Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) => Topic started by: thomasC on March 22, 2011, 08:31:28 AM
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Seems like I've heard this story somewhere before...
English article:
http://http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/march/22/costarica11032204.htm
PANI Rescues 20 Young Americans Who Suffered Various Attacks
The Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI) - Costa Rica's child welfare agency - says it rescued on Monday a group of 20 American minors who allegedly received psychological and physical abuse by managers of a reformatory in Puntarenas.
The academy "Teen Mentor" has been operating since 2010 in the Hotel Carra in Tarcoles de Garabito, Puntarenas.
The PANI took the action to intervene following complaints from three psychologists at the academy. Ten children were transferred directly to a PANI shelter, while the case is still in under investigation.
Parents paid from us$600 per month to keep their children between the ages of 13 and 18 in the program.
PANI officials say all the youths found in the academy on Monday were all Americans.
Jorge Urbina, manager of the PANI, told the media on Monday that the U.S. Embassy in San José was in the process of notifying all the parents to come get theri children.
http://http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-22/Sucesos/NotaPrincipal/Sucesos2722171.aspx
Need someone to translate this one. Some details from this article according to some machine translation:
The academy was closed after complaints from three psychologists who had worked at the program to PANI.
There were 21 minors in the program
The allegations involve physical and psychological abuse, isolation, severed communication between students and their families, lack of medical supervision, lack of proper education, lack of recreation programs promised by the school's advertising
The program lacked the proper permits to operate in Costa Rica
The corporation registered as owning the school lists Robert Walter Lichfield as owner, article speculates as to relationship between this person and former PIllars of Hope/Dundee Ranch (also raided by authorities) owner Narvin Lichfield
A PANI official is quoted saying that children were forced to sign a document stating they were at the school of their own free will, threatened with 8 days in an isolation room if they did not comply.
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Wow. Seems like that place just opened!
The corporation registered as owning the school lists Robert Walter Lichfield as owner, article speculates as to relationship between this person and former PIllars of Hope/Dundee Ranch (also raided by authorities) owner Narvin Lichfield
I guess Costa Rica must be gettin' hip to the Lichfields... :D
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PANI as well as the Costa Rican government in general is sending these fiends a message
YOU WILL NOT DO HERE WHAT THEY DON'T LET YOU DO AT HOME REGARDING MINORS
Although Lichfield(Dundee Ranch)was acquitted,the prosecutors really tried to nail his ass to the wall and he had to wait in jail until his acquittal.I don't think he'll be returning anytime soon.
Unfortunately they'll probably friendlier confines in Nicaragua where Daniel Ortega and his cohorts are not above taking a bribe for any reason.It's corrupt here as well,but they do have their
limits.
PURA VIDA
Sam
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Just finished reading the La Nacion link
Según el encargado de mantenimiento del hotel, en el momento de la intervención del PANI “los encargados de Teen Mentor se fueron y los jóvenes quedaron solos”, aseguró
These assholes ran off and abandoned these kids waiting for the PANI(Child Welfare)like Nazi guards running off at a concentration camp.This could have been a very dangerous situation for the wrong kid at the wrong time(retribution,gang activity).These people are real bastards and hopefully INTERPOL will get involved and find these scumbags.They are criminals,they know it,and they're looking for a safe haven to continue their barbaric acts.
I am enraged
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We first heard about the program late 2010, so it is new. It is a former hotel and the owners did not inform the guests that the hotel had been sold according to some traveling webpages.
Before the web-publishers did get a hand on the webpage you could read from the preferences that the owner was "Red River Academy".
We were able to get a computer location with an electronic match between google maps and the photos from the webpage which led us to the precise location and there is a datasheet on the Fornits Wiki about this program (http://http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php?title=Mentor_School). The news about the raid will go on the datasheet as soon as possible.
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Although Lichfield(Dundee Ranch)was acquitted,the prosecutors really tried to nail his ass to the wall and he had to wait in jail until his acquittal.I don't think he'll be returning anytime soon.
No - not so. Not at all. What makes you think that?
Several pertinent paragraphs in article below:
11/28/2003
Dundee Case Still Worries U.S. Parents
By Tim Rogers
Tico Times Staff
SIX months after the closure of Dundee Ranch Academy, tough-love program owner Narvin Lichfield of Utah once again is a free man.
The restrictions on his freedom, imposed by a Costa Rican judge May 23 following Lichfield’s brief arrest on allegations of children’s rights abuse, expired last Sunday and prosecutor Marielos Alfaro said she doesn’t see a need to request a six-month extension of his prohibition on leaving the country.
Lichfield, who is currently enrolled in Spanish classes as he plans to reopen his academy under a different name and a gentler, therapeutic model, insists he is not going to leave the country to avoid the on-going investigation.
"I am still confused what I was arrested for in the first place," Lichfield said with a laugh, adding that the truth soon will absolve him of abuse charges.
"The truth is the most important thing. Was it true that kids were abused? I admit, there were a lot of things that happened [at Dundee] that I didn’t know about, but I don’t think there really was [abuse]," Lichfield told The Tico Times this week.
MEANWHILE, a growing number of parents of former academy students in the United States are expressing concern that the investigation here into what happened at Dundee has been shelved, and that charges will not be pressed against Lichfield.
Distanced by a couple thousand miles, an unfamiliar judicial system and a language barrier, some of the U.S. parents say they are feeling powerless.
For several months, a group of 12 former Dundee students has been prepared to return to Costa Rica to testify to allegations of physical and emotional mistreatment suffered at the hands of former Dundee staff.
But no court date has been set by the prosecutor or the judge, and the parents are hesitant to fly their children down unannounced.
"I am concerned that when parents have tried to call the prosecutor’s office, they are told ‘No English!’ and hung up on," said Karen Burnett, mother of a former Dundee student.
Prosecutor Alfaro admits that no one in her office speaks English, but said that former students can come down to Costa Rica anytime to give their testimony. They will be received with "no problem," she said.
LOCATED on the remote grounds of a former eco-hotel about 15 kilometers from the Pacific-slope community of Orotina, Dundee Ranch Academy was an affiliate of the Utah-based WorldWide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP). The non-therapeutic behavior-modification facility, home to 200 troubled teenagers mostly from the United States, was operated under the philosophy of "identify your incorrect behavior, and stop doing it," according to Lichfield.
But some of the methods Dundee staff members used to help wayward teens identify their "incorrect behavior" -- including solitary confinement, physical restraint and allegations of drug-induced sedation -- were blasted by critics as abusive (TT, Oct. 25, 2002; Jan. 17, March 14).
Last May, the mother of one Dundee student filed a complaint with the Atenas Prosecutor’s Office, where Prosecutor Fernando Vargas was substituting for the regular prosecutor who was on vacation. Vargas immediately asked Judge Gabriela Saborío to authorize a government intervention of Dundee.
The interventions, which occurred on May 20 and 22, spiraled out of control when Vargas tried to explain to the children their rights under Costa Rican law. Several dozen youth escaped from the campus, while others rioted and vandalized the facility.
Lichfield was detained for 24 hours before being released on conditional freedoms. He closed the academy May 24 and the students were whisked back to their parents in the United States or to other WWASP programs in the United States and Jamaica (TT, May 23, May 30).
THE Ombudsman’s Office blasted the Child Welfare Agency’s handling of the situation as "permissive and tolerant" of alleged abuse, and recommended that child welfare authorities develop new protocol for situations where children are at high risk (TT, Sept. 12).
Prosecutor Fernando Vargas, who was removed from Dundee case a week after the May raids when prosecutor Marielos Alfaro returned from vacation, also is raising a critical voice against Costa Rica’s handling of the case.
In July, he filed a complaint with the Internal Judicial Inspector’s Office against Judge Saborío, who he claims interfered with his ability to gather necessary evidence during the interventions, and acted inappropriately in a situation where children were asking for help.
Saborío denies any wrongdoing, but said she could not comment further because she is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation.
VARGAS also is critical of the current prosecutor’s handling of the case, which he claims is "passive" and not being conducted with the importance that it deserves. He claims he did more to advance the investigation in the week following the raid, than anything that has been done in the last six months.
Alfaro told The Tico Times that the investigation is still open, and denied it is not being given its due importance. She said her office is still waiting for confiscated documents to be translated into Spanish, as well as other proof from the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ).
Alfaro explained that she is the only prosecutor in Atenas and is handling about 500 ongoing cases, many older than the Dundee case. She stressed that all cases are given equal importance, and that the Dundee matter will be resolved in due time.
Vargas argues the case would be moved along faster if there was more public and media pressure. He blames the relatively mild public reaction to the Dundee situation on a general perception that the issue is a "gringo problem."
If the students had been Costa Ricans, the public’s reaction and the prosecution’s handling of case would be much different, Vargas charged.
"There is a perception that these problems were brought here; that they are not ours," Vargas said. "And there is resentment: why do we have to deal with it when the U.S. knew about [WWASP] for years?"
WWASP, which currently has 10-affiliated programs in the United States and abroad, has operated in the U.S. for more than a decade. Dundee was the fourth WWASP program to close after being investigated for rights violations.
Earlier this month, U.S. congressman George Miller wrote to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and requested a federal probe of WWASP (TT, Nov. 7). Miller’s office has not yet received a reply, according to a congressional aid.
ALFARO vigorously denied the nationality of the alleged victims has anything to do with the prosecution’s handling of the case.
"Whether they are gringos, Nicas or whoever, the law applies to all cases and each is given equal importance," she said.
Vargas claims the Dundee case is one of the most important in the country, and that Costa Rica, with its moral authority and progressive laws to protect children’s rights, is the perfect venue to put WWASP on trial.
"If Dundee falls in Costa Rica, then WWASP falls in the rest of the world, but if Dundee doesn’t fall, WWASP will only get stronger," Vargas said.
LICHFIELD, meanwhile, said that in the last six months he has injected $600,000 into his new academy, which he hopes to open by Jan. 1 on the same Orotina campus. He said the new academy will not be affiliated with WWASP because of the "negative attached to it."
Lichfield said he will be a consultant to the new academy, and will not be part of the ownership group, which will headed by former director Francisco Bustos and new director Herald Dabel, a Spanish professor from South Carolina.
The controversial "High Impact" boot-camp compound that Lichfield was building on the Dundee campus has since been converted into a recreational center with a weight room and movie theater, Lichfield said.
CHILD Welfare Minister Rosalía Gil has told The Tico Times she will not allow Dundee to reopen here.
Lichfield, however, said he will use the $2 million in estimated damages to Dundee as leverage to convince authorities to allow him to reopen an appropriate facility that the "Costa Rican government is comfortable with."
Lichfield, who said he donated $10,000 to campaign of President Abel Pacheco, claims he has appealed to the President for help, but added Pacheco probably "doesn’t want to touch us with a 10-foot poll."
For now, Lichfield wants to put the past behind him and "get back to what we do, and that’s help kids."
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Thanks for posting Tim Rogers' article dated back in 2003.Unfortunately,during the administration of the bumbling Dr. Abel Pacheco and his equally inept cohorts,this little nation suffered through four years of incompetence unimagined in an industrial society.Lichfield was tried in 2007,after Pacheco and his fellow clods left power.
Academy at Dundee Ranch was a behavior modification facility for United States teenagers, located on La Ceiba Cascajal, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of Orotina, province of Alajuela, Costa Rica. It was promoted as a residential school, offering a program of behavior modification, motivational "emotional growth seminars," a progressive academic curriculum, and a structured daily schedule, for teenagers struggling in their homes, schools, or communities.[1]
The facility was associated with World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASP).[2]
In May 2003, authorities in Costa Rica shut down due to claims of child abuse, and investigated the school and its managers. A new WWASP facility called Pillars of Hope was opened at the site of Academy at Dundee Ranch in 2004.[3]
[edit] ControversyDuring its operation, Dundee Ranch was the subject of multiple allegations of abuse. Parents and enrollees claimed that food being withheld as punishment.[2] Former students complained of emotional scars due to their stay there.[4]
A judgment in Louisiana caused Costa Rican authorities to investigate the facilities.[5] A riot occurred at the facility in May 2003,[6][7] leading to its closure. The Costa Rican immigration authorities found that 100 of the 193 children enrolled in the program did not have appropriate migration papers.[8]
Due to the closure U.S. Representative George Miller asked U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate WWASP.[9]
Narvin Lichfield, who was the director at the time of the facility's closure, was jailed in Costa Rica for a brief period at the time of the closure. He was later tried in Costa Rica on charges of coercion, holding minors against their will, and "crimes of an international character" (violating a law based on international treaties, specifically referring to torture).
On February 21, 2007 a three-judge panel found Narvin Lichfield innocent of the charges of abuse. During the trial the prosecutor told the court that there was insufficient evidence and testimony to link Lichfield to the crimes for which he was accused. The Tico Times reported that the judges said they believed the students at Dundee had been abused, but there was no proof that that Lichfield ordered the abuse.[10] Three other Academy employees, all Jamaicans, had been wanted in connection with the same case, but they fled Costa Rica following the closure of the Academy.[11]
Following the acquittal, Lichfield claimed in an e-mail to A.M. Costa Rica that when the school was raided, police stood by and watched youths sexually assault each other, that police held parents and staff at gunpoint and that one parent was ordered at gunpoint to hang up the phone when she attempted to phone the U.S. Embassy for help, and that police left the school in a shambles.[8]
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Narvin Lichfield, who was the director at the time of the facility's closure, was jailed in Costa Rica for a brief period at the time of the closure. He was later tried in Costa Rica on charges of coercion, holding minors against their will, and "crimes of an international character" (violating a law based on international treaties, specifically referring to torture).
If they were charging him with UN Crimes,they had a serious hard-on for him.How many people do you personally know,or even know of that has ever been charged with a crime against humanity?
In Costa Rica,they use a judge to control proceedings and magistrates,instead of a jury,to examine the evidence.The prosecutor probably did not present a strong enough case.Even so,Mr. Lichfield would be well advised never to return here,or the next charges might just stick.
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Narvin Lichfield, who was the director at the time of the facility's closure, was jailed in Costa Rica for a brief period at the time of the closure. He was later tried in Costa Rica on charges of coercion, holding minors against their will, and "crimes of an international character" (violating a law based on international treaties, specifically referring to torture).
