here are some facts, in the early 70's the US federal gov'n sponsored a program called the seed. It was based loosely on the synanon church.
the basic idea of the seed was that behaviour modification could be obtained through group confrontation. several years later, a congressional hearing determined that the place was being run like a north korean brainwashing camp. congress yanked it's funding. however, it continued to operate independantly until the mid 90's
there was a rich and powerful man, named Mel Semblar, who had a son that was in the seed. He thought it was such a great place that he decided to start his own program. in 1976, Mel founded straight.
there were five phases;
PHASE 1: client works on himself, admitting his powerlessness over drugs.
PHASE 2: client returns to his own family to start working on family relationships, also, he takes home people of phase 1 to start giving back what help he has recieved.
PHASE 3: client returns to work or school.
PHASE 4: client works on peer relationships including the opposite sex
PHASE 5: client takes on leadership role and begins to prepare for graduation.
It was also expected that the graduates would be become peer counsellors.
the day at straight consisted of marathon rap sessions. In these raps, clients were verbally and physically assaulted for months on end , until they played along and were able to move up in the program. set backs were inevitable, and resulted from even minor infractions.
At night clients on first phase went home to "host homes" and were supervised by people on higher phases. these people were known as newcomers and oldcomers. they slept in locked rooms with the windows screwed shut. the oldcomers placed a matress in front of the door, and the door was set with an alarm. additionally the newcomers clothes were kept in another room and they were forced to lie on the floor with only a sheet and no pillow.
in 1980, a certain Miller Newton, placed his 14 year old son in straight st. petersburgh. He soon rose to the position of national clinical director. However, by 1983, he was asked to leave. the allegations of abuse and the resulting settled lawsuits were too much to take.
for instance, Leah Bright, was awarded 900,000 dollars for having Miller throw her across the room by her hair into a wall. he then screamed," I want this girl the fuck out of my group". when Leah confided in her oldcomer that she felt suicidal, she was put on 72 hours no sleep, and forced to wear a shirt that said Pshychotic on it.
in 1984, a wealthy benefactor provided the money for Miller Newton to open Kids of Bergen County. he found a crappy wharehouse, and some blue chairs and he was almost set. What he really needed were staff members for his soon to be cllients. So , he recruited four staff members from the straight program to start up kids. He also needed legitimacy, so he got a doctorate in urban anthropology from a mail order correspondance school in Cincinatti, called the Union Institute. the institute billed itself as a school without walls. there were no classes to attend and no tests to be taken. he did have to provide a dissertation.
this cheesy dissertaation became the book "Gone Way Down" . I've read it, and is certainly not anyway equivalent to a doctoral dissertation.
I interrupt the history lesson here to point out that aarc was formed in exactly the same way. degree from the union institute, transplanting of kids staff to become the first aarc staff. and the finding of a wealthy benefactor, the rotary club, and the alberta government. Oh, and the whole wharehouse thing, and the phases, and host homes with locked bedroooms ,and oldcomers and newcomers, etc.
soon Miller had clients to sit in the blue chairs, in1986 some kids from el paso were enrolled, soon he had enough to recruit a clinical staff trainee.
when they had enough kids from elpaso, they chartered a plane, took some staff from bergen county, and opened up kids of el paso.
This process was repeated in 1988 in yourba linda calilfornia, and in 1989 in slc. There were also plans for a kids of the canadian west to be launched in 1990, but the bergen county prosecuters office kind of derailed that plan
In 1988, the first calgarians arrived in bergen county . their names were
Brian and Kevin Neal.
on october 28th of 1988, the illustrious COUGAR_SEAN was duped into walking into an intake room at kids of bergen county. for the next eighteen hours, Cougar Sean was verbally and physically abused until he agreed to sign himself in. well, I don't think coercion is the same as agreeing, but whatever. oh, I forgot to say, I am Cougar Sean, and I was 21 years old at the time of my intake.
The list of abuses that I suffered, and watched other people suffer included, but are not lilmited to: sleep deprivation, food deprivation, verbal and physical abuse, rap sessions that lasted eighteen hours a day, except on monday and friday's. that was open meeting night those were at least 20 hour days. but at least you had the oppurtunity to earn a five minute talk with your parents. this talk was supervised by and oldcomer, and all you could talk about was what a peice of shit you were in your past. if you didn't earn talk, my parents confronted me from acrross the room over the microphone. other abuses were violent restraints at the hands of fellow vindictive newcomers. and of course being treated like a person with no rights. The abuses continued at night in the host home, where untrained and unliscenced parents and their druggie kids "cared" for me
all day long I was forced to sit upright, not leaning on the back of my chair , with my hands on my knees. I was also forced to pay attention to the person talking, which meant looking directly at them. breaking any of these rules would result in being restrained on the floor.
