Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on June 05, 2003, 04:16:00 PM
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My experience of a WWASP school, Cross Creek Center couldn't be further from what I'm reading here. I chose to do something about my teen's self-destructive path and spent months researching what was being offered outside of the juvenile justice system. I'm not rich, I'm a mom that knew that I wasn't able to do this alone. It was a very painful period in both of our lives. Daily fights about friends, school attendance and drug use. The short term fixes (therapy and medication) resulted in behavior worse than before. Did I feel like a bad parent? Yes. Was I? No! What I did for him, what I did for our family was to get the help we needed to move forward into a life of better choices. He's a smart kid, a good kid who was making stupid and destructive choices...and along the way, so was I. I found a better way in 1999. Did I want my son away from home? No. Did I fear for his choices when he was at home? Yes!
My experience: When I took him to the school, I toured, met with staff, met with both upper and lower level students. I wanted to hear everything. I saw the "time out" rooms, I asked about consequences, success rates, parent involvement and after care and academics. It felt like the right choice...our healing began. His letters to me were filled with words that he knew would pull at my maternal heartstrings. He said he was starving, he said he was being abused, he said there were bugs in the food he did get. I didn't sit back blindly and discount what he said, but I also didn't believe him. He hadn't told me the truth in 2 years. Would he start now, just days into his stay? I spoke to teens who had graduated, not only from Cross Creek, but from several other WWASP schools and found that my first instinct was true. He felt that if he told me these things, I would come and rescue him. I rescued him once by taking him there. Through personal growth seminars and an unlimited supply of support from former students and parents, I learned to be a better person, and a better parent. My son has been home for over 2 years. Is he perfect? I hope he never strives for perfection in an imperfect world. Is he successful? You bet he is. There are right and wrong choices in life. Watching my son go down the tubes was a wrong choice. Sending him away to get him back healthy was the right choice, the best choice I ever made. I invested in his life instead of a new car or the stock market during that time. What I gave up in "things" gave my son back to himself, to me and to life. There was nothing even remotely comparable that was free. As a child diagnosed with ADD and ODD his academic future was all but over when he went there. Not only did he graduate from high school, he has learned his diagnosis did not doom him to failure. He has been med free for 4 years now and has learned he can live a positive and fulfilling life. He Loves Himself - from the inside out! He has good friends that support him. We talk openly about life and love. We talk about our mistakes and what we've learned from them. It may sound cliche, but he thanked me for giving him a way to get his life back. I've made friends through my own "program" that are among the most important and meaningful friendships of my life. Cross Creek offers a whole person and a whole family holistic (body, mind and spirit) growth process. It works.
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First off, from my personal experience, WWASP has a history of filling message boards and online chats with "cookie cutter" statements written and posted by staff members. Secondly, no one ever said WWASP has never had "success stories" the only question is: how long will this "success story" last? I have read posts from former students of teen treatment facilities who are suffering 5-10 years later. Teens who live incarcerated in a WWASP style facility for 1-3 years can suffer major long term side effects that may not be visible until years later. There are studies that go way back that prove confining a child/teen in an "institutionalized" setting is very mentally damaging. One thing that i would like to straighten out is that WWASP statistics that claim a certain percentage for "success", are internal studies, NOT done by a 3rd party. This means WWASP could interview 5 staff members (probably all related) and ask them a serious of questions, then declare WWASP as having a 97% success rate. When you do internal ratings, there are no rules.
"A Southern Utah group of businesses who market a series of "specialty schools for defiant teens" both in the United States and internationally are facing additional legal troubles today. Known generically as "Teen Help" the businesses offer services to parents whose children are not "meeting expectations"or are otherwise in conflict with their families and making "destructive choices".
A complaint filed Friday, November 13, in the 10th Circuit, United States District Court, District of Utah, Central Division in Salt Lake City requests a jury trial with regard to the abuse of Celece Dochterman, a minor child, who was a resident of Cross Creek Manor in LaVerkin, Utah.
