Teen programs are going to be around for a while

[egypt has pyramids]

Program ideology is legal.

Restraints are legal.

Psychological confrontation is legal.

LGAT's are legal.

Sending your kid away is legal.

Program facilities are legal.

Isolation rooms are legal.

Child abuse is illegal.

Authorities do not consider programs child abuse unless physical assault occurs, or lack of physical care occurs, like we see in Randall's case.

Try calling the cops on another WWASPS camp and tell them ALL the kids there are being psychologically abused and see what kind of response you get.


Physical abuse charges aren't going to shut down programs when everyone including the public believes in the ideology and theory behind it.

And trying to paint all programs with the bloodied brush of physically abusive programs will not work. It's not a strategy, it's a trick and fails to recognize the fact 'soft programs' are wrong in of themselves simply because of the coercive ideology.

Sure they'll morph into something more marketable, but they ain't going anywhere.

And even if there are video cameras and phones on the walls and they don't beat the kids, do people really think this will change the ultimate effect? A lot of program kids are not physically assaulted in a program and still have the same negative effect, but nothing 'illegal' was really done to them. So who is going to stop that?

Unless the parents stop paying that is.

[Anonymous]

Since this was obviously in response to me, I'm going to post a reply containing much of the original, with a small modification.


Prove it.

I'm getting really sick of this one. Says who? The programmies? I don't see growth and expansion. I see fragmentation and dissipation. Let's have a rundown of the big players here:

HLA - dying horribly
CEDU - crushed
Elan - according to general consensus, no longer pulls the shit it used to
Hyde - still alive
WWASPS - cannot survive; too many enemies. Destruction is simply inevitable.
PV - not going to last; again, too much hate directed at it
Aspen - the last big one to kill off

I see a whole lot of fancy websites, a whole lot of claims, a whole lot of trying to lump in things that are clearly not TBSes into "the industry", and very little evidence for any sort of real expansion.

This is what we've learned from HLA- when a program is dying, it makes every effort possible not to let anyone know about it. The shutdowns are always "unexpected", except to the people watching them closely. Why? Because the people who run these places are wedded to the abuse. They have to keep up the mask. They have to maintain the illusion. If anything slips, it all slips, and their empires crumble to dust. They cannot ever, no matter what, admit this. They'll let everything else go to ruin before they abandon what they've wrought, for once the veil goes down, they have to realize what it is they've truly done.

Programs, unfortunately, make more programmies- both from a few heavily brainwashed victims, and a few programmed parents who love the idea and want to subject more kids to it. On the other hand, the Internet is utterly ruthless at exposing these people, and more and more of the general population gets clued in. Remember, you can't un-clue someone in to this shit; once a person is inoculated against it, it doesn't matter what happens after that. (See Exhausted; no matter what her kids end up doing, she's not going to ship them off to some hellhole.)

So what we get is an increasing number of fanatics, but a dwindling population of people willing to pay for it.

Long-term the situation is simply untenable. It's rather like an MLM scam. In the early days of MLM, they found a lot of people willing to buy into it, because nobody knew what it was. Now? Good luck finding anyone, because almost every adult knows what a pyramid scheme is. Same with Scientology; good luck getting any new recruits, because we all know what it is. The same thing is inevitable here; the Internet just speeds it all up.

There are a few parents out there who really do want to pay for their children to be abused, but there's not all that many of them and there's way too many programmies out there looking for fresh meat. The industry will shrink.

everyone including the public believes in the ideology and theory behind it.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Do you frequent any other forums on the Internet? I do. You ever link to Fornits or discussed this with them? I have. The public does not approve of this shit. Even a little town like Boonville got clued in and told WWASPS to GTFO! What you see on daytime talk shows (and, if you remember, Montel eventually apologized) is not representative of social reality. Never was, really. A lot of people watch those shows just to watch people fuck each other over, always a great source of entertainment.

You don't have to believe me. Go see for yourself! Any time someone posts an article on the Internet about this crap, the reaction is almost universally shock and outrage, among people with no prior to exposure. Go check blogs' comment pages. Post a link on other forums. Discuss it on parenting forums, even. The reaction will either be uncomfortable silence or abject horror. Socially acceptable my ass.

[egypt has pyramids]

I don't see growth and expansion.

