My son is currently at Aspen Ranch

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group

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--- Quote from: "Guest" ---
--- Quote ---On 2005-12-05 11:17:00, kk wrote:

"Hi, My son is currently at Aspen Ranch. Ask me whatever you want. Ijust was there. I think the Therapists are great and the Teachers are great too.

Yes, it is corporate run and the bottom line is money and I don't like that aspect of it, but the people there do care. The things I don't like is that the babysitters, that's what I call them, mean well, but they are just not smart enough to understand the rules and make decsions that affect are children and these are the people who are deciding what level and what punishments should be handed out. Thank goodness most of our kids are very smart and most of the parents are very concerned and at any given time there is a parent on the property. I also don't like the fact that for all the money that we are paying the place is pretty broken done. there great selling point the ropes course has been inoperable for 7 months. The selling point that the kids can excellorate their schooling is void because they do not have access to computers or the library on the weekend.

I personally spoke to Matt Alexander about this situation and he pormised me this would change. I also feel that they slap every kid with the lable of ODD. My kid I feel did not have ODD and after I insisted on further testing which of course I had to pay 1300 extra for they now say that he may have an Autistic spectrum disorder and they may not be able to help him, only after 5 months of him being there. All these things are aggravating but I do believe that the people there are trying to help. The food is pretty crappy too, but I guess if you are selling drugs and go to jail it would be worse. By the way my son was never doing drugs or in any trouble with the law he was very depressed and his grades took a nose dive and we thought he was suicidal. He is doing better and he actually wants to remain in a boarding school just in one that is not as strict with levels. After reading all of this I'm not comfportable with any boarding school and am hoping to convince him to come home, or just finish his Junior year at the Ranch and as soon as he is done we will pull him. any questions? Feel free!"

--- End quote ---
Wow. I read this, and by the end I was thinking "There must be some mistake. The story didn't end with 'and because of all of the red flags of abuse/neglect/fraud I listed before, I've taken my son home and am suing Aspen for fraud and breech of contract.'" Are you nuts or what?
--- End quote ---

:jawdrop: Program parent admits to false diagnosis by Aspen (no surprise there) and fights back for her kid by...accepting a promise from Aspen employee to change that in the future (???) You people are fucking suckers.

Aspen is a fraud, as this parent readily admits.

Anonymous:

--- Quote from: "Guest" --- :jawdrop: Program parent admits to false diagnosis by Aspen (no surprise there) and fights back for her kid by...accepting a promise from Aspen employee to change that in the future (???) You people are fucking suckers.
--- End quote ---

QFT QFT QFT

Whooter:
"AR has saved our daughter's life, and is doing great work for many others. There's no brainwashing, no religious indoctrination at all (in fact, periodically our daughter's therapist offers to take her "team" to church...but only if they WANT to go, and to a fairly casual non-Mormon church.

They have patients/students that range from "troubled teens" with arrest records, kids with drug problems, girls who have become "cutters", kids who have suffered mental breakdowns due to trauma - I have not met one parent (and we go to "parent week" activities quarterly and make other, sometimes unnanounced, visits at other times) who just wanted to lock-up their child - and in most cases the parent/child relationship improves dramatically after the child has been there a few months.

Yes, there are rules; yes, there is security (a kid can't just run off); yes, there can be "level drops", but only for serious rulebreaking.

We also know a couple program "graduates" who we keep in contact with, and the parents have had nothing but praise for AR. There ARE things we think could be improved - in school, science labs are not available except through specialized mail-order kits, or through the local college (40-some miles away). It's worked out OK, but it would be better if they had something set up on-site. The food is pretty "institutional", but it's healthy stuff and they are bringing in more variety. And periodically the team therapist or another staff member will take a group of upper-level kids out to a restaurant as a treat.

You also all completely miss one of the key things about AR - the use of equine assisted psychotherapy. EAP has a well-established background and it is truly amazing how some of these "asphalt and sidewalk" kids develop wonderful relationships with the horses, which parallels well with human relationships. It's fascinating to see how the kids generally pick a horse as "theirs" (they all seem to gravitate to one primary horse) that has the same personality as themselves, and they quickly learn how it is to deal with themselves. The equine staff are our favorite people on the ranch, and a couple I'm sure will be lifelong friends.

The kids who really "get into" the horsemanship aspect are provided with weekend seminars in Salt Lake City or St. George in horse training, specialized care, etc...all at no fee to the parents. Our daughter has a certification now in training, which has already gotten her a 2-week job locally for her summer visit home, and may result in a permanent position while she goes to college.