If they were charging him with UN Crimes,they had a serious hard-on for him.How many people do you personally know,or even know of that has ever been charged with a crime against humanity?
In Costa Rica,they use a judge to control proceedings and magistrates,instead of a jury,to examine the evidence.The prosecutor probably did not present a strong enough case.Even so,Mr. Lichfield would be well advised never to return here,or the next charges might just stick.
Wrong. The school was reopened by Narvin Lichfield as Pillars of Hope. I believe he still owns a horse farm in Costa Rica as well.
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The original prosecutor on the Dundee case was very upset by what he found when they went to investigate Dundee ranch. He had had no idea what he was walking into when they first arrived. The simple act of informing the students what their rights were under Costa Rican law resulted in kids breaking down and sobbing - yelling and cheering. Kids begging him to help them - passing notes in fear of retaliation - running barefoot out the gates and down the road - all this was shocking to him, as he had no idea what they had been through. It isn't true that the police encouraged rioting. It is true they made the staff at the newly constructed high impact compound (google WWASP+high impact) stop beating the kids back with sticks which allowed those who wanted to to leave.
It has been reported by some students who where there that it was the staff that had students helping to destroy computers and such - for reason that are not hard to imagine. It is probably true that the police went in ill prepared for the emotional response of the students and the need to manage an organized evacuation - but in fairness - they couldn't imagine the reality at Dundee and so had no reason to expect such a response.
The original prosecutor was working on the investigation in a serious way but he was taken off the case and replaced by a woman who dropped it almost totally. She did no interviewing of complaining victims at all - none. She only took statements from students provided by Narvin; consequently, it was only their statements the judges heard. I will leave it to your imagination as to why she might have done this, and why she was put in charge of the case in the first place.
I think Narvin spent one night in jail - and for a few months wasn't supposed to leave the country. It cost him a bit of cash and some inconvenience, but that was all. In light of the huge profits gained it was a very small price. I assure you nothing about it will keep him or his brother or his associated "brothers" from doing it all over again just as soon as the drama dies down. And compared to the Dundee situation this is a cake walk - even a pleasant stroll along one of your beautiful beaches; something the students were promised and of course never saw!
TomC writes:
Wrong. The school was reopened by Narvin Lichfield as Pillars of Hope. I believe he still owns a horse farm in Costa Rica as well.
Exactly so.
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http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-22/Suceso ... 22171.aspx (http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-22/Sucesos/NotaPrincipal/Sucesos2722171.aspx)
Need someone to translate this one. Some details from this article according to some machine translation:
The academy was closed after complaints from three psychologists who had worked at the program to PANI.
There were 21 minors in the program
The allegations involve physical and psychological abuse, isolation, severed communication between students and their families, lack of medical supervision, lack of proper education, lack of recreation programs promised by the school's advertising
The program lacked the proper permits to operate in Costa Rica
The corporation registered as owning the school lists Robert Walter Lichfield as owner, article speculates as to relationship between this person and former PIllars of Hope/Dundee Ranch (also raided by authorities) owner Narvin Lichfield
A PANI official is quoted saying that children were forced to sign a document stating they were at the school of their own free will, threatened with 8 days in an isolation room if they did not comply.
Here's the full article, for posterity's sake:
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La NACIÓN
Dueños alquilaban instalaciones del Hotel Carara, en Tárcoles
PANI cierra academia juvenil por supuestos maltratos a alumnos (http://http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-22/Sucesos/NotaPrincipal/Sucesos2722171.aspx)
- Jóvenes afectados denunciaron que sufrían daños físicos y psicológicos
- Embajada de Estados Unidos ayudó a padres a llevarse a sus hijos
Karen Medina, Ferlin Fuentes y Jorge Umaña Colaboradores 10:55 a.m. 21/03/2011
El Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI) cerró ayer una academia privada para rehabilitación de jóvenes con problemas de conducta y adicciones, debido a supuestos maltratos físicos y psicológicos a los estudiantes.
La academia, llamada Teen Mentor, funcionaba desde octubre del 2010 en instalaciones del Hotel Carara, en Tárcoles de Garabito, Puntarenas, las cuales eran alquiladas.
Funcionarios del PANI intervinieron el centro el viernes como respuesta a una denuncia interpuesta por tres psicólogos, quienes solían dar terapia a los estudiantes.
Los dueños de este programa ofrecían, a través de su página web, un programa de rehabilitación para jóvenes, entre los 13 y 18 años, a partir de $600 al mes.
De acuerdo con la denuncia presentada ante el Patronato, a los 21 menores que estaban en la academia, todos de origen estadounidense, se les estarían violando varios derechos.
"Se denuncia maltrato físico y psicológico, aislamiento, situaciones de incomunicación entre los jóvenes y sus familiares, no había supervisión médica ni claridad en el tema del derecho a la educación y también carecían de programas de recreación", explicó Jorge Urbina, gerente técnico del PANI.
Según Urbina, la Embajada de Estados Unidos en San José alertó a los padres de los menores sobre la situación para que vinieran a llevárselos.
Hasta la tarde de ayer los padres de 10 de los jóvenes ya habían llegado a buscarlos. El grupo restante quedó bajo la custodia del Patronato.
"Se pudo confirmar que el programa no contaba con permisos del Ministerio de Salud ni del mismo Patronato para operar en el país", afirmó Jorge Urbina.
Antecedentes. Según Urbina, la Embajada estadounidense vincula a la academia con la sociedad anónima Mentor de ABC de Costa Rica S. A., la cual fue inscrita en el Registro Nacional en agosto del 2010. Como presidente figura Robert Walter Lichfield.
Ayer no fue posible verificar si esta persona, de origen estadounidense, tiene alguna relación con Narvin Lichfield, otro estadounidense que fue juzgado y absuelto aquí por supuesta privación de libertad a jóvenes con problemas de adicciones y conducta en Rancho Dundee, una academia que funcionó en La Ceiba de Orotina entre los años 2002 y 2003.
Alexis Medrano, abogado de la sociedad, explicó que fue contactado "por el hermano del presidente de la sociedad".
Según el encargado de mantenimiento del hotel, en el momento de la intervención del PANI "los encargados de Teen Mentor se fueron y los jóvenes quedaron solos", aseguró.
Declaraciones. El Gerente Técnico del PANI explicó que los muchachos fueron entrevistados por personal de esa entidad.
El funcionario dijo que los menores declararon que el pasado jueves fueron obligados a firmar un documento en el que todos hacen constar que estaban en ese recinto por su propia voluntad.
Según los muchachos, si ellos no firmaban los enviaban a un sitio de aislamiento donde deberían permanecer ocho días.
© 2011. GRUPO NACIÓN GN, S. A.
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A translation:
Hotel owners Carara rented facilities in Tárcoles
PANI closes youth academy students for alleged abuse
...
...* Young people affected reported suffering physical and psychological damage
* U.S. Embassy helped parents take their children
Karen Medina, Ferlin Fuentes and Jorge Umaña Contributors 10:55 a.m. 21/03/2011
The National Trust for Children (PANI) closed yesterday a private academy for rehabilitation of youths with behavioral problems and addictions, because of alleged physical and psychological abuse to students.
The academy, called Teen Mentor, operating since October 2010 in Carara Hotel facilities in Tárcoles Garabito, Puntarenas, which were rented.
PANI officials involved the center on Friday in response to a complaint by three psychologists, who used to provide therapy for students.
The owners of this program offered through its website, a rehabilitation program for young people between 13 and 18, starting at $ 600 a month.
According to the complaint filed with the Board, the 21 minors who were in the academy, all of U.S. origin, they would violate various rights.
"It is alleged physical and psychological abuse, isolation, lack of communication between young people and their families, there was no medical supervision or clarity on the issue of right to education and recreation programs lacked," said Jorge Urbina, technical manager PANI.
According to Urbina, the U.S. Embassy in San José alerted parents of the children on the state to come and take them away.
Until yesterday afternoon the parents of 10 young people had come to look. The remaining group was in the custody of the Board.
"It was confirmed that the program did not have permits from the Ministry of Health or of the Board to operate in the country," said Jorge Urbina.
Background. According to Urbina, the U.S. Embassy to the academy linked to the Mentor corporation of Costa Rica ABC S. A., and registered on the National Register in August 2010. As President Robert Walter Lichfield figure.
Yesterday was not possible to verify if this person, an American, has some relation to Narvin Lichfield, another American who was tried and acquitted here for alleged deprivation of freedom for young people with addictions and behavioral problems in Dundee Ranch, an academy which operated in La Ceiba de Orotina between 2002 and 2003.
Alexis Medrano, a lawyer for the company, said he was contacted "by the brother of the president of the society."
According to the hotel maintenance manager at the time of the intervention of PANI "Teen makers Mentor and youth were left alone," he said.
Statements. PANI Technical Manager explained that the boys were interviewed by staff of that institution.
The official said the children reported that last Thursday were forced to sign a document in which all observe that they were at the site of their own volition.
According to the boys, if they did not sign were sent to an isolation room where they should stay eight days.
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Comments (http://http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-22/Sucesos/NotaPrincipal/Sucesos2722171.aspx) left for the above article, "PANI cierra academia juvenil por supuestos maltratos a alumnos (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399041#p399035)" (by Karen Medina, Ferlin Fuentes and Jorge Umaña, 21/03/2011, La NACIÓN):
[Spanish -> English translation from SDL FreeTranslation.com (http://http://www.freetranslation.com/)]
Luis Gerardo Esquivel Hernandez · 06:45 22/3/2011
Que pena que dan este tipo de noticias. Mucho se habla de que siempre los estudiantes son los culpables de todo lo malo que sucede en centros educativos. Recuerden el caso del estudiante que asesino a la directora, pues no se puede descartar que el estudiante no sufriera maltrato psicologico, no mal interprenten mis palabras no estoy defendiendo a ese asesino. El punto es que se debe hacer un estudio para detectar lo mas antes posible a malos educadores y estudiantes y tratar de controlar esto
That suffers that they give this type of news. A lot of is spoken that always the students are the guilty of all the bad thing that happens in educational centers. Recall the case of the student that murderous to the director, therefore himself cannot be ruled out that the student not to suffer I abuse psicologico, not badly interprenten my words I am not defending that murderer. The point is that should be done a study to detect it but before possible to bad educators and students and to try to control this[/list]
Luis Gerardo Esquivel Hernandez · 06:50 22/3/2011
Ahora bien la violencia es un mal que se ve no solo en centros educativos, es algo que se ve en muchas partes, jovenes mal educados en las barras de los equipos, personas que son asesinadas dia con dia. La policia hace bien su trabajo, lamentablemente el poder judicial (jueces) no cumplen las leyes. Lamentablemente la gente tomara la justicia en sus manos, y una ola delictiva se esta empezando a desatar en mi querida CR. Aun hay tiempo para cambiar el mal camino, cumplamos las leyes comoson
Now well the violence is a badly that is seen not alone in educational centers, is something that is seen in many parts, young badly educated in the bars of the teams, people that are murdered I gave with I gave. The policia does well its work, sadly the judicial power (judges) do not comply the laws. Sadly the people took the justice in its hands, and a crime wave itself this beginning to untie in my darling CR. Even there is time to change evil road, we comply the laws comoson[/list]
Luis Beatriz Gutiérrez · 11:40 22/3/2011
Es el colmo que tengamos ahora que echarnos encima los problemas sociales de la nación mas poderosa y rica del mundo, esto nos empobrece.
It is the peak that have now that to throw us on top the social problems of the nation but powerful and rich of the world, this impoverishes us.[/list]
Ana Rodriguez Rodriguez · 11:42 22/3/2011
Me parece fundamental resaltar la pronta y adecuada respuesta del PANI en una situación tan compleja y la buena actuación de los psicólogos al poner la denuncia. Esto me hizo pensar que al PANI si que le toca atender diversidad de situaciones dificiles con niños y adolescentes y cómo a veces no valoramos las instituciones que tenemos en este país.
It seems me fundamental to stand out the quick and adequate answer of the PANI in a so complex situation and the good action of the psychologists upon putting the accusation. This caused thought me that to the PANI if that touches him to attend diversity of situations dificiles with children and adolescents and how at times we do not value the institutions that have in this country.[/list]
Francisco Ramirez Arce · 12:38 22/3/2011
Luis Beatriz deje de lado los prejucios antigringos; CR ha suscrito muchisimos tratodos internacionales y está obligada a salvaguardar los derechos de todos los menores de cualquier nacionalidad. No me imagino lo que usted sentiría o yo si nos maltrataran un hijo en territorio extranjero y aquel país se quedara sin hacer nada. Porque hay gente que no analiza nada antes de opinar?
Luis Beatriz leave sideways the prejucios antigringos; CR has subscribed muchisimos tratodos international and is obliged to safeguard the rights of all the less than any nationality. Me do not I imagine what you would feel or I if they mistreated us a son in foreign territory and that country remained without doing nothing. Because there is people that does not analyze anything before thinking?[/list]
Jose P Alvarado Alvarado · 18:54 22/3/2011
Es increible que luego de tener Rancho Dundee y dejar un gran lio, luego el señor Narvin Lichfield abriera otra academia junto con su sobrino y socio de negocio Robert Walter Lichfield. Me imagino que esta vez tambien van a dejar a los empleados guindando con sus liquidaciones y responsabilidades patronales.
It is increible that after having Ranch Dundee and to leave a great I bundle, then the Mister Narvin Lichfield to open another academy along with his nephew and associate of business Robert Walter Lichfield. I imagine that this time tambien are going to leave the employees hanging with their liquidations and management responsibilities.[/list]
© 2011. GRUPO NACIÓN GN, S. A.
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Here's also an accompanying article from La NACIÓN... It appears to summarize Narvin Lichfield's former legal travails with "la academia Rancho Dundee" back in 2003:
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La NACIÓN
Dueño de Rancho Dundee fue absuelto (http://http://www.nacion.com/2011-03-22/Sucesos/Relacionados/Sucesos2722471.aspx)
David Delgado C. · [email protected] · 10:56 a.m. 21/03/2011
(http://http://www.nacion.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=22c3eeba-202b-481c-9537-61dd710671b2)
El dueño de la Academia Rancho Dundee, Narvin Lichfield, fue absuelto el 22 de febrero del 2007 de los delitos de tortura, privación de libertad y coacción en perjuicio de menores de edad internados en ese centro de atención privada en Orotina de Alajuela.
