Pay for referral? As a former staff, I would never, ever pay even for the stupid programs and wouldn't put any child of mine in any one of them. You are only putting your child in harm's way. What you really need to do is to take some interest in your child and give them LOVE and some disciplines, morals and standards. Of course, before you can do that you have to have some morals and standards too.
The good thing for Turnabout Ranch is that Wayne is no longer there, he's moved back East! Unfortunately, he moved to help start this Ironwood program. The director, Teresa, worked at TAR as well. When these 2 left Utah, they also took another counselor with them, Dave, but I don't see him listed on Ironwood's page. So, maybe they had a falling out. Dave is a good guy, lucky for him he's not there, but it's too bad for the kids. He's young and good.
The old fart Wayne (below) was the guy who I turned into the State of Utah for child abuse. He likes to wrestle with the girls, and I caught him red-handed telling one to put her hand here and there on his body. She kept saying I don't want to, so he picked up her hands and put them on him. When I was alone with her, she said her back hurt from wrestling with Wayne and another old male staff member the night before. (TAR can no longer get good employees here 'cause we've all figured 'em out, so they have a disproportionate number of male staff compared to females which means male staff end up alone with the girls on a daily basis. They have several old men, although I like the old men that are there now, in their 60s and 70s.)
Wayne also likes to use mind control techniques, and after I witnessed the above, he tried to use them on me. I told him he was nuts and filed complaints with the licensing agency, child abuse agency, and the local sheriff. Of course, in Utah, all 3 of these departments are connected through their religion (Mormonism) and their Mormon relatives, so they didn't do a damn thing about Wayne. I think he was put on leave for a few weeks until the dust settled.
The very day I turned in my complaint on Wayne to the TAR office, they had a duct tape incident at 10 pm. I responded as emergency staff. When I arrived, I found a young girl in her pajamas, lying outside on the cold and wet ground (rained heavy that day), ankles and feet duct taped together and a 250+ lb female sitting on top of her.
Teresa, who started this new Ironwood program, arrived. She's into "legalized drugs" heavily, and she wanted to sedate the girl and call it a night. Me and other staff objected to that, and instead made her do her job as counselor and talk with the girl. The sheriff had to respond to this incident as duct tape is explicitly against Utah law.
No one did absolutely anything about it. The state licensing lady told me that it was resolved because TAR had fired both involved employees. The reality was that the female staff had already quit and was in the process of moving and was on her last few nights with TAR. The involved male staff still works there, 2 years later. I need to call the state and ask what's up with that
??
This male staff, who is still with TAR, is a dirty, rotten man, period. After my complaint, he sneered at me and made menacing faces whenever we passed each other in town. Out of town, on the road to TAR, with a truck full of young boys, he attempted 3 times to run me off the road. On the 3rd time, I held my ground and our trucks nearly collided, but that was the last time he did it.
After my complaint, several other old farts were let go. One was a known child sexual and animal abuser. They also had to replace trucks and vans that had no brakes or openable doors and which the kids were in every day. Escalante UT gets to 100 degrees in the summer, and none of their upstairs sleeping facilities had air conditioning. They had to install that as well and fix a bunch of other things that I added to the state complaint once I saw that TAR wasn't going to take care of any of it on their own. Then I quit.
As intake, Wayne takes control of the kids with other techniques too. He kills their self-esteem and ego by telling them they're pieces of sheet, worthless, pointing out physical flaws, and making fun of their religion and culture. He tells them they're ugly, fat, wimpy, whatever.
I find it very interesting that Wayne's now listed as a "family man" with Ironwood. We never knew if he was ever divorced, but knew that his wife lived in Salt Lake City (6 hours away) and never visited him here. He's an ex-cop from the SLC region, and I never could find out why he suddenly left there, but I feel there's something that happened to end that career. It might have been his drinking, he's an alcoholic, and was caught several times drinking on the job at TAR.
He might have kids and grandkids, but they never visited him in Escalante either. He's a loner, and I would guess that he's been involved in kid activities throughout his life because he's a child abuser and what better place to find them.
My kids are grown and in their 20's now. I never had any problems with them and still don't today. But I LOVED MY KIDS AND I WAS ALWAYS THERE FOR THEM (and all of the other neighborhood kids 'cause no other adults were home). I even had the difficult kids, the mean kids, the violent kids. You know what, I laid the laws down for our house, gave 'em some LOVE and never once did I have any problems with these boys. We even took one with us on vacations, left his medications at home, and had a great time together.
You can't just keep sending them off and away to another program. You need to wrap them in your arms and hold them, they always respond to LOVE!!!!!
Toni
**********
Wayne Stinson is a family man with five children (three boys and two girls) and eight grand children. Wayne has been involved with youth in many different capacities. He has coached wrestling, baseball, basketball and a variety of outdoor sports. Wayne has also participated in many community youth programs, volunteering to umpire and officiate as well as umpiring professionally. Wayne has interacted professionally in youth programs for over six years and has experience and training in Wilderness Therapy, CPR, First Responder and Ropes Course. He introduces both parents and students to wilderness settings and teaches communication skills to bring families back together. Wayne works with new residents in Ironwood?s Frye Camp (Intake) when they first arrive. He previously worked in the same capacity at Turnabout Ranch in Utah. Wayne also has experience in law enforcement, grievance counseling and is certified as a Positive Controls Instructor. He loves the outdoors and spends a lot of his time hiking and teaching survival skills to Ironwood residents.
http://www.ironwoodmaine.com/staff.html#top