I guess I do. Take WWASPS for instance. They just reopened their program down in Mexico. They have opened up half a dozen new facilities since I got out of SCL in 2001. I think the lawsuit from sou and the negative publicity associated with that hurt them the most, along with all the information on the websites all over the net from various sources. But yet they are still in business. I guess you can call me a pessimisst, but what would stop "WWASPS" from shutting down, reorganizing a bit and then reopening all their facilities privately in a non associated network. One reason I think WWASPS is an easier target is because they are a network. If they were seperated only half their facilities would be under scrutiny. The others are too new and the abuse stories haven't piled up yet. It seems like an effective strategy, for them to reinvent themselves whenever needed. Like in the mexico program that is currently open now as far as I know. So from my perspective, wwasps has seemed to grow quite a bit. I look at the Google photos of SCL and my god, the place is four times the size it was when I was there!

I was also in Provo Canyon briefly. That's in Utah. Been open since the late 70's, it's owned by the countries largest health care company and takes medical insurance but its not any less coercive. Its just 'medical' coercion instead of 'nature' coercion. But its pretty much all the same shit. That place has been open 30 years and barely a peep from anyone.

Prove it.

Eh, I'd try but I know nobody keeps data on any of this stuff. It would be nice if there were though wouldnt it? We might be able to counter their 96% satisfaction rating! :roll:

I don't see growth and expansion. I see fragmentation and dissipation. Let's have a rundown of the big players here:

Big players also make the easiest targets. Look at modern warfare for instance, it's fragemented, decentralized, but it's just as effective in it's effect. But our big ass beauracratic weapons can't take even take a shot at them.

Programs, unfortunately, make more programmies- both from a few heavily brainwashed victims, and a few programmed parents who love the idea and want to subject more kids to it.

I don't think it's a few. The WWASPS parents eat up the seminars, don't you remember jnzmom. My dad, even after reading dozens of pages of me explaining the truth, after years of heated arguments, he still doesn't see anything wrong with reccomending it people or telling other people "it was the only thing that saved my life." This is fucking six years later even. Don't underestimate how many programmed kids there are out there too. The program never ends, because the pro-antis stay divided forever. It makes the argument subjective so people like Who and other parents can take whatever side they want, and not really be sure which one is really true.

On the other hand, the Internet is utterly ruthless at exposing these people, and more and more of the general population gets clued in.

I agree completely.

Remember, you can't un-clue someone in to this shit; once a person is inoculated against it, it doesn't matter what happens after that. (See Exhausted; no matter what her kids end up doing, she's not going to ship them off to some hellhole.)

Who? KarenDallas? My dad? etc...

So what we get is an increasing number of fanatics, but a dwindling population of people willing to pay for it.

There's always a fresh batch of parents with kids coming into their teenage years. We are moving from my parents generation now into generation x'ers who are using these programs. Watch the market tweak itself as it finds itself catering to differing demands. I think it will just get even more weird.

Long-term the situation is simply untenable. It's rather like an MLM scam. In the early days of MLM, they found a lot of people willing to buy into it, because nobody knew what it was. Now?

I don't think I've ever met one person who knew what I was talking about when I started telling them about the teen torture industry. They are shocked, surprised and horrified. But that's because they are hearing my version. If they sat down with Who instead, things might turn out a lot differently in that person's view of these places.

People don't google child abuse for kicks. In my own experience, nobody knows about this shit, nor do they want to know.

Good luck finding anyone, because almost every adult knows what a pyramid scheme is. Same with Scientology; good luck getting any new recruits, because we all know what it is. The same thing is inevitable here; the Internet just speeds it all up.

They don't just advertise on the internet. And don't underestimate the stupidity and internet skills of some adults. I just taught my mom how to send an email. Program parents hang out "in the industry". That means they hang around support groups for teens having problems, they go to teen NA/AA meetings, they know all the staff at the psych hopsital, you'd think I'm lying until you meet one of these people. It's a whole business to them, and this is not just private programs it's all sorts of weird placements and medication. Troubled teens are profitable.

There are a few parents out there who really do want to pay for their children to be abused, but there's not all that many of them and there's way too many programmies out there looking for fresh meat. The industry will shrink.

