SUWS

[Persistence]

Any info about SUWS (owned by AspenEducation, which I believe is the parent company of Aspen Health)?  It is an Idaho boot camp. I would especially like to hear from survivors or parents of survivors.

[girlwithoutbarcode]

I have never heard of it, but keep searching. I am sure there are other survivers. You're safe now, remember that.

[FaceKhan]

I have heard of it. The guy LJ Mitchell who ran Alldredge Academy before he the place closed and reopened under a new name without him used to be involved with suws.



Its more or less your basic wildnerness therapy new age bs fraud. It is probably not dangerous as long as you don't consider a long hike in the woods with staff that are not trained to work with kids (although some are search and rescue trained according to literature)dangerous. I don't think there have ever been any news coverage of them or any really negative incidents but beware the entire industry is what I say.





More or less they claim to train the kids to be search and rescue and Alldredge kids do actually participate in search and rescue, but lets face it what they are mostly training them to do is track down their own escapees since its unlikely anyone is going to be lost in those precise areas that the suws or alldredge groups were hiking in any given period of time.



They have a lot of new age metaphors about stages of recovery and that nonsense but it is mostly nonsense.



They have never had any major abuse issues and I am not saying if you send a kid there they are going to suffer but the whole industry is mostly a fraud and its a waste of money. My friend came back from Alldredge unharmed and a bit more motivated but it fades quickly since he just gets sent back to the same crazy parents.

However it is still better than sending your kid off to some cult like the ones that run those Refrom Schools in Missouri and Florida and the Teenhelp/WWASP and CEDU/Brown Schools group.

Take the 20K and send your kid on a trip to Europe or something.
_________________
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?" Babylon 5-A Late Delivery from Avalon

[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2002-11-27 15:10 ]

[hawaiistacey]

Hi,
my name is stacey and im 15 years old. I am a SUWS Idaho survivor. I was sent there in October of 2001 and graduated three weeks later on October 31. A day later I arrived at Mount Bachelor Academy in Oregon. I had an ok experience with suws. It is a very unique program. The first night you arrive you are placed in a group with about 7-9 other kids boys and girls and two instructors are assigned to each group. On the first week you cannot talk to anyone in your group not even the instructors unless you are spoken to. you are given assignments to put up traps,make a bow drill set and other outdoorish things. Each group is assgined to a "Field Supervisor" who is the one person in contact with the parents or guardians of every kid in the group. on the second week this person come and visits the group at whatever site they happen to be at that day. he has a one hour session with each kid individually. On the first night of the second week we get moved up into "family phase" where you are allowed to talk to your peers and actually get to sit by the fire to eat your dinner with everyone else as opposed to sitting by yourself in the cold eating near your sleeping bag. The menu consists of oatmeal with no flavoring for breakfast, one slice of pita bread with peanut butter on it for lunch and rice and lentils for dinner. If every bite is not eaten you receive a consequence like staying in the desert for an extra week.At the end of the first week we all went on solo, which is where we go out into a huge field and all get assigned to a tent which is very secluded from the tents of the other kids. for three days straight you stay in your tent and dont leave it unless it is to use the bathroom the instructors will bring you yuor food without speaking to you and if you have your 3 traps set up you get rewarded with a loaf of bread ( which is heaven, when you havent seen anything edible for 2 weeks)The third week you become the search and rescue team of the desert and are supposedly officialy "on call".we do cpr training and other emergency training. About two days before we are supposed to leave we get a call on the radio saying that there are two runaways from another group and we have to k=hike out into the desert to find them when we do there is one girl laying on the floor complaing of a hurt skull we do everything we are trained to do and then at the end we are told that it is a simulation and we did very well. Every single person from my suws group went on to a emotional growth boarding school including me. WHat made the program so hard was probably the conditions in which we were living and the fact that we had no contact with our family except for 2 letters at the most. We hiked about  3-7 miles a day which was extremely difficult when your carrying a 70 lbs pack on your back and only weigh 100 lbs.It didnt help that the instructors were hostile and uncaring and most of the kids are completely depressed and sinical about everything.  For the most part i would say it was a good experience for me and it was definetly a rude awakening but i wouldnt wish it upon my worst enemy and would die before having to repeat it myself.

