Petition to close the abusive Provo Canyon School is gaining

[Anonymous]

I'm just horrified by what I've read so far about this place. I truly hope that it is closed.

[Anonymous]

Jason's post above is just the kind of thing that could go on the book reviews I suggested earlier:

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... &forum=9&3

I got a few positive comments for my suggestion but no one seems to be actually doing it.  I'd write one myself but I never went to PCS (thank God!).  It really needs to be first hand.

Wonderful though these fora are, I suspect a lot more people consider buying Dr Phil's books than hang out here.

[Anonymous]

More books need to be written about this type of thing because most people are not aware of what's going on behind those locked doors...

[Anonymous]

Many of the individual histories I have read on this site are reminiscent of the patient abuse (and fraud) that took place in psychiatric facilities owned by the Psychiatric Institutes of America (PIA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the now-defunct National Medical Enterprises (Now re0oragnized as Tenet Healthcare), Charter, and HCA in the early 1990s are revealed in a 110-story, 15-month investigative series - "Profitable Addictions" - published in the Houston Chronicle.  As a result of the Chronicle's investigative series, the then-Director of the FBI, William Sessions, created a healthcare fraud section within the FBI.  As a result of the FBI investigation into patient abuse and fraud, PIA settled for fraudulent billings to federal healthcare insurance programs for $325 million and with private insurance companies for an estimated $200 million more.

I think it would be truly beneficial to obtain whatever individual medical records are available, as well as health insurance payment information (through either state and/or federal healthcare insurance programs, or payments made by private insurance carriers) and present them to the local office of the Health Care Fraud Unit (HCFU) of the FBI in your area.

If, in fact, there have been these reported abuses, these are things that the FBI's HCFU should be made aware of, and provided with whatever supporting documentation may available to allow them to gear up an investigation into Provo Canyon School for potential federal violations.

I am an independent investigative journalist who worked on the Chronicle's "Profitable Addictions" series, and would like to hear from any survivors or families of survivors from 1990 to date.

I can be contacted at charleshannasch@justice.com.

[BSarro]

I might start a petition to end this petition. Propaganda, propaganda, all it is is propaganda.

[Anonymous]

Hey why don't you just go and sit in your garage for a week - coming out for only five minutes at a time to eat and pee.  This is what many of the survivors of this program had to endur.

[Anonymous]

Looks like there's almost 500 signatures - keep getting people you know to sign this...... :wave:

[nite owl]

Maybe it's time to make a press release and deliver it to those who could do something.  Almost 100 survivors signed it and another 400 parents, friends and human rights activists.  That's a decent number for a petition.  She should make a press release about it indicating that 100 survivors who are now adults have signed the petition as well as their friends and family and activists.  

Will it make a difference?   :question:

I tried for years to live according to everyone else's morality.
I tried to live like everyone else, to be like everyone else.
I said the right things even when I felt and thought quite differently.
And the result is a catastrophe.

---Albert Camus

[nite owl]

It would indeed be great if this place closed.

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trust either of them
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679737898/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'> P.J. O'Rourke

[Anonymous]

My Grandaughter is there now and I want to get her out - does anyone have any ideas?  What can I do?  G. L.

[Deborah]

It's been done, but it's a lot of effort and potentially tons of money to win custody.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... rt=0#13840
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =140#52932

[Anonymous]

I wish my grandparents had wanted to get me out of there...  I even have fantasies that my grandparents realize what is going on, and show up at PCS, demanding I be released to them, and threaten (with my therapist listening) to cut my mother out of their will if she does not comply.  Then they take one look at those ignorant, sadistic hillbilly staff members and pluck me out of the line and say they will not have me stay here and be influenced by these uneducated mountain people and they are taking me back to New York to go to a nice private day school.
 Even if you are unsuccessful at obtaining her release, please write her letters- ask her to write to you, frequently, documenting everything she experiences and witnesses there.  If her therapist there knows that there is a family member around who is wise to the abuse that is Provo Canyon School, then chances are she will get treated a lot better than the others.  PCS does not read outgoing mail, she should feel free to write to you whatever she wants, so long as she knows that you will not reports what she writes back to her therapist.

[Anonymous]

I, too worked at a school like this. I don't know if you will read this but if you do I just want to thank you for helping me put words to two things:  that these types of schools harden hearts and change the people that work there for the worse and also that the word sadism is descriptive of what is occuring.  This all really is a spiritual battle! ::nod::

[Timoclea]

I hope you sign the petition.  Your signature among the others, given your personal experiences, would be a powerful testimony to the seriousness of the problem.

Timoclea

Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I.
-- William Oldys (1696-1761): On a Fly drinking out of a Cup of Ale.

[Anonymous]

I was tricked into going to Provo when I was 15 I didn't get to graduate from middle school and i think it was 1992. I did suffer from depression and my family I think was the reason why my dad never had a kind positive thing to say about me and my mom and dad were always not happy and my parents didn?t really know how to take care of teenagers and showed no interest in my life. I am a parent of a great young boy and now I see that they really didn?t involve themselves at all in my life and really didn?t supervise me at all.

       Well my dad tricked me into going to Utah to visit my sister who was in B Y U at the time and when we got there I was put in Provo. I couldn?t believe my parents did this to me they still don?t even ask about what happened in there for fear that they have to bring up the guilt they put on themselves. My brother moved out of the house and lived in his car because he was so upset at my parents and my sister called them every day to remind them what a mistake it was to send me there.

       When I got there they took all my stuff away from me took all my clothes off and put me in pink sweats. I was very upset but did not see my therapist for three days. I?ve looked at the online brochure for Provo and there were no outside facilities on the girls campus when i was there just a patch of grass in the backyard that i went in once. I remember we weren?t allowed to look out the window or they would consider it run plans.

      I remember some girls were in there because parents didn?t want to deal with there kids any more. One of the problems I had was we all needed counseling and barley ever got it and my parents were the ones that needed the counseling and they were 2 states away just hoping to fix me and send me back home.

      My brother used to write me but i only got 4 of the 15 letters he wrote. I took all the classes for the 9th grade year but had to take them all over again when I got home and everyone at that high school already heard all these rumors about where I went and why so my chance of survival in an already socially harsh high school environment was diminished to nothing.

     When I was there i got homesick for my brother and they wouldn?t let him visit or let me have his letters and one day I got sad and started crying and was really sad and I hadn?t been outside in 3 months and because I was crying they didn?t talk to me they didn?t get my therapist they stuck me in a small empty room with tile floors and painted white brick walls and told me they would let me out when I wasn?t sad anymore. Now at 27 I see how there methods would never work.

      Having to stand military style for 1 or two hours without moving and one time I passed out and did not receive medical attention I was told to get up and start my time all over again. At dinner we would like jail have a certain time and a certain way to eat and afterwords go strait into exercise I remember it making a lot of us sick but we wouldn?t say anything or we would have more punishment. All of the punishment would be from not folding our clothes right or washing the bathroom. One of my friends had asthma bad and she had an attack at night and just left her in the hallway and it got worse and worse and all she needed was her meds and nobody got it i don?t remember why but she almost died and ended up going to the hospital.

      There is so much more but I have moved on but will never forget and think somebody needs to do something that place makes life lots worse than better for every one.