La academia operaba desde el 2002 y fue cerrada un año después. Albergaba a más de 200 jóvenes estadounidenses con adicciones y problemas de conducta, por lo que fueron internados en contra de su voluntad.
La Fiscalía de Atenas inició la investigación en el 2002, y el 22 de mayo del 2003 detuvo a Narvin Lichfield, dueño de la academia de rehabilitación, por la presunta comisión de tales delitos, que infringían los derechos humanos.
En ese momento, los padres de los jóvenes internados en Rancho Dundee viajaron a nuestro país y sacaron de inmediato a sus hijos de ese centro.
Según las acusaciones del Ministerio Público, a los jóvenes se les aplicaba un método de privilegios y castigos para modificarles la conducta.
Supuestamente, a ellos se les incomunicaba de sus padres, e incluso se les imponían castigos como estar de rodillas o acostados sobre concreto durante horas.
La academia funcionaba en una finca en Cascajal de La Ceiba, sin los permisos que acreditasen como centro educativo y de rehabilitación de drogas que otorga el Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia (IAFA).
Nueva cara. En diciembre del 2003, Harold Dabel, el nuevo director de la academia Rancho Dundee, anunció las gestiones para obtener los permisos para reabrir el centro y trabajar con un programa totalmente diferente al que usó la antigua academia.
Tres meses después, el Área de Salud de Orotina otorgó un permiso de funcionamiento al "Instituto Internado Educativo Pilares de Esperanza", que sería el nuevo nombre del centro.
El permiso se extendió por un año, y no incluía jóvenes con problemas de drogas o con antecedentes de conductas inapropiadas.
Juicio. Linchfield fue juzgado, en setiembre del 2006 en el Tribunal de Juicio de Alajuela.
El 20 de febrero, 2007, el entonces imputado rechazó los cargos durante el juicio que se inició en su contra en Alajuela.
"Tengo la conciencia limpia y frente a Dios se los digo, sin que me malinterpreten, que yo he hecho cosas incorrectas, pero nunca de las que se me está acusando", expresó el extranjero ante los juzgadores en ese momento.
Los jueces se fundamentaron en el beneficio "in dubio pro reo" (ante la duda, se resuelve a favor del reo), pues durante el debate no se lograron probar los hechos por cuales se había llevado hasta juicio al imputado.
Los diarios Al Día y The New York Times revelaron en ese momento los cuestionamientos al sistema de tratamiento de academias como esas.
El 19 de mayo del 2003, Al Día publicó una nota en la que se señaló la declaración de una interna, con identidad reservada, de la academia Rancho Dundee.
"Todas las mañanas le pido a Dios que no me deje levantarme un día más, realmente quiero morir. Ellos (el personal) les mienten a nuestros padres, todo lo que quiero es que mi mamá venga a salvarme", relató la fuente.
El centro funcionó bajo la supervisión de la Asociación Mundial de Programas Especiales y Escuelas (WWasp, en inglés).
© 2011. GRUPO NACIÓN GN, S. A.
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Crude translation of the just above article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399042#p399042); this time, for the most part, via Google (http://http://translate.google.com/#):
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La NACIÓN
Owner of Dundee Ranch was acquitted
By David Delgado · [email protected] · March 21, 2011 10:56 a.m.
The owner of Dundee Ranch Academy, Narvin Lichfield, was acquitted on February 22, 2007 for crimes of torture, deprivation of liberty and coercion at the expense of children placed in the center of Alajuela Orotina private.
The academy operated since 2002 and was closed a year later. Hosted more than 200 young Americans with addictions and behavioral problems, so they were hospitalized against their will.
The Prosecutor of Atenas began research in 2002, and May 22, 2003 arrested Narvin Lichfield, owner of the Academy of rehabilitation, for the alleged commission of such crimes, violated human rights.
At that time, parents of young people at Dundee Ranch traveled to our country and immediately removed their children from the center.
According to the indictment prosecutors, young people were given a method of privileges and punishments to change behavior.
Supposedly, they were cut off from their parents, and even punishments imposed on them as you are kneeling or lying on concrete for hours.
The Academy worked on a farm in La Ceiba Cascajal without permission for accredited as an educational center and drug rehabilitation granted by the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (IAFA).
New face. In December 2003, Harold Dabel, the new director of Dundee Ranch Academy, said efforts to obtain permits to reopen the center and work with a completely different program that used the old academy.
Three months later, the Department of Health Orotina granted an operating permit to the "Institute for Educational Internship Pillars of Hope", which was the new name of the center.
The permit was extended for one year, and did not include young people with drug problems or a history of misconduct.
Trial. Linchfield was tried in September 2006 at the Trial Court of Alajuela.
On February 20, 2007, the then accused denied the charges during the trial that was initiated against him in Alajuela.
"I have a clean conscience before God and tell them, not me wrong, I have done wrong things, but never which is accusing me, " said the foreigner before the judges at that time.
The judges were based on the benefit "in dubio pro reo" (when in doubt is resolved in favor of the defendant), because during the debate was not able to prove the facts which had led to trial of the accused.
The daily Al Día and The New York Times revealed at the time the questioning of the system of treatment of academies like that.
On May 19, 2003, Al Día published a note that said an internal statement with confidential identity of Dundee Ranch Academy.
"Every morning I ask God to not let me wake up one day, I really want to die. They (the staff) lie to our parents, all I want is that my mom come and save me, "said the source.
The center operated under the supervision of the World Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWasp, in English).
# # #
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Here's an English language version of this news from InsideCostaRica:
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INSIDECOSTARICA.COM | COSTA RICA NEWS | Tuesday 22 March 2011
PANI Rescues 20 Young Americans Who Suffered Various Attacks (http://http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/march/22/costarica11032204.htm)
(http://http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/march/22/90653_kids-gringos.jpg)
The Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI) - Costa Rica's child welfare agency - says it rescued on Monday a group of 20 American minors who allegedly received psychological and physical abuse by managers of a reformatory in Puntarenas.
The academy "Teen Mentor" has been operating since 2010 in the Hotel Carra in Tarcoles de Garabito, Puntarenas.
The PANI took the action to intervene following complaints from three psychologists at the academy. Ten children were transferred directly to a PANI shelter, while the case is still in under investigation.
Parents paid from us$600 per month to keep their children between the ages of 13 and 18 in the program.
PANI officials say all the youths found in the academy on Monday were all Americans.
Jorge Urbina, manager of the PANI, told the media on Monday that the U.S. Embassy in San José was in the process of notifying all the parents to come get theri children.
The action by the PANI quickly reminds that of the "Dundee Ranch" academy back in 2004.
Academy at Dundee Ranch was a behavior modification facility for United States teenagers west of Orotina. It was promoted as a residential school, offering a program of behavior modification, motivational "emotional growth seminars," a progressive academic curriculum, and a structured daily schedule, for teenagers struggling in their homes, schools, or communities.
The facility was associated with World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASP).
In May 2003, authorities in Costa Rica shut down due to claims of child abuse, and investigated the school and its managers. A new WWASP facility called Pillars of Hope was opened at the site of Academy at Dundee Ranch in 2004.
During its operation, Dundee Ranch was the subject of multiple allegations of abuse. Parents and enrollees claimed that food being withheld as punishment. Former students complained of emotional scars due to their stay there. A judgment in Louisiana caused Costa Rican authorities to investigate the facilities. A riot occurred at the facility in May 2003, leading to its closure. The Costa Rican immigration authorities found that 100 of the 193 children enrolled in the program did not have appropriate migration papers.
Narvin Lichfield, who was the director at the time of the facility's closure, was jailed in Costa Rica for a brief period at the time of the closure. He was later tried in Costa Rica on charges of coercion, holding minors against their will, and "crimes of an international character" (violating a law based on international treaties, specifically referring to torture).
On February 21, 2007 a three-judge panel found Narvin Lichfield innocent of the charges of abuse. During the trial the prosecutor told the court that there was insufficient evidence and testimony to link Lichfield to the crimes for which he was accused.
INSIDECOSTARICA
Costa Rica's Daily English News Source
Apdo. 2133-1000, San José, Costa Rica
Tel: (506) 2231 3205 / (506) 8399 9642
Fax: (506) 2232 6337
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Comments (http://http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/march/22/costarica11032204.htm) left for the above article "PANI Rescues 20 Young Americans Who Suffered Various Attacks (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399049#p399047)" (22 March 2011, InsideCostaRica.com):
Sam Jackson · 3/22
Teen Mentor was also owned by the Lichfield family and almost certainly used the same methods. Narvin Lichfield returned to the US to operate Carolina Springs Academy which had its license revoked by the South Carolina Department of Social Services in 2009. Dozens of animals were abandoned at the property after the closure of the facility and many starved to death. Nearly every program operated by the Lichfields (WWASPS) has been shuttered for abuse, yet they still go on to open more, sometimes even on the same property with a different name.
John · 3/22
Sam, this is so sad and this family just keeps rolling along opening and closing centers. I looked WASPS up on the Net and 15 of these academies have been closed. What I wonder is, how this one got opened in the first place since we know WASPS and Lichfield? At least the authorities acted quickly which is new for CR.
[/list]
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And... more details in this article from the Tico Times:
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Tico Times
Costa Rica government closes controversial 'tough love' youth camp (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/News-Briefs/Costa-Rica-government-closes-controversial-tough-love-youth-camp_Tuesday-March-22-2011)
Posted: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - By Adam Williams
Another youth behavior modification center run by the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) is closed following allegations of abuse. This one was run by the association's director, Bob Lichfield, brother of Narvin Lichfield, who ran a similar center here until it was voluntarily shut down in 2003.
For the second time in the past nine years a behavior modification center run by the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) was closed in Costa Rica for alleged psychological and physical mistreatment of residents.
Last Friday, the Child Welfare Office (PANI) closed the center, known as Teen Mentor, which advertises therapeutic and psychological services to 21 U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 18. Parents had placed the troubled teens in the facility to address behavioral issues and problems with substance abuse.
PANI closed the center after receiving complaints that the student residents were being subjected to physical and mental abuse from the supervisors of the program. Three PANI psychologists visited the facility to interview the students when they were alerted to the allegedly abusive conditions at the center, the daily La Nación reported.
The organization's website, which has since been disabled, offered behavior modification services for a monthly fee. The residents had been staying at the Hotel Carara in the town of Tárcoles de Garabito, in Puntarenas, west of San José near the Pacific Ocean.
"They rented the entire hotel for several months," said a hotel employee who asked that his name be withheld. "The boys were downstairs, the girls were upstairs. As far as abuse or things like that, we usually only saw the kids during pool time and don't really know what went on when they went to the beach or outside. When I came to work on Friday, PANI was here and by that night everyone was gone."
Robert Walter Lichfield, the founder of the WWASP program, registered Teen Mentor as an official business in the national registry in August 2010. In the last 16 years, 15 behavioral facilities operated by WWASP have been closed due to similar allegations by child welfare organizations in the U.S. and other countries.
In 2002, Narvin Lichfield, Robert's brother, was director of the Dundee Ranch Academy in the town of Hidalgo, Orotina, west of San José. A Tico Times investigation that year found that many of the students who attended the academy accused Dundee staff of physical and psychological abuse. In an interview with The Tico Times in 2002, Narvin explained his "high impact" behavioral modification methods, which included tactics such as making students walk 100 miles around a track under the hot Pacific sun to earn their "freedom," or forcing them to spend up to five days in "solitary confinement" as punishment for looking out of the window during a lesson.
"I am sure 'High Impact' will be mistaken as jail, there is no doubt about it," he told The Tico Times in 2002. "But this is no different from any boarding school in England" (TT, Oct. 25, 2002).
In 2003, PANI raided the Dundee Ranch facility after a U.S. woman living in Costa Rica, Susan Flowers, reported to PANI that her daughter was being held against her will at the academy. The raid resulted in a student riot and 35 teens escaped from the site (TT, May 23, 2003).
After the raid, Narvin Lichfield was briefly arrested and charged with detaining minors against their will, coercion and international rights violations. When the case finally went to trial in early 2007, judges declared Lichfield innocent for lack of evidence (TT, Feb. 23, 2007). Judges did say they believed students' rights had been violated at the Dundee Ranch, but prosecutors had failed to prove it.
"We're happy that the law and the system actually works," Lichfield told The Tico Times after the trial in Alajuela, west of San José. He added that he was "very unhappy that things that have never been proven" and that judges used "hearsay" to affirm that abuse occurred at the camp.
For more on this story, see the March 25 print edition of The Tico Times.
# # #
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Comments (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/News-Briefs/Costa-Rica-government-closes-controversial-tough-love-youth-camp_Tuesday-March-22-2011) left for the above article, "Costa Rica government closes controversial 'tough love' youth camp (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399076#p399059)" (by Adam Williams; March 22, 2011; Tico Times):
Jonathan Firstenberg · Wednesday March 23 2011
Our son was one of the kids left at Mentor Teen when it closed last week. We are shocked that although the CR government cares about kids...it seems they forgot to tell the parents of these children that they were about to close the facility. Instead, we received urgent, emergency calls from the U.S. State dept. demanding the we fly down to CR to pick up our kids immediately. Upon returning these calls, we were unable to reach anyone...even at emergency numbers! These "kids" are troubled teens with ailments ranging from PTSD, to BiPolar, Borderline, ADD-HD, Schizoid Effective. If CR cared so much, why didn't they let us know in advance so we could "save" our son from the trauma that was caused by PANI, not by Mentor Teen. Why didn't PANI and CR Govt see that another "Lichfield" was opening a center in their country? You would think red flags would be everywhere once they saw the name of owner. Instead, they decided to listen to disgruntled employees rant about their boss and take no, zero responsibility for their decision. It's as if they don't care about any other citizens but their own. Vacationing down there will never happen for us! Will someone out there please prove to me that there was abuse? Will the parent of the abused child please respond?
