jail after one substantiated case of abuse of a minor, in any setting.

Let's also be sure to let people know of ASR's ongoing problems with licensure and accreditation. There are some serious ethical questions raised by their behavior in this respect.

They let you know they are not accredited in the state of massachusetts in the initial interview.  They have a school with qualified teachers and are overseen by the state, but they are not accredited (The town next to where I live, the high school is unaccredited also).  The accreditation can be major reasons or as minor as not enough books in the library, square feet per student etc..  My daughter was way ahead academically when she returned home in comparison to her peers at school

[TheWho]

On 2006-01-10 09:26:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

When the researcher applied objective methods and tests, their rates of clinical depression, suicide attempts, etc. were completely unimproved.



So the bottom line is that they "felt helped," but objective, scientific measures found that it was all illusory. The things they said they felt helped about, they in fact had not been helped about. At all.



I know, there are other things you can ask about besides depression: drug abuse, school performance, etc.



But nobody ever got to ask those questions in clinical studies, because ASR never okayed another scientific study.

Julie -- If this is true it is huge!!  Who conducted the clinical Studies?  What types of measures were used? Which agency?  Are you just making all this stuff up?"

Dont sweat it, she is just making it all up, no clinical studies were ever done.

[Deborah]

***Most kids that are there call it "The Bubble" because their world is so small (limited access to external stimuli) that they feel safe and can work on themselves***

And many have expressed that they had distress re-entering the real world. Living in a isolated controlled environment (BM bubble), being told what to do and think 24/7, caused them to have social anxiety, to hold self and others to unrealistic expectations (program rhetoric doesn?t work in the real world),  PTSD, and a basic lack of trust.

***ASR is nice also because they include the whole family not just the child. They dont feel it is necessarily the child who is in crisis, but the whole family.***

That is not ?unique? to ASR, they all claim to involve the family, but how can family be involved when they are thousands of miles away?

***You surely can't mean that not being allowed to read science fiction is deprivation? You can't really believe that changing any aspect of a kid's life that they happen to enjoy is deprivation? Do you really think that the term "deprivation" has different meanings for different people?***

Indeed it does. How would reading SF (or any other pleasure reading) during their precious little free-time from 24/7 ?therapy?, be counter productive?  It?s not. But deprivation IS necessary for brainwashing to be effective. Deprivation of rights, deprivation of contact, deprivation of touch, deprivation of accurate information about self and the world, deprivation of nutritional sustenance/ decent food, etc. Deprivation of the choice of what to read is just one in a long list of ptoential deprivations, depending on the program.

***Either you have your basic needs met (a la Maslow, for instance), or you don't. Your claim is silly.***

Can?t speak to ASR on this issue, but I haven?t seen a program yet that provided Maslow?s Heirarchy of Needs. I have seen a lot of deprivation of Needs in order to gain compliance.