[FaceKhan]

Interesting. It seems like some people who were sent to both wildnerness programs and long term lockdowns (ie. emotional growth schools/therapuetic boarding schools/religious reform schools) say that the wildnerness programs were better and some say they were worse than the lockdowns. I guess it has to do with the type of person. I imagine that stronger willed, more independent people don't mind the wildnerness as much since at least you are outdoors and are free to think your own thoughts whereas the lockdowns are designed to break your will through the hopelessness of long term isolation and abuse.

It seems likes SUWS is considerably worse than Alldredge was at least according to those who I have talked to about it including my best friend. The general complaints about wildnerness programs are the food (or lack thereof) and the exhaustion but it seems like the staff is the real sticking point. If the staff are at least semi-decent people it does not have to be a nightmarish experience from start to finish although certainly not therepuetic by any means. It seems though that more often than not these programs are staffed by whoever will work the cheapest, usually former program kids themselves or ex-cons/drug addicts/military who think they are on some kind of mission to "help" everyone whether they like it or not.

[Anonymous]

I was sent to SUWS about two years ago. I think it is a great program. It didn't so much teach me to stay clean and sober, but it was a wake up call. I think that every teenager should have the opportunity to engadge in this three week program. it teaches you to appriciate the little that you have like a shower or a bed. It also teaches you how to survive in the wilderness and the difficulties that come along with it. It is somewhat like the show "Survivor"but not as dramatic. You are sent to live with people you don't know and have to work as a team to accomplish your goal, for example a ten mile hike or getting a fire started. You are expected to be as a family. I wish i could share that ecperience with every teenager, but unfortunatly i can't. I would have to say that if you are thinking of sending your kid to SUWS that you would be very provledged and so is your kid.

[FaceKhan]

I just wonder how all those kids who never went there survived without a forced hike in the woodsl?

A wake up call has little to do with the wildnerness, since in general wake up calls happen at posh hotels where it helps to have an automated voice urge you to get out of your soft pillows and blankets in order to get to whatever it is you need to get to.

Maybe wildnerness programs are more like having your head shoved into icy water until you are about to drown?

[Deborah]

My son was at a Therapeutic Boarding School for twenty months. They opened a Wilderness program during his stay. He was sent for a 28-day stay on, what I'm convinced, were inaccurate claims. The whole charade was generated to bring more funds into the corporation.

He endured abuse and neglect at Wilderness but preferred it over the TBS. Why?  There was one older, experienced, rational, and reasonable counselor at the Wilderness program. She treated him with genuine respect. He knew the difference. She didn't try to twist his thoughts and allowed him to express freely.  That little bit of respect made a huge difference for him and made the abuse, interaction with ex-military, irrational physical demands, and austere environment more tolerable than the pretentious environment of the TBS.

The "counseling" at the TBS was actually manipulation administered under the guise of therapy. Ironically, the primary reason teens were placed on restriction (limited calories, extra work, no free time, no interaction with peers) was for so-called "manipulation". What they taught him was how to say what they wanted to hear. How to give the appearance of compliance. In effect, how to master the art of "manipulation". Period. He got very good at this. He did endure months of fear, grief, and confusion before he figured out the game.

This $5K month TBS advertised as a College Prep facility. My son returned 5 credits behind his peers.

I wish parents would wake up to this reality. It all sounds great when you are desperate, but there are far better ways to assist your teen.

Hire a full-time big brother or therapist to be with your teen when you can't be. Five Thousand a month goes a long way and there are so many other creative options!!!

There is much to be learned from Nature. It can be the most wonderful teacher. I believe all the benefits of such a potentially vital experience are lost when the teen is subjected to military-types or young adults, not much older than the teens, fresh out of college, who have one agenda...teach lessons the hard way. Unfortunately I think this often has the negative effect of setting up an aversion to nature. That is so unfortunate and has not place in any form of useful therapy.

