Friendly reminder.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your support Survivor. I think that people are just so afraid of more kids getting hurt or abused.

I found a great way to allow everyone thats passionate about keeping bad programs off my websites. I'm going to share the list of sites that are filtered, as well as update everyone every week in this single thread about new additions to the filter list. If you can all help my build the list, you can help me keep these sites off of antiwwasp.com and teenshelp.us. Thanks in advance for anyone who pledges a few minutes to actually help solve the problem, instead of randomly offering anonymous opinions with no validity.

Here is the list of websites being filtered as of Jan 10th at 5:43 PST.
It is always incomplete, so please don't whine about new sites that are bound to pop up everyday. You now have the power to make a difference if you choose to. I'm sure there are more than this but many schools don't use adwords and won't be found on my site in the first place.

5troubledteen.org
a-troubledteen.com
alltheservices.com
articleplanet.com
atroubledteen.com
atroubledteen.net
boardingschoollistings.com
bootcamp4teens.com
cfreer.com
cns.parentshelpingteens.com
defiant-teens.com
eckerd.org
eckerdyouthalternatives.org
educationcentral.com
guidingyouth.com
helpforteen.us
helpforteens.com
helpmyteen.com
helpyourteens.com
iboardingschool.info
liahonaprogram.com
military-school.info
parentteenguide.com
radconsultancy.com
redcliffascent.com
teen5000.net
teenhelp.us
teenlifelines.com
toseeka.com
troubled--teen.net
troubled-teen-advisor.com
troubled-teenagers.org
truelocal.com

So, if you see any website that isn't listed here that can be found on any publicly available watchlists please post it here or email it to me.This should be quite the project for all you "internet-police" out there. You may also list websites where you find that their sole purpose is to refer to WWASP programs.

[Anonymous]

Kev, I still don't think it's a good idea to venture into the troubled teen referral business as a way to help kids because it's a booby trap industry but I do agree that those of us who are "passionate" about this issue should help filter the list of potential abusive referral companies and programs who could appear on your site:

Please add this one:

http://parentandteenresources.com/

Run by Marie Peart - former WWASPS employee and now works with PURE (Sue Scheff) as an educational consultant.  Doesn't list the programs they refer to but what else is new.

[Anonymous]

" I won't let that happen. It's not within me to allow something like that."

Do you not realize what you are saying here?

Are you God?  

Are you going to be there, in these unregulated programs you support, so that you can make sure and not " allow something like that"  something like "abuse" to happen?  

You are so young and so naive to make such a statement.

[egypt has pyramids]

Are you God?

That would be awesome!  8-)

[Anonymous]

To whomever wrote - "Are you God?". Clearly you are out to discredit me, out there somewhere with nothing better  to do with your time. Obviously I have no control over what happens in every school out there and from my viewpoint you are basically wasting everyone's time with unhelpful sarcasm comparing me to some people's lord and savior. Who are you helping? Anyone? What have you done? Where is your merit for speaking against me? Who are you? Nameless people love to talk the talk, where's the walk? You must simply not understand what is right in front of your eyes. This is happening regardless of who's telling the parents where to go. No matter what. This industry generates million or billions of dollars a year, would you rather have the kids sent to the schools from someone who is trying to advocate for teen rights and play a watchdog role (myself), or have them sent by Sue Scheff (who as far as I'm aware of maintains no regulatory control or boundaries or acts like they don't exist), one of the two?

Consider this, if a school was ever found to be abusing or hurting, under nourishing, or providing inadequate care of any kind in my network, they would be removed from the page little or no investigation into the matter. The mere mention of one of the above would be enough for me to remove a school from the page and most likely provide objective information about the school as I've done with WWASP. The same would happen if they were to pop up on any kind of  childs right advocacy projects out here on the web. What you decided to twist into "me playing god" is my effort to try something new and help someone.

[Anonymous]

Hey Kevin, I'm still wondering what wilderness program you went to and why you feel it helped you?

Was it one of WWASPS or some other company?