I agree with that. But parents do not think LGAT's, psychological confrontation and breaking down a kid in public is abusive. That's the stated policy of programs like wwasps and others. Sure they do it in cheery euphamisms, but it's pretty obvious when you read it. Sure they don't want someone to beat their kid up, but they are paying for extreme coercive actions, that are abusive in of themselves. So unless someone lowers the bar on what constitutes abuse, why would anyone step in and stop it?

If they build a program where absolutely no physical abuse occurs, but standard WWASPS coercive tactics are used does that make it an allowable facility? That's the whole theory behind it, parents scoff at traditional therapy and go for this 'new' option willingly. They don't see it as abusive at all. They are just happy to see someone stand up to their kid, since they are too pussy to do it themselves.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Do you frequent any other forums on the Internet? I do. You ever link to Fornits or discussed this with them? I have. The public does not approve of this shit. Even a little town like Boonville got clued in and told WWASPS to GTFO! What you see on daytime talk shows (and, if you remember, Montel eventually apologized) is not representative of social reality. Never was, really. A lot of people watch those shows just to watch people fuck each other over, always a great source of entertainment.

You don't have to believe me. Go see for yourself! Any time someone posts an article on the Internet about this crap, the reaction is almost universally shock and outrage, among people with no prior to exposure. Go check blogs' comment pages. Post a link on other forums. Discuss it on parenting forums, even. The reaction will either be uncomfortable silence or abject horror. Socially acceptable my ass.

Yeah I hope you are right about that one. But I think within the social circles that programs advertise too, the parents see it as a legitimate option. They live in a world of pretense, and the only reason they try to keep it secret is out of embarassment and family shame, they don't want their neighbors and coworkers to know they couldn't raise a kid. That's a big reason these programs appeal so much to parents like that. They can have their kid taken in the middle of the night, and never have to explain it to anybody.

[Nihilanthic]

The public is by and large UTTERLY IGNORANT of what goes on. It is a well kept secret.

Look at the proof in the pudding, man! They always have to put on a very intense P.R. Campaign as soon as the parents sign off on it to convince them about the program while they're still skeerd for junior! The LAST thing they want is to talk about this "outside of group", and they do not want kids to talk about the program after they get out.

So, we have fornits... and more recently MYSPACE  :rofl:

Oh, and google, and the REAL old school hackers putting that wwasps video on line, and journalists who find out about it doing what they can, askquestions doin' their thing, and Miller helping out the best he can too.

All we have to do is get everyone on the same friggin page and get out infront of the media, and then it won't be IF anymore, it will most definitely be WHEN. Hell, we got Montel to come forward about this and do a show about it and admit he messed up with his own child!

Oh, and lest anyone forgot, the people HERE with our big fat mouths and flapping gums! When we get a chance to speak our minds on TV, and thats a WHEN, watch what happens.

[Anonymous]

Program parents hang out "in the industry".

Exactly my point.

Program parents exist in what I have defined previously as a shadow world. Their view of reality is much, much different from the mainstream.

This is why the anti-movement doesn't spread as quickly as we'd like; parents don't talk about it, positive or negative. They take one look at Fornits and go "OH MY FUCKING GOD" and then leave. They don't even want to admit to anyone that they considered this. With this in mind, the programs will inevitably, slowly, inexorably lose business regardless of anything else (and there are a lot of things else).

Also, remember; programmies make their own enemies. The more kids coming out means the more our side gains power, the more force is brought against them, the more the public hate grows. Attacking one's own teenagers is a form of self-destruction, not unlike suicide.

My only hope is that the crash takes the entire program-parent culture with it.

[Anonymous]

No they wont stop ...becasue they loose buisiness. There will always be parents unfeeling and negligent enough to do this to their kids. I read an article about yet another terrible place. One of the parents is quoted as saying
"mabye it is brainwashing, mabye it is like a prison but I dont have a problem with that. All these kids understand is pain"

The only way to stop them is to make them illegal by collecting the survivor testimony, a list of all the suicides, making it VERY PUBLIC. Like a add in google under "suicide" "jail"  torture" and the names of the schools, sending this out to law enforcement, reporters, survivors pressing charges, ...essentially a "movement"

then it will be made illegal. Youth will be recognized as "human" and recive human rights.....and all will be well in americatown

[ZenAgent]

Program parents end up as mind-fucked as the kids.  At PV, parents are expected to be 100% supportive of the program.  We were told to take down any negative internet postings we had made about PV  (around the time the PV Bondage S+M queen came to light) from Fornits and CAFETY.  Free speech?  Not about PV, fuckers.  My wife told them to put that request in writing, and of course they refused.  We refused, and were banned from contact with our girl and forbidden to be on PV property.

