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1
http://www.thetowntalk.com/story/news/local/2014/12/12/cheneyville-man-facing-more-sex-related-charges/20318023/

Quote
Cheneyville man facing more sex-related charges
By Melissa Gregory | mgregory@thetowntalk.com | (318) 792-1807 4:45 p.m. CST December 12, 2014
635539975896907669-ani-Charles-Gregory-Allen-mug2

(Photo: Courtesy/Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office)

A Cheneyville man is facing more sex-related charges stemming from an investigation into alleged misconduct at Red River Academy in Lecompte, according to the Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office.

Charles Gregory Allen, 36, of 501 Boyd St., had been arrested on Dec. 3 and had been charged with sexual battery, attempted forcible rape and prohibited sexual conduct between educator and student.

The office had started an investigation after being contacted by the Lecompte Police Department for assistance, according to an earlier Town Talk story.

The investigation continued after Allen's initial arrest, however. On Tuesday, detectives got information that there was possible victim, a former Red River Academy student, in another state.

The boarding school accepts students, ages 13 to 18, from other states, according to its site.

Detectives tracked down the alleged victim and arranged an interview. After that interview, detectives got more warrants for Allen. He was arrested in the Rapides Parish Detention Center, where he's been held on a $55,000 bond since his earlier arrest, according to the release.

Allen was charged with five counts of sexual battery, five counts of simple battery, five counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and five counts of prohibited sexual contact between educator and student.

Detectives believe there be more victims either locally or across the United States who attended Red River Academy "over the past several years," according to the release. The office is asking victims to contact detectives at (318) 473-6727 or (318) 641-6000.


2
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/12/08/teens-call-academy-a-private-prison.htm

Teens Call 'Academy' a Private Prison
By JONNY BONNER
            

     SALT LAKE CITY (CN) - A private prison that calls itself an academy locked up teenagers, "sadistically and verbally" beat them down, and forced them to go barefoot in winter, four teens claim in court.

     Tyler Weber, Tracy Sarno, Janet Yelding and Janaye Kearns sued Diamond Ranch Academy on Dec. 3, in Federal Court.

     They claim that Diamond Ranch, a self-styled "troubled teen" boarding, reform and alternative school, promised them a "supportive, safe, healthy, camp-like setting with regular and productive therapy/counseling."

     Weber and Kearns separately attended Diamond Ranch. Sarno's and Yelding's experiences are not detailed in the lawsuit.

     Weber and Kearns say they were forced to work in 100-degree weather without protection and insufficient water, deprived of shoes and sufficient clothing in winter, and repeatedly ordered to dig deep holes and refill them.

     They claim they were kept awake until midnight and made to get up at 4:30 a.m., tackled and sat on by staff "for punishment for some perceived slight," and made to sit facing walls "for any reason or no reason."

     "The staff sadistically and verbally beat down everyone, and the bullying was excessive," the 20-page complaint states. "Groups of captives were pitted against other groups for the amusement of staff. Although some staff members were more kind and helpful and willing to become friendly, they never mustered the courage to correct the sadistic staff members who enjoyed wielding the power over Mark and Devin, along with all of the others."

     Parties listed in the complaint do not include a Mark or a Devin.

     "At Diamond Ranch Academy, there was no forum for complaint, explanation, appeal, or grievance against the placement, before, during, or after it occurred," the complaint states. "The only option available to the hapless youth there confined was to 'fake it in order to make it,' for Diamond Ranch Academy is a lock down, closely guarded private prison, where punishments are harsh for any rule infraction, real or instigated by the Diamond Ranch Academy staff for their amusement."

     The plaintiffs say Diamond Ranch's "extravagant fees fraudulently suggest great expertise and cloak its staff's minimal credentials and multiple mistakes.

     A website from "Diamond Ranch Academy Survivors" (www.drasurvivors.com) harshly criticizes the place.

     For example: "Diamond Ranch Academy is not a legitimate treatment facility and their methods are unethical, illegal and abusive. Please, do not send your child to Diamond Ranch Academy."

     The site calls the "therapeutic" treatment program, based in Hurricane, Utah, "The Devil's Ranch," adding "Out in the middle of nowhere ... hot, desolate and miserable."The school did not respond to a request for comment.

     Diamond Ranch states on its website: "Our students become their best selves in a structured elite private school environment with a personalized therapeutic approach."

     The plaintiffs seek punitive damages for fraud, false imprisonment and child abuse.

     They are represented by Thomas Burton.

3
Specializing in adopted children –
website: http://www.threepointscenter.com

press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/tpc/grandopening/prweb12318922.htm

Grand Opening of the First Ever Residential Treatment Center Tailored for Adopted Adolescents

After much anticipation, Three Points Center, LLC. is now licensed and accepting students. The new and highly specialized residential treatment center is specifically tailored to treat adopted adolescents, and serve their adoptive families who are struggling.

La Verkin, Utah (PRWEB) November 12, 2014

The residential treatment facility will accommodate up to 40 male and 40 female students. Three Points Center (TPC) is set up to support the facility’s unique and comprehensive 360-degree approach to treatment for adopted adolescents and their families. Formed in 2013, Three Points Center provides comprehensive, valuable and necessary services to adopted adolescents and their families. The primary purpose of our efforts is to heal wounds, understand identities, and draw families closer together through professional treatment and therapy. The owners, managers and employees of TPC have developed treatment procedures designed to support the highest levels of quality care and therapeutic standards.

Therapists Understand The Complexities Associated With Adoptive Family Life

When asked about what makes TPC unique, Dr. Brodzinsky, Professor Emeritus of clinical and developmental psychology at Rutgers University, answered “To meet the needs of adopted youth and their families, therapists must be adoption-competent. They [Therapists] must understand the complexities associated with adoptive family life and integrate these issues into their assessment process. It is then our responsibility to develop treatment strategies that are informed by adoption related experiences.” Unfortunately, for adoptive parents, this has been very difficult to find until now.

Three Points Center Ranch

To augment the residential facility, Three Points Center Ranch (TPCR) is also open to support the holistic approach of TPC’s treatment program. The Ranch, home to the animals used in the program, is intended to serve as a healing, therapeutic retreat for the students during their stay. “Although sending an adopted teen to residential treatment is a last resort for most parents,” says Dr Joyce Maguire Pavao, lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “Three Points Center is focused on honoring, maintaining, and enhancing family relationships.”

4
News Items / New article exposes TTI in Florida & nationally
« on: November 14, 2014, 11:48:19 PM »
If anyone is reading this within a few days of this post, please comment in the article and share. We are trying to drive this to the front page of the Huffington Post, which is read by 40 million people. It is already on the front of the Politics section.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/deaths-abuse-and-alleged_b_6157780.html

Deaths, Abuse and Alleged Rapes: How Lax Oversight Endangers Florida's -- and the Nation's -- Children

Art Levine
Contributing Editor, The Washington Monthly
Posted: 11/14/2014 8:45 am EST Updated: 1 hour ago

Is Florida the most dangerous place in the country for children with disabilities, behavioral disorders or the sheer misfortune to be born into abusive families?

