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/singletonArticle about lawsuit against Aspen:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/more_former_students_of_tough.htmlKid 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-choiceFull Episode:
http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-4/episode-4-asmaraKid 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_ATdCCRNggbvd0f7bmhnnNPEpisode 3, Clip:
http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-3/samm-in-jailFull Episode:
http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/teen-trouble/video/season-1/episode-3/episode-3-sammKid 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.
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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.
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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