10 to 12ft chain link fence with barbed wire

[ramprato]

I was in Cincinnati a few months ago and went to where the 'Kids Helping Kids' building (formally Straight Cincinnati) is located. From the road it is impossible NOT to notice the 10 to 12ft chain link fence with barbed wire that surrounds one side of the building. You can view from the road that there is a basketball court within the perimeter of the fence. Is that KHK's answer to show the state of Ohio that they allow the kids in there "recreation"?



I was wondering to anyone out there with a Kid in KHK, or a withdrawn person from KHK, what the deal is with that fence? I mean, what do they tell you  @ KHK? Do they plant a seed in your mind that you can't EVER trust your kid, that he or she will run away? Do they twist it around and tell you that 'they are just protecting him from himself', that they are somehow showing him "love"?



Can I ask you what your plans are 20 years from now when he NO longer wishes to be a part of your life because you fell for KHK garbage HOOK, LINE, & SINKER?



KHK parents, SNAP OUT OF IT, you don't believe permanent estranged relationships can happen to YOU down the line?, think again ~ look around at these sites. Most of us posting here are 20 year survivors of Straight, the predecessor to KHK. Most of us post here are YOUR age. In 1983 while you were doing what you were doing, WE were getting the HELL beaten out of us in that same damned building using the same damned "treatment" methods YOUR kid is now in there being subject to. I was once a prisoner in that building that you guys so graciously added that damned fence with the barbed wire. What in the hell are you thinking, that's a wonderful lifelong traumatic image for your kid to remember you by.



Oh, it should be pretty obvious that I am not here to make friends. I am trying to wake you KHK parents up before it's too late. I am here to save your kids from something right now that you are currently turning a blind eye to. As long as you have them in a "program" where they cannot talk to you, or themselves, or have any freedoms, any God given rights to privacy, being drilled, having their diets messed with in ANY way, made to feel like everything is a "privilege" and not a human right, YOU are participating in permanently breaking them down emotionally and God help you.



Ken



 

[ This Message was edited by: ramprato on 2003-01-09 08:34 ]

[Anonymous]

I have forgottten my password but I was known as "snowhite arount the forums.

Ramp..you said a lot and I understand your feelings of doing wahtever it takes to get the kids out of KHK. It is on top of our minds daily.

Being a parent of a child in one of those horrendous torture chambers, please try to help the parent to understand and be supportive. It will go a long way. I for one was not aware at all when my son went in. When it became apparent it was not safe or a real treament center, I immediatly pulled him.

When I lived in KY,  KHK was suggested by a counselor so I called them. I was in a huge dilemna as we were moving to Florida but guess what KHK said "Oh we aloa have a sister program in Orlando called SAFE." The rest is history.

Thanks Ken for sharing what a sunny place KHK looks like. It must have stirred up many ugly feelings. We will get all these kids out one day. Parents are actually begining to understand and they are growing just as the surviovrs has.

As a parent I can't thank the survivors enough for the help and support you have shown and given to my son and myself. The parents need you as much as you need each other. Parents & Surviovrs together we can do this, get every child out of these horrifc palces.

[ramprato]

Thank you anonymous,

Though I know exactly who you are . I have had 8 hours to think about how unrefined I sounded in my last post. I decided to leave it that way and not change it.

I think it would be good for the parents of KHK to see in my writing that shows my erratic moods I have as a result of post traumatic stress disorder from spending 2 years of my life in that building. I was really frustrated when I wrote that post, I really believe that they all think they are "doing the right thing" for their kids and it was tearing me apart.

Would it help them to know that I actually "graduated" from there, yet I still deal with all this 'stuff' up in my head because of what they put me through? Who knows..  

Anyway, thank you for the kind words and the encouragement when I needed it most anonymous. I will try in the future to be more tolerant of those who have gained the knowledge of what places like these are all about.

Thank you for understanding and take care all...Ken

Take care

[ramprato]

Here's a write-up that verifies more than the fenced in basketball court:

http://www.grndr.com/drug.htm

Ken  ops:

[Anonymous]

I was in KHK in '88, and I don't remember any fence. I heard they had moved the building at some point. Is this true? What I do rember mostly about the building is the time out rooms (I think that's what they called them)...a small room with hard floors and a steel door with no inside handle. I don't rember much of the outside of the building.

I was held there for nine months...only made it to 2nd phase once but was set back for trying to run away. They finally kicked me out after deciding that I didn't have a drug problem.

[ramprato]

[ramprato]

[ramprato]

HI Anonymous,

Thanks for writing.