That could well be the case, based on a series of troubling investigative reports in the Tampa Bay Times , Miami Herald and, this week, in Miami New Times pointing to lax oversight endangering Florida's most vulnerable children. In March, the Miami Herald's investigative team, led by Carol Marbin Miller and Audra Burch, began its horrifying series chronicling nearly 500 deaths of children loosely monitored by the state:

    Ta'Vontae, the first to die, suffocated at 2 months of age while sleeping on a couch with his mother, Rachel Fryer, who later tested positive for cocaine. Child welfare authorities took Tariji from Fryer and put her in foster care. Then they gave her back, convinced Fryer had tamed her drug use and violent outbursts. Three months later, Tariji was killed with a blow to the head.

    Fryer stuffed Tariji's body into a leopard-print suitcase, caught a ride and buried her 50 miles from her Sanford home. The girl's pink and white shoe, an unintended grave marker atop freshly turned dirt, was the only hint of her life and death. She would have turned 3 this month.

    The twins joined a sad procession of children who died, often violently, after the Florida Department of Children & Families (DCF) had been warned, often repeatedly, that they or their siblings could be in danger.

    They tumbled into canals and drowned, baked in furnace-like cars, were soaked in corrosive chemicals, incinerated, beaten mercilessly, and bounced off walls and concrete pavement. One was jammed into a cooler posthumously; others were wrapped like a mummy to silence their cries, flattened by a truck, overdosed and starved. An infant boy was flung from a moving car on the interstate. A 2-year-old girl was strangled by her mom's pet python.

These atrocities were made possible by the same pattern of apparent bureaucratic neglect and indifference -- although not leading to any deaths -- that seem to be at work on a smaller scale in the weak response of officials to alleged incidents of sexual and physical assaults at the private Vanguard School for learning disabled kids in Lake Wales, Florida, Miami New Times reported this week. (I wrote and researched the article with the backing of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.)

The lack of effective regulation of Vanguard and other residential facilities in the state has alarmed state Sen. Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood), the chair of the Florida Senate Committee on Children, Families and Elder Affairs. After reviewing information on Vanguard and failed state oversight, she declared this week after the New Times article was published: "The situation at Vanguard is awful and it is shameful. I don't care whether or not the government funds it: it should be required to be licensed, inspected and accredited." She added, "There are so many statutes on the books that are never implemented but this issue needs to be a priority by the legislature and fixed -- so that the law is implemented and clarified."

She and her colleagues in the Florida legislature, prodded by child advocacy groups such as Florida's Children First and the deadly scandals exposed by the Miami Herald, unanimously passed this year sweeping legislation designed to promote improved monitoring and greater transparency by DCF. But few -- if any -- of those reforms would affect the privately-funded students at the Vanguard School who attend at costs up to $44,000 a year, because they're not under state care or monitoring.

The New Times article focuses initially on the story of the flawed response to the alleged sexual assault by two males students of a 16-year-old girl in March 2011, named "Susan Jackson" in the article to protect her identity. For instance, Det. Mary Jerome of the Lake Wales Police Department allowed the school's president to help in questioning the suspects, which is not accepted practice. And cops closed the case the same day the rape was reported without obtaining any evidence supporting the suspects' alibis. (The Lake Wales Police Department declined to comment for this article. "We respectfully decline to make statements or to be interviewed about the investigation or former employees," Deputy Chief Troy Schulze told New Times.)

But with no one paying much attention, serious problems apparently continued at the school. For instance, on January 17, 2013, according to former teacher Gail Bonnichsen, a teenage girl was allegedly assaulted on the grounds by a student who jammed his hand inside her, causing vaginal bleeding. But staff on duty that night brushed aside the girl's concerns and didn't call police or seek medical help -- until the girl told Bonnichsen about it late the next day. Bonnichsen told New Times that she called a DCF abuse hotline and two local police departments, but the agencies never responded. "Nothing was done about it, and nobody gave a crap," Bonnichsen says.

Perhaps just as alarming, New Times reviewed a 21-page list of 911 calls from the Vanguard School to the county's emergency call center between November 2010 and September 2014, plus a list of the far fewer service calls and even fewer arrests by Lake Wales cops. They indicate dozens of phoned-in emergencies, including at least a dozen assault cases and other violent disturbances -- and some attempted suicides, all at a school that's not licensed or approved by the state to handle violent or seriously disturbed kids.

A blogger and children's rights activist based in Palm Beach County, Jillie Ryan, first discovered the disturbing allegations of sexual assault at the school. She learned from her sources that the Connecticut-based educational consultant advising the family of Susan Jackson, Marcia Rubinstien, had alerted colleagues on a listserv about dangers at Vanguard. Rubinstien was concerned about her client Susan's safety.

Rubinstien told New Times that she didn't call authorities because "the information I had was hearsay." Now, she says, "I would recommend that no child be sent there until the social environment is conducive to the safety of the student."

In a 2011 reply to a lawsuit filed by Susan's family, the school's attorneys denied negligence claims against the school. They also charged that Susan and her family were partially to blame for any harm to Susan by acting "negligently and carelessly" themselves. Despite repeated email and phone inquiries from New Times, school officials, including President Cathy Wooley-Brown, declined to answer any broader questions about student safety and the alleged failure to properly report crimes. Polk County-based attorney Richard Straughn, who represents the school, wrote, "The health, safety, and well-being of students are top priorities at the Vanguard School... Part of our commitment includes complete respect for the confidentiality and privacy rights of our students and families..."

But in the absence so far of real accountability, reforms have been slow to be carried out both by DCF and the far more obscure Vanguard School, which operates outside of public scrutiny or any government monitoring. Under the new law strengthening abuse investigations, the Florida DCF still self-reports its own progress, Sobel notes, rather than being tracked by any outside or independent investigators. So it's become apparent that the agency is still not following the spirit of this and other reform laws affecting child abuse passed in recent years. For instance, just last month, the Miami Herald reported that even after the legislation passed required public reporting of all abuse and neglect deaths, officials there have found ways to evade that responsibility with a neat Kafkaesque trick: They simply don't classify the deaths of many children under their watch as abuse or neglect. After highlighting such tragedies as a disfigured two-month-old who was suffocated to death after his family had been investigated 38 times, the Herald's Carol Marbin Miller wrote: "Even as the Florida Department of Children & Families has promised greater openness, [these] fatalities, and dozens of others like them, have never been counted among the state's victims of fatal abuse or neglect." She added, "But except for abiding by a new state law that required DCF to create a website listing all child fatalities, Florida has continued to undercount the number of children it fails."

Without facing meaningful accountability after the alleged sexual assault in 2011 and even in the face of the family's lawsuit, settled with a gag order on all parties last fall, Vanguard officials didn't change much, either. In miniature, this illustrates what happens when no one is ensuring that kids are protected.

In subsequent years after the Susan Jackson incident, relatively little was done by school officials to report to the DCF abuse hotline other alleged physical and sexual assaults, as apparently required by a tougher reporting law passed in 2012. School officials declined to answer allegations raised by former staffers that administrators discouraged them reporting such incidents to authorities.

Now, it turns out, the school isn't even complying with a mild state law requiring accreditation for residential safety by one of three state-approved national organizations, such as the Commission for Accreditation of Residential Facilities (CARF). That's been confirmed by all three accrediting groups, which say they're not evaluating Vanguard. The school has obtained the required academic accreditation. (It's not that hard to win residential accreditation: CARF itself under is under fire by critics, including a California legislative committee, for rubber-stamping approval of drug-treatment facilities where patients died. The private accrediting agency, which is subsidized by the facilities it monitors, has defended its oversight.)

