That is the question Parade Magazine recently asked its readers while at the same time introducing the book 'What it takes to pull me through', written by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist David L. Marcus who had followed a group of teenagers placed into an emotional growth/therapeutic boarding school. This book unfortunately could be an advertising tool for a growing new industry: Teen Behavior Modification. The practices described in Mr. Marcus' book are but a glimpse of what happens behind closed doors of some facilities located in the US and also in American-owned therapeutic boarding schools overseas!
A human tragedy of tremendous proportions is unfolding right under the nose of the American public. Thousands of American children spend months and years in �Residential Behavior Modification Programs'. Over the years teen behavior modification has grown at an alarming rate into a largely unregulated, very profitable business and therefore lends itself to highly unethical and abusive practices that defy Human Rights laws and, if observed in an American household or public space, would unfailingly bring charges of child abuse.
American children and teenagers (many against their will) are routinely transported to a variety of boot and wilderness camps, placed into questionable drug rehabilitation centers or �Residential Behavior Modification Programs�, located in the US and abroad when parents find themselves unable and (sometimes unwilling) to cope with teenage rebellion of various degrees. Parents then might search the Internet for help and are presented with the 'perfect solution': Teen Behavior Modification!
Reports of allegedly abusive practices at these facilities surface only sporadically in the American media. The International Survivors Action Committee (ISAC)' The Watchdog for Treatment Centers '
http://www.isaccorp.org/index.html has relentlessly kept an eye on the emergence and alleged practices of these facilities. The International Survivors Action Committee is run by a small group of volunteers and has trained its laser beam in particular on one of the giants in this new industry, the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS)
http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/wwaspreport.pdf.
The World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS), under its president Ken Kay, serves as an umbrella organization for a number of schools and programs. Tranquility Bay is such a school/facility owned by Jay Kay, Mr. Ken Kay's son, and can be found on the island of Jamaica. Tranquility Bay is mentioned in the book 'What it takes to pull me through' by David L. Marcus, pg.2. The author names it as one of several schools/programs/behavioral modification centers that have opened all across America and abroad. That�s it. Not a word of the extensive documentation of allegations and accusations of child abuse against this particular program that is part of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS).
Tranquility Bay is located in Treasure Beach, a remote area on Jamaica's southern coast. Children are transported to Tranquility Bay by so-called �teen escort services', as agreed upon by desperate parents. Most kids disappear from their homes and communities during the middle of the night. The World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) provides promotional and ultimately misleading material that depicts this facility as a beautiful healing place, staffed with supposedly trained professionals and presented as such to unsuspecting parents. However, children taken there will find themselves instead in notorious Tranquility Bay!! (Montel Williams only recently offered a show that included shocking accusations by a teenager who had been taken to Tranquility Bay). Fees at all of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools facilities are wide-ranging. In a recent trial in Utah that involved the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) an attorney figured that WWASPS annual profits - from school fees ranging from approximately $ 2000 to $ 3000 for up to 2500 children placed in the various facilities run by the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and School could easily amount to $90.000.000!!
The trip by car from Montego Bay airport to the facility leads across the mountains into a very isolated area. Children disappear for months and years behind the facility's well-guarded tall and heavy gates.
http://www.isaccorp.org/gallery/tranqui ... page1.html.
The US Consulate in Montego Bay, Jamaica and the US State Department in Washington, DC have repeatedly been alerted to the allegedly abusive conditions in Tranquility Bay by concerned family members, former students and the International Survivors Action Committee - no action has been taken!! The Jamaican government is fully aware of the conditions there as are American expatriates living in the vicinity of the facility!
The conditions at Tranquility Bay are horrendous as documented in
http://www.isaccorp.org/tranquility/tra ... report.pdfhttp://www.isaccorp.org/gallery/tranqui ... page1.htmlThe United States Government is failing the American children locked away at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica!
A request by Representative George Miller (D) California to the former Attorney-General John Ashcroft
http://www.forrelease.com/D20040109/laf ... 05836.html,
http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/millerrequest.pdf,
http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/wwaspsnews.pdf to investigate the allegations was denied!
