Fornits

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

Elisabeth Stubblefield
 Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 12:01 am
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In early 1995, I was 16 years old and had just been discharged from a private psychiatric hospital in Pontiac, Michigan. While in the hospital I was treated for depression and an eating disorder. I lived with my Mom, who was divorced from my Dad. My Mom was increasingly worried about my emotional health and decided she wanted me to spend what she told me would be "just a few weeks" at Cross Creek Manor. I flew to St. George, Utah voluntarily under the assumption that I would be there for no longer than 6 weeks, because that's what my Mom had promised.
Imagine how scared and upset I was to land at the tiny airport in St. George late at night to find no one there to meet me. My Mom had said I would be met by some people who would take me to Brightway Adolescent Hospital. I called my Mom from a pay phone and told her that there was no one at the airport to meet me. This should have been the first of many red flags for her. She called Brightway and about an hour later a nurse showed up in a van, accompanied by a big male technician. When I arrived at Brightway, I was shocked by the rigid, controlling, cruel atmosphere. There were about 17 other kids there, boys and girls, from all areas of the country. We were not allowed to talk to each other and if we did, we were punished by having to write an "essay" explaining why it was wrong to break the rules. I thought this was a little excessive, given the fact that teenagers are social and like to make friends. I also thoght it was excessive that we could not even enter a room without first asking a staff member, "May I cross?" Every tiny thing we did wrong, from having a wrinkle in our bedsheets to spending thirty seconds too long in the shower, was punishable by having to write an essay.
I was kind of confused as to why my Mom would choose to put me in this type of environment when I was dealing with depression and bulimia. I had never been involved with gangs, had trouble with the law, or been sexually promiscuous as had many of the other kids. Every single staff member at Brightway at that time, with the exception of 3 or 4 nurses and one psychologist, was male. The male staff were rude, cruel, and manipulated their power over us. On many, many occasions I watched staff members yell, shout, and generally berate the kids who were entrusted to their care. Once I watched four big males "take down" a skinny 15-year old boy because the boy turned his back to them while they were berating him. There was a seclusion room with a bed that had two belts across it. One belt went across the chest area and one went across the legs when a child was said to be "out of control." I am a nurse today and this form of restraint is illegal in my state, as is locking a patient in a seclusion room, even if the patient is "out of control." The technicians at Brightway would regularly threaten us with the seclusion room.
After four weeks of hell at Brightway, myself and two other girls were taken by van to remote La Verkin, Utah, home of Cross Creek Manor. Conditions there were no better than they had been at Brightway. Staff members were mean and manipulative. I had the feeling that a lot of the staff were on a "power trip," so to speak. Quite a few of them were young, not many years older than the teenage girls they were in charge of. I will never forget one disgusting male technician, a huge red-haired guy named Adrian, who was particularly fond of intimidating us. His sister Andrea worked there as well and she was equally sadistic.
During my first week at "the Manor" as we called it, some of the veteran girls gave me some very valuable information. They told me that I would be there for a much longer time than I had believed. I learned that my Mom had been encouraged to lie to me about staying only 6 weeks. Many of the girls had been told the exact same thing by their parents, including girls who had been there almost 18 months. Naturally, I was really upset to learn this, but having been tricked into going there was not nearly as traumatizing as having been "kidnapped." I remember one very sweet, friendly girl named Polly, who was from the San Juan islands of Washington state. She was walking down the street in her hometown when 3 strangers physically grabbed her and forced her into a van. She was driven to St. George, the whole time she said she felt very angry at her parents for helping plan the whole thing. The veteran girls also informed me that my parents were paying $150 a day to keep me at the Manor, that the Manor and Brightway were both owned by the same for-profit group, and that this was big business. In other words, some people were making lots and lots of money on the backs of troubled teens and our parents. I was also warned not to write home to my Mom about how bad conditions were at Cross Creek. If a girl were to mention in a letter to her parents that staff members were abusive and that we were seldom served anything but macaroni and cheese for dinner every night, there could be big consequences, such as having to spend an entire day locked in a seclusion room. It was pointless to complain to our parents anyway, because parents were warned in advance that we would complain of such things as a "guilt tactic."
So the parents were really the fools in all of this. They believed they had sent their unruly, out-of-control daughters off to be gently redirected, when in reality, we were being treated very, very poorly. About a month after arriving at Cross Creek, it was time for me to attend my first "Seminar." The seminar was run by a lady named Jeannie and she was assisted by some of the veteran girls, or "student staffers." I will never forget having to stand before my peers and have them scream and shout at me about my "issues." My Mom had sent me there to get help for depression and bulimia, but Jeannie said she did not believe me. She told me that I was "sitting on something much bigger." It seemed to me as the seminar progressed that she was kind of encouraging us to come up with other "issues", encouraging to make things up. Jeannie continued to berate me and tell me I was "full of crap" until I decided to share with the group that I thought I "might" have been sexually abused as a child. When I shared this bit of information, her attitude toward me changed and she said that I had "arrived." I thought it was strange how bringing up the possibility of sexual abuse made everything change. It was really as if they wanted us to come up with fake "issues." During one seminar exercise we had to beat a towel against a chair as a means of venting frustration. There's nothing creepier than being in a room full of screaming teenage girls whaling towels against chairs.
After graduating from the first seminar, we were forced to attend a second seminar led by Jeannie's ex-husband, David. The central theme of the seminars seemed to be ripping us completely apart, then trying to "build us back up." What I remember most about the second seminar was the way David treated a girl named Melissa. She was forced to stand in front of all her peers and he told her she was being "kicked out" of the seminar. Melissa was one of my roommates at that time and it was extremely painful for me to watch her be humiliated in front of everyone. When David had finished yelling at her, he invited the student staffers to continue to humiliate her by hurling insults and accusations at her. She was very quiet and depressed after that incident, and I was happy when her parents took her home before she had to go through the seminar again.
In October of 1996, 6 months after she had tricked me into going to Utah, my Mom flew in from Michigan for a visit. During her stay, she was informed that my Dad had not paid Cross Creek any money in almost 3 months. They told her that they would keep me if she made a payment that day, but my Mom had made up her mind that my Dad should be responsible for paying them, even though he'd had nothing to do with me going there. She was so adamant that I needed to go there, but when she was put on the spot to make a payment out of her own pocket, she refused to do it. I was released that very day. 9 years later, I look back on that time in my life with a mixture of emotions. Disgust at how our parents were deceived into paying thousands of dollars, thinking that their daughters would be miraculously "cured." Sadness at how few of the girls made any improvement whatsoever. Longing because I made some really good friends at Cross Creek and have no idea what became of them. We were forbidden to exchange addresses or phone numbers. If we were found to possess a friend's address, there would be severe consequences. I remember a really nice girl and dear friend named Leslie Suarez from Arlington, Texas, Lindsay Lazarus from Dallas, Texas, Shelley Karn from Las Vegas, Nevada, Kim Stout from Malibu, California, Katie Goode from San Diego, California, Nicole Krieger from San Leandro, California, Shelley Anteshevich from West Bloomfield, Michigan, Michelle Harbottle from Anchorage, Alaska, and Carrie Baake from Seattle, Washington. My name at that time was Elisabeth Thomas. If any of you girls should happen to see this, know that I still remember each and every one of you. I wish you all the very best and hope that life has been good since those dark days at the Manor.
I got married in 1999 and went on to graduate from nursing school. I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
 [ This Message was edited by: BuzzKill on 2004-09-27 18:24 ]