Unfortunately, the regulatory failures embodied by hundreds of deaths of children in a six-year span under the watch of the state's scandal-plagued DCF are a disturbing symbol of the broader national failure to protect children and youth from violence, abuse and sexual assaults whether they're in foster care, living with their own dysfunctional families or in institutional settings.

The allegations of trouble at Vanguard, for example, are mirrored at comparable facilities across the country. Private schools and residential programs for youngsters with an array of issues are part of a multibillion-dollar "troubled teen" industry. It includes thousands of facilities -- from boarding schools to wilderness camps to juvenile detention centers -- that house nearly 200,000 kids. They have not only learning disabilities but also emotional, behavioral, and addiction problems. Vanguard, though, doesn't employ the notorious "tough-love" approach common in many other teen residential programs. Tough-love tactics include sadistic punishments and harsh encounter-style groups designed to break troublemaking kids physically and emotionally.

The failed enforcement at Vanguard by local and state authorities is also shaped by some of the same economic forces driving the emerging scandal nearly 300 miles northwest of Lake Wales at the influential Florida State University in Tallahassee. There, recent investigations by the New York Times and other news outlets found an inadequate response by officials to rape allegations against Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston and other football players.

Jillie Ryan sees parallels with the "troubled teen" schools she has investigated. When she saw the Florida State headlines, she told herself, "Here we go again." She successfully fought for seven years to close down a Georgia "therapeutic boarding" school that her own teenager attended for six months that was facing mounting suicide attempts and abuse allegations. Now she says of such scandals, "Everyone goes into shock, but it's all the same: there's no oversight whatsoever. Everyone gets away with whatever they want." She adds, "Financial gain is the bottom line: These facilities 'plant' themselves in towns that rely on these facilities for the generation of business and jobs."

Regardless of the growing scandal over rape allegations at Florida State, no one is less protected than the 18-and-under kids in the youth programs across the nation that face virtually no meaningful state or federal oversight, according to the GAO and testimony before Congress in 2007 and 2008. As U.S. Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat, declared in 2007 at the opening of hearings on this ongoing but little-known crisis: "In far too many cases, the very people entrusted with the safety, health, and welfare of these children are the ones who violate that trust in some of the most horrific ways imaginable."

In Florida, that's certainly proved to be true. But what's especially discouraging is that the trust given to families, care-givers and government officials to keep children safe is still being widely violated despite new reform legislation passed in the Florida legislature in 2013 and 2014. The laws were passed in the wake of both a Tampa Bay Times investigative series, "In God's Name," documenting unregulated brutal Christian academies abusing kids and the Herald series on needless child deaths, but very little has changed on the ground.

Florida is especially notorious for its lax oversight of vulnerable children. Private schools like Vanguard are barely monitored. Outside of an easily obtained business license, they don't get the oversight normally given to public schools or even state-sanctioned residential group homes and detention centers that receive government funding -- but that have also been marked by their own shocking legacies of abuse. A Huffington Post investigation last year, for example, found that boys and girls held in licensed private prisons, boot camps and detention centers run by Youth Services International, especially in Florida, have frequently faced beatings, neglect and sexual abuse.

This past January, University of South Florida researchers announced the findings from a makeshift graveyard at the notorious state-run Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, which closed in 2011 after a long history of abuse and scandal. At least 96 children died at the reform school between 1914 and 1973.

Even after the Tampa Bay Times exposed in 2012 widespread patterns of brutality at unmonitored Christian academies, it's still business as usual in most programs. (A few closed due to bad publicity and declining enrollment, but not as the result of any government actions.) Some schools, such as the Gateway Christian Academy/Teen Challenge in Bonfiay that had seven abuse and neglect allegations confirmed by the lackluster DCF, the Tampa Bay Times reported, continue to operate outside even the state's minimal "religious exemption" loophole. If granted that exemption, religious schools can obtain cozy private accrediting by a private Christian association led by like-minded fundamentalists. In Gateway's case, this means being permitted by Florida to run their hard-line school while simply waiting to be accredited by the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies (FACCCA), a Gateway official explained to me. The Department of Children and Families began a preliminary investigation of those Christian schools that didn't bother to obtain the fig-leaf of accreditation by FACCCA, but that didn't lead the state to examine unlicensed secular schools such as Vanguard.

One sign that FACCCA hasn't been particularly tough on the schools they claim to "monitor": it wasn't until after the Tampa Bay Times series exploded that its leaders began drafting language that, in theory, would ban the shackling of students by their member facilities.

And this past September, the Miami Herald broke a story about a 14-year-old autistic girl from South Florida who died in July 2013 after being strapped to a bed for five days by staffers at the Carlton Palms Education Center in Mount Dora, where she had been vomiting and thrashing about with a high fever. Her death at the state's largest licensed residential center for severely disabled people sparked a state probe announced on the eve of the Herald going to press, and now DCF is seeking to block new admissions.

***

There's still no federal response to abuse and neglect in youth residential facilities. Although the House of Representatives passed an oversight measure in 2008, the "Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens" bill never made it through the full Congress. The hopes for any national legislation have faded along with the pending retirement of the leading advocate for federal oversight -- Rep. George Miller -- and the reluctance of Congress to pass tough new regulation of any industry.

Yet this entire troubled teen field has been marked by "thousands of allegations of abuse, some involving death, at residential treatment facilities across the country," the GAO reported in 2007.

As a result of all this, in most states in the U.S., schools and other programs for troubled teens-- some run by fundamentalist religious groups -- have continued to operate, despite allegations of abuse and neglect, including whipping, torture, solitary confinement, electric shock treatment for autistic children at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts; alleged rapes at the now-defunct New Bethany Homes in Louisiana; and over 80 needless deaths in residential treatment since 2000.

Clearly, the allegations against Vanguard -- which has never been accused of either torture or causing deaths -- and other private programs for teens are hardly unique. Among the latest controversies in this field: a lawsuit filed on behalf of 350 families and "survivors" against a network of allegedly jail-like boarding schools in Utah best known by their acronym WWASPS, as the New York Times has reported; activist outrage about two purportedly needless deaths, including one suicide, at the controversial Diamond Ranch Academy that has aggressively counter-sued some critics and forcefully denied any maltreatment of students; and the recent Anonymous-backed social media campaign to shut down the allegedly abusive Logan River Academy in Utah that reportedly uses solitary confinement as punishment, a charge the school denies.

In Florida, despite the passage of laws in the last two years designed to create more transparency, better oversight and strengthen abuse investigations, critics don't see it likely that DCF's historically toxic culture of neglect, secrecy, and incompetence will be fundamentally reformed any time soon.

"Politicians won't care until their own child is killed or abused," Jillie Ryan says.

This post is adapted and updated from a longer, narrative investigative feature jointly published by Miami New Times and New Times Broward-Palm Beach, viewable in full here. Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

5
The Troubled Teen Industry / "Kidnapped For Christ" now available on iTunes
« on: November 05, 2014, 02:03:02 AM »
From a mass-email sent by the team:

Hello Kidnapped For Christ Fans and Supporters!

Kidnapped For Christ is available on iTunes and VOD today and we need your help to spread the word.

To get the film towards the top of the charts on iTunes we need as many people to buy it as possible this week.

Many of you are already going to receive a DVD or viewing link as part of your support of the film on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, but you can still help us top the charts by promoting the iTunes link on your Facebook and Twitter accounts and by telling all your friends and family to share and purchase the film. Don't forget to tag us and include #kidnappedforchrist.