As for U.S. State Dept, they botched getting our son on his correct flight causing further trauma to him, to us. Once we connected with U.S. SD officials, we found them rude, unfeeling, unsympathetic, uncaring, incompetent and cold-hearted. Certainly none of them wanted to take responsibility at all...in fact a Duty Office at SD said about getting our child safely home, "this is your problem, not ours." Thanks for being so helpful to both traumatized kids and U.S. citizens.
Anyone else have an experience to share?
Karen Burnett · Thursday March 24 2011
Jonathan - If you'll take the time to use Google such terms as WWASP+abuse; Litchfield or Lichfield+allegations or warrant or abuse; Or Ken Kay or Jay Kay plus those same terms - or Dundee Ranch and those same terms; or Tranquility bay, or Casa by the Sea, or High Impact or Spring Creek Lodge, or Paradise Cove or Brightway Adolescent Hospital or Cross Creek or Majestic Ranch Academy or Darrington academy or Sunset Bay Academy or Morava Academy and the list goes on - anyway, you'll soon find a great deal of information indicating these men have a long history of exactly the abuses they are found to have engaged in on this occasion and more. You might want to take a look at the law suit filed by the Turley Law firm.
http://www.wturley.com/Recent-Filings/2 ... SHEETS.pdf (http://www.wturley.com/Recent-Filings/20100722_Wood_PL_6th_Amd_Complaint_WITHOUT_CLAIM_SHEETS.pdf)[/list]
Karen Burnett · Thursday March 24 2011
First an apology for double posting. I can't find an edit option and I need one. Oh well.
Johnathan, you seem upset CR failed to do their home work. On what grounds do you suppose they could stop the brother from renting a hotel? How could they use his relatives "alleged" bad behavior to stop him? And if they stop the two brothers from future "program" operation, what can they do to stop their other associates - of which there are many.
Still, I feel your frustration. This is why there have been efforts to get federal regulations passed in the states. See:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-911 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-911)
You might also find the GAO report on abuse in Residential Treatment Programs of interest. There are many links so I will again advise you use Google. GAO+abuse+Residential Treatment Programs.
It is shameful the state department treated you so callously. I suppose they tire of this situation but that is no excuse. I do hope you will write the State department and complain about their shabby treatment.
You mentioned red flags. Your right, there are man,y many red flags. And yet for some reason you didn't see them. This despite the fact you are naturally far more concerned than you can expect a Costa Rican official to be. In fairness, if they didn't care about your child's welfare they would have not bothered to check on him, much less go to the trouble they have on his account.
You seem upset the officials have listened to "disgruntled employees" (if only you knew how familiar all this sounds) and yet how would you feel if your child was seriously injured or even killed ( http://teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/tribute1.html (http://teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/tribute1.html) ) and you then learned employees had "griped" and the officials had ignored them?
Your a lucky man. Be grateful.[/list]
Jonathan Firstenberg · Thursday March 24 2011
(post appears to have been deleted. -Urs)[/list]
Thomas Carlson · Thursday March 24 2011
Jonathan:
My parents placed me in a WWASPS (Lichfield owned/operated) program in Montana 5 years ago. I have been connected with others who were in WWASPS programs since I got out. Before you read this message, understand one thing: You have been scammed. You were desperate to get help for your child, and you were taken advantage of because you spend any amount to help him. These people are predators.
I have no reason to suspect that after 15 or 20 years of working in this industry the Lichfields would begin to operate their programs differently. The environment itself is, plain and simple, abusive. We were separated from our families, our friends, and everything we knew, and locked in a cage where they could do anything they wanted to us. The education was a joke - our distance learning program was not accredited by a real accreditation agency, and none of our teachers were certified. The staff were unqualified, trained only in the program's jargon and the "proper" use of force to restrain children who either acted up or simply refused to go along with their regime. In practice they were allowed to get away with any physical punishment of students (though leaving marks was discouraged). They were paid minimum wage or less, and this attracted the sort of people that in normal circumstances you would not allow anywhere near your child. The "exercise" was repetitive and forced, if we did not comply we would be punished with a loss of points/extended stay. The intended goal was to simply drain us of all energy so we could not resist or escape. The food was, in my program, cheap and unhealthy - in others, inadequate and spoiled/infested.
The initial isolation in phone communication with your child is intended to give them the cover they need to break your child down to the point where they no longer believe you would rescue them even if you understood the conditions they were living under. My program's parent manual included, on the first page, a description of common "manipulations" (program lingo, I would be surprised if you didn't hear it) that teens used in their letters to attempt to get their parents to pull them from the program prematurely. There would be a mix of silly-sounding complaints ("the food is bad!") and serious ones ("The staff are hitting kids") to convince parents that even serious allegations should be ignored by parents who wanted to truly help their children transform by making them complete the program. After about three months they would let us call home in the presence of a staff member, who would disconnect the call if we showed any signs of "manipulating" (asking to come home, or even crying).
The "psychological abuse", other than that which can be inferred from what I have already stated, consisted of "group" sessions within our cabin. "Group" was not group therapy. During group individual students would be singled out by a staff member to be ganged up on by the rest of their peers. ANY form of insult was allowed (and encouraged), no matter how ridiculous or uninformed, because the point was to BREAK US DOWN. Girls were called sluts, whores, boys fags, pussies, and so on. We were yelled at - anything we had volunteered about our histories used against us - usually until we cried or showed some other sign of having broken. This happened every day. If we didn't join in when someone was ganged up on, it was grounds for being singled out ourselves. So we did.
The only way to advance in the program was to submit to it and "fake it till you make it". Once kids realized their parents were brainwashed and weren't coming to rescue them they buckled and started doing what was expected of them (being abusive toward new students, reporting petty rule violations to staff), making up stories to make it sound like they were really terrible before they came into the program (if not it would be determined you were hiding something).
I could go much further.. but for now I won't. What you need to understand is that these people don't care about kids. They only care about money. The goal of the program is to break your child down and "build him back up" into someone completely compliant. While these elements of my program have been common to others I have spoken to from WWASPS programs around the world, I have no way of knowing what it was like inside Teen Mentor. What I know is that these people belong nowhere near children and even the mildest program they are capable of creating will involve elements of dominance and coercion, because they don't know any other way.
Depending on how long your son was in the program.. don't be surprised if he comes out more withdrawn, or if it takes him a while to be able to talk about what happened there. Most importantly, LISTEN TO HIM. If he did suffer abuse, it is likely he was told that YOU KNEW ABOUT IT. Tell him otherwise. Many of us have PTSD now. It's been years now and the nightmares still won't go away. Almost every day something will remind me of the program and even though there is significant distance between the person I was then and the one I am now, it is still part of me that I can't shake off. It's very difficult for me to trust people, I have a lot of difficulty in public or around large groups of people, and lots of trouble sleeping. My relationship with my family was poisoned by these monsters and it took YEARS for my parents to believe I was telling the truth about what went on inside. Please don't make that mistake. I hope someone reading this can benefit from my family's suffering in some way.
Thomas Carlson · Thursday March 24 2011
http://www.susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=3192 (http://www.susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=3192)[/list]
Alan Jeffs · Tuesday March 29 2011
Thomas,
It sounds like you are very troubled... the only thing I don't hear you talking about is taking any type of accountability for your life. My guess is before Spring Creek was to blame it was probably your parents fault or the school teacher did not understand or the principal was to blame for you being kicked/expelled or whatever you want to call it.
So a few logical questions to ask you-
Why did your parents send you to Spring Creek in the first place?
Are you currently using drugs?
Do you have a job?
Have you completed college or are in college?
Responsible people take Responsibility.
# #
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In 2003, PANI raided the Dundee Ranch facility after a U.S. woman living in Costa Rica, Susan Flowers, reported to PANI that her daughter was being held against her will at the academy. The raid resulted in a student riot and 35 teens escaped from the site (TT, May 23, 2003).
Allow me to take a moment to pay homage to Su Flowers - who was one of the most interesting and determined women I ever had the pleasure to know. She did amazing *crazy* things simply by not worrying what anyone else thought and deserves full credit for getting Dundee Ranch investigated. I wish I had trusted her and helped her a lot more than I did.
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Jonathan - Another dumbf*ck parent. Who in their right mind would warehouse their kid at an international location? And Jesus, what type of proof does he need of abuse? The bruises are interior. Jesus when will these people ever get it?
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Reportage from Lon's site:
-------------- • -------------- • --------------
Breaking News
Posted: Mar 24, 2011 08:56
Teen Mentor Academy
San José, Costa Rica
Teen Mentor Academy In Costa Rica Closed By Authorities (http://http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/publish/TeenMentorAcademyBN_110324.shtml)
Contact:
Adam Williams
Reporter
506-2233-6378
http://www.ticotimes.net (http://www.ticotimes.net)
March 24, 2011
The Tico Times in Costa Rica, http://ow.ly/4kSK7 (http://ow.ly/4kSK7), reported Teen Mentor was closed following allegations of abuse. The Academy, known as Teen Mentor, has been operating since October 2010 in Carara Hotel facilities in Tárcoles Garabito, Puntarenas. The owner of Teen Mentor rented the facilities.
PANI officials inspected the facilities on Friday in response to complaints of physical and psychological abuse to students brought by three psychologists who previously worked there. According to the hotel maintenance manager at the time of the intervention of PANI, "Teen makers Mentor and youth were left alone," he said.
According to the complaint filed with the Board, the 21 minors who were in the academy, all of U.S. origin was a violation of various rights. "It is alleged physical and psychological abuse, isolation, lack of communication between young people and their families, there was no medical supervision or clarity on the issue of right to education and recreation programs lacked," said Jorge Urbina, technical manager PANI.
PANI Technical Manager explained that staff of that institution had interviewed the boys. The official said the children reported last Thursday they were forced to sign a document that stated they were at the site of their own volition. According to the boys, if they had not signed the document they would have been sent to an isolation room where they would have been kept eight days.
The Costa Rican child welfare agency (PANI) officially closed the Teen Mentor Academy immediately, and according to Urbina, the U.S. Embassy in San José alerted parents of the 21 children to come and take them home. Until yesterday afternoon, the parents of 10 young people had come to pick up their children. The remaining group was in the custody of the Board.
According to Urbina, the U.S. Embassy linked Teen Mentor Academy to the Mentor Corporation ABC Costa Rica SA, and registered on the National Register in August 2010. "It was confirmed that the program did not have permits from the Ministry of Health or of the Board to operate in the country," said Jorge Urbina.
The article stated the owners of this program marketed the program through its website, as a rehabilitation program for young people between ages 13 and 18, with program costs starting at $600 a month.
Copyright ©2010, Woodbury Reports, Inc.
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Here's the afore promised update of the above article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399107#p399059) in the Tico Times:
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Tico Times
TOP STORY
Child Welfare Office closes yet another teen reform center (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Child-Welfare-Office-closes-yet-another-teen-reform-center_Friday-March-25-2011)
Posted: Friday, March 25, 2011 - By Adam Williams
A youth behavior modification center run by the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) is closed following allegations of abuse.
(http://http://www.ticotimes.net/var/tico/storage/images/media/images/news-photos/reform-center-administrator/703319-1-eng-US/Reform-Center-Administrator_newsfull_v.jpg)
Not Guilty: In 2007, former Dundee Ranch administrator Narvin Lichfield, above, was found non-guilty of abusing teens at his behavior modification camp in Costa Rica. Last Friday, child welfare officers closed a similar camp run by his brother, Bob Lichfield, citing abusive practices. Tammy Zibners | Tico Times
For the second time in the past nine years, a youth behavior modification center run by the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) is closed following allegations of abuse. This one was run by the association's director, Bob Lichfield, brother of Narvin Lichfield, who ran a similar center here until it was voluntarily shut down in 2003.
Last Friday, the Child Welfare Office (PANI) closed the center, known as Teen Mentor, which advertised itself online as a therapeutic and psychological services program for U.S. teenagers dealing with behavioral issues and substance abuse problems.
According to PANI technical director Jorge Urbina, PANI officers visited Teen Mentor's facilities on Friday after three Costa Rican psychologists reported that they witnessed abuse of student residents.
Teen Mentor was operated out of Hotel Carara, in the Pacific coastal town of Tárcoles de Garabito.
Student residents told PANI investigators that they had experienced physical, verbal and psychological abuse while at the facility.
"We intervened on Friday and interviewed all the kids from the program. Their reports were similar to the reports made by the psychologists about mistreatment and rights violations," Urbina told The Tico Times. "It was apparent that the regimen of discipline included physical, psychological and verbal mistreatment."
Urbina said that when PANI officials arrived, no program supervisors were present at the hotel.
In addition to the reports of abuse, Urbina said that the program wasn't registered with PANI or the Health Ministry, thus rendering it illegal. Permits from PANI and the Health Ministry are required to run an organization that works with children under the age of 18.
According to the organization's website, http://www.horizonbootcamp.com (http://www.horizonbootcamp.com), residents would be offered therapy to assist struggling teens to "provide structure, supervision and discipline" for a monthly fee beginning at $500 per month.
Urbina said that none of the 20 U.S. residents, aged 15-17, reported receiving any therapeutic guidance.
"The place promoted itself as a therapeutic center with recreational offerings," Urbina said. "But in our investigation we found that there was no therapy being performed at the school nor was there a recreational program. It was a completely unauthorized school."
The U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica also addressed the closing of the program this week.
"The Embassy had no role in the decision to close the school or remove the students [from Teen Mentor]. The matter falls fully under the jurisdiction of Costa Rican authorities, primarily PANI. The Embassy contacted the parents of U.S. citizen students, and has been working with the parents and the Costa Rican authorities to get them home safely."
Second Time Around
Robert Walter Lichfield, who also goes by the first name Bob and is the founder of the WWASP program, registered Teen Mentor as an official business in the national registry in August 2010 and began operating it here last October. In the last 16 years, 15 behavioral facilities operated by WWASP have been closed due to similar allegations by child welfare organizations in the U.S. and other countries.
In 2002, Narvin Lichfield, Robert's brother, was director of the Dundee Ranch Academy in the town of Hidalgo, Orotina, west of San José. A Tico Times investigation that year found that many of the students who attended the academy accused Dundee staff of physical and psychological abuse.
