Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

Tough Love Sent to Time Out

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Anonymous:
http://www.powerhour.com

A Few Of The Stunning Things
Happening In US Schools
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

5-1-2

Picture this: Your middle-school child is summoned to a special workshop. The kids are asked to form a circle. Your child is told to stand in the center, and is asked by a special guest from Planned Parenthood: "Does your church consider homosexual behavior to be a sin?" Ask the ninth-graders in Arcata, Calif., how they felt, when it happened to them.
If your child attends middle-school in Seattle, you may - or may not - know about "Challenge Day," facilitated by a for-profit outfit called "Resource Realizations," in which kids are coerced into confessing their wrongs. Incidentally, the kids also get a promotional brochure advertising the three-day extended session for only $295, and a week-long version for only $800.

At Aptos High School in Santa Cruz, Calif., 300 students are bunched up in the gym, on one side of a line drawn on the floor. Then a series of questions are asked. If the answer is yes, the kids are told to step across the line. Some of the questions asked: * Are you a good kisser? * Anyone in your family addicted to drugs? * Do you have a friend or relative who is gay or lesbian? * Do you currently practice abstinence? * Have you ever considered suicide? These are a few of dozens of deeply personal questions students are asked to answer publicly. What on earth is going on in our schools?

Freedom 21

Santa Cruz wants to know what is going on in their schools, and why. They are accumulating similar stories from around the country.

Santa Cruz is one of the first cities to adopt a "Local Agenda 21" program. For 10 years, a local group has been promoting the implementation of Agenda 21 recommendations. Almost every community now has some local group promoting Agenda 21 policies, but using names such as "St. Louis 2004," or "[your town] 2020." These plans focus primarily on planning, open space, zoning, land-use restrictions, heritage sites, and the like. They also contain educational elements, based on Chapters 21 and 25 of Agenda 21.

The function of American schools has changed. Once, the function of the school was to prepare each student to reach his maximum individual potential. Now, school has become a process to modify behavior, attitudes and beliefs in pursuit of a "tolerant," (read: obedient) society.

The transformation has been underway for much of the last century. In 1949, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization conducted a series of seminars for teachers, called "Toward World Understanding." This brief excerpt provides a flavor of the series:

"As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only rather precarious results. As we have pointed out, it is frequently the family that infects the child with extreme nationalism. The school should therefore use the means described earlier to combat family attitudes that favor jingoism."

Robert P. Hillmann has produced an excellent study of how this transformation of our schools occurred. His 105-page report, "Reinventing Government: Fast Bullets and Culture Changes" documents the relationship between international organizations and school officials which has brought about the transformation in our schools' function.

The activities in Seattle, Arcata and Santa Cruz have struck a nerve, because the events probe deeply into personal and family affairs. School activities that seek to transform attitudes about the environment, about government, about freedom, about the Bill of Rights - have gone largely unnoticed by parents and the community.

The result of the transformation is becoming clear: prayer, freedom, corporations, liberty, the Ten Commandments, national sovereignty, property rights - and certainly, guns - are all terms and concepts that have been demonized. Tolerance, cooperation and equity, are values that supplant individual excellence, individual achievement and individual responsibility.

Most of the world is subjected to government-imposed-and-enforced education, and information. America has distinguished itself among all nations in history because government did not limit education and information, and celebrated individual achievement.

Those days are long gone. American schools have been transformed. Only individuals who recognize the threat, and are willing to invest their time and resources, can reverse this rush to homogenized mediocrity.

Left to its own agenda, the international community, assisted by professional education associations and enlightened facilitators, will continue to transform our children into pliable conformists who follow the party line, for fear of being different. ___

Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the http://www.eco.freedom.org Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.

Anonymous:
Oops, the correct source for the article is
http://www.thepowerhour.com

spots:
Northwest Family Visions appears to be the Seattle version of the WWASP support group.  Their web site (very spiffy, with lots of fades, etc.) carries the same primary-colored blocks and photo background as several other WWASP sites, i.e., the web page producer is one-in-the-same. It would be interesting to know who pays for this high-quality expensive web hosting.  