Here’s the iTunes link for sharing and purchasing:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/kidnapped-for-christ/id928634669 or http://bit.ly/1x9MB7b

Thanks Everyone! Look out for our DVD announcement coming next week.

Best,

The Kidnapped For Christ Team

www.kidnappedforchrist.com

6
Diamond Ranch Academy is obviously feeling the heat from our advocacy, especially drasurvivors.com. DRA has waged their own campaign that makes them look not only weak, but completely untrustworthy. Everyone involved in exposing them should be proud; our efforts to save kids from abuse are having an effect!

These videos really show DRA's true colors. Notice how carefully they word the questions and cherry pick the answers they want to show. For example, the guy wearing the green shirt shows up at the beginning and the end of the first video, but nothing in the middle.
Students respond to negative comments about Diamond Ranch Academy - Part One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLjNkaC0VIo

This video is even more interesting, they bring the same teens into a group setting and ask them directly about drasurvivors.com: Students respond to negative comments about Diamond Ranch Academy - Part Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCXfZ-o5b18

Check out http://www.therealdrasurvivors.com, clearly a response to http://www.drasurvivors.com. This site is filled with misinformation and outright fabrications.

I'll post more below, also see this thread on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/1uq9qr/well_done_everyone_diamond_ranch_academy_is.

I hope this shows parents what kind of people they are trusting their children to.

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http://louisianavoice.com/2013/12/09/seven-former-residents-of-new-bethany-home-for-girls-make-emotional-return-to-arcadia-to-file-charges-of-sexual-assault/

Seven former residents of New Bethany Home for Girls make emotional return to Arcadia to file charges of sexual assault

December 9, 2013 by tomaswell

The decades-long controversy surrounding New Bethany Home for Girls in Bienville Parish was renewed last Friday, Dec. 6 when seven former residents of the home returned to Arcadia so that two of the women could file formal charges of sexual assault against the now-defunct home’s owner, Rev. Mack Ford.

(CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE):

100_0824

A seventh arrived on Saturday to file her complaint.

Although only two of the six who flew in from North Carolina, Nevada, Florida and Texas, claimed to been sexually abused while living at the home, the others said they were there to lend moral support to the two, one of whom is said to be terminally ill with an inoperable brain tumor.

Sheriff John Ballance, who had his own experience with the home during his career as a state trooper some 30 years ago, met with the women, took the statements of the two claiming sexual abuse, and promised to do everything possible to resolve the matter.

An earlier statement of one of the alleged victims was turned over to state police in Bossier City in October, Ballance said.

In September, Ballance told LouisianaVoice he had picked up a runaway from the home decades ago when he was a state trooper. Instructed by the sheriff’s department to return her to the facility, he said he refused to force her to go back because of her claims of abuse.

Allegations about beatings, handcuffing and other forms of punishment of girls at the home first came to light when the Baton Rouge Advocate began an investigation of the home in 1974. Editors, however, quickly killed the investigation before any stories could be written and the issue lay dormant until the late 1980s when the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Resources began looking into abuse allegations. In 1988, the state raided the unlicensed home located south of Arcadia on LA. 9 and removed 29 girls from the facility.

PTDC0139

Simultaneous to that raid, the Bethel Home for Wayward Children in Lucedale, Mississippi, was closed down by officials in that state. Six months after the New Bethany raid, however, it remained open and was not closed down until 1992.

There were claims of girls at New Bethany having to clean toilets with their bare hands, being locked in isolation with only a bucket for a toilet, girls being handcuffed to their beds and being made to stand all day with no restroom breaks, beatings with wooden dowels, PVC pipe, paddles, belts and limbs.

A state game warden, interviewed by the Advocate in 1974, said he would take confiscated deer that had been killed illegally by hunters to the home. “On one occasion,” he said, “Ford asked if he could have my handcuffs.”

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New Bethany Baptist Church (foreground); girls’ windowless dormitory (background).

The public face of New Bethany, however, was quite different. Girls’ quartets would be clad in long dresses and paraded before church congregations to sing, figuratively and literally, the praises of New Bethany in efforts to generate “love offerings” from church members.

A father who pulled his daughter out of the home said, “He (Ford) would have those little girls sing hymns and give testimony to churches and the church members would hit the floor with their knees while reaching for their wallets” to give Ford money for his home.

The claims of physical abuse and rape are not new to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Church with which New Bethany and Ford are affiliated.

The First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, received a great deal of notoriety over the sexual trysts two of its ministers had with female church members over a period of several years. Their misconduct was subsequently repeated at other churches where they ministered.

And when their behavior was revealed, it was the women victims who were required to stand before the congregation and apologize and ask forgiveness for tempting the men, who invariably went unpunished and indeed, continued to receive near idol status from the congregation.

Likewise, group homes where abuse has been documented tend to receive devout support from area churches. Instead of asking those who run the homes to explain their behavior, their accusers are routinely treated as pariahs while the accused are welcomed as heroes at church rallies on their behalf.

Adherents to IFB dogma, for example, discourage intermarriage or even any contact with those of other religious beliefs, distrust government, favor home schooling, and believe that spankings should commence as early as 15 months of age.

Tampa Bay Times reporter Alexandra Zayas last year was allowed to do what the Advocate refused to do. She wrote a lengthy investigative series on claims of physical abuse at several group homes in Florida. http://www.tampabay.com/faccca/

Just as she found in Florida and as had been found earlier in Texas, Louisiana homes are unlicensed and unregulated by the state, thus allowing the operators free rein in the areas of discipline and education—so long as it is done in the name of religion.

The group homes employ the same textbooks that rely heavily on the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) and BJU (Bob Jones University) Press curricula—the same resources used by many of Louisiana’s voucher and charter schools being approved by the Louisiana Department of Education. The textbooks eschew traditional science and history courses, choosing instead to apply Old Testament interpretations in their teachings.

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Encaged walkway over public road discourages thoughts of escape while walking from one area of New Bethany to another.

Following their meeting with Sheriff Ballance, the women drove to New Bethany and attempted to confront Ford, who instead, refused to talk to them and walked away.

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Sign displaying times of services remains outside church 21 years after New Bethany’s closure.

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Clear message that visitors are no longer welcome at New Bethany Home for Girls or at New Bethany Baptist Church.

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And just in case one misses the sign…

8
Journalist seeking interviews with former students/parents of Oxbow Academy, Gateway Academy, Birdseye Academy, Discovery Ranch, and Redcliff Ascent. Regarding programs' 'unusual', non-evidenced based therapies, commingling of children that have been sexually offended with youthful offenders, including, but not limited to Special Needs children and youth. Interviews can be either on the record or off; former employees welcome too. Please PM me or email reddittroubledteens@gmail.com if you would like to participate. Please share. Many thanks.

9
Journalist seeking interviews on the record or off with recent victims (last five years) of covered-up rapes, sexual abuse or sexual exploitation -- either by other teens or staff -- at residential programs and private schools for "troubled teens" or those with disabilities in UT, FL. But incidents must have been written or documented in complaints to law enforcement, regulatory agencies, news stories, in lawsuits or to the management of those programs. Online/social media postings only aren't sufficient for publication to pursue. Confidential communication assured. Please PM me or email reddittroubledteens@gmail.com with contact information, brief summary of the incident(s) and, if available, web link to documentation, if you'd like to be interviewed.