[CCM girl 1989]

Hey Kevin-some of these people are just whack! They live in a make believe world where all parents must and shall take care of their children! Reality check folks, not all parents were cut out to be parents. Parents will get rid of their children if they don't want to deal with their "rebelious teenagers". Why can you not get that through your thick skulls??? It's not rocket science!?!! There is not a lot we can do for parents who don't want to do their job. The sooner you accept that, the better off we'll be. I don't want kids to be shipped off from their families just because their Mom and Dad don't want to take time out of their busy lives to pay attention to them, and try to understand what their going through, but that's not up to me?!! I realize that these  are pretty much good kids, for the most part, who are going through typical teenage growing pains. Most of us here would never pawn off our parental responsibilities on someone else, but that does not mean others wouldn't. There will always be  weak parents out there who will take the easy way out. For these morons we do need to give them alternatives, places that they can dump their children off to, where they hopefully don't suffer abuse, or maybe have a lesser chance of encountering that? Get off Fantasy Island folks, and check yourself into Reality World. There will never be a day, nor should there be, when it will be against the law to send your kids away. Some of these kids that are being sent away, believe it or not, it's a step up from the world they currently living in. All we can do is make sure that the places that they are sent to, are not brainwashing abusive hellholes. Some of you, who I consider to be quite liberal are in support of pregnant women being able to dump their children off at Emergency Room Hospitals with no questions being asked. Why is this any different?

[Antigen]

I want to establish that I'm not going to defend myself here at fornits at every turn. I've stated my opinion on the subject and I'm basically at the end of the line on this one unless someone can offer a solution. As for the references earlier to the year 2002, that only refers to the life experience I've incurred with this troublesome industry since going through several rehab centers, a wilderness program (that was actually helpful), and then onto 12 months at spring creek which was one of the worst things I've ever gone through.

I'm going to try to help some of the smaller schools more exposure, ones that are doing good by giving students valid educations, job skills, and helping them turn their lives around. Not locking someone up and making them pay for extras such as therapy.

As for sue scheff, if you can tell me which page still has a link to her site i'd be glad to remove it. I was just today informed that teenhelpindustry.info is her's it will be removed shortly. I had no idea because it had the "referral-free zone" button on the page with tons of info on WWASP. Should have done my homework.

Well, son, how do you establish that you're not going to defend yourself here on Fornits by defending yourself here on Fornits?

Seriously, though, Sue Scheff is just the tip if the iceburg. She's a cartoon character; so blatant about it that everybody sees through her pretty quick. But I think you'll find it's pretty much the same wherever you go. The alternative to the troubled parent industry is actually raising one's own kids, right from scratch. If you do your homework on the smaller schools you'll find that, down to the last one, either they can't deliver on their promise to turn around recalcitrant youths or they do so using abusive tactics. Why? Cause there is no way to change someone against their will except to break their will and there's simply no kinder, gentler way to do that; only more subtle and insidious ways.

Good luck w/ that.

[Antigen]

Hey Kevin-some of these people are just whack! They live in a make believe world where all parents must and shall take care of their children!

.... and on and on and on....

Yeah, that's it, we're whack! We don't know what we're talking about. It's not like we're program vets, parents, grandparents, former staff, parents who made the mistake of trying to contract out parenting.... oh wait, yes we are!

But the thing that strikes me most is your method of debate. First tough question and you both (you and Kev) fall right to attributing malicious intent and disparaging the opponent.

This industry generates million or billions of dollars a year, would you rather have the kids sent to the schools from someone who is trying to advocate for teen rights and play a watchdog role (myself), or have them sent by Sue Scheff (who as far as I'm aware of maintains no regulatory control or boundaries or acts like they don't exist), one of the two?

Kev, this is exactly what Sue Scheff thinks she's doing. And it's just what the Seed parents who formed Straight, Inc. thought they were doing. And it's exactly what Art Barker said when he set up the Seed on Synanon methods. And it's exactly what the Sudweeks said about Whitmore. I believe your intentions are good, but you're making a big mistake.

This really bums me out, too, cause I thought we were going to have a meaningful debate on the google ads.

To those of you who spoke of Fornits finding other, better ways to make money, you're off a little bit. I make my money on hosting commercial sites and, often enough, hawking used junk on ebay or painting rental properties for hourly pay, etc. Fact is, I've been thinking about restoring google ads to this site. I think Kev's right about context. When I did this before, it took about two months before the WWASP and some other abusive outfits added fornits to their filters so that their ads wouldn't turn up here. I think they realize that they're not likely to get any pay-off from ads that turn up in this context. But even so, for the entire 3 months that I had those ads up, I only got $103. Now with my budget, that would be a big help! But it's not asif I can live on it.

