Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers

Discovery Academy (Provo, UT)

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OZint:
There have been several threads about Discovery Academy in the past, but all of these are at least three years out of date.  Does anyone know anything more recent about it?  I don't want to go into details concerning my situation, but I would prefer I get accurate and up to date information sooner rather than later.  Thank you.

Oscar:
I learned that an young author Alexa Leigh Corbett wrote the books The Life Ever After and The ID: The Art of Being Human based on the teachings of her brother readjustment to an indendent life after Discovery Academy.

OZint:
Reviews at greatschools.org turn around from almost ubiquitously terrible to almost the exact opposite sometime around 2008.  This is not long after the 2007 lawsuit mentioned on the Fornits wiki.  One facebook survivor group is practically deserted, the other is closed to the public.  The most recent Fornits thread on the subject came from 2007 and referenced information from 2006, which is not recent enough to make a solid case.  It's too easy for a desperate parent to convince themselves that the information is too outdated to be relevant.

Oscar:
I believe that some of the facilities are now working actively to handle the impact the existence of social networks had on their business and some will turn away youth who are a bad fit for their programs unlike what they did in the past where they took all for the money. I also believe that some of them are more concerned on the aftercare which in fact is the most important part of the program.

Everyone can force some to change their way inside a program if they restrict the youth enough, but only a very few can achieve a lasting impact once the youth have left the program. I don't know how much Discovery Academy has adjusted their program the last few years, but something they have done because they have managed to contain complaints from the alumni's from the last 3-4 years. Maybe they have reduced the number of students, maybe they have made it less strict. Something they have done.

Does it make it a good program? It is not to say because they might just have extended the honeymoon period. We need to look at the number of alumni's who dies in their twenties to measure their successrate.

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "OZint" ---Reviews at greatschools.org turn around from almost ubiquitously terrible to almost the exact opposite sometime around 2008.  This is not long after the 2007 lawsuit mentioned on the Fornits wiki.  One facebook survivor group is practically deserted, the other is closed to the public.  The most recent Fornits thread on the subject came from 2007 and referenced information from 2006, which is not recent enough to make a solid case.  It's too easy for a desperate parent to convince themselves that the information is too outdated to be relevant.
--- End quote ---
Can a leopard change its spots? :twofinger:

We live in an era where the degree and sophistication of propaganda far exceeds the threshold of the average savvy consumer. There's a lag of perception and comprehension between the fodder that (often heavily funded) public relations machinery can churn out, and what a consumer can easily recognize as spin control and "strongly encouraged" hype.

Some contemporarily utilized program marketing and PR tactics that you might wanna titillate your imagination with:


* slick, glossy advertisements of healthy happy teens enjoying their time in program (to be expected);
* hyped up "research studies" of optimum results and efficacy that, when perused carefully with a critical eye, often turn out to be little more than exit surveys conducted by associated parties or others with vested interests;
* squelching of negative commentary via search engine manipulation;
* burial of negative commentary via a plethora of effusive blogs extolling merits of never ending minutia of said program (see services of Reputation Defender, et al);
* removal of negative commentary via the threat of, and sometimes actual filing of, lawsuits;
* recruitment and "encouragement" of former program parents to "give back" to the program that "saved their kid's life" by leaving reviews on sites like greatschools.org, and/or to troll or "leave testimony" on sites like fornits.com (which I don't really have a problem with per se, it's the program originated exhortation that is a bit questionable);
* fake reviews submitted by program personnel or associated folk on sites like greatschools.com masquerading as "real parent" feedback;
* recruitment and "encouragement" of former peers to contact and sometimes even intimidate and harass "anti-program activists" to get them to change their tune or, at the very least, to stop singing;
* etc. etc. and worse.All that just listed being above and beyond the "mere" inculcative effects of the particular program in question.

Which is to say that some of those "positive reviews" are genuine insomuch as the folk delivering them believe them to be true at the time in question.

Five or ten years down the line, I'd wager that a fair number of them are... not so sure.

Personally, fwiw, a negative review counts for a lot more than a positive review in my book, be it four months or even four years ago. Whether or not my child could experience a stellar experience as extolled by a positive review would be a plus, or, at worst, a neutral. A negative review, on the other hand, speaks of the possibility that my child might also experience such damage and harm. Trauma is usually not so easy to repair and recover from.

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