10
News Items / DHS confirms another child death at Diamond Ranch Academy
« on: November 02, 2013, 06:31:33 PM »
http://jilliestake.blogspot.com/2013/11/diamond-ranch-academy-confirmation.html

Friday, November 1, 2013
DIAMOND RANCH ACADEMY - CONFIRMATION - ANOTHER CHILD'S LIFE IS LOST - "SUICIDE COMPLETION"
DIAMOND RANCH ACADEMY
http://www.diamondranchacademy.com/
UTAH DHS LICENSE #  20018

"WE ARE DIFFERENT - BY DESIGN"

HURRICANE, UTAH - 11-01-2013
 
Recently, there have been several inquiries and testaments from parents regarding placement of their children in various facilities across the U.S.  Diamond Ranch Academy (DRA) is one such facility, as there have been numerous Internet postings alleging a recent death of a child at DRA.
 
 
The State of Utah's DHS Licensing Division has confirmed that approximately six weeks ago, there was another child's death at Diamond Ranch Academy.  This time, a young boy (name withheld out of respect for the young man and his family), perished after completing a suicide attempt.
 
Since prior postings have alluded to or described his suicide attempt, it has been confirmed by a Utah State Official that his precious life ended in a shower, hanging from a belt attached to a shower rod.
 
According to the State, the police and DHS investigations are near closure.  DHS recommended
corrective action at DRA, which has taken place.  One corrective act  was installing collapsible shower rods and shower heads, so that they remain innocuous.
 
Excuse:  "The staff gets complacent." Another word for negligent.
 
A State source conveyed, "the child that completed  his suicide attempt was taken off suicide watch by the tending Psychiatrist two days before."  Negligence?
 
Question:  Why was a suicidal child at DRA to begin with?  Why was he not transferred to a Mental Health facility?
 
DHS stated that their county receives "on average,  one call a year relating to a child's suicide."
 
Since the investigation is near finalized,  whether charges shall be filed remain to be determined.
 
Another quote from a State Official, who was very professional and kind, yet seemingly naive, "DRA is one of the better ones. I believe they can make a difference with these children."
 
 
Jilliestake response: 
 
 
DRA surely did "make a difference."
 
"We are different - by design" -  as in shower rods and shower heads? 
 
DRA appears in dire need of a fresh marketing campaign to bounce back from apparent, egregious negligence. One imagines, DRA  and its adjunct mental health care providers,  pray the death of this young man is kept "under wraps."
 
But, hey, they can always count on Dr. Drew Pinsky (aka Dr. Drew) for a stellar recommendation.
 
Quoted  from the DRA website, "As seen On Dr. Phil's Life Changers"
 
 
"I don't make this recommendation casually;
this is from years of experience in dealing
with people with behavioral problems.."
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v0YojzS9KU#t=37
 
http://www.diamondranchacademy.com/
 
 
It is more than evident, that the laws in Utah and across the country regarding Teen Residential Treatment Facilities, Wilderness Programs, and the like,  must change to protect our young.
There is no accountability.
Educational Consultants that send children and youths to these facilites, still do not fathom that they are mandated reporters.
This is not the first child's life that was lost or destroyed, nor will it be the last, if there is no accountability or humanity.
 
As advocates for children, DRA is not recommended for placement.
 
 
WE EXTEND OUR SINCERE SORROW TO THE FAMILY, UPON THE LOSS OF YOUR SON.
 
 
 
 
Notes:
 

According to Diamond Ranch Academy's website, they are a licensed youth "residential treatment center."

Owners/Founders:

Rob and Sherri Dias
 
Utah administrative code for Licensed treatment facilities.
 
http://www.rules.utah.gov/publicat/code/r501/r501-19.htm
 Definition of a licensed residential treatment center in Utah.

http://www.planning.utah.gov/Index_files/PDFs/ut3.57.pdf

UTAH DHS

http://www.dhs.utah.gov/

Hurricane, Utah Police Department

http://www.cityofhurricane.com/categories/departments/police-dept/
Posted by Jilliestake at 7:53 PM
Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook
Labels: Child Mental Health, Diamond Ranch Academy, Diamond Ranch Academy Child Death, Educational Consultants, Residential Treament facility, Therapeutic Boarding Schools., UTAH Diamond Ranch Academy Child Suicide

3 comments:

    AnonymousNovember 1, 2013 at 8:43 PM

    Thanks for your ongoing dedication to the truth and acquiring confirmation of this death. Suicide ideation doesn't just magically disappear. What criteria was used to determine that this young man was no longer 'suicidal'. One thing these programs do quiet efficiently is teach young people how to 'act', as in, how to pretend, or lie better.
    Blessing to the family. I'm sure they thought, like other families, that they were doing the best thing for their child.
    Another concern for me, is how programs have been increasingly successful in the past few years at keeping these stories out of the media. I hope you will forward these details to news outlets in Utah and elsewhere, in hopes that they will cover the story. Parents pay more attention to statistics, and when no one is keeping track of the stats, how can parents make a truly informed decision?
    DRA seems to have the same 'cream of the crop' reputation as did HLA. So if there's this level of inadequate care in the 'better' programs, one can only imagine what's happening in the others.
    I hope he's in a much happier place.
    Deborah
    Reply
    AnonymousNovember 2, 2013 at 1:58 PM

    Rob and Sherri Dias do not care about the children that come to DRA. They chased my father out after he realized I shouldn't stay there from their negligence for my bladder problem. They only care about money. I have seen Rob Dias abuse children at DRA. I went to DRA in 2004 and I can only image that it has gotten worse. Please, protect your children. This poor young man was driven to suicide.
    Reply
    AnonymousNovember 2, 2013 at 2:42 PM

    what do you mean they chased your dad out? how can they do that?
    Reply


11
Children of Darkness, the Elan segment starts at 17:00:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTCSfx47R1w&feature=player_detailpage#t=1022

Elan survivors had heard of this documentary, but it was only found recently. As of right now it has 385 views, it was posted to youtube 12 days ago by an account under the producer's name, Richard Kotuk.

Watching this burns me up. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1984, how was Elan allowed to operate after the film got that kind of exposure? I would love to know if any kind of investigation was done, and why the abuse was allowed to continue.

[Spoiler Warning]

I mean, kids living for two weeks in a dumpster? A boy in shackles and a bunny costume? A 'therapist' screaming at and berating the children? They even talk about The Ring where kids are forced to get beat up by other kids. I know it was 1983, but c'mon. Even by the standards of that day, this would have been unacceptable.

I think this footage is amazing. I doubt something like this could be made today, especially the filming of 'therapy' sessions. It's rare that abuse is actually captured on tape and documented. The entire film is incredible, I can see why it was nominated for an Oscar.

Please share this in your social networks. It's not enough that Elan is closed, an investigation needs to be done and the people responsible should be put in jail. The head honchos, Joe Ricci and Gerald Davidson are dead, but Martin Kruglik (shown briefly at 19:14, white shirt, on left), Jeffrey Gottlieb, Sharon Terry, and Bill Diamond (the Maine State Senator who protected Elan) need to be the subjects of an official investigation and held responsible for their actions.

