Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Quote from: ""anonymous7786""

I worked for Aspen at the time of the suicide and was there several years, and know everything that happened. It saddens me to hear all of these attacks on Aspen, and its employees. Although it is in fact part of a corporation, the employees and management are the most loving, incredible people I've ever met in my life. During the whole time I worked there as a field instructor, I've never seen anything remotely abusive. Every week, during graduation at Aspen, several parents come up to our director and literally say to him 'You saved my kids life'. He has heard this hundreds, if not thousands of times from parents and students alike. How come you guys never talk about this?

Do you know why the suicide did not become news? It wasn't some elaborate coporate coverup....the student's family wanted to keep it quiet, they did not feel ANY bad feelings toward Aspen. To this day, they are still 100% supportive of the academy. Sorry for going on here.....I understand why this is important, I believe completely in accountability...and I know there are programs out there that need more accountability, but I can tell you this--Aspen Achievement Academy is not one of those.

It was rarely the case when I met a student or parent on graduation day that was not completely grateful for being involved with AAA. I understand that it is had to believe someone like me, who is not an independent source.....but it is the truth.

Do the parents have to attend group meetings at aspen? That could be the reason they feel the program saved their lives.

Or it could be because you torture the kids and tell them the only way they can leave is to convince you that they beleive the program saved their lives, as they were headed inevitably, twords being deal/insane/jail
They then communicate this to the parents

Ok, so I attended aspen achievement academy and successfully graduated. I am here to tell you that in absolutely no way does AAA even attempt to brain wash you. That’s why it works and that’s why the results actually last. When I first got to aspen, I did not want to learn anything. I didn’t want help and I hated everyone in my life. I stayed like this for the first couple weeks of my stay. And you know why it took me so long before I realized how amazing and life changing the place was that I was at? Because they never pushed the program on me. All they did was love me and care for me. If I wanted to rant and rave about how much I hated them and I thought that place was stupid, they would sit there and let me. I was a lot to handle but they never lost hope in me, even for a second. Soon, I started becoming accustomed to aspen on my own terms. I started being receptive and letting people in. For the first time, I actually showed my emotions to another human being. I started making relationships with people and feeling love and attachment, which was all new to me. I could do this because I started feeling love for myself. I started feeling like I could actually do things on my own and that I was worth things being done at all. When I finally busted my first fire, a huge new window of light opened for me. I thought, “maybe there is something to all this.” That’s when I began changing my life. *notice I said that I (meaning me) began to change MY OWN life* All aspen ever did for me was give me a place of love and support and showed me that I was worth something and that I actually did want to make something out of myself. I am now attending a college in New York where I am studying Psychology.  After this, I aspire to first, work at one of the many aspen programs, and then, eventually, open one of my own. Without aspen, my life would never be what it is today and I would never have had experiences that I will cherish for a life time. One of the greatest things about aspen is that they have you do things on your own, they aren’t going to hand things to you on silver platter; including your emotions.