In an interview with The Tico Times in 2002, Narvin explained his "high impact" behavioral modification methods, which included tactics such as making students walk 100 miles around a track under the hot Pacific sun to earn their "freedom," or forcing them to spend up to five days in "solitary confinement" as punishment for looking out of the window during a lesson.
"I am sure 'High Impact' will be mistaken as jail, there is no doubt about it," he told The Tico Times in 2002. "But this is no different from any boarding school in England" (TT, Oct. 25, 2002).
In 2003, PANI raided the Dundee Ranch facility after a U.S. woman living in Costa Rica, Susan Flowers, reported to PANI that her daughter was being held against her will at the academy. The raid resulted in a student riot and 35 teens escaped from the site (TT, May 23, 2003).
After the raid, Narvin Lichfield was briefly arrested and charged with detaining minors against their will, coercion and international rights violations. When the case finally went to trial in early 2007, judges declared Lichfield innocent for lack of evidence (TT, Feb. 23, 2007).
Judges did say they believed students' rights had been violated at the Dundee Ranch, but prosecutors had failed to prove it.
When the Dundee Ranch site was closed in 2003, another program overseen by the WWASP organization moved into the same location. Known as Pillars of Hope, a Tico Times report in 2006 revealed that the program functioned as a language school and did not abide by the same "high impact" behavioral practices of Dundee Ranch (TT, Dec. 15, 2006).
Despite the controversy surrounding WWASP programs and schools, the academies have always produced polemic responses from former students and parents. While some former students decry traumatic abuse and punishments such as denial of food, other former students report satisfactory experiences and considerable improvements in behavior. Some report a mixture of both.
"I feel so grateful for what the program did for me. It's worth suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, because once I get over it, I'm gonna do great," Mary Gilbert, who was 14 in 2003, wrote in a letter to The Tico Times that year.
According to Urbina, all but one student have been reunited with family members and returned to the U.S. with the assistance of the U.S. Embassy. The remaining teenager is under PANI's care while waiting to be picked up by family.
Without the appropriate permits, Urbina said the school would be shut down indefinitely. Since the teenagers had been in the country since October, it is unclear whether they had valid visas.
The Tico Times attempted to contact three WWASP schools in the U.S., and one that is still operating here, but no one answered the phone numbers listed on their websites (TT, Jan. 24, 2003).
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Sheesh… well, at least relatively this one didn’t last that long… open for less than a year, but these WWASP bastards are really tenaciously determined! I mean insurrections from staff psychologists having the nerve or ethics to complain about rampant abuses, outraged parents motivated to action and raids conducted by authorities…would be daunting enough to most sickos, but not in this case. Here history repeats itself. This is the same Narvin who was being investigated for abandoning horses to starve to death a short while back, right? Where will those wacky opportunistic, sadistic Lichfield’s go from here? Hopefully to prison and only to be released on THE CONDITION THEY DO NOT POSITION THEMSELVES TO BE IN CONTROL OF OR IN CONTACT WITH ANY MINORS AND ALL ANIMALS!
The law criminalizing torture abroad is codified at 18 U.S.C.
§§ 2340 and 2340A (the “Extraterritorial Torture Statute”). 18
U.S.C. § 2340A(a) states:
Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to
commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any
person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be
punished by death, or imprisoned for any term of years or
for life.
Torture is defined under the statute as:
[A]n act committed by a person acting under the color of
law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental
pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to
lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or
physical control.
Notably, the statute prohibits torture committed not only by US
citizens, but by non-citizens present in the United States. 18
U.S.C. § 2340A(b) states:
There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsec-
tion (a) if (1) the alleged offender is a national of the United
States; or (2) the alleged offender is present in the United
States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged
offender.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/us ... A000-.html (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340---A000-.html)
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Comment on updated Tico Times article by WWASPS troll. Where the fuck do these people come from? Were they just not hugged enough when they were kids or something?
Wow interesting but inaccurate report including:
"Bob" Lichfield had nothing to do with the ownership, operation or etc of this business.
Students had two individual therapeutic sessions weekly and several adolescent group sessions weekly. Hence the need for the Psychologists who later became disgruntled and stole equipment including expensive phones and computers. The psychologists Ricardo Wlaker, Karen Carprio and Soledad Giacobbe. While the therapy may not have been effective due to the incompetence of these therapists it is an uncontested fact that it took place.
Please list in detail the "Physical, Psychological abuse and verbal mistreatment. Include who, where, when and etc. Please note that it is an uncontested fact that Ricardo Walker was the clinical director of the facility and oversaw the food service, employee training, and discipline measures of the facility.
There were students from 13-18 years old
All students signed agreements that they chose to be at mentor teen (no mention)
Several reports by the students the psychologist and Pani "brainwashing the students". And making it very difficult for their return home. Several flights were outright missed by their mismanagement.
Several students told Pani and other officials they would like to continue the program
Mentor had a very effective recreational program including trips to Manuel Antonio, weekly movies, zip lines, crocodile tours, sea turtle releases, surfing, trips to the mall, and several trips to Jaco city and beach.
The government entered the facility with around 60 people illegally without a court order. When told such, they pretty much strong armed their way in and left absolutely zero due process.
Allegations are easy to make print and say yet where is the evidence?
To think that dozens of Costa Rica citizens would be involved in mistreatment of students is an insult to the hard working people that took great care of the students at the facility.
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Given WWASPS history, and the fact that both the parent on the original Tico Times article and the WWASPS troll on the updated version refer to the psychologists who reported the program to authorities as "disgruntled", it would not be surprising if the owners have sent out a memo to all parents with all the usual excuses about abusive authorities and so on. If we come into contact with any parents we should ask them for this letter.
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All students signed agreements that they chose to be at mentor teen (no mention)
Ya know... I couldn't find it in that most recent article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399124#p399108) by Adam Williams, but here is other reportage on those signed agreements, emphases added:
- From the translation (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851#p399036) "PANI closes youth academy students for alleged abuse" ("PANI cierra academia juvenil por supuestos maltratos a alumnos (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851#p399035)," by Karen Medina, Ferlin Fuentes and Jorge Umaña, 21/03/2011, La NACIÓN):
...PANI Technical Manager explained that the boys were interviewed by staff of that institution.
The official said the children reported that last Thursday were
forced to sign a document in which all observe that they were at the site of their own volition.
According to the boys, if they did not sign were sent to an isolation room where they should stay eight days.
[/size][/li][/list]
- From Lon Woodbury's 'Breaking News' article, "Teen Mentor Academy In Costa Rica Closed By Authorities (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399124#p399107)" (March 24, 2011):
PANI Technical Manager explained that staff of that institution had interviewed the boys. The official said the children reported last Thursday
they were forced to sign a document that stated they were at the site of their own volition. According to the boys, if they had not signed the document they would have been sent to an isolation room where they would have been kept eight days.
[/size][/li][/list]
=> This is especially evocative of the same kind of threats doled out to students in the aftermath of Prosecutor Vargas' visit to Dundee Ranch in 2003. Students who refused to sign that form, which was also intended to indicate that they were there of their own volition, were harshly punished.
From an article by Mark Johnson, "Academy's grip lingers as son, family transform (http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20070929091509/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=273497)" (Nov. 8, 2004; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), emphasis added:
On the morning after the riot, Dundee staff gathered students in small groups and
asked them to sign a form saying that they had been treated well and not abused.
"I thought it was an outrageous request for the staff to make of the kids," said Bezuidenhout, who supported Dundee Ranch in other respects.
Joel read the form and handed it back.
"I won't sign it," he said.
Joel and other students who refused to sign the form were placed inside the "high impact" facility, the walled compound Joel had helped to build. Academy staff stood guard at the entrance preventing the students from leaving. When Joel tried to walk out, one of the guards cracked a wooden board across his legs.[/list][/size]
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http://www.ticotimes.net/Opinion/Tough- ... Tough-Luck (http://www.ticotimes.net/Opinion/Tough-Love-or-Tough-Luck)
Most recent editorial in the most read English speaking publication down here.The wheels are turning.I stand corrected thinking that they closed down after N.Lichfield indictment,they opened Pillars of Hope in order to abuse kids in a subtler,sneakier way.Narvin Lichfield has rights down here too.This Teen Mentor shutdown was a sign to all the pickings may be riper in another field."Low Impact"--LOL
Some twisted people out there!
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Comments (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Child-Welfare-Office-closes-yet-another-teen-reform-center_Friday-March-25-2011) left for the above article, "Child Welfare Office closes yet another teen reform center (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399172#p399108)" (by Adam Williams; March 25, 2011; Tico Times):
Nun Yazbiz · Friday March 25 2011
Wow interesting but inaccurate report including:
"Bob" Lichfield had nothing to do with the ownership, operation or etc of this business.
Students had two individual therapeutic sessions weekly and several adolescent group sessions weekly. Hence the need for the Psychologists who later became disgruntled and stole equipment including expensive phones and computers. The psychologists Ricardo Wlaker, Karen Carprio and Soledad Giacobbe. While the therapy may not have been effective due to the incompetence of these therapists it is an uncontested fact that it took place.
Please list in detail the "Physical, Psychological abuse and verbal mistreatment. Include who, where, when and etc. Please note that it is an uncontested fact that Ricardo Walker was the clinical director of the facility and oversaw the food service, employee training, and discipline measures of the facility.
There were students from 13-18 years old
All students signed agreements that they chose to be at mentor teen (no mention)
Several reports by the students the psychologist and Pani "brainwashing the students". And making it very difficult for their return home. Several flights were outright missed by their mismanagement.
Several students told Pani and other officials they would like to continue the program
Mentor had a very effective recreational program including trips to Manuel Antonio, weekly movies, zip lines, crocodile tours, sea turtle releases, surfing, trips to the mall, and several trips to Jaco city and beach.
The government entered the facility with around 60 people illegally without a court order. When told such, they pretty much strong armed their way in and left absolutely zero due process.
Allegations are easy to make print and say yet where is the evidence?
To think that dozens of Costa Rica citizens would be involved in mistreatment of students is an insult to the hard working people that took great care of the students at the facility.
Nun Yazbiz · Sunday March 27 2011
Post appears to have been deleted. -Urs[/list]
Patrick Hewes · Monday March 28 2011
This make no sense, why PANI would "brainwash" the students?
Due process? Is this familiar?
http://www.wturley.com/Recent-Filings/2 ... SHEETS.pdf (http://www.wturley.com/Recent-Filings/20100722_Wood_PL_6th_Amd_Complaint_WITHOUT_CLAIM_SHEETS.pdf)[/list]
Patrick Hewes · Monday March 28 2011
http://www.helpyourteens.com/news/press ... giant.html (http://www.helpyourteens.com/news/press_release_mom_defeats_corporate_giant.html)[/list]
Patrick Hewes · Monday March 28 2011
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/cr ... .insession (http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2011/02/11/treating.troubled.teens.insession)
and this is how they operates...[/list]
Alan Jeffs · Tuesday March 29 2011
Patrick you seem to have all of the answers you should start up your own program to help teens that are struggling in their home, school or community.
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Man. Narvin Lichfield's got it coming from all sides now. :D
GREENWOOD — Narvin Lichfield won't be prosecuted in connection with about $2,000 worth of bad checks written on the closed account of his former boarding school for troubled teens.
After being arrested Jan. 28 for driving with a suspended license near the now-closed Carolina Springs Academy in Abbeville County, Lichfield was served with three courtesy summons related to bad checks that were passed at Frugals ABC liquor store in Greenwood...
Continue reading (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=32376&p=399192#p399192)...[/list]
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http://www.ticotimes.net/Opinion/Tough- ... Tough-Luck (http://www.ticotimes.net/Opinion/Tough-Love-or-Tough-Luck)
Most recent editorial in the most read English speaking publication down here.The wheels are turning.I stand corrected thinking that they closed down after N.Lichfield indictment,they opened Pillars of Hope in order to abuse kids in a subtler,sneakier way.Narvin Lichfield has rights down here too.This Teen Mentor shutdown was a sign to all the pickings may be riper in another field."Low Impact"--LOL
Some twisted people out there!
Here's the full piece, for posterity's sake... Fwiw, if I'm not mistaken, this op-ed piece appears to have accompanied the second article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&start=15#p399108) that the Tico Times put out on this incident. For some reason, I missed it at the time. Thanks for posting the link, Sam!
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Tico Times
OPINION
Tough Love, or Tough Luck? (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/Opinion/Tough-Love-or-Tough-Luck)
Posted: Thursday, March 24, 2011
Bob Lichfield's decision to locate what a website calls "Horizon Boot Camp" in a country with no army is bizarre.
Deciding what to do with a troubled teen is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of parenting. It's an all-inclusive burden that can be physically, emotionally and spiritually draining. So it's not an impulsive decision when parents – in perhaps a desperate last plea for help – choose to send their troubled teens to a foreign land and place them under the care of total strangers. There is no miracle cure for anything, particularly when it's promised by anonymous people on a website.
Last week's closing by Costa Rican child welfare officers of Teen Mentor, a behavioral modification program for troubled youth from the United States, is cause for concern (see story, Page 7). While the psychologists who recommended the program be shut down should be applauded for placing the teens' welfare above other concerns, there are still plenty of questions that need answering. Foremost among them is how the center was allowed to open in the fist place.
Robert Walter Lichfield, Teen Mentor's director and the intellect behind the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), perhaps a creative spin on the World Wide Web, where he makes his money, believes in tough love, itself a seemingly contradictory term. Lichfield likely believes that through punishment there is conformity, and through conformity, order. From order comes happiness, and through happiness, prosperity. But for whom?
Readers may have heard the name Lichfield before. Bob Lichfield is the brother of Narvin Lichfield, whose similar experiment, called the Dundee Ranch Academy, went horribly off-track after a Tico Times investigation exposed allegations of abusive treatment back in 2002. Narvin Lichfield was arrested and charged with detaining minors against their will, coercion and international rights violations. The charges stemmed from a "non-therapeutic behavior modification" program for teens he was operating in a country that prides itself on respect for human rights.