We never went to the parent's gatherings (although I was tempted to show up and run naked through the throng with FREE (my daughter's name) across my torso, FUCK PV on my back) because they were ridiculously gay.  Parents had to do a bit of role-playing, meet some hand picked alumni, etc.  

The more helpless and pathetic a parent is, the more likely they'll end up PP's like thewho, or Karen.  You're expected to swallow any and all program bullshit without question.  Comply or be banished.  PV's therapist actually said "If you're against the program, you're against your daughter,"  Six months of hell later, they were forced to  release our girl.  She'll never have a relationship with the biological father who put her there, not a chance, and he was the perfect program parent.  Loved the fucking place.

[Nihilanthic]

Uh, dude...

You can't press charges for that?

Alienation of affection? Helloooooo?

At least in CIVIL court, sheesh.

[ZenAgent]

Uh, dude...

You can't press charges for that?

Alienation of affection? Helloooooo?

At least in CIVIL court, sheesh.

I would never post anything regarding current litigation.  Nudge nudge, wink wink.  Nod's as good as a wink to a blind man, and all that.

I will say that if I were involved in something like that, if I were, the key issue would be parental alienation.  If I were, I mean.  And denial of basic parental rights.

[AtomicAnt]

I am not so certain these programs are on there way out. I don't know what the trend is with respect to programs. I suspect that with companies like Aspen involved, they are becoming more mainstream. They will refine coercive persuasion to give the appearance it is not abusive.

What disturbs me is the mood of the culture as a whole. With TV programs that espouse this approach and a government that argues that torture is a matter of semantics, we are in real trouble. The mood seems to be that a large segment of the population is angry and willing to use these methods. The range of acceptable behavior for everyone is narrowing, but especially for children. We are seeing a rise in zero-tolerance, zero unsupervised time, more severe punishments, greater expectations to conform, uniforms, etc. This trend is the opposite of my youth where greater individuality and greater tolerance were the stated goals.

It is not just children. The same trend is aimed at adult behavior as well. I fear that culture at large will find many things acceptable that were unspeakable 30 years ago.

[Anonymous]

It's times like this when I consider truly devious plans.

Let's say we have a program that pretends to be a program.. but isn't. Maybe a few of them will move in this direction. It's simple, really- you just make an ordinary boarding school, throw in a few silly, pointless, dinky little "therapy" exercises that everyone can laugh at (it's not like the kids will know what they're 'supposed' to be getting, nor want it if they did!), give the kids a few Wiis and PS3s to keep them happy and quiet, buy them bikes or whatever, teach a few of them how to drive, maybe take everybody out on field trips every now and then. Just as restrictive overall as the average boarding school, really.

"But, Milk!", I hear. "What happens when the kid comes home and the parents find out that he hasn't been brainwashed into a shell of his former existence?"

Simple! You brainwash the parents. You were going to do that anyway, weren't you? You don't actually have to use coercive persuasion or anything else on the kid, you just make the parents think you have. They want it, so it'll be easy. You just tell them whatever they want to hear, and put them in LGATs, heavy on the mind control, and they'll think whatever you want them to think. Most of them won't even resist.

So, when the exact same kid comes home after doing whatever for twelve-odd months, the parent acts totally differently. "Oh, how my boy has changed!" No he didn't, lady, you did- but then again, since you were the one with the problem in the first place, that's how it should have happened.

No survivors on Fornits to make things ugly. "It was a decent boarding school, and my parents were totally different at the end of it." No parents saying "my kid has been telling me all these things". And the money just rolls in.

[Deborah]

While the big ones are under attack smaller ones are popping up all the time. Going after aspen is going to be a whole different deal than going after WWASP and HLA. Saucier, the CEO of Aspen, has been working double time to do damage control.

Ya mean Sanier? Yeh, W is so arrogant, they don't even try to hide evidence of abuse. Aspen can be sloppy too, but typically more covert. How do you go after 30 some programs simultaneously? Maybe they'll go the way of Brown Schools/CEDU.