It is however noteworthy that the principal owners of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools
http://www.denver-rmn.com/desperate/sit ... rate.shtml and others involved with the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) and Teen Help, its marketing arm, have donated heavily to Republican Party candidates in Utah, headquarter seat of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools.
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/so ... Cycle=2002.
Robert Lichfield, the founder of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, generously donated $100.000 towards a President�s Dinner!
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/searc ... =Y&Order=Nhttp://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/donations.pdThe company structure of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools� (WWASPS/Teen Help) is detailed in this report
http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps.html that includes information on Resource Realizations/Premier Educational Systems, the for-profit company that provides mandatory seminars required by the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) for the teens and parents associated with the program. The seminars (such as Discovery, Focus and Visions) seemingly are built on the cults of est and Lifespring, as indicated by this International Survivors Action Committee document
http://www.isaccorp.org/lifespring/life ... hology.pdf and
http://www.rickross.com/groups/lifespring.html.
Resource Realizations/Premier Educational Systems prominently appeared in the US media when company founder David Gilcrease, a former Lifespring facilitator for five years who in 1986 had started his own company, peddled three-day seminars to US middle school students during the 'Challenge Day' workshop (run by a separate company)
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... _86868928;According to this article
http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/rrarticle1.htm the event had been arranged by Ms. Anciaux Aoki. Her own website
http://www.anciauxinternational.com/res ... x_Aoki.pdf makes for interesting reading. Ms. Anciaux Aoki is deeply involved in the American public education system. Her influence on American students is significant. Her contributions to School-Family-Community Partnership programs and her work (scroll down) as a volunteer �for numerous personal growth seminars� presented by Resource Realizations/Premier Educational Systems (Discovery, Focus, and Visions), as well as her membership on the Board of Directors of the Northwest Family Visions Foundation
http://www.nwfamilyvisions.org/newslett ... ome%20from, should be reason for serious concern. (The board members of this organization are graduates of several World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools/Teen Help seminars
http://www.nwfamilyvisions.org/whoweare.htm and appear to be firm followers of the teachings).
The Discovery, Focus and Visions seminars are at the heart of alleged brainwashing techniques applied to the children who have been placed in facilities associated with the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) as well as their parents
http://www.isaccorp.org/lifespring/life ... hology.pdf.
With great skill Challenge Day and Resource Realizations/Premier Educational Systems have managed to infiltrate the American school system.
But it gets worse. It appears that teachers and principals working for the US public school system readily support organizations such as World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools/Teen Help with membership in this association 'Northwest Association of Accredited Schools' (NAAS)
http://www2.boisestate.edu/nasc/interna ... visits.htm. It should be noted that Eugenia Collins, Dace Goulding and Orval Hagerman, all members of the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools (NAAS), are employees at various World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools/Teen Help facilities and appear also in documents posted by the International Survivors Action Committee!!!
International news organizations, such as the BBC, have begun to take an interest in the fate of American children languishing and suffering inside Tranquility Bay, while covering also the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools points of view
http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/emancip ... resort.htm and
http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/emancip ... n-paradise.
A teenager from Virginia, who had been placed in Tranquility Bay, several parents and the director of the International Survivors Action Committee (ISAC) traveled to Richmond, Virginia in August 2004 to brief Senator George Allen�s (VA-R) chief-of-staff on the conditions and practices alleged at Tranquility Bay and other facilities of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. The senator and his staff have yet to follow up on this briefing, let alone start an inquiry whether on a state or US wide level!
Teenagers who have received psychological and physical injuries from the allegedly ongoing abuse at Tranquility Bay and other facilities must be heard!
http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles ... 00004.html http://www.refocus.org/mental.htmlhttp://obssr.od.nih.gov/Publications/newsltr.pdfStrong legislation of this industry must be put into place to protect teenagers and their parents from allegedly predatory and abusive practices.
The Department of Justice and Congress must investigate the entire industry but particularly the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS)!
It remains to be seen when America will wake up to what really goes on in those 'last ditch' facilities for troubled teens!
from
http://controlledminds.blogspot.com/200 ... avior.html