Yeah, it's a load of brainwashing and mistreatment.

You naysayers are simply fools who have NO idea what you're talking about. A bunch of lemmings, just following the group.

FWIW we also know many local therapists who think highly of AR and also laugh at the negative notions. Several have visited the place as well.

But it's always entertaining discussing these things with people who have no clue. However, if ONE person wakes up and realizes the negative crap is a load of...well, crap...maybe another child can be helped."

Anonymous:
hmm. a lot of "parents" claiming to have kids at aspen ranch writing with suspiciously similar styles. And participants popping up in the middle of the thread apropo of nothing to announce their satisfaction with the exact same style hmm. its almost as if aspen education group is trying to combat the sworn testimony offered here, and is directly below their add for their abusive gulag.

http://www.heal-online.org/aspenranch.htm

SWORN TESTIMONY:
SURVIVOR REPORT #1 BY ANONYMOUS
I wish I knew where to begin I will try to focus on the most disturbing experiences i can remember but, like many other survivors of such programs i find myself having a hard time remembering everything that went on.

For the first two weeks you arrive at Aspen Ranch you are placed on a level known as round-up. During this period of time you are either silent in a basement, or outside doing manual labor (changing watering pipes, building fences etc).
You can not have any contact with your parents and get to talk to a therapist maybe once or twice. One July morning when I refused to go outside, the sheets were ripped out from under me and I was carried and thrown onto a staircase where two men put my shoes on picked me up and dragged me to the field where I was to work. Afraid of any other forms of punishment,I did. Being physically threatened is a major way they get you to follow the rules.

Every week you got to speak with your parents, on speakerphone, with your therapist present for 20 minutes. If you ever tried to tell your parents about the torture you were suffering through the conversation would be immediately terminated. All letters were read before sent, all incoming mail opened read and inspected before given to you. The only contact allowed was to your parents and had to be positive.

On top of whatever work project your team was assigned to each day you also had to participate in an hour long physical, no matter how physically drained you were. People would sometimes pass out or break down begging to stop but, for the most part the physical went on for as long as the supervisor saw fit. The psychological abuse was never ending, if you were suspected of doing something wrong you would be forced to go into the basement and sit at a desk until you admitted what you were accused of. We were often threatened to be sent to an out of country program where we were told there was no child labor laws, I still don't know if this program exists but, the mere threat was enough to keep most of us "in line".

I could go on forever with stories of this sort. My main point though, please do not put your child through
this, two years later I am still suffering from the lies I was fed.

Please protect my identity. I know this is not a complete story but I think it gets the point across.

SURVIVOR REPORT #2 BY ANON
These are all factual events that take place at aspen ranch everyday, these are events that have taken place and will continue to unless someone takes action soon. Everything in my statement is true and I give HEAL permission to use my
statement. I am a survivor of the aspen ranch school, located in Loa, UT. A Therapeutic Boarding school/ rehabilitation center.....my ass. Aspen Ranch uses a physical restraint system called PCS (positive control system) which is actually FAR from positive. PCS includes a barrage or various pressure points and bent wrists, locked joints, and strained tendons. Once put into PCS submission you are held here by a minimum of 3 staff, you're pulse regularly checked to indicate your level of anger. You are normally on the ground (also known as "Carpet Time" for a norm of 45 minutes to an hour) They use any method of getting you down, whether it be calmly asking you to cooperate with them or tackling you through a crowd of people onto concrete (which seems to be a staff favorite). I have seen many of my friends at Aspen Ranch end up with broken
wrists from PCS. I have myself lost the feeling in the tips of my fingers for days as a result of being held in PCS submission for over 3 hours. Once you are PCSed (on top of everything) you have to go to R&R (redirection and recovery)
more commonly known as the room where you where red sweat pants and sweat shirts even in the dead of the summer (in the Desert) to no avail. The "on campus" psychiatrist's prescribe you medications based on staff behavioral reports, without even consulting you to see how you feel about putting a new foreign substance into your body or checking past medical
records (could be detrimental to your well being). For example I myself was a bit ADHD according to staff, and the staff apparently thought that they were doing me a favor recommending that i be prescribed to ritalin (methylphindate), which
actually led to a number of seizures...to bad they didn't bother to check to see if my family had a history of amphetamine
related seizures. thanks aspen ranch!!
-Anon

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