Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group

The Only Instance of Abuse "Admittance" by Staff of MBA

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enola:
This is pasted from Bill Hoffman's notes on Facebook.  Though the only ones who have access to it are his Facebook "friends", I am surprised that only a few comments out of 62 were calls for more accountability.  I also made a comment, but Bill erased it the next day, as well as edited a few words in the entry.  Bill was an ok guy compared to others, and I believe he has a touch of guilt for the way those of us from the "dark ages" of MBA were treated, yet he has also posted some very low blows and attacks on some of the Facebook boards, which I may post later.


--- Quote ---"What MBA Kids From The Past Need To Know About MBA Today."

Saturday, April 11, 2009 at 11:06pm
We are no longer the old Mount Bachelor Academy you think of from the past.

Mount Bachelor Academy staff are not only loving people who enjoy working with kids either. Qualifications to be a Mentor now takes a Master's degree. Our Executive Director, Program Director, Clinical On-Site Coordinator and about half of our Mentors are Mastered Leveled Therapists.

"We have come far since the dark ages" What began in 1988 as "a mom and pop business" without regulation or degreed people has transformed in the 21st century with oversight, credentialed teachers, qualified professional staff trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, skill building from Dialectical Behavioral Training, Adoption Clinical Training, etc.

We are licensed by the State of Oregon, we are accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools and Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools.

We have a full-time Chemical and Dependency Counselor as well to provide quality drug and alcohol focused therapies.

Our group therapy sessions are no longer profanity laced yelling sessions. We actually have grown away from that mode. We offer special-themed groups including workshops in issues of Adoption, Grief and Loss, Mastery and Control, Sexual Abuse, NA/AA, etc.

As far as my degree, I have a Bachelor's of Arts with 30 years of experience in working with youth and families. As the Residential Director, I have oversight of the daily living of our students, dorm life, providing recreational activities at night, on weekends, and for special events: Summer Olympics, Community Service projects, etc.

Regarding Lifesteps: students, by law, are given 6 hours of sleep. Food always has been healthy and plentiful. Fresh fruit, veggie platters, PBJ and meat and cheese sandwiches, juice, etc.

Do kids receive work projects for misbehavior? Yes, but this is not "Holes" folks, kids are out for a few hours if need be, to give back or think about their poor behavior(s) demonstrated in the community. We still hold kids to being responsible towards keeping rules. Work projects are meaningful and are often based on metaphors.

Kids do not sit facing a wall, kids who have writing assignments, book reading on self studies are done in the evening down in our Library with staff supervision.

By the way, the kids we take at MBA are products of overindulgence, under supervised, from dysfunctional families, have poor or low self esteem issues, have issues related to adoption, were labled or felt like perceived failures in school, many of our kids are ADD/ADHD. Not all kids as I wrote wwere close to death, although some were getting cclose to the edge. Many of our kids abused drugs or alcohol, made poor choices, etc.

I have nothing but pride in the good work we do everyday.
--- End quote ---

***I made the following comment, which was not only unanswered, but deleted the next day***

--- Quote ---   November 30 at 5:35 pm
'I know I’m late to the party, but I just read this for the first time today, and I have a few comments to make.

“Kids do not sit facing a wall, kids who have writing assignments, book reading on self studies are done in the evening down in our Library with staff supervision.”
That is a very good thing.  However, you, in fact, ran my self-study when you first arrived at MBA, and you had me sitting in that small desk, facing the wall, not letting me get up until someone “escorted” me to the bathroom, and making me dig a ditch for 8 hours a day, then continue the work day by filling it up.  I did that for 3 months, w/o going to class.  So do those of us who did endure that get some kind of apology or at least acknowledgment of abuse?

“Regarding Lifesteps: students, by law, are given 6 hours of sleep. Food always has been healthy and plentiful. Fresh fruit, veggie platters, PBJ and meat and cheese sandwiches, juice, etc.”
It’s really nice that you guys decided to finally abide by the law.  But, as you know, in the ‘dark ages’ of MBA, we had about 2-3 hours sleep, and ate crackers and water.

“Our group therapy sessions are no longer profanity laced yelling sessions. We actually have grown away from that mode.”
I’m honestly glad.  In my era, there was constant yelling, screaming, name-calling, swearing, crying, and very harsh criticism toward most of us (with the exception of the lucky few).  For example, I was constantly called a whore, a liar, manipulative, playing victim, etc.  By law, that’s abuse.

It really boggles my mind that there is no accountability for the staff’s actions towards the earlier peer groups.  Nothing.  Accountability and complete honesty is what we were taught; those 2 things were almost literally shoved down our throats, that’s usually what spurred most of the “profanity laced yelling sessions”.  Yet there is no accountability, apology, or admission of any wrong doing to those of us who endured that; wrong doing, or, in layman's terms abuse.  Some of my peers seem ok with it.  I am not.