The complaint was filed on behalf of Ceta Dochterman and her daughter, Celece, for whom she is guardian ad litem, alleging negligence, negligent misrepresentation; negligent child abuse; false imprisonment; intentional infliction of emotional distress; fraud; breach of fiduciary duty, breach of implied contract, infliction of emotional distress and, in a stunning filing, violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act known euphemistically as RICO.
The filing comes at the end of the week when the organizations were forced to close one of their newer campuses in Brno, Czech Republic. Czech State Police arrested four staff members on charges of child abuse and neglect including two Americans. Charges that have been disputed by spokesperson Karr Farnsworth. Such allegations are not new in the Teen Help family of businesses and have dogged the group in Jamaica and Western Samoa."
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"Catherine was 15. She'd stopped going to school. She wasn't a bad girl - no drinking, no drugging -
she just skipped out one day and never went back.Her wealthy parents were frustrated, but money couldn't buy peace in the home. At their wit's end, they decided to send her to a boarding school. Nobody foresaw the tribulations to come, when Catharine was hauled from her North Texas home 1,050 miles away to the rocky country of rural southwest Utah - nine months of what she and her family now consider hard time in a hard place.
Catherine was sent to a boarding school run by an organization that had another school closed down
in the Czech Republic two weeks ago. Staff members were charged with child cruelty.
Catherine tells a story that, if true, might amount to child abuse. But the school sees the way she was
treated as appropriate discipline for a troubled teen-ager. This is Catherine's side of the story: It was the day before her 16th birthday. Catherine, now 17 and married, said she was handcuffed by "escorts" in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen in Henrietta, Texas, where she had been dropped off by her stepfather.
They drove her to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, flew her to Las Vegas, then took her to Cross
Creek Manor near St. George, Utah. She said she spent hours restrained, with her arms stretched
tightly behind her back. She said she had bruises on her wrists for days.
"I cried the whole time I was cuffed," said Catherine, who told her story after reading of alleged
abuses at boarding schools abroad in the Times Record News. "I was in shock. I had gotten the
idea by then that I wasn't going to a boarding school, and my parents had lied to me."
She said she felt like a prisoner.
"I wasn't drinking or doing drugs. I just wasn't going to school," the former Rider High School
student said. "I don't know why. I was just really stupid. It was a childish, immature act. It started off
I'd skip classes, then I wouldn't go all day, and then I wouldn't go at all. I was just rebelling."
Catherine's maternal grandfather, Paul, said he was shaken by his granddaughter's ordeal. He said
she was a troubled child trying to deal with an unstable family.
"Catherine had just gone through two (parental) divorces, and she was just trying to grow up," Paul
said. "When you get rid of a man out of the family, you don't know if you are going to be next. I
don't think she was on drugs, they just couldn't keep her in school." Catherine's father couldn't be reached for comment. Her mother declined to talk about what happened.
When she first got to the school, Catherine said, she was strip-searched, then dressed in drawstring
pants and a sweatshirt, and given a thin mattress on the floor. She said she was watched all night.
"I never went to sleep that night. I laid in a ball and cried all night," she said. "The next morning, girls
came out of doors everywhere. They put on their uniforms, brushed their hair and didn't talk or make eye contact with each other. They called 'silence' and no one could speak."
Catherine said calling "silence" was a way the school kept the girls from making friendships. For the
first few weeks, she had a "buddy" who never left her alone, and every room was guarded by staff
with walkie-talkies.
"I never believed in brainwashing until I got there," she said. "My therapist told me I'd been raped
and molested as a child. Over a period of months, he built this up in my mind. They had these
three-day seminars and put us in a room and told us all we had done wrong. Girls would bang
themselves on the ground, and say they hated themselves and actually believe it. I was in
therapy after I left this place because they messed so much with my head."
Catherine said she was able to speak to her parents by telephone about five times in nine months.
After eight months at the school, her father came to visit. "I think I scared him," she said of the meeting. "I just held him and cried. When I was hugging him, I said, 'Dad, please don't do this to me.' "Her father left, then returned in two weeks to take her home.Catherine and her family don't discuss her experience at the school.