name withheld
 Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 12:46 am
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I understand what these boy are saying 100% I havce been a staff member at majestic ranch academy (UT) for sometime and am currently doing my best to see that the place is shut down. I can attest to the facts that students at this establishment are continually neglected, mistreated and downright ABUSED both physically and mentally. The administration cares nothing about the welfare of the students or thier progress, on more than one occasion, I have seen students doing very well (too well) slammed down to level one from level 3 or even 4 for no reason at all, except of course for the fact the buisness loses money if a student is able to graduate in half the time that it "normally" takes. I myself have heard the assistant director, Wayne Winder tell a 14 year old boy that he was stupid, would never graduate and all we were doing was milking his parent's money. the average staff to student ratio at MR is 1 to 10 on a good day. These students are supposed to be learning how to take care of a ranch and care for animals right? Wrong. They very rarely have any contact with animals on the ranch, ALL of which are in very poor condition. The owner of the ranch, Dan Peart has been known to shoot dogs because the students pet them. One of my students told me one day that while working with Dan he witnessed him (dan) drag a live llama on the ground behind a horse at a full run for quite a distance. after he stopped, he tied the wounded animal to a fence and left it, telling the boys,"I don't care if you kill that damn ting" I have heard stories from other students of dan stopping his truck, (with boys inside) pulling a rifle from behind his seat to shoot deer and leave their bodies where they lay. Is this how we should teach children to care for animals? There are so many problems with this company, it is a truly terrible enviroment for children. If you have been thinking about sending your child to a wwasp program, DON'T DO IT!!!!! And if you have children in a program, YOU ARE BEING LIED TO AND YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE!!! For their sake please pull them from wwasp programs as soon as possible. I promise you that all the staements on this message are 100% factual

//why not write to the SLT and straighten them out. //
 KC, your post would be a great submission to the opinion section of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Mexico Shuts Tough-Love Center

September 26, 2004
By TIM WEINER

A behavior-modification program for American adolescents is
 back in business in Jamaica after its 300 teenagers there
 were evacuated in the teeth of a hurricane.