Like his brother, Bob Lichfield's decision to locate what a website calls "Horizon Boot Camp" in a country with no army is bizarre. Narvin Lichfield, by the way, was eventually cleared of those criminal charges – four years after he was arrested. The case's prosecutor – incredibly – admitted during the trial that there was not enough evidence to convict. A possible explanation for this is that the prosecutor – Edgar Oviedo – didn't call any witnesses, despite the willingness of several young adults who had been through the program to pay their own way from the U.S. to testify. Oviedo "lost" the allegedly incriminating evidence and didn't realize it until it was time for closing arguments. Trial judges took the uncommon step while they were rendering their verdict of "innocent" to add that they believed students at the Dundee Ranch were abused and had their rights violated. Narvin Lichfield denied those charges and called the judges' statements "hearsay."
Former Tico Time reporter and ex-Nica Times editor Tim Rogers first broke the Dundee Ranch story in October 2002. Costa Rica's Child Welfare Office, or PANI, finally issued a report based on a four-month investigation in May 2003, when it also filed a criminal complaint against the Dundee program with the Prosecutor's Office. Dundee Ranch was shut down in chaotic fashion that same month. The disorganization left many teens out on the street, with no Spanish-language skills, no money, no clothes and no passport. One teen was lost in downtown San José before a Good Samaritan helped him make contact with his mother in the U.S.
An investigation found that most of those teenagers were in the country with expired visas.
The fact that PANI shut down Teen Mentor only five months after it began operating in the Pacific town of Tárcoles de Garabito is a good thing. The fact that all the teenagers but one were reunited with their parents is another good thing.
But according to at least one parent of a teenager at the program, the Costa Rican government did not tell parents they planned on closing the facility. Parents received an urgent call from the U.S. State Department telling them to fly to Costa Rica and pick up their kids immediately. According to one parent's account, the ordeal was nearly as much a fiasco as it was in 2003 when Dundee was closed.
Here are some questions to ponder: Why (and how) was Teen Mentor allowed to care for troubled teens, many who suffer from emotional and psychological health disorders, without permits from PANI and the Health Ministry? Were the kids' visas expired? Why wouldn't WWASP operate these programs in the U.S., where kids could be closer to their parents? Why have at least 15 behavioral facilities operated by WWASP been closed in the U.S. and abroad in the past 16 years? Until these and other questions are answered, parents, it's best to keep looking for better solutions. There is still hope.
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Comment (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/Opinion/Tough-Love-or-Tough-Luck) left for the above opinion piece, "Tough Love, or Tough Luck? (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399266#p399226)" (March 24, 2011, Tico Times):
Thomas Carlson · Sunday March 27 2011
They didn't apply for the permits, so I'm assuming they were just flying under the radar. PANI may not have even heard of them until they got the complaint. They like to locate schools overseas because they are cheaper to operate (land/labor/expenses), and the separation makes it easier to keep parents in the dark. They are offered as a "budget" alternative to the programs operated in the states. I realize these questions are rhetorical, but for any parents who come upon this article at a later date: troubled teen programs have a natural lifespan because they are abusive by nature and new staff or ex-students will eventually report what is going on inside to authorities. Don't send your kid away. If you have sent your kid away: demand an unmonitored phone call, go yourself and retrieve them, and don't take no for an answer. Your child's well being is worth more than the money you have already sunk into this pyramid scheme.
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Front page this week's Tico Times
http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story ... il-01-2011 (http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Parents-revile-Teen-Mentor-others-claim-program-s-value_Friday-April-01-2011)
Please PM me if you want to contribute as I will be in touch with author and editor next week!
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I was duped. I was at the end of my rope with my son and someone was telling me that they could help me out. They said he would receive therapy, go to class six to seven hours a day, participate in yoga, go to the beach and work out his issues. I believed it. I'm ashamed to know that there are people out there that would take advantage of struggling parents. I'm ashamed at myself for believing them.
— Shelley Sylvester, Teen Mentor parent[/list][/list]
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Tico Times
TOP STORY
Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program's value (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Parents-revile-Teen-Mentor-others-claim-program-s-value_Friday-April-01-2011)
Posted: Friday, April 01, 2011 - By Adam Williams
In wake of the closure of the Teen Mentor youth residential program on March 18, differing opinions were shared this week about the reports of alleged abuse taking place.
(http://http://www.ticotimes.net/var/tico/storage/images/media/images/news-photos/teen-mentor/711780-1-eng-US/Teen-Mentor_newsfull_h.jpg)
Tough Love, Nice Pool: Citing allegations of abuse, child welfare officers on March 18 shut down Teen Mentor, a youth behavioral modification program held at Hotel Carara, in the Pacific town of Tárcoles. A former program employee denies the abuse took place. Alberto Font
Teen Mentor, a behavioral modification center that officials from the Child Welfare Office (PANI) closed March 18, is under fire by a group of parents whose children attended the program. Some former staff members, however, defend the now-defunct center.
Many parents of U.S. teens who attended the center, which was located in the Hotel Carara in the Pacific coastal town of Tárcoles, in Puntarenas, say they now feel they were tricked during the program's admissions process, and that some information they were told by program administrators appears to be either erroneous or false.
A network known as the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) operated Teen Mentor. In the last 15 years, at least 16 programs operated by WWASPS have been closed due to allegations of abuse or lack of operating licenses.
Shelley Sylvester, who had to make an emergency flight to Costa Rica last week to retrieve her 16-year-old son after the program was closed, says she was told that her son, who had been struggling academically and behaviorally, would be in good hands with the staff of Teen Mentor.
"I was duped," she said. "I was at the end of my rope with my son and someone was telling me that they could help me out. They said he would receive therapy, go to class six to seven hours a day, participate in yoga, go to the beach and work out his issues. I believed it. I'm ashamed to know that there are people out there that would take advantage of struggling parents. I'm ashamed at myself for believing them."
According to Jorge Urbina, PANI's technical director, a psychologist who visited and worked with the teenagers in the program sent a report to PANI that warned of abusive practices against residents of the facility. Urbina and other PANI officials then visited the program on March 18 to investigate. When they arrived, they found no administrative staff to supervise the 20 U.S. teenagers participating in the program.
Also, some residents told welfare officers that they had witnessed or experienced abuse during the program.
"We intervened and interviewed all the kids from the program. Their reports were similar to the reports made by the psychologists about mistreatment and rights violations," Urbina told The Tico Times. "It was apparent (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/News/Child-Welfare-Office-closes-yet-another-teen-reform-center_Friday-March-25-2011) that the regimen of discipline included physical, psychological and verbal mistreatment" (TT, March 25).
Urbina also said the program was not licensed to operate by the Health Ministry or PANI, which was another reason for closing it.
PANI officials removed the teenagers from the hotel and contacted their parents via the U.S. Embassy. Several parents said they received urgent phone calls from embassy or State Department staff requesting they make emergency travel arrangements to Costa Rica to pick up their kids.
Brande Ridd, an independent contractor with the WWASPS organization and who worked at Teen Mentor for two months, said the allegations against the program "are not correct," and that she felt the majority of the parents and residents had positive experiences with the program.
"I know the facts and I know that it was a really, really good program," Ridd said. "These kids are difficult kids. They have pushed their parents to a limit and they need help, they need an intervention. They beg to go into these programs... I know that the people who ran this school are very kind and very loving. But I also know that some of these kids are trying to manipulate their parents by telling them false accounts of what happened."
According to Ridd, residents were making progress in the program before PANI intervened. She said that many of the residents and parents were disappointed with the closure of the program and have already expressed plans to enter their children into WWASPS facilities at other locations.
She also said the psychologist filed the complaint while the primary administrator of Teen Mentor, Robert Walter Lichfield, was out of the country visiting his family in the U.S.
"PANI took over and made everything into disarray. They didn't ask questions, they didn't give anybody an opportunity to get to the bottom of anything," Ridd said. "It caused a lot of turmoil with all of these families. Some of them had to pay a minimum of a few thousand dollars to fly to Costa Rica and get them. Several of the kids and parents were angry. Kids were saying, 'There was no abuse. We were doing good.' Several parents were angry with how PANI handled their kids."
The case is currently being investigated by the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ).
A Long History
The Teen Mentor program is the second WWASPS program closed in Costa Rica in the last eight years.
In 2002, Narvin Lichfield, Robert's uncle, was director of the Dundee Ranch Academy in the town of Hidalgo, Orotina, west of San José. A Tico Times investigation that year found that many of the students who attended the academy accused Dundee staff of physical and psychological abuse (TT, Oct. 25, 2002).
In an interview with The Tico Times in 2002, Narvin explained his "high impact" behavioral modification methods, which included tactics such as making students walk 100 miles around a track under the hot Pacific sun to earn their "freedom," or forcing them to spend up to five days in "solitary confinement" as punishment for looking out of the window during a lesson.
In 2003, Dundee Ranch was closed when PANI officials raided the facility after a U.S. woman living in Costa Rica, Susan Flowers, reported to PANI that her daughter was being held against her will at the academy. The raid resulted in a student riot and 35 teens escaped from the site (TT, May 23, 2003).
WWASPS was founded by Narvin Lichfield's brother, Robert Browning Lichfield, who is the father of Teen Mentor operator Robert Walter Lichfield.
Since opening the first program in the 1990s, at least 16 worldwide residential programs operated by WWASPS have been closed. According to documentation in a pending civil lawsuit against WWASPS in the state of Utah, "no WWASPS facility has ever been licensed by any state regulatory authority as a 'treatment center'."
The lawsuit was filed by Dallas-based Turley Law Firm and Salt Lake City, Utah's Parker & McConkie, both in the U.S. Court filings shows that 353 plaintiffs joined the suit against WWASPS. The civil lawsuit accuses WWASPS organization of negligence, fraud, breach of contract, battery, assault, false imprisonment and a host of other charges.
Of the thousands of parents who sent their children to WWASPS-run programs, many say they found the centers online, thanks to high visibility advertising. A Google search this week of the words "Teen Mentor Costa Rica" turns up 40 results. The first six link to WWASPS-operated programs. Each website has a different domain name and provides a different contact phone number, although the sites have nearly identical home pages and graphic images, as well as matching promises of therapy at a low-cost.
Veronica Barger, whose 17-year old son was at Teen Mentor for three weeks prior to its closure, told The Tico Times that she looked up residential programs and teen behavioral centers online and found WWASPS programs "nearly everywhere I looked." After communicating with representatives of the program for several weeks, Barger said she was convinced the program was right for her son.
"They told me they would do everything in their power to help him," Barger said. "They said Costa Rica was beautiful, that the kids would be raising local sea turtles, that [my son] would be involved in extracurricular activities and that the program was a good fit for him. It all sounded so good. I put my confidence in them, even started a friendship with the woman that helped me. I trusted them."
Parents say visibility and a strong Internet presence have led them to WWASPS programs for years.
"I sent my daughter to a WWASPS program in 1999 at a time when the Internet was still very young," said Sue Scheff, who says that her daughter was abused at a WWASPS program in 2000. "Around that time, it seemed like everything you typed [online] about residential programs or teen help, [WWASPS] would come up in every search. It was a great marketing technique. It's scary to think that it is still working."
Yet despite the allegations of mistreatment in WWASPS programs, Ridd claims organization isn't deserving of its bad publicity.
"There are parents out there that didn't get it their way when their child was in program and they have made it their mission to destroy WWASPS," she said. "There are thousands of kids and parents that are so thankful for what the program did for them. It forever benefitted their lives."
Repeated attempts to contact Robert Walter Lichfield via telephone and email were unsuccessful by press time. The Tico Times called several toll-free numbers advertised on WWASPS websites, as well as Lichfield's Costa Rican cellphone and residential numbers, and the Hotel Carara, where the Teen Mentor program was held.
# # #
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From the above article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399466#p399335):
Since opening the first program in the 1990s, at least 16 worldwide residential programs operated by WWASPS have been closed. According to documentation in a pending civil lawsuit against WWASPS in the state of Utah, "no WWASPS facility has ever been licensed by any state regulatory authority as a 'treatment center'."
The lawsuit was filed by Dallas-based Turley Law Firm and Salt Lake City, Utah's Parker & McConkie, both in the U.S. Court filings shows that 353 plaintiffs joined the suit against WWASPS. The civil lawsuit accuses WWASPS organization of negligence, fraud, breach of contract, battery, assault, false imprisonment and a host of other charges.
Gotta wonder if these recent events surrounding the Teen Mentor program might give the Turley suit a good shot in the arm...
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Comments (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Parents-revile-Teen-Mentor-others-claim-program-s-value_Friday-April-01-2011) left for the above article, "Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program's value (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399521#p399335)" (by Adam Williams; April 01, 2011; Tico Times):
Johnnathan Lopez · Saturday April 02 2011
its important to encourage the good health for all of the children, but at the same time looks like the PANI was too fast to make a chaos of the situation
Michele Ballard · Tuesday April 05 2011
There was no abuse at Mentor and if PANI would have come in and done a professional investigation with cross checks, reviewed student's histories, and interviewed adults ( Staff ) they would have came to same conclusion.
Instead they rushed in to make headlines with no court order or approval, no due process, ignored students who stated there was no abuse, and believed manipulative student without checking their history or background of lying and fabrication.
In the process they robbed dozens of Costa Ricans of good jobs and thousands of dollars to local vendors and service providers.
With unchecked Government officials like this, Costa Rica will struggle in attracting business to the country.
Many of the parents have discussed a lawsuit against PANI not only for the way the handled the investigation but for the lack of supervision and way they handled the students taken in their care.
Michele Ballard · Tuesday April 05 2011
Excerpt from sworn statement by Staff at Mentor.............
Let their be no mistake!..... This center was initiated as a "help center", and functioned as such until its wrongful closing......
I here by proclaim that since my collaboration began with MENTOR TEEN CR., (on the second day of November, 2010).... Which ended on the unfortunate day
of the improper closure.
! Have not been whiteness to any sort of mistreatment, of any kind, of any student enrolled in this program !
David Brendon C.
Ken Kay · Tuesday April 05 2011
To Whom it May Concern:
As the president of WWASPS, Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, I was very dismayed with your article titled, “Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program’s value” dated April 1st, 2011.
Mentor was not ever involved with WWASPS in any way. The WWASPS has actually done no business with any school for nearly five years and has no members nor does it provide any services of any kind to any school or other organization.