"Links and Resources" leads one to a list of TeenHelp agencies in several locations, along with a smattering of other mental health sites.  Available for purchase is the WWASP video (parent and student testimonials, etc.) and catalogs featuring WWASP facilities.  There is even a wall-mount poster with testimonials for those who need to see these Words of Wisdom as they do their laundry, or for the local Girl Scout or Sunday School meeting room!

The Newsletters are interesting.  Apparently the group received enough flak from their Challenge Days at local middle schools that they recognized the need to "re-organize" their efforts.  Because they advertised the events as being in affiliation with Resource Realizations, and because local Seattle-ites recognized RR and bombarded newspapers and local talk radio with complaints, Northwest Family said their next venture would be more, what, discreet?  Beware Washington!

As to the daily doings...the group had planned a picnic/family day at a local park.  It appears to be about 15 or so families sort of active in the group, but only a couple wanted to do the "play day" thing, so it was cancelled.  Maybe next time ;>) Sort of another example of how parents can't seem to let go of their decision to "place" their children, but the kids seem to really want to forget the whole thing.

Anonymous:
Read the bios of the board members -- some of whom have (or had) children in WWASPS programs.  What a racket!

http://www.nwfamilyvisions.org/whoweare.htm

Deborah:
David Gilcrease bio, and a mother's account of the seminar.
http://www.intrepidnetreporter.com/Teen ... eaking.htm
http://www.bridgetounderstanding.com/cg ... l?read=208

Intrepid is down, but the page is cached at Google. It reads:

Resource Realizations
"Shaping a Partnership of Purpose"
That's What They Say
Photo of David Gilcrease

The fundamental "Training" or behavior modification approach utilized by Teen Help and it's various entities, is a seminar series called TASKS: Teen Accountability Self-Esteem and Keys to Success.  

The seminars were developed by David Gilcrease of Resource Realizations and they are based on a conglomeration of theories that have were first developed in the 1960's and gained currency in the corporate world as effective strategies for change.   Many of the theories are loose interpretations of the work of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, Fritz Perls and other icons of the Human Potential movement.

Gilcrease himself is an engineer by training and a software developer by work experience.  He segued into the "training" world through his participation in the LifeSpring series of workshops, first as a participant and then as a trainer.  His close association with all of the Lichfield/Facer/Atkin Enterprises is evidenced by his sharing offices in LaVerkin, Utah and having exclusive contracts to provide the seminars that are the foothold of the "Teen Help" programs.  

There are four seminars in the initial series, followed by three "Parent Child" seminars that focus on the reintegration of the child back into the family/community according to the Gilcrease model.   Parents and children go through the Discovery Focus Vision and Accountability seminars separately.  

What follows is one Mother's story of her seminar experience.  For the record, although Mrs. Lile chooses to refer to the primary facilitator of the workshop she attended as "Don", we have identified him as Duane Smotherman who is the registered agent for the corporate entity "Resource Realizations".  RR is registered in Arizona but lists it's office as Beaumont, Texas which is the home of David Gilcrease.   Prior names for the same company are Resource Enterprises, Inc. and David L. Gilcrease, Inc.  Duane Smotherman was raised predominantly in California and has been associated with Mr. Gilcrease since they were jointly involved with LifeSpring more than a decade ago.

One Mother's Experience

Under penalty of perjury laws of the State of Washington, I declare the following to be true and correct.

My name is Karen E. Lile (Bean). I am a resident of Clayton, CA and can be contacted through my business at 510-676-3355.

BREAKING THE VOW OF SECRECY

On January 9, 1998, I, Karen E. Lile, took a vow of secrecy at the request of a facilitator of the Teen Help Discovery Seminar at the Holiday Inn in Livermore, California. The next day, at approximately 4:30 PM, I left the conference room in a state of distress and emotional shock. Before I walked out of that room, I was told, by a seminar staff person, that I could not come back again while the seminar was in progress. The doors were locked on the room and the windows covered, so there was no way I could renter the room anyway. Today, I am breaking my secrecy vow and stating why I have decided the vow was not only made invalid by the actions of the facilitator/trainer, but is unethical and goes against my deepest personal values.

