WHAT DOES ROBERT BROWNING LICHFIELD LOOK LIKE?

[Anonymous]

Timoclea - Congrats on your book.  

I may have missed it, but were you a teen in a program?  Did you have a teen in a program?  Do you have any real first hand experience with programs, including WWASPS?

[Anonymous]

Again, you are saying that all of these teens are liars.  Don't forget your glass house!  

Narvin, please answer the questions that have been addressed to you in this thread.  If you are willing to make statements and call others liars, at least answer questions directed to you.

[Anonymous]

How many had to watch while the staff destroyed their peers?

[Anonymous]

On 2004-11-16 21:05:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Timoclea - Congrats on your book.  



I may have missed it, but were you a teen in a program?  Did you have a teen in a program?  Do you have any real first hand experience with programs, including WWASPS?  



"

I have secondhand experience with the programs---I found out about them when a well-known female SF fan who had been going to cons for years and a *lot* of people, including a lot of adults, knew well got shipped off to ASR in MA for trivial reasons.

My concern is as someone with a major mental illness, with a lot of family with that or related illnesses, and someone familiar with the history of mental health care, that children with major mental illnesses are getting inappropriate, ineffective, and frequently harmful "care".

That's not just my personal assessment, that's the assessment of the National Institutes of Mental Health.

Because it *could* have happened to me, and could happen to any member of the next generation of my extended family, it behooves me to do something about cleaning up the problem now.  

Also, it could happen to any of our teenage fen in the SFF fandom community----because SFF fen have a higher incidence of bipolar disorder and related illnesses.  They're disproportionately smart and creative, so they have a disproportionate concentration of the associated problems.

The existence of this social problem---ineffective, inappropriate, frequently harmful "treatments"---potentially affects my entire family, and already has affected our community of friends.

I think it's fair to say that all this girl's friends in fandom are still hopping mad that something like this could happen in the United States.  She's out now, and managed to avoid being turned into a brain-numbed zombie, but we're *still* mad as hell over it.

It's not just about her.  We recognize that our budding writers and artists and fans are often "different" sorts of people, and that this could have happened to any of *us* as kids, and that our entire next generation of authors and artists and fans is vulnerable to terrible damage and loss of what should be some of the best years of their life to this phenomenon.

Parents used to be able to force "different" children to conform by forcing them into arranged marriages or confining them in convents or monasteries.  It was a huge leap forward for individual rights when parents no longer had those options---the special and unique were able to grow up and blossom without being forcibly stifled.

This industry is a threat to that, and those of us familiar with history recognize just how much of a threat it is.

We're mad as hell, and we're not likely to "move on" and forget about this any time soon.

We want changes in the laws and enforcement so that what happened to our friend just can't happen anymore.

Timoclea

[Anonymous]

What's ASR and SFF?

[cherish wisdom]

To the annon who indicated they they did not believe that WWASP administrator Ken Kay bragged about keeping a child on their face for 18 months - here is the excerpt from the article by the British reporter who had been granted a rare interview and tour of Tranquility Bay in Jamaica.

When most children first arrive they find it difficult to believe that they have no alternative but to submit. In shock, frightened and angry, many simply refuse to obey. This is when they discover the alternative. Guards take them (if necessary by force) to a small bare room and make them (again by force if necessary) lie flat on their face, arms by their sides, on the tiled floor. Watched by a guard, they must remain lying face down, forbidden to speak or move a muscle except for 10 minutes every hour, when they may sit up and stretch before resuming the position. Modest meals are brought to them, and at night they sleep on the floor of the corridor outside under electric light and the gaze of a guard. At dawn they resume the position.

This is known officially as being 'in OP' - Observation Placement - and more casually as 'lying on your face'. Any level student can be sent to OP, and it automatically demotes them to level 1 and zero points. Every 24 hours, students in OP are reviewed by staff, and only sincere and unconditional contrition will earn their release. If they are unrepentant? 'Well, they get another 24 hours.'

One boy told me he'd spent six months in OP.