"I don't think they realized what type of school it was," her grandfather said. "They'd like to forget it.
I think her mother is very remorseful. It almost caused me to commit a felony. I wanted to go up
there and break her out. The school would tell them she wasn't ready yet to get out. She had to
advance to these levels, and they wouldn't advance her to the level so they could see her.
"They (Catherine's parents) don't want to talk about it. They say it's done and over with. But it's not
done with this child. She's got to live with it. I don't think her daddy could apologize a thousand
times and she get over it." That's Catherine's story.
A Cross Creek Manor administrator tells a different story. In it, Catherine, rather than a victim, is a
manipulator who mistook discipline for abuse. "What she is saying about academics is absurd," said Karr Farnsworth, president of the World Wide Association of specialty programs, the organization that operates Cross Creek Manor and other residential schools in Montana, Mexico, North Carolina, Jamaica and Western Samoa.
"The school is for kids not making it in the community or at home," Farnsworth said. "They are
usually not going to school or not cooperating with their parents. Some have been involved in drugs
and alcohol." Farnsworth acknowledged that the school is a structured, controlled environment with strict rules. Farnsworth confirmed much of what Catherine said about Cross Creek Manor, but denied there is any cruel treatment or "brainwashing."
He said some children are handcuffed when they come to the facility, but only if they're a danger to
themselves. He said he doesn't believe much of Catherine's story. Former students who did not like Cross Creek tend to tell "a little truth and embellish on it and tell some lies," he said. He acknowledged that misbehaving children are put into isolation. But Farnsworth called it being put
in "time out." Students also don't have their hands tied, he said. New students have a "buddy" with them at all times, but they are allowed to go to the bathroom, shower and sleep by themselves, he said.
Telephone conversations between students and their parents are monitored, but by a therapist in
conjunction with psychological treatment. "We don't brainwash, ever. I've heard the comment before, but it's not an accurate statement," Farnsworth said. "When the kids are doing well, the cynics say we must have brainwashed them. We are giving them tools and an opportunity to correct."
But complaints about such schools aren't isolated to Cross Creek Manor. Recent national attention
has been focused on an organization that runs schools out of St. George. The consortium is known
by various names: Teen Help, World Wide Association and Adolescent Services International. It
sends kids, sometimes shackled and surrounded by guards, to facilities in Mexico, Samoa and
Jamaica, the Denver Rocky Mountain News recently reported.
Fifty-seven American children were freed from the Morava Academy in the Czech Republic after
police investigated complaints of abuse, the newspaper reported. Several staff were charged with
child cruelty.
"These are not boarding schools. . . . These are like lock-down prisons," said Alexia Parks, a
Colorado business woman who runs a Web site about the schools for concerned parents.
But Farnsworth said Parks has her own personal agenda and is misinformed. He dismissed
complaints about the organization he runs and said the children are simply lying. As for Catherine, he said, "She doesn't want to admit that her parents made a good choice to help her at a time when she needed the help. Some day she will see that."
http://www.teenliberty.org/school_horror_story.htm (http://www.teenliberty.org/school_horror_story.htm)
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You know, I decided to read the other parts of this web site and realized that it was created to stop any parent from getting help in the form of residential placement. So, no matter what positive experiences the thousands of families in and out of a WWASP school have had, it will be discounted by quotes from newspaper articles.
Stop the Abuse??? That's what I did when I admitted my son to Cross Creek Center. My question: Why are a few kids crying abuse when the majority (1000's) are not? Why is there a proven 94% success rate (yes proven) I'm sure you can find a way to discount these questions. If there has ever been a proven case of abuse, then I might take notice.
I'm not a staff member - I came to this site because a friend is admitting her daughter to Casa by the Sea and saw this site in a web search. She laughed about it because she knows my son and has met other teens so she knows it's full of stuff here. I've read posts from supposed former students saying the same ol' same ol' and get that most teens aren't sitting around at a site like this. Just my observation, though not proveable.
Keep quoting news articles. Most are OLD news that have proven to be inaccurate but are still out there. Don't you just love the world wide web?!