[Polarbear]

I seem to remember, from over 10 years ago, that SUWS was something like Southern ---- Wilderness Survival.  I knew a lot of people at RMA at the time were sent there for running away or other issues.  That was 91'-93'.  I never wanted to do that, so I tended to stay low on the radar.  The way I remember it, I was told that they first starved you for 24 hours.  To shrink your stomach.  Then you subsisted on a limited amount of food for the duration of your stay.  You were allowed to catch anything you could to add to your diet, but you had to eat what you caught.  You started off in teepees and moved onto the trail for a period of time.  You were privileged to have a bow drill.  If you screwed up enough you could have that taken away.  You would be left with a hand drill.  Evidently that's really crappy.  I saw people back then who lost a ton of weight.  There was nowhere for them to run off to, so they stayed with the group.  Since they drank from streams and cattle watering holes the kid complained of giardia, suffering even after they got back.  It was a tough program by all accounts.  I joined the army in 2001 and I figure letting ex-soldiers deal with kids in a program like that is asking for trouble.  I remember there was one program in Washington state that killed a kid in 92' or 93' becuase they ignored his or her dehydration.  
Enjoy-Polarbear

[godspeed!]

i went to the cascade school in whitmore, ca.--a 2 year program in the mountains. there were so many ridiculous arbitrary rules that i don't know where to begin.
i was one of the ten percent there who had not participated in a wilderness program.  they all had their horror stories to tell about the various programs, but i remember hearing that SUWS was a hardcore group of "hike-til-you-puke-and-yer-gonna-puke"rs who were all about beans and rice and NOTHING more.  i also vaguely remember a story of a kid on christmas on a wilderness in idaho...(quick paraphrase):
'hiked all day until late late at night when the guide assured the group that the group's respective families, snuggled safe in bed that christmas eve, were all asleep by now and that now they would stop to have dinner, followed by a "group session" of some sort and a promise of a chocolate bar.
(MATT) was in the middle of getting yelled at during this rap session and the guide apparently jumps over the fire pit and tackles the poor kid. he's pinned under this huge guide and he is being warned that if he doesn't admit that he was molested (which he says he was not. i believe him, anyway)he's not going to get a chocolate bar.' there was no laughing. it was no joke. they thought that since he was so tired and all after hiking since yesterday or so that he might 'CREATE ISSUES to deal with' (so that they could get future promotions from the TBSs??)

...it was christmas eve, they're in the middle of the desert after hiking for days. they're next to a fire, and they're all watching little 5'6, 110 Lb, 15 year old matt being basically tortured by this wilderness therapeutic guide during a GROUP-- and if he doesn't admit that he was molested, his punishment will be to not get a chocolate bar before going to sleep on christmas eve.
and they're SCREAMING about it... (there were at least ten kids and multiple guides, from what i remember hearing, and nobody did a thing to stop the mental and physical abuse.)
 how's that sort of mentality?

i agree with the other poster who says to send the kid to europe... better yet, send him to thailand and cambodia and laos and china with an educational tourgroup.--- spirituality and hiking and culture and eventually, TRUTH.   :tup: [ This Message was edited by: godspeed! on 2004-11-28 09:00 ]

[Anonymous]

This is Houston's mom. I sent you a reply on the forum a few hours ago.  Please write to Houston c/o me at [email protected].
The therapeutic boarding schools work in concert with the bootcamps.  They are even owned by some of the same investors.

[Anonymous]

SUWS sends all the prisoners on to other "therapeutic" programs.  Did any one go to Mt. Bachelor? They are in Oregon.

[3YearWWASPsurvivor]

I am a SUWS survivor. I was there in 95.

[Three Springs Survivor]

I went to SUWS (School of Urban & Wilderness Survival)in 93' after being kicked out of the Amity School in Arezzo, Italy (A CEDU spin-off).  I spent 5 weeks in the program.  From reading these posts, it sounds like it is a lot more relaxed then it was when I attended the program.  We would hike 15+ miles a day.  Our rations consisted of oats, rice, lentils, and flower.  We used to eat ants with red ends that tasted like lemon candy.  We once killed a rattlesnake, skinned it and ate it.  The worst was when Dennis, our Field Supervisor, brought us a coyote to skin and cook.  It was the worst tasting thing I have ever had!  They had us eat dog for god sake!

Anyway, after my stay with SUWS I moved on to Three Springs Paint Rock Valley and the rest is history.

I would be happy to go more into detail about my SUWS experience if asked to.

[Anonymous]

Suws wilderness was expensive for the 3-4 week stay.The kids definately didnt benefit from the cost. Food was basic,staff was paid minium wage,hike hike hike for entertainment,education.

Sad to say another financial scam.