Ken Kay
President, WWASPS
Michele Ballard · Tuesday April 05 2011
I spent several weeks living on campus Mentor as a volunteer. I’ve worked in a variety of settings with different age groups including group homes and schools, before coming to Costa Rica and I naturally developed a rapport with the teens at Mentor. There was never any mistreatment or abuse. In fact, I was impressed by the Staff and the care, supervision, and treatment they gave to students.
I was really impressed by the staffs commitment to motivate the kids to want more for themselves and be willing to work for it–and to strive to be accountable. This process can be extremely turbulent and many teens end up struggling to negotiate these challenges effectively. I found that Mentor was working with teens to help them get their lives back on track by learning to evaluate their choices, communicate more effectively, and cultivate healthy relationships with their families and those around them.
Further I was there when PANI raided the place without Court Order and they made no effort to conduct an appropriate investigation. It was very unprofessional and damaging to the students. As Mr. Lopez said, “its important to encourage the good health for all of the children, but at the same time looks like the PANI was too fast to make a chaos of the situation.”
A Dedicated Volunteer
lynne stephenson · Tuesday April 05 2011
My daugher attended Mentor Costa Rica for a little over two months. I want people to know that our experience with the program was consistently one of absolute excellence. Our daughter is 17 years old and we have been struggling for at least 5 years to get her help for the various issues she has. Mentor was the first program we have found where she truly found tangible benefit in a very short period of time. My husband and I were consistently pleased with all of the communication we had with the staff throughout her stay and we are so very sorry the program ended the way it did. I personally feel that the sudden shutdown of the school was handled improperly and there was a rush to judgement without a thorough examination of the facts. I have read the various horror stories about the WWASP history and I am not clear about any possible connection between Mentor and WWASP. All I know for a fact is that our experience with this program is 100% contrary to what I have read about any prior history.
We are left as a family to pick up the pieces and start all over again. This should not be the case. I have spoken with all of the parents of the girls that were there and we all felt the same way, our girls were finally getting the help they needed and were making true progress. How sad that this wonderful experience was cut short with such drama and trauma laden on kids who are already very troubled to begin with.
I would also like to add that once PANI was in control, we as parents in the US were left pretty helpless. I received a call one Friday evening from the US Embassy in Costa Rica demanding that I fly immediately to Costa Rica to retrieve my daughter. The demands were very unreasonable and there was absolutely no coordination between the 'authorities', the former therapy staff of Mentor and the Embassy. I was not impressed at all by these authorities who essentially kidnapped our kids and shut down a great facility without conducting a thorough and objective investigation. The damage they caused to my daughter and my family will take a long time to get over.
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With regard to all those Michele Ballard comments (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399533#p399521), I have to wonder if this is the same "Michele Ballard" who has a few "articles" floating out there on the internet re. ADHD/ADD kids (e.g., 1 (http://http://specialeducationactivities.edusped.com/zoo-phonics-another-zoo-bingo-game/), 2 (http://http://www.kidsmakingchange.com/ArticleDirectory/article/LinkBetweenADDandDepression/article.html)), with the website MyBoardingSchool.com (http://http://www.myboardingschool.com/) provided as a "helpful" resource apparently manned by Michele herself. Quote from top right hand corner of the home page:
If you would like to ADD A BOARDING SCHOOL to our directory send us an email with your school information. [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected])
Domain name: MYBOARDINGSCHOOL.COM
Administrative Contact:
Netscraper WebServices
Netscraper WebServices ([email protected])
+1.4356356801
Fax:
50 South State Street
La Verkin, UT 84745
US
[/list][/size]
On the right side of MyBoardingSchool.com's home page is the descriptive of "2 Types of Schools," with the option of selecting from "Troubled Teen Boarding Schools" or "College Prep Boarding Schools." The latter leads you to a rather incomplete database. The former leads you to a page where you can fill out a form (http://http://www.myboardingschool.com/form.html) with your particulars and someone will get back to you. Sound familiar? :D
Another banner, on the left hand side, features "Parent Resources - Options for Struggling Teens," which enables you to select from a variety of 1-800 numbers for "boarding schools," "military schools," "boot camps," "teen treatment" and "free home program."
"Featured Specialty Schools" on MyBoardingSchool.com (bottom left hand corner):
Cross Creek Programs
Horizon Academy
Red River Academy[/list]
Quote from near bottom of the page: "*The phone numbers listed on this website may be answered by a number of organizations that specialize in helping struggling teens."
:rofl: Jeez Louise...
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I just want to thank you for finding this and posting it.
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From the above comments (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399633#p399521), emphasis added:
Ken Kay · Tuesday April 05 2011
To Whom it May Concern:
As the president of WWASPS, Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, I was very dismayed with your article titled, "Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program’s value" dated April 1st, 2011.
Mentor was not ever involved with WWASPS in any way.
The WWASPS has actually done no business with any school for nearly five years and has no members nor does it provide any services of any kind to any school or other organization.
Ken Kay
President, WWASPS[/list][/list]
Shucks, that's technically correct... as long as you don't look too carefully beneath the surface!
After a brief fling under the umbrella of a company known as Supporting Teens (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=20367&start=15#p319991), all the former WWASPS schools just happened to undergo a change in ownership some time in 2006. The "new" company is called Teen Revitalization (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=20367&start=15#p319998). :D
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Some more comments (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Parents-revile-Teen-Mentor-others-claim-program-s-value_Friday-April-01-2011) left for the above article, "Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program's value (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399521#p399335)" (by Adam Williams; April 01, 2011; Tico Times), #s 7-10:
Robert Walter Lichfield · Wednesday April 06 2011
I Robert Walter Lichfield the founder of the now bankrupt METOR TEEN in Costa Rica would like to add a few points of clarification to this article and the previous article written by Mr. Williams on March25, 2011.
Regarding the Previous Article "Child Welfare Office Closes Yet Another Teen Reform Center"
• Pani Technical Director Jorge Urbina made comments that show his and Panis' extreme ignorance and bias. For instance he stated" "The place promoted itself as a therapeutic center with recreational offerings," Urbina said. "But in our investigation we found that there was no therapy being performed at the school nor was there a recreational program."
That therapy was provided to the students individually and in-group settings several times weekly is a known fact that would be easily discovered. The Parent's of our students received Therapeutic Progress Reports weekly and the Psychologist gave professional recommendations for administration and staff based on these sessions that being said, it should be noted that at no time did any of these recommendations or any other time prior to quitting did any of the Psychologists or any other staff express any major concern for MENTOR'S policies or procedures. In Fact, Mr. Ricardo the Clinical Director made many if not most of MENTOR'S policies and was in charge of the food service, the student point system (which included discipline) and staff training. Mr. Ricardo was employed in this role for several months.
Regarding the activities, All students that attained level three went on weekly activities which included surfing, turtle release, multiplaza shopping, canopy zip lines, Manuel Antonio, and going to Jaco beach and city. Level three students also went to our beachfront daily (or had the option to) and went in town several times weekly.
Mr. Urbina also stated our students were between 15-17 when they were actually between 13 and 18.
The fact that PANI so grossly mislead the public on things that are easily provable otherwise show their incompetence, ineptness and extreme partiality.
• Make no doubt about it, Pani didn’t come to check out some reported allegations when they showed up on the 18th of March they cam to close MENTOR down. They came with 60 people/police surrounding the hotel like a swat team would surround a dangerous situation not like impartial authorities trying to determine the welfare of our youth.
• I did respond by email to Mr. Williams email to me dated March 31, 2011 on April 1, 2011 stating that I would be willing to clarify things for him
• At no time did I witness or hear of any mistreatment of any student I would like to know if Pani still claims such to outline in writing the student, date and how they were mistreated. In fact, I spoke with the students individually and collectively several times each week and while I was "told things are better when you are here" I was never told of any mistreatment outside of one minor instance of a Staff calling a student a name which the staff was promptly written up and didn't do it again.
• While there were occasional inconsistencies regarding the food service the food portions and quality overall was on par with or exceeded most Costa Rica typical restaurants that I have been to and certainly was adequate. The students ate three meals a day along with three snacks. The food was typically very healthy and had a combination of fruits and vegetables as well as pasta, meats and rice and beans. Again, Mr. Ricardo our clinical director and the primary person spearheading the PANI thing when he became disgruntled was in charge of our food service. Staff also ate the food everyday same portion same food except staff didn't have the thrice daily snacks.
• Any student that had a medical need promptly saw a medical doctor. I would guess 6 or so of our students saw a medical doctor for various issues. Not one instance of a student requesting to see a doctor was denied whereas we had many students that chose to not see a doctor when asked f they would like to. To my knowledge we had at least two medical doctors on our campus. In addition, We had a referral from a Psychiatrist of a student that had previously been discharged well after the student was home which obviously, wouldn't happen if there was anything improper.
• Myself and one of our Psychologists met with both Miss Barger and Miss Sylvester privately at length and afterward gave each a tour of our facility whereby they spoke with MENTOR staff, other students and etc. They individually must have been impressed because they enrolled their precious children to MENTOR'S care.
• All of the students but one signed a document outlining their needs were satisfactorily met and they stayed at MENTOR through their own volition. The sole student that didn't agree, we informed his parents' to make arrangements to pick him up.
• It should be noted that MENTOR'S attorneys believe that the PANI and other officials violated several Costa Rica laws in their entrance of our facility and the subsequent hijacking of MENTOR students and its forced closure. In addition, their timing when they presumably knew ( the Psychologist knew I was going to the USA) I was with family in the USA and late on a Friday afternoon leaving no opportunity to file an injunction was believed to have been done strategically in an effort to entirely bypass the judicial system and afford no proper due process.
• Pani and the US Embassy demanded that the childrens' parents pick them up in Costa Rica and then discriminately later allowed some children to leave without such showing inconsistencies and bias and on some that they did allow to leave unaccompanied they messing up on getting students to the airport on time and thereby forced them to miss their flights.
• I came across something the other day that I wish I would have known before opening Teen MENTOR and that is the World Bank's Index on "Ease of Doing Business" which ranks Costa Rica amongst the bottom 33%. Costa Rica was most recently ranked at 125 out of 183 ranked countries. The Ease of business index factors such things as corruption, protection of investments, access to due process, governmental hurdles and etc. I believe that although Costa Rica is a beautiful country with an educated populace that is hard working, Miss Chinchilla will not realize her dream of having Costa Rica be the first developed country in Latin America as long as Costa Rica ranks so poorly on the things that this index measures. These government authorities closed our campus without any due process based upon their bias from my uncle's business from years ago that had nothing to do with teen mentor (My uncle was exonerated of all charges as a matter of fact) and the disgruntled feelings of a few former Psychologists one of which was the person in charge of the student living and discipline of the students (and if anything was amiss would be the person that should be disciplined loose his license and etc.). We had dozens of visitors to our campus (which was in the middle of town next to the police station) every week including doctors, former NFL players, musicians, artists, police, community members, perspective clients, perspective employees and etc. and not one felt or voiced concern over any improprieties. In any event, the governmental authorities caused the disruption of literally hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in the local community through wages, professional services, support services and etc. Unfortunately for many of the fine Costa Rica citizens that put their heart and souls into assisting our student's lead more productive healthier lives are without the employment that they need doing the work they love.
Patrick Hewes · Wednesday April 06 2011
In Costa Rica any and I mean ANY psychologist can and should report on any alleged mistreatment they believe, assume or overheard by a third party. This is also valid for around the globe.
Most of the times PANI don't go further with the alleged accusations and these are just filed and archived, because of not enough evidence or lack of consistency provided by the alleged victim or victims. This was not the case!
Teen Mentor was not close because the one psychologist was disgruntled, it was close because not one, not two but three yes, you heard right three psychologist "believe, assume or overheard by a third party" about the alleged abuses. They went to PANI which is the Child protection branch, and PANI went to talk to the kids, most of the kids confirm what was reported.
Besides, the facility that the program had at a different location was similar to those reported on
http://www.caica.org (http://www.caica.org) web page. At this site they had no psychologist, no nurse no doctor the only staff there was guards watching the door of just plain dark rooms without ventilation, without water, without bathrooms, and the objective of having the kids in those conditions was merely for them to sit and think, while they write essays and if refuse to do so they was deprived of food, water or any of their basic needs.
Costa Rica is a great country to invest, but you can't just rent a Hotel, hire people and call it a Center, you need permits, for whatever activity you are planning to operate you need permits, Teen Mentor didn't request none of the required permits and thought they could fly bellow the radar.
If your kid was at Teen Mentor because of drug issues, they needed a permit that they failed to request to the proper authorities.
If your kid was at Teen Mentor because of school, they needed a permit that they failed to request to the proper authorities.
If your kid was at Teen Mentor and he/she took medication they needed a Nurse or/and Doctor and Teen Mentor didn't have any on their payroll and having an ambulance service is not the same of having a nurse or/and doctor on site. And so on.
The similarity and coincidences with WWASP are just too carbon copy to not think they are not part of it, but then again, that is behind the point.
These are the things that their lawyer should have advise them about.
So my fellow Americans yes you can visit Costa Rica, yes you can Invest in Costa Rica, yes you can continue to send your kids to programs that are based in Costa Rica, next time just make sure you request a copy of the permits, it is your right to do so, and we are obligated to produce them for you.[/list]
Alan Jeffs · Thursday April 07 2011
Patrick,
I guess you were there when all of this went down? Or by reading your post sound like a business lawyer in Costa Rica or a brilliant investor.
Just so you know Costa Rica is not a great place to do investments they barley rank in the top 10 in Central America which is not saying much at all
http://www.heritage.org/index/Country/costarica (http://www.heritage.org/index/Country/costarica)
When you rank 125 out of 180 of Ease of Doing Business I don't think that supports your statement
http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings (http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings)
When Tourism is your number 1 industry that is not saying much.
Where is Mr. Ricardo's and the other Therapist Written Complaints prior to the facility being shutdown? The therapist did not act in the best interest of the students or families instead of focusing on the children safety and security they focused on there own person vendetta and feelings.
