Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

Liahona Academy Affiliated with WWASPS?

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Anonymous:
Liahona Academy-in Southern Utah is suspected of being an abusive behavior modification facility.  We have reason to believe it is an associate of WWASPS and is a program within the Cross Creek program.  After filling out the online assessment, available by clicking on the Liahona underlined title above, and choosing what most people understand are normal teenage behaviors caused by hormonal fluctuations that occur during puberty/adolescence we received a ?Severe Danger? rating and were advised to call immediately to hear the sales pitch.  Choose whatever on the list you think add up to normal teen behaviors and see what rating you get.  I bet you?ll be shocked.  Based on their inability and bizarre manner of assessment, no interview with the child is warranted nor any real evaluations before they advise a residential facility be the next step, we believe Liahona is suspect and best to be avoided.  If you were abused at Liahona Academy or had your rights violated in anyway, please contact us and we will add your online testimonial to this website as a warning to others.

Source:

http://www.beyondbusiness.net/childtortureusa.htm

I'm confused! My understanding is this program is owned by one of the AhQuin family members (same family that owns Maximum Skills Life Academy in Cedar City, Utah).  I could be wrong, but that is my understanding.  Perhaps someone can provide further documentation to support the claim that this program is,in fact, affiliated with WWASPS?

 :???:

Anonymous:
Maximum Life Skills group home for boys is where that group counselor was killed.  Liahona is run by another of the AhQuin family members.  

Who says this program is affiliated with WWASPS?

Anonymous:
The program may not be officially a branch to WWASPS.  Many off-shoot programs that *are* WWASPS have carefully hidden connections.  But this program, independent though it may be, has as its owner a man who worked for WWASPS, was fired by that company, who has worked as a "transporter/escort" (kidnapper), and whose program seems to work exactly like WWASPS.  Maybe if the IRS followed the money, they'd find WWASPS written all over it, but for now, that fact doesn't really make much of a difference one way or the other.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck...well...duh, it's a duck.  WWASPS is simply a company which copied Provo Canyon and other older brainwashing cults for its own model.

Anonymous:
AhQuin worked for WWASPS?  When?

Karass:
My son and I recently ran into an old friend of his that he hadn't seen in quite awhile and it turns out the kid spent a year at Liahona Academy. Very weird...I personally know only a few survivors, and now this makes two people I know that went to this place.

In the 15 minute conversation we had, I heard enough to make me suspect that this program might be a WWASPS affiliate.

"Liahona" is a Mormon word meaning "compass," and this guy confirmed that he got a strong dose of the Mormon religion, that they more or less tried to convert him. And of course there were Levels and punishment and humiliation and all that familiar unpleasant stuff.

What I found really disturbing (I know, it's all disturbing) is how this kid ended up getting sent there. He said his parents went to some kind of seminar about dealing with difficult teens -- I'm guessing one of those things were someone rents out a meeting room at the local Holiday Inn or something like that -- and someone was there ready to sign kids up at the end of the "seminar." Wow, is this the latest marketing tactic? Take the program sales pitch on the road and host "seminars" for parents in various cities? It's unclear whether the sales rep collecting the signup forms was a Liahona staffer or an EdCon-vict, but I guess that's besides the point.

Anyway, Liahona is near Hurricane & St. George -- more or less in the back yard of the WWASPS nest and the AhQuin's seem to be a prominent family from that area, going way back to the pioneer days of Utah. Besides the father & son at Liahona, it seems that at least one other member of the family works or has worked in this industry at another program.

I also saw a reference on Fornits and also elsewhere on the net that Gayle Degraff Palmer does or at least used to do admissions for Liahona. My son's friend didn't know that name and couldn't confirm it, but then again, how many program kids ever see the admissions person?

I gave this kid the URL for Fornits and suggested he might want to have a look, and see if he felt like posting some of his experiences. I don't know though, maybe he has not been back in the world for a long enough time yet to deal with that.

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