Rocky Mountain News:
Lou Kilzer
News Staff Writer
Mexican officials have removed a 14-year-old Colorado girl and seven other teens from a compound connected to Utah-based Teen Help, the latest in a series of crackdowns on the organization.
Child welfare workers found the conditions deplorable at the High Impact locked compound near Tecate in Baja California, Mexico, according to authorities at the United States Consulate in Tijuana.
``They were all extremely dirty,'' consulate spokesman Clint Wright said of the teens living there. ``Some of the kids had calluses and blisters on their feet from being made to do a lot of laps around the place without wearing proper shoes.''
He said the teens were forced to lie on their stomachs, with their chins on the ground, for hours at a time.
Mexican authorities said they found that tents had blown down and children had been forced to sleep in bathrooms, according to U.S. diplomats.
The Colorado girl complained of blisters and a sunburn, officials said. They would release no details about the girl, who was one of the last to leave High Impact.
The Teen Help organization offers services to parents of troubled children. The parents often attend rigorous psychological encounter sessions, while their children are sent to behavior modification camps in the United States and overseas.
Some mental health professionals have described some of the techniques in the adult seminars and at the compounds as ``coercive persuasion.''
Parents often pay more than $3,000 a month for tuition. A typical stay can last 18 months or longer.
Parents said High Impact is an integral part of the Teen Help empire - a place to send kids who are ``not working the program.''
Officials first inspected the High Impact facility Dec. 5. The World Wide Association of Specialty Schools - an umbrella group for many Teen Help-related programs - immediately began withdrawing its clients from High Impact. When the compound was revisited on Dec. 8, eight remained. WWASP said one of the eight had come from its program.
The teens were taken into protective custody, according to the consulate. Allegations of unsanitary conditions at High Impact are untrue, said Ken Kay, head of the WWASP. ``I mean, it was the cleanest place I ever saw,'' he said.
But Chris Goodwin of San Francisco said his son was forced to stay outside in his underpants for three nights, lying on his stomach with his chin on the ground. If he moved to try to brush off fire ants that roamed over him, he was threatened with a cattle prod, said Goodwin. The punishment left scars on his son's chin, he said.
The Utah organization tried last week to distance itself from High Impact. Kay said the only association WWASP had with High Impact was that it occasionally sent children there. ``I know you probably think I'm playing dumb,'' said Kay. ``And that's good, because I probably am dumb.''
Records suggest that WWASP has a closer relation to High Impact. High Impact's Web page is on a Web service called parentresources.net. That site advertises Teen Help and WWASP programs, and its phone number connects to Teen Help in Utah. The person who manages the Web site has managed Teen Help.
High Impact's billing is controlled by R&B Billing, a company owned by Robert Lichfield in Utah, according to records obtained by the News. Lichfield created the Teen Help programs.
Payments to WWASP and High Impact have the same St. George, Utah, mailing address. And parent identification codes remain the same when a child goes from a WWASP program to High Impact, and vice versa, according to internal records.
Though the facilities are owned by various individuals, the money first passes through Lichfield's concerns in southern Utah, where most of it remains, Kay told the News.
But Dace Goulding, who runs Casa by the Sea, a WWASP program in Ensanada, Mexico, said he doesn't know of any relationship between High Impact and WWASP. He also said he had no knowledge of teens from Casa by the Sea going to High Impact.
That was news to Goodwin. He said that after his son was having troubles at Casa, Goulding called and told him to send his son to High Impact. He said Goulding sold it to him as a camping experience.
What his son found, instead, was ``torture,'' according to Goodwin. After his son and another boy got into a fight, the staff beat both and then put them in the High Impact position, he said.
``They were flat on their stomachs, hands behind their back as if they're handcuffed, chin out straight, resting on the ground. My kid said he stayed like that in a pool of blood all night long on the first night. They were freezing their butts off.''
Goodwin said his son spent three nights in the High Impact position.
Goulding said he didn't know Chris Goodwin or his son.
Stephanie Hecker of Kansas City said her son experienced the same treatment.
High Impact isn't the first Teen Help-related program to run into trouble with authorities.
* A compound near Cancun, Mexico, was closed after a newspaper reported child abuse allegations.
* Police in the Czech Republic closed WWASP's Morava Academy, again citing abuse allegations. Police alleged kids were sometimes isolated, denied food and handcuffed.
* A Teen Help psychiatric hospital in St. George was shut following an investigation into an abuse complaint.
* A WWASP program in Western Samoa closed after American diplomats received what they called ``credible'' allegations of abuse.
* And last Monday, child welfare officials made an unannounced visit to Casa by the Sea, removing five children for private interviews.
Goulding, the director of the program, said he was unaware of the event. But Kay was.
``I just can't believe that they came in . . . with armed federales, removed five of the kids without the parents' permission or anything, and took them off to question them, and then brought them back,'' said Kay. ``The mayor of Ensanada is highly incensed.''
Of the Rocky Mountain News, which has raised questions about the program in recent years, Goulding said: ``Because of the work that you do, Casa by the Sea is thriving. I was going to send you a thank-you letter for that.''
He hung up the phone after telling a reporter: ``Please don't call me. I'll call you.''
Reread this paragraph. It is what I was referring to:
But Dace Goulding, who runs Casa by the Sea, a WWASP program in Ensanada, Mexico, said he doesn't know of any relationship between High Impact and WWASP. He also said he had no knowledge of teens from Casa by the Sea going to High Impact.
