Eckerd Academy... I believe that is one of the wilderness camps that they changed the names from E - Tu - Chamee to Eckerd Academy.
Back when I was a noob counselor in the woods farther south I had the opprotunity to spend time with a counselor in training from E Tu Chamee who mangled his hand on his Cattatogas training trip.
the dude told me the following:
1) His group regularly rioted
2) They never made it to a meal without a fight breaking out
3) No one seemed to give a shit
Now that was about 6 years go...
I know one of the old program directors at E Kel Etu who was working at the time of Wiltsky boy's death moved onto E tu Chamee and supposedly was cleaning the place up.
However, you have to bear in mind the following:
Eckerd's runs on a nonpunative system, but that in itself is a very disingenious way of putting it. While a counselor can't and could very well get in trouble for giving a consequence at an Eckerd's camp he or she can easily resort to a few of the following tactics to break a kid down.
Repeated confrontations... confrontations are supposed to be low key affairs in a group huddle.. given the groups are about 10 kids and 1 counselor.
The kid often is required to accept responsibility for his or her actions whether they are wrong for what they did or not. This process, described by an Eckerd programme director, is one of gradually wearing down the kid.
In short they keep confronting him till he admits he is wrong, and then he keeps admitting he is wrong until he believes it. Then the kid has to demonstrate a pattern of desired 'positive' behaviors for a certain length of time in order to complete a master treatement plan goal. This length of time varies upon the kid and the group considions.
In short I believe Eckerd has taken alot of the more odious physical consquences out of a program and subsituted them with a enviromentally challenging situation filled with hours of work, rigorous personal hygiene standards, campsite cleanliness standards, and public behavioral expectations. The confrontational approach to treatment at Eckerd's while isn't as brutal as your straight experience it is designed to wear a kid down until he is willing to comply to the peer pressure of his group. A confrontation requires the entire group to wait with the kid until he admits he is wrong.
Not many kids are willing to make their group wait on them for any length of time.