12
Are you a graduate of a Utah school that tried to "cure" you from "sexually acting out" or viewing porn?

The Daily Mail newspaper recently wrote up Oxbow Academy in Utah as a school trying to deter teens from using porn. Anyone know about it? Or any affiliated or similar programs in Utah dealing with youth "acting out" sexually or other troubled teens programs using similar approaches? Among the possibilities are: Discovery Ranch, Redcliff Ascent, Discovery Academy, Medicine Wheel; also Gateway Academy in Draper and Salt Lake; and Birdseye Academy. A journalist wants to learn more and is seeking to interview alumni on or off the record about their experiences.

I started www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens to save kids from abuse by the Troubled Teen Industry. I have verified this reporter is 100% legit. If you'd like to participate, email me at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -porn.html

13
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/RFK-Jr-could-testify-at-Skakel-trial-4408079.php

RFK Jr. could testify at Skakel trial
David Hennessey
Updated 11:51 pm, Sunday, April 7, 2013

1 of 2
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    In this Oct. 24, 2012 file photo, Michael Skakel listens during a parole hearing at McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, Pool, File) Photo: Jessica Hill, Associated Press / POOL FR125654 AP
   

One of Michael Skakel's most vocal and powerful supporters and a member of the Kennedy family is one of dozens of witnesses who could testify at Skakel's upcoming habeas corpus trial, according to an updated witness list.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of more than 50 names disclosed last week on the updated list, has maintained since Skakel's 2002 murder conviction that Skakel, a Kennedy cousin, did not kill his Belle Haven neighbor Martha Moxley in 1975. Skakel is serving 20 years to life at McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield for the crime.

The witness list -- which includes investigators in the case, members of the Skakel family and former suspects -- was filed in state Superior Court in the Rockville section of Vernon.

Also filed in that court last week was a disclosure by Hubert Santos, Skakel's attorney, indicating that Santos will call an expert to testify about Elan, the Maine school and treatment center Skakel attended in the late 1970s. Skakel allegedly confessed to Moxley's murder to classmates while at Elan. The expert is another component of Skakel's defense strategy in an attempt to prove Mickey Sherman, Skakel's former attorney, did not competently defend Skakel in 2002.

The habeas corpus trial, a legal proceeding through which a prisoner can challenge their imprisonment, is the latest attempt to win Skakel's freedom. The trial, scheduled to begin April 16 in Rockville, will focus on the ways in which Sherman allegedly fell short in his defense of the 52-year-old Skakel, thus depriving Skakel of his right to effective assistance of counsel. Skakel is the nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended Skakel's 2002 trial and testified on his cousin's behalf during a 2007 hearing.

He also published a lengthy piece in The Atlantic in 2003 titled "A Miscarriage of Justice," defending Skakel and arguing his indictment was the result of an inflamed media.

In addition to Kennedy, the latest witness list -- which has more than 10 additional names compared to a list disclosed earlier this year -- includes Skakel's brother Thomas, once a suspect in the murder, Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective who fingered Skakel as Moxley's killer in his 1998 book "Murder in Greenwich," Frank Garr, who worked as an investigator on the case, and Sherman.

The trial could also feature prior testimony by Tony Bryant, Adolph Hasbrouck and Burton Tinsley. Bryant implicated Hasbrouck and Tinsley in Moxley's murder in an interview with an investigator.

One of the new names disclosed in the updated witness list is Richard J. Ofshe, a California doctor and expert witness called to testify about the Elan School.

Ofshe was a member of a research group that won a Pulitzer Prize for an expose of the drug-rehabilitation program Synanon, which founded the tradition of "aggressive, residential treatment," in which Elan School partook, according to court documents.

Ofshe, who has qualified as an expert on interrogation methods in court proceedings on more than 350 occasions, has completed extensive work on the "extreme influence" organizations like Elan have on their students, according to court documents.

The Elan program was "psychologically intensive, brutalizing and physically assaultive," Ofshe states in a letter filed in court. That environment is one that jurors at the 2002 trial needed to better understand, he wrote.

"It [is] my opinion that the services of an expert on this sort of complex and unusual influence environment were necessary to educate jury members so that they could intelligently evaluate the significance of Michael Skakel's shift from repeated flat-out denials of his having any involvement in the death of Martha Moxley to his subsequent response that he might have killed Martha," but didn't have any memory of the crime, he wrote.

"Without fully appreciating the exceptionally coercive, highly organized and focused environment into which Mr. Skakel was placed it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible for a lay person to adequately comprehend the disorganized factual testimony about the nature of influence and control at Elan," he added.

Family members of Gregory Coleman, Skakel's classmate at Elan, are included on the latest witness list.

Skakel's defense filed a motion last week requesting that the court order attorney John Regan, of Rochester, N.Y., to testify about conversations he had with the now-dead Coleman, once his client.

Court documents indicate Skakel's defense believes Regan has information regarding Coleman's credibility, but that a court order is required to make Regan testify because of attorney-client privilege.

The period from April 16 to April 26 has been reserved for the trial in state Superior Court in Rockville.

david.hennessey@scni.com; 203-625-4428

********************************************************

More Information
Potential witnesses for hearing in Michael Skakel case

Tony Bryant (prior testimony)
Barbara Bryant (prior testimony)
Elizabeth Coleman
Mary Coleman
Vito Collucci (prior testimony and live testimony)
Peter Coomaraswamy
Esme Dick
James Dowdle
Kevin Edwards
Richard Emanuel
Wright Ferguson
Rick Fisher
Michael Fitzpatrick
Mark Fuhrman
Frank Garr (prior testimony and live testimony)
Cliff Grubin (prior testimony)
David Grudberg
Adolph Hasbrouck (prior testimony)
Margie Walker Hauer
Richard Hoffman (prior testimony and live testimony)
Everette James (prior testimony)
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (prior testimony and live testimony)
Len Levitt (prior testimony)
Michael Meredith (prior testimony)
Crawford Mills (deceased, prior testimony)
Charles Morganti, Jr. (prior testimony)
James Murphy
Ronald Murphy
Richard J. Ofshe
Dennis Ossorio
Rick Pagnani
Graham Pettingill
John Regan
Betsy Reis
Al Robbins
Stephen Seeger
Charles Seigan (prior testimony and live testimony)
Michael Sherman (prior testimony and live testimony)
David Skakel (prior testimony)
John Skakel (prior testimony)
Julie Skakel (prior testimony)
Rushton Skakel Jr. (prior testimony)
Stephen Skakel (prior testimony)
Thomas Skakel
John Simpson (prior testimony)
Jack Solomon
Burton Tinsley (prior testimony)
Michael Udvardy (prior testimony and live testimony)
Neal Walker
Susan Wandzilak
Carl Wold (prior testimony)

14
News Items / New Lifetime TV show sending kids to scary RTCs
« on: January 11, 2013, 10:11:12 PM »
There is a new show on Lifetime called 'Teen Trouble'. It is hosted by a famous teen coach named Josh Shipp; on it, he has sent 3 kids to 'troubled teen' chains that have been investigated for child abuse and deaths, and at least one more is likely.

This show is hot hot hot, and it's picking up speed. They are now airing repeats on A&E and have announced it will be shown on Canada's Lifetime. Josh Shipp is making the rounds to Anderson Live, Good Morning America and other national talk shows, the media is praising him. Parents are watching, and no doubt some will send their kids to dangerous RTCs based on his 'expertise'.