I just don’t get it… '

--- End quote ---
So, without a word, message, or any acknowledgment to me, he erased my comment, then erased the words 'no longer' in the sentence about 'profanity-laced yelling sessions'.

The most upsetting aspect of all of this, besides the fact that it has brought up a lot of pain that I never dealt with, is the complete lack of ACCOUNTABILITY by the staff.  Accountability, the thing they preached, yelled about, screamed about, and based Lifesteps on.  There is known.  In fact, there are instead cover-ups and lies.  Like I said, I just don't get it.  And it makes me very angry, especially for all the crap I endured because of it.

psy:
Time and time again i've heard "we don't do that anymore"...  Even from the program I was in.  So what did I do?  I investigated.  I even went down to the program to try to interview people...  and what did I discover?  Nothing of substance had changed at all.  At most they had renamed a few practices.  If I were you I would treat such claims from MBA with a grain of salt.  I can't even list the number of times i've heard similar claims from a wide variety of programs.

I also find it interesting that this guy claims MBA provides "therapy" given that Aspen Education Group recently argued in a court case that "therapy" is exactly what they do not provide (in order to argue they were not required to comply with the privacy regulations associated).  It's amazing how easily will say "therapy" in private when they think nobody is watching and "emotional growth" in public to avoid accountability.

Whooter:
Programs are ever evolving, like Psy mentioned, and some may say they are doing away with a percieved harmful aspect of the program when in fact they just rename it.  So it is best to try to find out what they are doing currently by reading here or contacting the program directly, speaking to families who have been through the program recently.

I looked around and MBA did provide therapy via a licensed Psychologist.  The argument that Aspen had in court was with a specific child who didn’t receive therapy ( at another facility).  Many of these facilities give parents the option of having their child see a private therapist while the child attends the program which can be separately funded directly by the parents.  It is up to each parent to decide what is appropriate for their child and whether or not they want one on one therapy.
So technically any one specific program may not provide therapy through Aspen, so it can be said that Aspen doesn’t provide Therapy for “all“ their programs directly.  

But to imply that Aspen as a Corporation does not provide therapy would be an incorrect statement.

psy:

--- Quote from: "Whooter" ---Programs are ever evolving, like Psy mentioned, and some may say they are doing away with a percieved harmful aspect of the program when in fact they just rename it.  So it is best to try to find out what they are doing currently by reading here or contacting the program directly, speaking to families who have been through the program recently.
--- End quote ---

The program itself has every reason to lie and more often than not, almost always, the families themselves have little knoweldge of what actually goes on in the program.  Furthermore, the method of contacting families is often (but not always, as some do post here from time to time) only through the program, which can often be fairly selective about which parents they recommend. The only way to find the truth is to speak to a variety of recent graduates by seeking them out, asking for fact rather than opinion, and not by waiting for the program to recommend them.  Even then, the truth is often elusive.



--- Quote ---I looked around and MBA did provide therapy via a licensed Psychologist.  The argument that Aspen had in court was with a specific child who didn’t receive therapy ( at another facility).  Many of these facilities give parents the option of having their child see a private therapist while the child attends the program which can be separately funded directly by the parents.
--- End quote ---

The OP specifically mentioned "group therapy", not individual therapy.  It is my understanding that while some programs do provide individual therapy, the group therapy is almost always facilitated by peers and non-qualified staff.  Furthermore, most of the individual therapists are essentially subcontractors, as you admit, often paid for directly by the parents and are thus not in the direct employ of the program.


--- Quote ---It is up to each parent to decide what is appropriate for their child and whether or not they want one on one therapy.
So technically any one specific program may not provide therapy through Aspen, so it can be said that Aspen doesn’t provide Therapy for “all“ their programs directly.  

But to imply that Aspen as a Corporation does not provide therapy would be an incorrect statement.
--- End quote ---

It depends on your loose definition of "provide".  IMO, "permit" would be a more appropriate word.  As far as group therapy goes, are you aware of any Aspen facility where the group therapy is facilitated by licensed psychologists or psychotherapists.  Most of the time the only qualifications I see are LCSW and so forth...  social worker qualifications.  Hardly trained or qualified to facilitate any sort of bone-fide group therapy.

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "enola" ---The most upsetting aspect of all of this, besides the fact that it has brought up a lot of pain that I never dealt with, is the complete lack of ACCOUNTABILITY by the staff. Accountability, the thing they preached, yelled about, screamed about, and based Lifesteps on.
--- End quote ---
It would appear that "accountability" is a somewhat relative term. Kids are held accountable for all kinds of things at programs (sometimes even for things they did not do), but the program staff? The ones that actually do all the preaching about accountability and brother's keeper? Rarely, or, at most, barely.

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