PS: I don't drink Kool-Aid. I prefer water - no additives or flavor to cloud the benefits.
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The 94% success rate you quoted, can you tell me where that figure came from? In other words, who actually polled the parents of former students?
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Hi Carey:
My mistake. It's a 96% rate. It's gone up. Anyway, it's an independent company out of Ohio from what I remember. I'm sure I could find out more specifics. They called me after my son had been home 6 months, then again at 2 years. Don't ask me to figure out how they determine the percentage though. I do know that our local support group has about that percentage - just in our group from recent to 5 years ago (that's how old our support group is.) I do know that no one has ever needed the warranty - which is that if your teen reverts to old behaviors before 18 you can readmit for 2 months free of tuition.
I know that one of the reasons it's so high is that most everyone takes advantage of the after-care option. This consists of weekly calls to work on areas like communication and moving forward as a family unit. There's also after-care mini-workshops to look at any issues that may be coming up.
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well, i consider a staff member one who receives $1,000 for every teen they refer to a WWAPS program. Its one thing to refer someone to buy tupperware, but to profit off the incarceration of teens is just wrong.
i would like to know the name of this company that does the 3rd party statistics. If it is actually another company i wouldnt be surprised if it was owned by a Lichfield.
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Please find out the name of the company who does the polling. I myself have personally asked Ken Kay to provide me with their name so that I could verify their method and accuracy. For some reason, he can't even give me their name. Hmm...I would be real impressed if you can get it for me.
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Most polls--even independent polls-- are not considered reliable research evidence. Case in point: The DARE anti-drug program reliably gets 90% or more support in polls by parents and kids.
But when you compare the drug use rates of DARE participants to non-participants, they are equal-- ie, DARE doesn't work. it makes parents and kids feel good-- but it doesn't stop anyone taking drugs.
"independent" research means nothing. What you want is *controlled research published in a peer-reviewed journal with a large sample and having been replicated*
Why controlled? Because since most adolescents (even very disturbed ones) outgrow their problems without treatment, you need to have a non-treatment (or different treatment) control group to see if you are making any improvement over the natural recovery rate or to see if you are making things worse.
Why published in a peer reviewed journal? Because peer review usually rules out studies that are flawed by lack of adequate controls, biased samples (a clever trick: don't count dropouts in measuring your success rate), etc.
Why a large sample? Because small samples can give results that look like success by chance too often.
Why replicated? Same reason.
If you look at the literature on confrontational, restrictive, residential treatment, you will find that it fails when studied in this way. It reduces the natural recovery rate.
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"There are no accidents" WWASP is under fire.
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This website exists for discussion of the issues surrounding this industry. Unlike the WWASP forums and those run by Lon Woodbury on struggling teens, these forums are uncensored and free to all.
There are plenty of WWASP parents out there who are so incredibly brainwashed that they believe they did the right thing by sending their kid to the program even when their kid has committed suicide when they are told they are being sent back for that free 2 months.
I love how the parents who never question WWASP all have the same mentality. That is the mentality that the kid exists solely to make you happy and is not a person unto himself. He is not allowed to make mistakes, to choose his own destiny. His failures can be blamed conveniently on his own character defects and his peer group, but his successses are credited to his parents and the program.
If your son told you tommorrow that he no longer believes the program helped him would you even believe him, of course not?
That case with the mother who sent both her kids to WWASP and her son killed himself rather than be sent back. She continues to believe it was the best thing she ever did for them even though one kid killed himself and her daughter has no contact with her at all. She does not even know where she lives. But it was the best thing for them both. Oh and the mother is a nurse, an educated person with a profession. That alone represents the ability of WWASP to brainwash parents as well as the kids. The kids are brainwashed through physically and mentally breaking them down until they are unable to resist and the adults are brainwashed because they are so eager to believe.
I pity you. But while your making a commission convincing other parents to make your same mistakes and abuse their own children I must also hate you.