We need your help! Please sign & share this petition to let Lifetime and Josh Shipp know that they must stop putting kids at serious risk of ill-treatment and torture: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/josh-shipp-and-lifetime-television-network-stop-placing-children-at-serious-risk-of-ill-treatment-and-torture

***********************************************************************************

MORE INFO:

Kids 1 & 2: Josh sent two kids to programs run by Aspen Education Group. Aspen has one of the worst records for child abuse, six kids have died in their programs, they are currently being sued by 31 people who say they were sexually and physically abused, and they have been the subject of DHS investigations and closures. One child was sent to Copper Canyon Academy against her will, here's what kids who went there had to say about the physical abuse, lack of medical attention and punishment if they told their parents what was happening: http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/13gugu/what_kids_who_went_to_copper_canyon_academy_had. Another kid was sent to Outback Therapeutic Expeditions: http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php?title=Outback_Therapeutic_Expeditions.
Episodes 1 & 2; Clip 1: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-1/chelsea-to-rehab
Full Episodes N/A
In-depth article about Aspen: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/dark_side_of_a_bain_success/singleton
Article about lawsuit against Aspen: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/more_former_students_of_tough.html

Kid 3: Josh referred another teen to Axios Youth Community, which closed one of their programs in June 2012 under allegations of sexual abuse of minors and attempts by management to cover it up. http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/1667m1/would_you_believe_teen_trouble_referred_yet/
Episode 4, Clip: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-4/asmaras-choice
Full Episode: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-4/episode-4-asmara

Kid 4: Plus, they used the local sheriff to arrest and lock up yet another teen in a public jail. They kept her in isolation overnight, it looked like she was there for 24 hours all together. That same episode attracted the attention of the authorities for contributing to the delinquency of a minor: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/shock_treatment_ATdCCRNggbvd0f7bmhnnNP
Episode 3, Clip: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-3/samm-in-jail
Full Episode: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-3/episode-3-samm

Kid 5: I have found evidence online that another kid will be institutionalized by the end of the season: http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/168k6i/inside_scoop_it_looks_like_josh_shipp_will/

The show airs Friday nights at 10p ET, most episodes can be watched online later. Watch them soon...Lifetime has a habit of taking them down.



***********************************************************************



The site isn't letting me make another post, so I'm just going to add to this one.....the very first article that questions Teen Trouble's use of programs with a history of abuse allegations came out yesterday:
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/reality_show_told_school_stop_sending_eXSiyTY2aAh4J3Kpn3VvDM

'Abused' teens take aim at Lifetime reality show

    By SEAN DALY
    Last Updated: 10:59 AM, January 11, 2013
    Posted: 6:30 PM, January 10, 2013

The title of Lifetime’s new series “Teen Trouble” pretty much says it all — trying to bring out-of-control kids back from the brink.

But three weeks after its premiere, the show is under fire for sending kids to youth rehab facilities with histories of abuse allegations, lawsuits and even deaths.

In last Friday’s episode, the show’s host, a teen expert and author named Josh Shipp, arranges for a 16-year-old girl with a drinking problem to attend Axios Youth Community in Colorado.

A few weeks after the episode was shot last year, Axios was shuttered amid allegations a former employee had molested a 13-year-old student.
Courtesy of Lifetime
Host Josh Shipp (left) shows a teenager around a prison.

In another episode, Shipp sends a teen heroin addict named Chelsea — against her will, but with parental consent— to Copper Canyon Academy in central Arizona for a yearlong stay.

Since the show began, dozens of former students from youth facilities across the country have been flocking online to Web sites like ccaSurvivors.com and Reddit’s “Troubled Teens” forum to share their frightening experiences.

An online petition -- posted Wednesday -- asks Lifetime president Nancy Dubuc to stop sending teens to so-called “therapeutic boarding schools.”

Former students say CCA, which is owned by Aspen Education Group, deprives students of food, water and sleep as disciplinary measures and forces some to re-enact horrific events from their lives — including their own rapes — in front of peers.

“I wan’t allowed to talk for most of the time I was there,” former student Blayke Navon, 18, who was not on the show but is one of the school’s most vocal critics, tells The Post.

Navon, who had no history of substance abuse or illegal behavior, was 15 when she was forcibly removed from her home at 5 a.m.

“Two people came into my room, woke me up and told me I needed to go with them,” she remembers. “I thought I was being kidnapped.”

CCA “is like a Nazi concentration camp,” says Navon’s mother Laurie, who yanked her daughter out after just 6 weeks. “I thought I was sending her to a top notch boarding school. She still has nightmares about it.”

Laurie Navon says the school disciplined her daughter, who was battling anorexia, by placing her on food restriction.

On “Teen Trouble,” Shipp -- who has no formal license or training -- attempts to set wayward youth straight by locking them in jail or forcing them sleep with the homeless.

After teens appear on the show, they are often offered extended treatment at residential rehab centers.

The tuition for these facilities — $6,000-$8,000 a month — is waived in exchange for Shipp’s on-air mentions, the show’s producer, Bryn Freedman, confirms.

Aspen — which boasts on its Web site of being prominently featured on “The Dr. Phil Show,” Nickelodeon’s “Nick News” and “The Tyra Show” — owns 28 facilities across the US.

Several others have closed in recent years amid allegations of misconduct.

In 2011, CCA employee Randy Young resigned after being reported for sexually abusing a student, but the center remained open.

“There are a lot of people who are reporting that they have experienced significant harm from these types of treatment facilities,” says Mary Waldon, a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois, who dropped Aspen as a sponsor of her Internet radio show last year.

“There are enough allegations that I did not want to be affiliated with that,” she says.

Other parents who have sent their kids to the Aspen facilities swear by the treatment they’re received there — pointing out the kids who are sent there can be expected to complain.

“I just take (the allegations) with a grain of salt,” Chelsea’s mom, Debra Scott, tells The Post. “These girls just didn’t want to be there in the first place.”

Scott says Chelsea has shown great improvement since enrolling at CCA and defends the school’s strict policies.

“It is teaching my daughter there are rules and consequences,” she says. “I see a future now, where before I saw a casket.”

Freedman insists that sending Chelsea to CAA does constitute an overall endorsement of the school.

“We put her there because we felt it was the best place for her,” she says. “If they had ever said anything (was inappropriate), we would have yanked her out.”

In a prepared statement CAA director Paul Taylor denied the allegations of abuse and said the safety of students is “our highest priority.”

“The reality is that our students come to us dealing with a variety of behavioral health and addiction issues, at varying levels of severity,” he said. “We offer them a structured and nurturing treatment environment with professional staff who specialize in working with adolescent girls.”

Lifetime, meanwhile, declined comment.

*****************************
COMMENTS:

Reddit TroubledTeens
If you are outraged, PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE the petition mentioned in the article to tell Lifetime & Josh Shipp to stop placing children in serious risk of ill-treatment and torture: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/josh-shipp-and-lifetime-television-network-stop-placing-children-at-serious-risk-of-ill-treatment-and-torture.
Reply · 8 · Unlike · Unfollow Post · 15 hours ago

    Reddit TroubledTeens
    Your message will go to:
    Nancy Dubuc, Lifetime Television Network - President and General Manager
    Susanne Daniels, Lifetime Television Network - President of Entertainment
    Mr. Sandy Varo, Lifetime Television Network - Vice President of Reality Programming
    Jessica Samet, Lifetime Television Network - Senior Vice President of Reality Programming
    Josh Shipp, Lifetime Television Network - Host of Teen Trouble Show
    Reply · 2 · Unlike · 15 hours ago

    Matt Hoffman · Wayneflete School
    I hope my comments here will also go to these folks . You know I've got a great idea for a television show! Who knows maybe they will get back to me , they are more than welcome to get in touch.
    Reply · 1 · Unlike · 14 hours ago

Tony Connelly · Top Commenter · Northern Kentucky University
I hate to send a mixed message but I really do like the show.... right up until the point that the kids are sent away to be "modified" in these private centers. Once the children are sent away on the show, I am OUTRAGED! The show is perfectly fine but these private (and secretive) centers are not regulated and lack oversight.