 :exclaim:  :exclaim:  :exclaim:

'The purpose of observation,' Kay offers, 'is to give the kids a chance to think. Hopefully, it's giving the kids a chance to reflect on the choices they've made.' And indeed it is often in OP that a student decides to stop fighting. In this respect, OP works. In fact, the success rate of OP can be understood as a perfect distillation of Tranquility Bay's ideology. If your son is willfully disrespectful, the most loving gift a parent can give him is incarceration in an environment so intolerable that he will do anything to get out - where 'anything' means surrendering his mind to authority.

'I say to the parents,' says Kay, leaning back in his office seat. 'The bottom line is, what's the end result you want? Getting there may be ugly, but at least with us you're going to get there.'


Observer Magazine
Read the new Observer Magazine here
Observer Magazine highlights

These were direct quotes -

NARVIN - please explain why you feel this untherapeutic and abusive treatment is necessary?  You still have not given us any type of explaination for this.  Was this also done at DUNDEE - if so - it should never be re-opened....












 

All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers in their pulpits -- by teachers in Sunday schools and by parents at home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle -- in their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same impossible truths. The poor children were helpless. The atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies -- lies that mingled with their blood.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

[cherish wisdom]

Narvin, why is everyone lying about WWASP programs? You claim that all of the former students are lying and manipulative. You claim that your former administrator was a lying and disgruntled. You claim that all reporters twist the truth. I just don't buy it. Reporters do not put quotation marks around statements for no reason.  They also usually tape everything to safeguard against libel suits.  I believe that Ken Kay did admit that a female child had been kept "on her face" in observation for 18 months. This was on tape.  
I find this highly abusive. Would you like to lay on your face for 18 months. This was torture. It is against International law.  All of your programs should be shut down if you and your WWASP friends are doing this to children. It is untherapeutic and highly abusive to take 18 months of any person's life, restrict their movement and isolate them from others.  It is HORRIBLE abuse.  I think you should all be thrown in JAIL.....

I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off.
--Billy Joel, American musician

[Anonymous]

Why?  

First, the kids will say anything they think will push their parents buttons to bring them back home to their friends and drugs and the control they held over their parents prior to going.

Second, WWASPS does not pay educational consultants for a referral to their schools.  Out of curiosity I called two such educational consultants and asked about two of the WWASPS schools and was told they would never recommend them.  Reasons given were abuse, acting like the allegations were true.  I asked them if they were paid a fee by them if they were to recommended them, and they said no.  I asked if they were paid by other programs and one refused to answer, the other said yes, when appropriate.

When you can provide info on abuse that was proven to be TRUE in a court of law and a settlement was paid, I'll listen.

[Anonymous]

It has already been proven to be true in a court of law.

[Anonymous]

***When you can provide info on abuse that was proven to be TRUE in a court of law and a settlement was paid, I'll listen.

Have you ever asked WWASP for copies of all lawsuits that were settled? You wouldn't listen, because you condone the methods. What normal intellegent people consider abuse, you consider 'therapy'. "Bring on the torture", Right?

[Anonymous]

Abuse was proven?  So who went to jail and/or who was found guilty?

[Anonymous]

So what you are saying, is that unless a court of law says that these children are not lying, that they will not be believed?  That they can not tell their experiences to anyone but a court?  

I guess it should apply to you.  Don't call them liars unless you can prove in a court of law that they are.

[Anonymous]

" It has already been proven to be true in a court of law."

No, based on your statement "So what you are saying, is that unless a court of law says that these children are not lying, that they will not be believed? That they can not tell their experiences to anyone but a court?"  You said "it" implying abuse, has already been proven to be true in a court of law.  I say if it has been proven in a court of law then someone must have been convicted.  I am asking who?

[Anonymous]

Take those families to court - Bethel Boys Academy, on it's own, is doing this. It's about time WWASPS called these kids and families on their crap in a court of law.  Out the 50 or so kids that say they were abused in some way, I'm sure there thousands of others that will gladly stand in line to testify how ludicrous this is.

[Anonymous]

Stop calling my child and others liars.  Many of these young adults have been out of the program for a while and have nothing to gain but to help those left behind.