[Anonymous]

These programs are advertised on Anti-WWASP:

Sorenson's Ranch
Ironwood
Eckerd

No way these can be explained away as some "kinder, gentler programs" just because they are not WWASP programs.
Even Sue Scheff at PURE can't sell this kind of shit any longer!

[Anonymous]

CCM GIRL, these babies that get "dumped off at hospitals by pregnant women with no questions asked" usually get adopted by families that will love and raise them.

THAT's a huge difference!

[Anonymous]

I think it's this kind of political stale mate argument that turns off program graduates from ever becoming involved in advocacy. It's pretty obvious that there are people out there who just want to use your story to further their cause. The truth is the best thing to do is just forget about all this shit and move on with your life. I feel bad for the kids who participated in that TB documentary, now they have to deal with those advocates.. fucking shame. Worked over once, and then again in a whole new way. CCM is right a lot of kids want to get out of their home and they would of been happy if only they hadn't ended up in a psycho boot camp. Home life can suck just as much and/or more than the abuseoccurs in programs. Some homes are fucked up programs in of themselves. So you can't just tell everyone keep your kids at home, because they aren't going to do that anyways. Child abuse is wrong no matter where it occurs but don't be so naive to think it's only occuring in the private troubled teen industry. It effects all kids in all parts of society in a lot more families than people would like to think it does. Ive seen some regulars here post that they think its a good idea to send a kid to Europe for a semester, or even vacation, so I don't understand that people don't think a good type of residential facility can exist. We should be thankful this forum isnt a lot busier than it already is right? Now go smoke some pot and forget everything I just said.

[Anonymous]

5troubledteen.org
a-troubledteen.com
alltheservices.com
articleplanet.com
atroubledteen.com
atroubledteen.net
boardingschoollistings.com
bootcamp4teens.com
cfreer.com
cns.parentshelpingteens.com
defiant-teens.com
eckerd.org
eckerdyouthalternatives.org
educationcentral.com
guidingyouth.com
helpforteen.us
helpforteens.com
helpmyteen.com
helpyourteens.com
iboardingschool.info
ironwood.org
ironwoodmaine.com
liahonaprogram.com
military-school.info
parentteenguide.com
radconsultancy.com
redcliffascent.com
sorensonsranch.com
teen5000.net
teenhelp.us
teenlifelines.com
toseeka.com
troubled--teen.net
troubled-teen-advisor.com
troubled-teenagers.org
troubledteensofamerica.org
truelocal.com

New filter list updated jan 11th 5:28 PST

For future additions to the list could anyone helping please give me the website address instead of school's names, it makes it easier for me when I have to add a couple of these a day one by one. Thanks for your help, you are really doing a great service by helping point out the abusive programs, I'll have to admit my focus has pretty much been WWASP the entire time I've been doing this.

[Antigen]

Ive seen some regulars here post that they think its a good idea to send a kid to Europe for a semester, or even vacation, so I don't understand that people don't think a good type of residential facility can exist. We should be thankful this forum isnt a lot busier than it already is right?

A good type of facility isn't going to come up on a keyword match for terms like "troubled teen" and "WWASP". That's what we were discussing, remember? The google ads on Kev's site. Then, somehow, we switched to Kev actually trying to act as a referal agent. But these are two seperate issues, in my view.

First, Kev, take about a hundred steps back from the Program culture in which you've been immersed for however long. In Program-Land, it's perfectly fittin and proper for just anybody w/ an asshole and an opinion to hang out a shingle and start selling advice to parents making crucial decisions wrt raising their kids. In the more commonly accepted reality, you need at least a LCSW to even pretend to be legit. And you can ask DJ and TSW about how that worked out for them one day.

This is simply not a legitimate thing for you to do. All good intentions aside, it's just plain wrong. Personally, I wouldn't even take the advice of a licensed, bona fied, edumacated professional on it's own merit. I'd check their homeword, get 2nd and 3rd opinions and still it would have to stand to reason before I'd bite.

But that's just me.

Anyway, back to the google ads. This is worth discussing because so many sites now use it or similar keyword matching ad services. So then when Maia publishes on Huffington Post, those same ads turn up there. And the more success we have at getting ink in the real world or in cyberia, the more we'll think about this problem; to click or not to click.

Regardless of whether you go ahead and learn the hard way about the troubled parent referral business, I'd really like to have this other discussion about advertising.

[Antigen]

Didn't you have some variety of rubber stamp from the regulators before you went to work at TS?