I am going to relate what happened to me, how it affected me, and what questions and actions the processes and substance of this seminar provoked. I am opening my actions and the actions of the facilitator and participants to public comment and feedback. I am hoping that people will take what I have written and compare it against their own values and standards. I want to know if others feel there is legitimate cause for concern about these events and their import to the hundreds of teens who are confined in the Teen Help residential programs and the parents who have placed them there.

Before beginning my story, I will tell you about myself. I am 39 years old, a law abiding United States citizen and resident of Clayton, California. I have been married to Kendall Ross Bean for almost 19 years and have two daughters. I have never been divorced.

I have shared ownership in a piano business with my husband, in Contra Costa County, California for 16 years and am also the President of a California nonprofit corporation currently applying for federal exemption status. I completed my college studies at Brigham Young University, The University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas at Austin. In 1982, I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor?s Degree in English and Special honors in English. I am currently a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I value my religious freedom and support others in theirs.

As a teenager, my grandmother enrolled me in MENSA and the Children of the American Revolution as a member. I value freedom of the mind and the United States Constitutional freedoms. I have held membership in many professional and community organizations. I have been actively involved in the community, serving in leadership roles of various capacities. I have been involved in local government affairs, writing proclamations and resolutions that were later ratified by city councils and county boards of supervisors.

WHAT WE EXPECTED FROM THE DISCOVERY SEMINAR:

On April 20, 1997, my husband and I placed our daughter in a residential behavior modification school, Tranquility Bay, in Jamaica, West Indies. She had been missing for over a year and we felt at the time that this decision was an intervention to save her life. Details about why we made that decision and what has happened since that time can be found in entries posted between February 24th, 1998 to present, under mine and my husband?s name at the world wide web site http://www.bridgetounderstanding.com.

When my husband and I entered the Livermore Holiday Inn Hotel to attend the Discovery Seminar, we checked into the hotel expecting to stay for three days. We had been looking forward to this event because we had heard glowing reports of the seminar's significance to us and our family from other parents and from Teen Help. Teen Help is the organization that referred us to the seminars and to Tranquility Bay and we believed at the time that they were our advocates, representing our interests.

The full name of the series of seminars, of which this Discovery was the first, is called "TASKS", or "Teen Accountability, Self-Esteem and Keys to Success". On the first day of our Discovery seminar, we knew that our daughter had already attended all of the TASKS seminars with the exception of the Parent/Child Seminars.

Promotional Teen Help literature stated that: "These seminars [are] aimed at enhancing self-esteem, honesty, accountability, integrity, trust, agreements, leadership, communication and responsible decision making. The seminar series also strengthens a teen?s ability to overcome anger, peer pressure, and self-limiting beliefs."

This sounded wonderful. I was greatly interested in having my daughter learn these principals. I took these words at face value and expected them to mean what people in my culture understand them to mean. I had no idea that words like "accountability", and "integrity" had hidden meanings to "insiders"; that "outsiders", (those who had not been through the seminar) could not hope to understand.

Other literature I had read before signing the contract to send my daughter to Jamaica, had given me further expectations:

"As students participate in the seminars, they are immersed in a combination of educational, therapeutic and experiential activities, that give teens an opportunity to evaluate the negative results of their past choices, and begin making effective new choices"

I had participated in many progressive educational experiences, including activities as part of my honors classes at Brigham Young University, which had been labeled "experiential". I felt that I understood the scope of activities that might fall under the categories of "educational" and "experiential" activities. As a former associate member of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists and affiliate member of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, I had studied a broad range of literature, reports and research and felt that I understood what types of activities might fall under the category of therapeutic activities. Even with my educational and research background, I could not have anticipated what my daughter was put through or I was about to enter into, as you will see by reading my experience as described later in this document.
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The next page of this account does not come up, due to it being cached. But here's that link:
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:qs ... n&ie=UTF-8

Also from Rick Rose
http://www.rickross.com/reference/teenb ... boot9.html

Teen behavioral centers push 'tough love'
Utah-based network's program draws many cries of outrage
Scripps Howard News Service/July 21,1999
By Lou Kilzer
Denver -- A tall, crewcut 16-year-old boy stares into the video camera and tries to stifle a sob.

