Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

I am not in marketing and am indeed a parent with a child who has suffered severe rage, depression and anxiety that threatened his life.  I actually reviewed Fornits many times while my son was away.  While there is informaiton available on the site that helped us be on our guard and excercise vigilance, the immature and outrageous postings by unhappy teens denuded the posts of credibility and merely provided evidence that the authors still need help.  We know that the statistics regarding teen treatment are very uncertain, but our son would not have survived if we had waited and done nothing.  The medical community where we live is over-burdened at best and ill-equipped to deal with teen concurrent disorders in any event.  The psychiatrists at our local university hospital told us to throw our son out of our house and hope that he got arrested before he got killed in a rage on the streets or killed himself.  As to whether Gateway would respond truthfully to inquiries, I can only say that every parent ought to be quizzing any institution to which they entrust the care of their child and must be satsfied with the responses.  In addition to visitng Gateway ourselves, we spoke to parents whose children had been there; spoke to some former residents; and we spoke to a clergyman in Utah who works with kids at several different facilities who had some very helpful insights.  I did ask Gateway about another issue that I saw raised online and I was satisfied with their repsonse.  I would not have believed them if they claimed that they have miraculous results or that with a houseful of teenaged boys with a whole ranage of behavioural and psychological problems, there are not  major issues that can and do arise.  Even the very best organizations still suffer from the fact that they are run by fallable people.  The issue isn't whether problems ever arise, but rather when management learns of problems, how did they deal with them and do the get repeated?  I have read some of the horror stories of some of the horrible places referred to on this site.  I can tell you that Gateway is not such a place.  It gave my son a supportive, safe environment, with about 20 hours of therapy a week plus in-house high school and a great outdoor athletic programme.  Family therapy benefited my son, my wife and me and our other sons.  Our lead therapist has remained in touch with us since our son left Gateway and cares about our family.  Is Fornits so cynical that there is no room for belief that there are parents and therapists who truly care and do their best without being part of a conspiracy of evil?