Children are permanently harmed and die in these programs. The United States Congress has investigated and proven these facts.

Abuses that occur inside cannot be reported in most cases. The psychological systems used in these facilities for youth to alter a child's thoughts hold the signature of illegal brainwashing techniques that are KNOWN to be damaging.

Positive testimonials of a teen program can be likened to that of a cult member offering praise for their cult. Especially when the parent offering the testimonial has not experienced the daily tortures associated with being brainwashed on the "inside".

My advice...Keep the show, scrap the private prisons for kids. And if you have time, take a look at the textbook practices these programs use to harm and split teen's personalities for profit : http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/brainwashing1.htm.
Reply · 2 · Unlike · Unfollow Post · 14 hours ago

Matt Hoffman · Wayneflete School
Sorry Josh Shipp, this is insane. I am outraged that you shill and send parent's children to these abusive Synanon based treatment centers. Your ignorance belies the fact that the money is worht far more , than doing the research into these hell holes and understanding what you are really doing. You are not saving lives , you are endangering children.

By your actions you are putting at risk children, in seriously dangerous situations.Putting children in coffins , you know Josh a lot of these programs have put children in real graves.What do you think it is a joke?

I am a survivor of a place called Elan. And Josh Shipp it was a brutal, sadistic, violent , soul-eating hell hole. It finally got shut down in April of 2011. Elan operated for close to 40 years. It should have been closed many many years ago, but ignorant people like yourself allowed it to destroy many, many lives.

It behooves you Josh Shipp to listen to what the survivors of these types of hell holes have been trying to tell you. You need to stop your madness and start exposing these hell holes that make money off of serial , criminal child abuse.

it is your choice and by your actions it seems like you condone and support child abuse.

Make the right choice Josh Shipp and stop endangering children by your ignorant actions.
Reply · 2 · Unlike · Unfollow Post · 15 hours ago

    Wayne Kernochan · Works at Author
    He knows and doesn't care. He's been inundated with e-mails and letters about this
    Reply · 3 · Unlike · 15 hours ago

    Matt Hoffman · Wayneflete School
    Wayne Kernochan so it is all about the money. Funny that was what it was all about at Elan. I reckon these ignorant fools care more about the money than really saving at risk children.

    Lifetime Network should be ashamed for this sick charade. To think an entire network is eye balls deep in the condoning of criminal ,sadistic ,serial child abuse. It is truly sick.

    The money must be staggering to pervert peoples values like this. The money that Elan made, made it a protected revenue generating cash cow for the state of Maine.

    Insane ,making money off of abusing children, just blows my little teeny tiny mind . Now thats a "true" story that should be told on every network. These places need to be exposed and closed, certainly not shilled and pandered.
    Reply · 1 · Like · 15 hours ago

Brian Lombrowski · Youth Involvement Specialist at New York State Office of Mental Health
It's not just that he sends kids to Synanon-based treatment centers, he uses Synanon and Synanon offshoot methodology on the show himself. It's as if his consultants are former employees of CEDU themselves.
Reply · 2 · Unlike · Unfollow Post · 15 hours ago

    Matt Hoffman · Wayneflete School
    It is sick and sad that the techniques/ methodology of a proven detrimentally abusive relic Synanon, is being used in the 21st century to treat children. It is nothing more than pure child abuse, no mater how anyone tries to spin it.
    Reply · 1 · Unlike · 14 hours ago

Bailey Guess
As an adult who is a mother of a teen now, I survived a 60 day inpatient treatment center which started in the adult ward of a hospital which resembled the old movie "One Flew Over A Cuckoos Nest" for the first couple of weeks. As a teen in the program I was never really told what was "wrong" with me. Ten years after the fact I requested my records which said I was a normal healthy adolescent on the first page! I wish I had known! I also found out that these places know the child or teen placed in the facility is the scapegoat of the familys problems! Usually they are reacting to their environment and are the healthiest one in the family. I saw things in this facility I could tell stories about for the rest of my life and watch all jaws drop as I told them. I believe getting some of these teens out of their sick environm...See More
Reply · 1 · Unlike · Follow Post · about an hour ago

Maura Curley
We must understand who runs these centers for profit. Matt is right on. He knows about Elan and the other places that offer so called " therapy."
I wrote a well researched book about Elan's founder, Joe Ricci who made approx $50 million from his center. Ricci, was ( in the words of his dying partner) a " bona fIde psychopath” who abused drugs, teenagers, sex and firearms. Ricci manipulated the media, a jury and even 60 Minutes and The New York Times, while continuing to act as a role model fro troubled adolescents.
Just look inside the free intro to " Duck in a Raincoat” on Amazon Kindle and you'll begin to understand how dangerous and manipulative people like Joe Ricci can be and the irreparable harm it can cause adolescents. Many treatments centers, like Matt said, are based on the Synanon model founded by another psychopath named Chuck Dederich.
Reply · 1 · Unlike · Follow Post · about an hour ago

Tracey Eanes Crouch · Follow · Works at Asbury Elementary School
Been in a similar place as a teen...23 years later I suffer from the abuse that happened there..I believe in helping troubled kids but there has to be a better way..
Reply · 1 · Unlike · Follow Post · 2 hours ago

15
Aspen Education Group / New Lifetime tv show sending kids to Aspen programs
« on: November 20, 2012, 02:39:59 PM »
"Teen Trouble" has just been picked up for 8 episodes on Lifetime, it officially begins 12/28/12 at 10pm ET. They recently ran two "sneak peek" episodes where the host, Josh Shipp, sent kids to Aspen facilities. The first one was hard to watch, he sent a young girl to Copper Canyon Academy in Arizona for a year. She didn't want to go & was very vocal about wanting to be included in decisions about her treatment, but he and her parents forced her. In the second episode, he sent a boy to Outback Therapeutic Expeditions in Utah for 90 days.

The second episode is still up as of right now: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-2/episode-2-jacob

It's a pretty big deal that a major network is running a show that is sending kids to programs with many online accounts of abuse, not to mention 6 kids have died in Aspen programs. We have to do something.

People are starting to organize on facebook in the various groups. Bipolar Nation is doing a series of radio shows spotlighting this. CAFETY is collecting data to file reports. Some survivors are developing CCASurvivors.com. OpLiberation has taken over the hash tag #TeenTrouble and is contacting the show's viewers.

I've put together some ideas on how people can help: http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/13affm/if_we_dont_do_something_about_teen_trouble_they/

One thing we really need is to gather as much info as possible about Copper Canyon & Outback. If any of you Research Wizards are able to pull some info together, that would be a huge help!!

I have a small start, but I know there is much, much more out there. Can anyone add to this list?
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/13affm/if_we_dont_do_something_about_teen_trouble_they/c7281la

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