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On 2003-06-06 15:23:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Hi Carey:
My mistake. It's a 96% rate. It's gone up. Anyway, it's an independent company out of Ohio from what I remember. I'm sure I could find out more specifics. They called me after my son had been home 6 months, then again at 2 years. Don't ask me to figure out how they determine the percentage though. I do know that our local support group has about that percentage - just in our group from recent to 5 years ago (that's how old our support group is.) I do know that no one has ever needed the warranty - which is that if your teen reverts to old behaviors before 18 you can readmit for 2 months free of tuition.
I know that one of the reasons it's so high is that most everyone takes advantage of the after-care option. This consists of weekly calls to work on areas like communication and moving forward as a family unit. There's also after-care mini-workshops to look at any issues that may be coming up. "
:smokin:
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On 2003-06-06 22:30:00, FaceKhan wrote:
I love how the parents who never question WWASP all have the same mentality. That is the mentality that the kid exists solely to make you happy and is not a person unto himself. He is not allowed to make mistakes, to choose his own destiny. His failures can be blamed conveniently on his own character defects and his peer group, but his successses are credited to his parents and the program.
If your son told you tommorrow that he no longer believes the program helped him would you even believe him, of course not?
This is not something any WWASP parent would say or even think. I am the only one that can make ME happy. I can be happy FOR my son and be very proud of him, but his choices are his, not mine. His successes have absolutely nothing to do with me. He is successful for himself. period. He doesn't need my approval, but he does ask my view on things. He's 18 now and in the 2 years since he's been back home he learned some valuable life lessons. Yes, there are times when I've felt like going into a rescue mode, but so far I haven't. If it were life-threatening - I would have in a heartbeat. We've both learned so much more from letting go and knowing we were exactly where we needed to be to learn those lessons.
If my son ever says he doesn't believe in the Program, then that's his choice. He's my son, not a puppet or someone I wish to control. His life threatening choices had me to where I chose to do something about it before his young life ended in one way or the other - and no,I'm not a fortune teller, I listened to my gut feeling.
If classifying me as brainwashed, or part of a cult justifies your view, that's okay. I don't take it personally.
P.S. Moving forward means not dwelling on the past, getting stuck in negative energy and "what if's."
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Moving forward means justice and WWASP is way overdue for a taste of it.
I do wonder though, how come all of the sudden with so much bad press for WWASP are all the supporters coming out of the woodwork. This board has been well known to WWASP for some time and they have posted here on occasion almost always as some happy parent with a success story. Lately though we have at least four or five new anonymous posters who can even write and argue above the usual WWASP fourth grade level. They are even pleasant to the point you just want to reach across the internet and slap them.
I guess they must have increased their propoganda budget.
I would certainly agree that a dose of the cult prisoner lifestyle certainly reinforced how good some of these kids have it at home but I doubt severely if any of these so-called success stories are any more than propoganda or at the least are greatly exaggerated.
WWASP parents always say their kid is doing fantastic at the program, even when they have not seen them for 2 years. I would not doubt that many parents of former inmates insist their kid is doing fantastic out in the world as well, even when they never see them either.
One thing I almost never see is a former inmate who is out of the program for some time and in no danger of being sent back say anything positive about it. And when that does happen it is usually an anonymous poster with the angry unstable rantings and personal attacks that indicate a WWASP staff person, not a former "student" is responsible for the post.
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No greater love hath a man, then he lay down his life for his brother, not for millions, not for glory, not for fame, for one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.
[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-06-09 21:25 ]
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WWASP is just doing damage control. But you never know if these are really parents speaking or WWASP staff.
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Often they are one and the same. The parents are offered 1000 bucks or a free month of tuition for recruiting others. In addition they are paid if positive letters to the editor or editorials are published.