I'm sorry hearing about what you had to endure. I don't remember the room you were talking about, you must of been held captive across the river in KY. "a small room with hard floors and a steel door with no inside handle.", MAN that is despicable. Again I'm sorry. I was in the Cincinnati Straight 82-84. It amazes me how all these places with different names were ALL connected to one another. The people in charge of Straight and KHK all knew each other and used the same kinds of torments on the kids that went there.

KHK was for a while located in Hebron KY, and moved across the Ohio River to Mt. Repose (or Milford) around November 1993 as explained in the KHK cleaned up version of their history which they call "History of Kids Helping Kids
":

http://www.kidshelpingkids.com/files/Hi ... 20Kids.doc


The building KHK occupies now was originally the location of the Cincinnati Straight It was bought way under price from the powers that be at Straight National during their Great Cincinnati Land Grab, or as Wes Fager refers to it:

http://thestraights.com/financial/real-estate.htm or:

" The great Cincinnati land deal.  After Straight, Inc. was run out of Ohio for abusing kids there, Straight Foundation tried to sale the Cincinnati property. But a group of concerned parents and local companies generally known as the Greater Cincinnati Area Straight Chapter had raised $1.5 million to bring Straight to Cincinnati and they felt that any money made from the sale of the property should stay in the Cincinnati area to help drug addicted kids in that area. Consequently local citizens Donald Bell, Anthony Celebrezze (Attorney General for the state of Ohio), J. Thomas Markham, Samuel B. Thompson, Jr., Nick J. Pishotti, Richard Tarvin, James M. VanBuren, Jr., The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, The Kroger Company and The Proctor & Gamble Company filed a class action suit against Straight in the US District Court in Cincinnati claiming that "at least $1.3 million" of the funds they had raised had been used to purchase the Straight-Cincinnati facility and that any money recovered form the sale of the property should remain in the Cincinnati area [Case # C-1-88-760]. Furthermore they wanted another $62,000 in legal fees they said they had spent trying to keep Straight from walking off with the money.
According to Exhibit A to Garcia?s affidavit, in May 1988 Straight Foundation had received a verbal appraisal from Strickland & Wright for approximately $550,000. Furthermore, the exhibit states that Mr. Wright had been instructed by Straight not to provide a written appraisal. Since Straight claimed the depreciated value of the facility in 1990 to be $1,098,062, and since Straight claimed that it had a verbal appraisal (presumably there is no written confirmation of this appraisal) for only $550,000 or 45.91% of the depreciated value, Mr. Garcia reasoned that all Straight holdings could reasonably be sold for just 45.91% of its depreciated value. He made this claim in spite of the fact that he acknowledges that Faith Tabernacle Church had put down a $15,000 deposit in an effort to buy the property early-on for $650,000 but was unable to raise the money and so Straight Foundation pocketed that $15,000.

According to the settlement agreement approved by the court on September 29, 1989 Straight Foundation and the plaintiffs would split 50-50 on proceeds from the sale of the property, and the plaintiffs would pay their legal fees from their half of the pie. I don?t have complete records of what happened after the 1989 settlement agreement but the best I can piece together from the court docket sheet is that on July 1, 1993 there was a Motion to Intervene by a Tri-State Drug Rehabilitation from across the river in Hebron Kentucky. And on July 2 a hearing was held on a motion to approve the sale and attorney fees. Then, according to Kentucky Post, on July 22, 1993 Tri-State Drug Rehab was the highest bidder on the property. The bid being $301,000. [Kentucky Post, 10/9/93]

The depreciated value of the facility was $1 million. If Straight got a million for it, it would have to give the Cincinnati folks a half million dollars. Even if Straight sold it for just $650,000 they would have to give the Cincinnati folks over $300,000. As it is the building sold for just $301,000 (or 54% of the 45.91% value) and the Cincinnati folks got just $150,500. An affidavit by the plaintiffs dated 9-27-89 shows their legal fees to be $66,345.50. Because of further court actions, I assume their legal fees to have been $70,000 by the time of sale, thus the Cincinnati fathers had managed to recover just $80,000 from their $1,393,165 investment!

Garcia had said that about the only organization that would buy one of their facilities would almost have to be another drug rehab program (as in fat chance of that happening), but that is exactly what did happen. And what is Tri-State Drug Rehab? Its treatment program was formerly called Kids Helping Kids of Hebron and now called Kids Helping Kids of Cincinnati. Kids Helping Kids of Hebron was created, in part, by Straight?s former national training director--Dr. George Ross. The therapeutic program is based almost exclusively on the Straight therapeutic model. At least two program employees have come from Straight. Ruth P. Thomas, first clinical director at KHKs, studied Rational Behavior Training at the University of Kentucky with Dr. Maxie C. Maultsby, as did Dr. Ross. On page 7 of his PhD thesis on Straight, Dr. Newton writes that Straight is "Kids Helping Kids." He went on to call his own Straight-like program Kids of Bergen County. Newton?s thesis was finished in 1981 and Kids Helping Kids of Hebron was founded on July 15, 1981.