I often wonder if he has someone around watching fornits to judge the current peeve of the month so his PR group can get busy coming up with a counter to it.

Yeh, TheWho? They are definitely being aggressive in addressing complaints made here and elsewhere.

[Anne Bonney]

I often wonder if he has someone around watching fornits to judge the current peeve of the month so his PR group can get busy coming up with a counter to it.

Yeh, TheWho? They are definitely being aggressive in addressing complaints made here and elsewhere.

The more of his crap that I read, the more I believe that.

[Deborah]

Speaking of.... Not hard to read between the lines.

President?s Corner
John Santa, Ph.D., Montana Academy
With considerable regret I write this last President?s corner. My term comes to an end in January 2007 as the annual conference begins. I have served on the NATSAP Board of Directors from the beginning as we struggled to create a new national organization. I have also served as President of NATSAP for the past three years. It has been an honor to serve at such an important and pivotal time for our organization.

During my tenure on the board, and as President, we have grown from a well-intentioned idea into a nationally recognized professional organization. NATSAP as an organization has developed ethical and practice standards for all programs and by doing so has raised the level of acceptable practice for residential care for children and adolescents unable to function in their homes. Our national and regional conferences now provide forums to exchange information and develop ideas to improve our care for children and families. The NATSAP website, newsletters, and Journal all add to the opportunities to work together as colleagues engaged in a collaborative effort to improve our profession. I am enthusiastic about the new national research program that NATSAP is now launching. All of these efforts, over time, will provide the basis to create a real body of knowledge that will come to define our profession.

As President I have tried to promote NATSAP as both a trade and a professional organization. We must maintain these dual objectives. As a trade organization we serve an important role of advocacy and education to influence public policy to recognize the importance and need for what we do and to avoid well intentioned but uninformed regulation that can compromise the level of treatment that we offer.  :rofl: As a trade organization, we market our services and raise awareness of the solutions we offer to address an increasing national problem of youth who are failing to thrive and succeed in our culture.

To advocate successfully we must simultaneously be willing to develop, research and scrutinize our profession. We can only advocate and defend our profession to the extent that we begin to demonstrate and document our treatments and outcomes. We must develop the rationale and theory of treatment that justifies the need for methods, settings, structure, and milieu that set us apart from other models of treatment. :scared:

To begin, we should follow the lead of the outdoor behavioral programs that have begun to provide basic outcome effectiveness data. All NATSAP programs must also help to establish basic effectiveness by demonstrating that our programs change the level of dysfunction of our participants and their families. We must also document the safety and incidents of abuse or malpractice in order to build trust and establish that our programs rise to the first standard of health care, which is to do no harm.
 :rofl:
Beyond the basics we must be willing to understand our profession. It is not good enough to say we have a positive impact. We must come to understand the power and effect of each component of treatment in order to refine and improve what we do. We must integrate and develop comprehensive models of our interventions in which we understand the importance of each aspect of treatment. And of course, we must also develop appropriate levels of description for the problems we seek to address. We need to go beyond conventional diagnosis, jargon, and treatments used in outpatient and medical settings. We must redefine, in our own terms, the level of care we provide and by so doing establish residential care as a useful and important approach to treatment that provides structure, containment and depth of work that is often not possible in outpatient settings.

All of us who have spent years working in residential treatment are convinced that we can accomplish profound and real changes. But to grow as a profession and advocate for our programs, we must develop an understanding of the pieces of structure, skill training, and relationship essential to effect change, and then we must explore all of the factors that contribute to maintenance or regression as our students leave. Finally, we must examine how each program variable relates to the various categories of problems presented by our students and families. Defining our profession and creating the data and models to support the definition is indeed a daunting, but essential task. We can, of course, borrow from ideas, best practice standards and models that already exist in psychiatry, psychology and education, but it remains important to recognize what we do is unique.  :cry2: And so, we must create our own data, our own understanding, and our own profession.

Personally, my involvement in creating a therapeutic school, and then NATSAP has been the most challenging and exciting professional growth that I have ever experienced. I want to thank all of you for the opportunity to be so involved in helping NATSAP become the fine organization that we now have.....

[AtomicAnt]

Therein lies the danger. With people like Santa (an impressive range of degrees) and a refinement of the process to appear non-abusive, coercive persuasion could be become largely an accepted practice.