this is the email i just sent them:
Hello,
I attended CEDU School, Russ Decker's former employer, in the early 1990s and am now undergoing extensive therapy, 15 years later, as an adult to try and undo the massive psychological abuse I endured during my 2 and a half year stay there. They lied to my parents about their techniques, and lied to me telling me they knew what went on. My parents are appalled and distraught to find, 15 years later, that they had been so deceived. I have spent all this time thinking my parents intended for me to be abused there and am now trying to repair some of the damage that all that mistrust has caused in our relationship.
I want to know if you are using any of the techniques that were modeled at CEDU such as raps where students are instructed to scream at eachother and the floor as a form of emotional purging, propheets or all night emotional growth experiences where children are brainwashed into identifying themselves as the worst possible aspect of whatever mishaps have landed them in program (15 year old girls who were sexually active being trained to psychologically identify themselves as a slut or a whore, for example), and the ongoing use of shame and humiliation as a form of behavior modification. Russ Decker was one of the many counselors during my stay who lacked the judgment and compassion required to accurately assess the long term effect of the 'methods' used at the CEDU program, and so I fear for the emotional and psychological well being of the young people who are in your care.
I hope that you will take this email seriously. I am currently in the process of researching and exposing every school that uses these harmful and abusive techniques and plan to challenge the current California 2 year statute of limitation on claims for this sort of abuse as it has taken me, as I mentioned before, 15 years to even come out of denial from the abuse and trauma I suffered there. I will not bore you with the litany of ways my life has been delayed and sabotaged as a result of their training, but if you and your organization use any of these techniques please let me inform you of their horrifically destructive effects and implore you to change philosophies. Please also be aware that part of my campaign includes revealing the methods of every one of these 'schools' to the parents of the children who attend them. No one has the right to do something to someones child and lie to the parent about it. That is molestation, that is abuse in itself.
I look forward to your response and hope earnestly that you are neither unaware of Mr. Decker's tainted past nor have you overlooked the cruelty of his former methods. I truly hope that you do not use any of these abusive techniques, but more than that, I hope that if you do you are honest enough to realize it and stop.
Sincerely,
Alia Weiner