The timing of the sale of the Cincinnati facility is worth mentioning. Later you will learn that in 1989 when Dr. Newton?s Kids of Southern California closed failing to get a license, that Straight moved into that very facility and took over the Kids? clientele. When Straight-Orlando closed on August 14, 1992, Michael Scaletta, Straight?s former director at Straight-Orlando, opened up SAFE, Inc. out of the same facility using the same clients. Straight-Detroit closed in 1993. On June 18, 1993, former Straight official Helen Gowanny helped found Pathway Family Center 15 miles from the old Straight camp. Three days later on June 21, 1993, Kathleen M. Cone, formerly the registered agent for Straight, Inc. in Atlanta opened Phoenix Institute for Adolescents just miles from Straight-Atlanta. Ten days later on July 1, 1993 Straight-Atlanta, the last Straight treatment facility closed. On that very day in Cincinnati Kids Helping Kids filed a Motion to Intervene in federal court. A hearing was IMMEDIATELY held the next day for a motion to approve the sale and attorney fees. The property was sold 20 days later for a fraction of its value and the people who had raised the money got a return of just $70,000 out of a $1.3 million investment. Next you?ll see that exactly one week later, when Straight didn?t have to share anything with anyone, the Saint Petersburg properties sold for more than what they had been purchased for.

So real estate attorney Joseph Garcia gets a big fat F when selling Straight properties in the Cincinnati case. Unless, of course, Straight had no intention of giving the Cincinnati folks a half million dollars. If that were the case then Mr. Garcia would get an A+. So what about real estate transactions where Straight would not have to split with anyone. Let?s look at the sale of the Tampa Bay holdings next. "

[ottkat]

I was down in Hebron about five years ago, and saw that the old building was being used for some kind of bar - quite appropriate.

I was there for 9 months in 83-84. Graduated, moved out of state two months later, and wound up in living hell working for Miller Newton in New Jersey.  Looking back, the early KHK was not nearly as brutal as a lot of the other ones - no time out rooms when I was there (the first just being built around the time I graduated), no real restraints, and little brutality.  Just sucky hot summers with only a fan by the door, and having to sit through the endlessly dull sessions.  I understand that this ended pretty quickly, and that by 1985 the place was as bad as any of the other Straights or spinoffs.

Nothing at KHK prepared me for what it was like to work for Miller Newton for two years - I can tell you that.  If I had not gone to work for him, I would not have been too fucked up.  But I am still suffering from the years at Kids of New Jersey.

[ramprato]

Sorry to hear about your long term endurance around those places and especially Miller Newton. If you were wondering what was going on with him these days, well he gets occasional visits at his home from people that today like to 'share' their feelings with him (lol) When you click in, you will see a few pre-commercial announcements, it's worth it, they did a great job:

http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pot ... -1503.html


The building is now a bar? Man how time changes things.....

Take care....Ken

[Don Smith]

Ken,
     The basketball court is fenced in Yes. Barbed wire? No!  Just fence extentions on the top to keep the ball and yes I suppose kids from getting out into the parking lot.

Don

[ramprato]

From the vantage point that you and I had, it looked like barbed wire, but then again we weren't that close to really tell that day anyway. Too bad you haven't been able to get some good pictures of that fence like we talked about so it would be clearer to a lot of us concerned. At any rate that fence is used to keep the kids in and has the appearance of a 'corrections' type fence. I'm sure that fence has to have some kind of negative psychological impact on those kids under internment there.  :smile:

[Don Smith]

Before Straight bought the building on Branch Hill Guneia Pike, it was a bar/nightclub?  I don't remember the name of the place but I'll ask around or maybe even stop by some place to see if it is on record some where.  

Does anyone know where I would check for that kind of thing.

I thought it was interesting that the old KHK building is now a bar when the old Straight building used to be one.

Don

[The Motivator]

[ This Message was edited by: The Motivator on 2004-03-22 22:12 ]

[Anonymous]

the fence does not have barbed wire, but the top part angles over to make it more difficult to escape.  Also, they told us that if we did try to climb the fence, the angled part would give in, trapping you so you couldn't climb over it.  i don't know if the building on branch hill was a night club, when i was in there, several staff members told us that it was the old straight building