 But the president of the association overseeing the program, Ken Kay, said he remained mystified  federal officials' decision to shut down an affiliated center, Casa by the Sea, in Ensenada, Mexico, with about 550 youths.

 Mr. Kay, president of the World Wide Association of
 Specialty Programs and Schools, said a raid on Casa two
 weeks ago was unjustified.

 The authorities have said that the children in the
 behavior-modification program, overwhelmingly Americans,
 were in Mexico in violation of immigration statutes, that
 the program was improperly dispensing pharmaceuticals and
 that four children showed signs of abuse.

 Mr. Kay said that "there were no substantiated cases of
 abuse," immigration violations or major problems with
 pharmaceuticals.

 The programs had more than 2,200 children enrolled in
 Mexico, Jamaica and the United States before the raid, and
 are among the fastest-growing private behavior-modification
 programs in the world.

 Many parents and children praise the group's standards,
 which can include prolonged isolation and, by many
 accounts, tough physical and psychological treatment. But
 it also has many critics.

 The program in Jamaica, called Tranquility Bay, is run by
 Mr. Kay's son, Jay Kay. Housed in a converted hotel on the
 island's southern shore, it sustained several hundred
 thousand dollars of damage when Hurricane Ivan hit it two
 weeks ago, a spokesman said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/inter ... d6e6d8f4de


My question is; if this is so:

The program in Jamaica, called Tranquility Bay, is run by Mr. Kay's son, Jay Kay. Housed in a converted hotel on the island's southern shore, it sustained several hundred thousand dollars of damage when Hurricane Ivan hit it two weeks ago, a spokesman said.

Then how can the place be fit to occupy?

This is sad and disappointing if its true.
I for one, very much like and respected Mr. Harriss and I am hardly alone in this.
If true, it is proper and right that he be fired and I can only say I wish WWASP was as responsible and concerned for their students as Casa Alanza has proven to be.
How many raped students has WWASP produced? How many were paid for sex? We'll never know, because WWASP condones it and covers it up. I heard Ken Kay himself, say from the witness stand, if the sex was consensual between staff and student he didn't think it was abuse. He admitted not even filing a report; much less instigating an investigation; when this very thing happened at his boy's school in Jamaica.

What Bruce is charged with is sad and disappointing; but it does not rise to the level of raping a student; or paying one for sex. The 19 year old was not under Bruce's authority; as is the case with the "consenting" student. Nor was he a minor. And it certainly wasn't rape - IF it happened at all.

Some of us do wonder. . .
The notion the whole thing might be a setup has been discussed. The timing seems suspicious, what with Casa having just been closed. Some of you will recall how aggravating Bruce was for them when Dundee fell. I'm aware, he seems to have admitted it; But consider, anyone might, if  for
instance, their family was threatened. If you can't be bought - maybe you can be intimidated into silence.
The young man could have been bribed for a statement. . .
Bruce threatened.
I know it seems far fetched - but there is more.
A reporter looking at the story called Casa Alanza,  and was told by Casa Alanza not to mess with WWASP.
Now Why would Casa Alanza say such a thing?

Maybe they know something they don't feel free to explain.

But whatever the case - it is sad and disappointing.

My puzzlement comes from the fact it took so long for the story to see ink; and that the wider story of bought Influence in the political arena hasn't received coverage in the mass media market.
I was reading just last night (again) about the ambassador to Italy and how he got his job.
This might be the "other" program worth looking at, but it wouldn't likely show up in the Salt Lake Tribune.
But, as the Utah people do pour cash into republican coffers for Federal elections; it seems like a story ripe for telling and I wonder why Dan hasn't latched onto it? Its much more interesting and compelling than what a man did 30+ years ago; weather he went to war or not. Smoked pot or not. If he is taking blood money (and thats my opinion of what it amounts to) to provide favor and a blind eye to crime - Well, now, thats a story.

Fear of loosing my identity.

Fear of being re-made in someone else's image of what/who I should be.

Do a little research into Large Group Awareness Training seminars.

They are intended to challenge old beliefs all right - but replace them with what?

I happen to be very comfortable and happy with my personal beliefs and don't need some self proclaimed enlightened, tolerant, angry, rude guru stripping me of them, and replacing them with their idea of whats better.

Neither do you, or all those doctors and lawyers and other intelligent persons.

But The Program needs you too; and so you go, because you must; because everyone whose been, says you must; and you get what your meant to get from it, a whole new you, that Trust the Program absolutely, and is very happy about it.

Think about it Pal.

By the Way, intelligence offers no protection against brainwashing. None what so ever.