"Dad, I miss you," Eric Stone stammers, his chest heaving. "I love you, Dad. I love you a lot.

"I miss you, and I never want to go through this again." Eric is speaking from Spring Creek Lodge, a private behavior modification camp for teen-agers in a remote part of Montana. His mother sent him there.

A camp official taped the 11-minute video to persuade Eric's father, who is divorced from the boy's mother, to keep him there.

The tape has the opposite effect. Craig Stone barely recognizes his son. The once happy-go-lucky boy now seems distraught.

Armed with custody papers, Stone drives from his home near Seattle to Thompson Falls, Mont., and contacts the county sheriff. The sheriff calls Spring Creek Lodge, and soon Eric goes free.

Eric's story involves a Utah-based network of companies operating a far-flung chain of facilities designed to break teen-agers of behavior that has driven their parents to desperation. The companies are commonly known as Teen Help. Teen Help's style is not for the faint-hearted. It helps some parents arrange the seizure of disruptive teen-agers, even from their homes in the middle of the night. T Government regulation of these programs is spotty, and for now, teens sent to these facilities have little legal standing to challenge their confinement. Teen Help was started by Robert Lichfield, 45, a southern Utah businessman who lives on an estate in the spectacular canyon country near St. George.

He hired David Gilcrease to create a behavior modification program to all but guarantee parents would see a change in their teens.

Gilcrease had been trainer from 1974-81 for LifeSpring, a company that perfected a form of encounter session called "large group awareness training."

"Do I say that it's for everybody in the world?"

Gilcrease said. "No, but I don't think everybody in the world needs a psychological examination, either."een Help then ships them to far-off compounds where the message is simple: Cooperate or you won't see Mom, Dad and the outside world for a long time.

They can't do anything, including talking or using the bathroom, without permission.

The aggressive methods have spawned allegations of child abuse, prompting authorities to raid or investigate facilities in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Utah, South Carolina. Facilities in the first three locations closed. Parents pay the company $26,000 to $54,000 a year to modify the behavior of their children. The company does that with methods that include intense group encounter sessions run by "facilitators" who generally have little academic training in psychology or similar fields.

Teen Help has many admirers. Hundreds of parents and teens credit its programs with producing spectacular turnarounds in troubled young people, even saving their lives.

"If we could expose all of our children to this environment, there truly would be peace on earth," Marsha Mandrussow Gallagher, whose son, Collin, lived at Spring Creek Lodge part of last year, said in Teen Help promotional material.

Speculation has reverberated among parents, mental health experts and social commentators about whether Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold could have been helped before they murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher and killed themselves. The debate about Teen Help centers on whether its brand of "tough love" is appropriate for adolescents stumbling through one of the most emotionally vulnerable periods of their lives.

Several psychologists and psychiatrists expressed skepticism and alarm about Teen Help's methods. "There's something very creepy about this," Seattle psychiatrist August Piper said. "It's kind of frightening. It sort of smacks of brainwashing, doesn't it?"
*******************************
And http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/letters/ ... ty_bay.asp

Excerpt:
Ironically, it is the baby boomer generation that is sending their children, that generation of "sex, drugs and rock and roll". The most spoiled generation in history, they tend to like the idea of parenting more than the parenting itself and it is easier to send one's child off than to tend to the day-to-day chaos of the teen years.

Do some of these children genuinely need help? Of course they do. It is a "one-size-fits-all" solution. "Just go to our seminars," they say. All will be well. And their "seminars" are not original. They are just variations on EST (Erhardt Seminar Training) and Lifespring, which dismissed one of TB's main "trainers", Duane Smotherman, 10 years ago. The leader of the "seminars", president of Resource Realisations, is a man named David Gilcrease who is a former Hewlett Packard software engineer with perhaps one course in psychology over 20 years ago.

The tactics they used were never, ever intended for use with children who have unformed egos and are vulnerable to extreme trauma when subjected to long, exhausting days of being berated by their peers for their multiple failures.

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