the day was made up of basics rap , morning rap, guys/girls rap , afternoon rap, and evening rap. on monday and friday there was a homes rap where I tried to earn the right to talk to my family.
the raps consisisted of people flailing their arms wildly in the air, motivating, in an attempt to get called on by the untrained former client staff. If I was called on I was expected to relate a past incident, and more importan, how I FELT about that incident. Not being a very good fake crier, I was frequently yelled at, spit on , sat down , and restrained for not having the proper FEELINGS about my past
in short, Kids of bergen county was insane, and no person with an ounce of decency could walk in off the street and think that this is a good way to treat adults and children.
soon more calgarians arrived. one of interest to this board was Jan Holmgren. She was diagnosed by the amateurs as having an eating disorder, and frankly, she looked like she did. she was also treated llike total crap. she was soft spoken and shy, thus making her perfect prey for staff and clients. she was tortured without mercy every day in group. after a while she developed severre swelling around here mouth eyes and nose, also scabs and sores all over. she looked like she had leprosy or something. due to her condition, she got to get out of group and spend her day in the infirmary. after several months, she got honest, and admitted that she was allergic to shampoo, and had been intentionally rubbing it in her eyes to cause her condition.
Imagine being in such a abusive place that she would resort to self mutilation to escape. I don't have to imagine, I know.
by febuary 1990, there were probalby thirty calgarians in kids of bergen county, enough to start plans to open a kids of the canadian west.
now, they would need a clinical director. Thats when a guy from saskatchen showed up by the name of Dean Vause. his title according to the chain of command was "clinical staff trainee". He was there to learn how to run kids of the canadian west, then he was going to take us all back to calgary so he could continue abusing us there.
I might add that about three quarters , at least, of the canadians were legal adults. All coerced into treatment like I had been. I know that, because they would talk about it in group. Dean was there listening. we were held physically against our will we were denied contact with family and friends, no phone, television, or even reading. In fact we had to ask for toilet paper. at the host home, we had to ask for everything. can I take my shoes off?, can I take my coat off? can I have one more sheet of toilet paper. in group, we sat ramrod on plastic chairs for eighteen hours a day, often without a bathroom break. we also motivated and sang childrens songs. we could only speak if we were called on by the untrained former client staff. speaking out in group would result in a restraint. the place was just absolutely bizarre.
Dean Vause witnessed all of this abuse and human rights violations every day for the year and a half he was in new jersey. He saw Cougar Sean, Brian Neal, and Jan Holmgren abused everyday.
At least our parents didn't see the extent of the abuse, and were physcologically manipulated as well.
but DEAN VAUSE had no attachment to the program, and he sat and watched what was happening to his fellow canadians in that hell hole in New Jersey with impunity. you would have to be a socio path.
anyhow, in july of 1989, Cougar Sean went with the utah kids to form kids of salt lake. It's clinical director was Kim De La Mare. He had previously been a clinical staff trainee in new jersey. the staff members were all staff members from new jersey.
Cougar Sean eventually signed himself out on jan 25th 1990. KIds of salt lake was closed down about six months later amid a slew of lawsuits and allegations of false imprisonment and mental and physical abuse.
in mid 1990, bergen county prosecuters went into kids and asked anyone over eighteen if they wanted out. alot of canadians did. thus, the Kids of the canadian west experiment folded.
back in calgary, Dean Vause started holding raps in the basements of parents homes for the kids that were displaced. when he got enough money, he openened aarc. He staffed it with former Kids clients like Brian Neal, and Jan holmgren.
He also has followed the kids/straight/the seed/synanon church formula to the T.
it seems that the abuses aren't as blatant, and some of the more outrageous things have been removed. but the physche damaging core has remained in tact.
specificallly, we're going to make you act talk, and think like we do or your not going to move along in the phases. we are going to coerce and verbally abuse you into thinking like us. we're going to isolate you from the world, and break you down, and then build you back up in our image.
Oh, and we're going to use raps, phases , oldcomers, newcomers, host homes untrained and uneducated peer staff, unqualified clinical staff, the five phases and of course the twelve steps of aa to do it
in conclusion, The Seed, Straight, Kids of Bergen county were all eventually shut down as they were exposed as the fraudulant abusive cults that they were. all lasted at least fifteen years.
I was never in aarc, but to me the similarities to my experience are undeniable. Oh ya, and I know for a fact that your guru, Dean Vause, was an abusive sociopath while I knew him personally in New Jersey.
seeing as he stole his whole program from his training in Newjersey, Itdoesn't seem to me as if He has changed.
oh, I've thrown around alot of names, so I don't want to post anonymously. I'm Sean Wilcox, and I'm a kids and Dean Vause survivor.
refute that