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I am a former student of Cross Creek Manor. To answer one of your questions. Former students are scared. The program has told them 24 hours every day that what the student is doing is wrong and what the program says is right. For instance, if I were to complain about ANYTHING in the program I would be accused of lying and not taken seriously because I was a troubled youth, thats what makes these programs so dangerous. Many teens who get out don't want to talk about it cause either they want to forget or they are scared and second guess themselves. Once getting out of Cross Creek I was waiting for someone to tell me how to think, none of my thoughts were original. If I had an original thought and it was disputed I would back down. That is how we are trained. We are trained to remain silent and to trust the program. I am worse off emotionally now than I was going into the program. Not to say that there aren't any success stories. I relapsed but am successfully in college and playing soccer. The program did not help or prevent anything, it made my life harder. I just don't want any more kids there, I don't want revenge. I either want the programs to not exist or to be fed. regulated. Eventhough the fed. regulation would just be a start cause the gov. doesnt always pull through.
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I agree with the above post. These programs and Cross Creek in particular are not good. They are brainwashing and mentally abusive. They take away your identity to mold you into what kind of person they think you should be and then if you question their views or ideas you are "manipulative" or "non working". Programs are a loose losse situation. I have friends who still think the program helped them but they are more screwed up then the kids who dont. They live dishonest and dramatic lives. At least those of us who are telling the truth about these places have nothing to hide. Thanks to being out of that hell hole, I am finding out who I am and being who I was meant to be, not some replica of a program kid. And did you people who "agree" with the program ever think that the ideals and attitudes of the program might not be good ones? I mean you send your kid there or go there yourself to "change your attitude" but what are you changing your attitude to? Just because you think "drug" music is bad, dosnt mean it is. Just because "dressing innapropriatly" is bad in your eyes, it is an opinion not fact. However the program tries to make their opinions and ideas into facts which is just wrong. I am so glad I am no longer a brainwashed kid, constantly scared of screwing up. I feel more free than ever and I give none of the credit to the program. And one other thing, the programs relapse prevention is a joke. They have no clue what they are doing.
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Like the Topic says Practice what you teach. DO you not give credit to what you have seen and what you been through? Are you that ashamed to what you have been through? Everything you see and hear and do shapes who you are and the more you make this an issue the more credit you actually give to WWASP in many people eyes. The idea of the program was to change a behavioral pattern. Did it do that? Probably. So did it work? Man,,, logic always interferes with emotions.
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Regarding the original post- I don't get when people say ADD or ODD. Is it really a medical problem when a kid doesn't want to pay attention or is easily distracted? Or is it just part of being a kid? Is being defiant and oppositional really a disorder? Or is it just a personality trait?
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Seriously. What isn't a mental disorder these days?
I suppose they need to create a disorder in order to sell you the medicine.
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On 2005-07-28 00:14:00, Anonymous wrote:
"The idea of the program was to change a behavioral pattern. Did it do that? Probably."
Yes, it did change my behavior pattern. When I got out, I did worse drugs than I ever did before I went. I came out pissed off, defensive and very paranoid.
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I've heard of a lot of people getting way heavy into drugs after getting out of a program. I got really OCD... It's weird for some reason I was SO AFRAID of burning the house down leaving a stove burner on or a cigarette going or something... I'd check the locks over, and over, and over again running up two stories to do it... I guess that's what happens when you never get to go outside or have anything burning in the lockdown, when you get out you become afraid that you're going to forget about them....
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Hyper vigilant. It's like living all your life with a superstitious parent who teaches you that bad things will happen if you step on a crack or let a black cat cross your path.
Fear based conditioning. It will wear off if you keep reminding yourself that it doesn't make sense, and 'good' therapy can help expidite the process, emphasis on 'good'. It just amounts to re-writing the damaging software they installed.
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On 2005-07-28 15:53:00, Anonymous wrote:
Is being defiant and oppositional really a disorder? Or is it just a personality trait?
Or is it situational? (that's shrink code for normal response to a fucked up situation)
The much vaunted founding fathers of this great nation were extremely oppositional and defiant. Were they disordered? How about those heretical Quakers? Here's a nice read on those dysfunctional lunatics and their opposition and defiance of authority:
http://www.mises.org/story/1865 (http://www.mises.org/story/1865)
Just spend a little time engaging w/ some of the parents who buy into this industry. Put yourself in their kids' shoes. In most cases, I can't imagine living w/ these people under their authority and not either walking quickly and permanently away from them or putting one of their heads through a wall.
To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy.
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