Don't know if you are one of Sue Scheff's puppets but you are referencing a so called Child Advocate Group ran and started by Sue Scheff http://www.sueschefftruth.com/ (http://www.sueschefftruth.com/)
All real child advocates and ex-disgruntled students have little regard for Sue Scheff and her trying to play both sides.
I guess anything you say we should really consider the source or who's saying it.
Patrick please post your resume I am sure a lot of companies will want to work with you and your excellent insight[/list]
eddie u · Thursday April 14 2011
WELL FIRST OF ALL I WANT TO START OUT BY SAYING THIS IS ALL A BIG LIE . I STARTED WORKING AT THIS FACILITY 1 AND 1/2 MONTHES BEFORE IT CLOSED . WHEN I FIRST STARTED I WAS INPRESS IN HOW MUCH MR ROBERT AND OTHER MEMBERS REALLY WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERANCE IN THE LIVES OF THESE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN THAT DIDNT KNOW HOW TO MANAGE LIVES AT HOME . FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY I ALSO WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERCE . I AS A FATHER OF FOUR UNDERSTOOD THE INPORTANCE OF THE FUTURE OF OWER CHILDREN .THATS THE MENTALLITY I CAME INTO THIS JOB . AS I STARTED WORKING THAT DAY AND MANY OTHER DAYS AFTER I WAS INORMED BY MISTER RICARDO THE THAT HE WAS IN CHARGE OF ALL THE OPERATION OF THIS PLACE . IN THE TRAINING IN OF STAFF IN THE MANGEMENT AND OPERATION . IN THE BUYING AND SETTING UP OF THE FOOD AND NURICHMENT OF THE STUDANTS IN WHITCH I ALSO ATE .IT WAS TIPICAL COSTA RICAN FOOD VERY HEALTHY . SOME TIMES WE ALSO HAD HAMBURGERS AND HOT DOGS . ANY WAY AS I WORKED AND A FEW DAYS PAST BYE I DIDNT SEE ANY REAL ATTENTION IN THE STUDANTS TO PROGRESS SO I TOOK UPON MYSELF TO TRY TO MAKE A DIFFERANCE . WELL ALOWING FOR ME TO MAKE CHANGES OF THE SYSTEM THAT MR RICHARDO HAD IMPLIMENTED . WELL DOING THESE CHANGES I FOUND OUT THAT MR RICHARDO DIDNT LIKE THE CHANGES HE BECAME R RATED . TO A POINT THAT HE WANTED ME FIRED .ALL THIS IS TRUE ANYWAY . ABOUT ALL THE ALIGATIONS I JUST ITS ALL A BUNCH OF LIES .I KNOW I WAS MAKING A DIFFERANCE IN THESE YOUNG BMEN AND WOMEN . I KNOW THEY DID APRICIATE ALL THE GOOD THING I DID FOR THEM . I CAN WAKE UP IN THE MORNING AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF - I KNOW THE TRUE AS WELL AS EVERYBODY DOES ESPECIALY GOD . I KNOW THAT THE PANI DOSENT KNOW ANYTHING IF THEY DID THEY WOULDNT HAVE DONE WHAT THEY DID AND HOW THEY DID IT .MR RICHARDO WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH GOD ONE DAY FOR WHAT HE DID . P.S. NOBODY EVER CONTACTED ME AND MY NUMBER IS STILL THE SAME
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A bit of History:
Subject: Experience of Dundee Ranch Academy from ex-Director
To the Minister of Child Welfare:
I worked as the Director at the Academy at Dundee Ranch from March to
August of 2002. During this time, Mr. Joseph Atkin was the Financial Director.
Mr. Kenneth Wilson was the Student Director. I replaced Mr. Ron Del
Aguila (who replaced Mr. Randall Hinton). After I left in August of 2002, Mr.
Joseph Atkin replaced me. Mr. Atkin left in February of this year, and has
been replaced by Mr. Francisco Bustos.
I feel that Dundee Ranch Academy should not be allowed to operate
because it is poorly managed, takes financial advantage of parents in crisis, and
puts teens in physical and emotional risk.
Dundee Ranch Academy is poorly managed, and this is why so many
directors have left in the short 18 months that the school has been open.
Company policies and procedures changed daily on the whims of Mr. Narvin
Lichfield, the owner. While I was there, Mr. Lichfield and his wife (girlfriend at
the time) often made it impossible for my staff and myself to do our jobs.
For example, Mr. Lichfield and his wife often changed the rules of the
program without informing the staff. They would give kids special permission to
break rules, until it got to the point where the staff gave up trying to control the students. Mr. Lichfield and his wife often demanded that structural changes be made to buildings or that new buildings be built without obtaining the necessary building permits. Orotina authorities
visited several times and threatened to close the place if construction was
occurring when they returned. However, because the construction workers
were more afraid of Mr. Lichfield and his fits of rage than they were of
the local authorities, they would go right back to work as soon as the
authorities were out of site.
The purpose of Dundee Ranch is not to help teens in crisis or their
families. It is to make millions of dollars for the owner. Although
the profit margins are approximately 50% -75%, Mr. Lichfield is unsatisfied.
He continues to try to squeeze out every penny he can. This is achieved by
hiring unqualified, untrained staff, providing the bare minimum of food
and living essentials, and by adding huge margins to additional services.
For example, if a student needs a ride to San Jose to visit the doctor,
Dundee charges the parents $250 when it costs them $50. If a student sees the
Doctor, parents are charged $50; Dundee pays $15. If a student needs
medicine, parents are charged $30; Dundee typically pays $2 - $3.
Parents pay $95 per month for "incidentals" like toothpaste and deodorant.
These incidentals, while I was there, cost Dundee $15 per month.
While I was in the process of resigning from Dundee Ranch last August,
an American male staff member assaulted and raped a female staff member at
a location of about 100 meters from where all the students are housed. I
was not on the premises at the time, but was involved in reporting the
incident to the Costa Rican authorities and staying with the employee's mother
who flew in from the United States. The parents of students who were in the
program were not informed of the incident. Mr. Atkin, one of Dundee's
many Directors, dismissed the incident to a Tico Times reporter as a
"non-issue." One of the reasons that the incident was not made public was because
the employee who committed the crime was a recent "graduate" of an
affiliated program. The program claims a 92% "success" rate, and a drunken assault
of a graduate would not be seen as a success.
This leads to another issue-untrained, unqualified staff. None of the
staff members are trained to work with at-risk youth. The only reason we had
hired Mr. Andy Lamb, a young 19-year-old with a history of abusive
behavior, is because he knew the program, and was willing to work for the very low
wage offered by Mr. Lichfield. According to the Mr. Lichfield, "there
was not enough money in the budget" to hire trained, qualified staff. Here
are some other highlights:
* The owner, Mr. Lichfield, has been involved with these types of
programs for at least 15 years, but as the Marketing person, not as a clinical
person.
* The current director, Mr. Francisco Bustos, (as Mr. Atkin
recently got fed up with the chaos and also left Dundee Ranch) has no experience. If you
look at their website, it states that he has experience owning and
operating 5 pizza restaurants. The reason he was hired is because he was a
longtime friend of the owner's wife, Ms. Flori Alvaredo.
* The "Family Fathers", the staff who spend all day with the
students, give corrections and punishment to the students, and who are supposed to
teach and kindly correct the students, are minimum wage workers who do not
speak English.
* The "Family Representatives", the staff that hold daily
counseling sessions (called "Reflections") with the students have no training or
background in this area. They are also the only point of contact
between the program and the students and often find themselves in a family
counseling role, for which they are not qualified.
* They have only one trained psychologist on staff, who visits
once a week, but parents must pay an additional $75/hour for his services.
* I am the first to admit that I was not even qualified to be
there. I hold a degree in Secondary Education, but took only one class in working with
at-risk youth.In addition to this, when I was there, most of the staff were
disgruntled and frustrated with the way they were treated. Often their paychecks
did not arrive on time or with the right amount of money. They often took
their frustration at the administration out on the students. They treated
students poorly (yelling at them, giving them extra "consequences".)
Staff turn-over is very high. This creates additional instability with the
students. During the year 2002, there were four different Directors.
"Family Representatives" and teachers came and left monthly. This
created additional emotional instability in the students who were already torn
from their parents and allowed extremely limited time to talk with the other
students in the program. The only chance they often had to talk was
with staff, and those staff continued to leave the program.
As an employee, the only training I received was on how to manipulate
parents. I was told many times that "there is no reason for a student
to return home before 'graduating' the program". Once they are in, they
are there to stay. This process takes 12 to 36 months. There were many
students who had psychological, medical, or special education needs that
we could not meet. When I suggested that they be sent to another place
where they could receive the help they needed, I was told to "keep my mouth
shut and make sure that their parents kept them there." I was threatened
with my job. If there were students who would be better off going home or
entering another program, I was not allowed to suggest this to the parent.
Ironically, if the parents had concerns about what was going on, we were
told to tell the parents that their children were "just manipulating
them."
Students were not allowed to communicate freely with their parents, or
anyone else. They were allowed to write a weekly email and letter, but
the staff was instructed to read the email and letter and take out anything
they did not like, or write comments to the parents. The students were not
allowed to express their true feelings. Students were not allowed to
talk with their parents until they were "Level 3", which could take anywhere
from 4 to 24 months. At that point, they were allowed a 15 minute phone call
once a month. Staff was instructed to hang the phone up and terminate
their conversation if the student said anything negative about the program.
Students were not allowed to talk without permission. Typically, they
would be able to speak with their friends for about 15 to 30 minutes a day.
They were isolated from the outside world. They did not have a chance to
view a newspaper or the internet. Emotionally, this was very difficult for the
students, as many of them processed their emotions by talking about
them.
When I first arrived, "restraints" were common. This was when a staff
member would twist a student's arm around their back and throw them to
the ground or against a wall. I know of at least one case where an arm was
dislocated. I insisted that this stop, and I am fairly certain that it
did not happen while I was there. However, I have heard reports that this
was started again after I left. Further investigation should be done.
Another punishment was writing "essays" of 3000 to 150,000 words.
Students were required to sit in a dark room without proper back support, and
write these essays until they finished the required number of words. Often,
staff members, for no apparent reason, would rip up the essays and make the
students start over. Students were required to write for 8 hours a day
until their words were completed.
The worst punishment was "OP" or "Observational Punishment." In this,
students were required to stand, kneel, sit, or lay on a cement floor
without moving for 30 minutes at a time. They had to do this for 8
hours a day, until they had "served their time". When some of the kids accepted
this, the staff made them run 100s of laps around the pool, just to make
it miserable enough that the kids would want to comply.
Students had no voice. If they had a complaint, they were supposed to
write a "grievance" on a piece of paper. Often, these were lost or
confiscated by staff who did not want to look bad.
I stayed at Dundee because I wanted to make things run well, because I
believe that when administered well, the program can be effective for
some teens. However, many of the teens that were there at the time (and
probably still there) would be much better served somewhere else. This was not
an option because it would take money out of Mr. Lichfield's pocket. I also
realized that my efforts would never be successful. I could not hire
and keep trained staff. I could not spend money on things the kids needed.
Several times we ran out of toilet paper and the kids had to use
notebook paper. I could not get Mr. Lichfield to begin the dorms that were so
desperately needed, and that he promised to parents "were in the works".
Everything was focused on the profits Mr. Lichfield could make, not on
the health or welfare of the students. Some additional examples of this
are:
* The city water was disconnected and students were given well
water to drink, because the city water was "too expensive". Shortly thereafter,
approximately 40 students got diarrhea and eventually drinking water was
filtered. This may have been a coincidence. But even if the water did
not have any problems, they should have tested it before they began giving
it to students.
* The kids are crowded in their rooms. There are as many as 15
kids in what used to be a single hotel room. They were required to sleep from 8:00
pm to 6:00 am to save on staff costs. (We only needed 2 staff when the boys
were in their beds, versus 6-8 staff when they were awake.) Mr. Lichfield did
not want to spend the money to hire additional staff.
* For the first 10 months that the school was open, there were no
trained staff administering medicine. After several students were given the
wrong medicine, or were not given their medication, I insisted on hiring two
full-time nurses. Before that, the minimum wage staff members who could
not speak English were required to pass out medicine.
I did not have the resources or support necessary to provide what I felt
was a humane and safe environment for these teens. I was also concerned
about the "High Impact" extension that was a copy of a program that was shut
down in Mexico because of the death of students. For these reasons, I
decided to resign in early August.
It would be my pleasure to speak to someone about these issues. I can
be reached at this email address, or by phone at - during
the day, or at - during the evening.
Kind regards,
Amberly Knight
-
From: Martha Martin
Sent: Mon 3/3/2003 10:38 PM
To: [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected])
Subject: Academy at Dundee
March 3, 2003
To the Minister of Child Welfare,
I am a parent of a former student at Dundee. My son was there from November, 2001 – August, 2002. I am very concerned for the children that are still there. I worked closely with the school while my son was there, but still did not get answers to the questions that I asked.
It started with the lies that were told to my husband and I. We were looking for a boarding school for our son. After looking into many schools, we thought we found the perfect one. WWASP explained to us that Dundee had an aggressive academic program, a program to work with the locals to learn a new culture and a strict environment where teens would learn accountability. We were never told of the “program”. We felt comfortable sending him to beautiful Costa Rica.
My son went through the first “levels” quickly so we were allowed to speak with him on the phone. He knew what kind of school we were looking for. He told us that this was not what we were told it was, that it was a program and not a boarding school. He said that the staff read his e-mails to us and when he had something to tell us, he had to wait and talk on the phone. When we addressed this with the director at the time, we were told that we were being manipulated by our son. Over time, I realized that this is the answer the staff gives the parents for any complaints that the students have. This was a red flag for me.
We decided to keep him there until PCI. This is the first time that parents are allowed to visit their children. This was one of the lies told to us from the beginning, that we would be able to visit our son after 2 1/2 to 3 months. We waited almost 6 months. I was concerned with what I saw. The staff was inexperienced. They were very nice people, but not one of them had the credentials to be able to speak to me about my son. The bottom line for them was to say anything they could so that the parent would not pull their child from the school. I knew that this was a rustic place, but the overcrowding was terrible. There were 12-14 grown boys in a small room. The beds were small and close together. The doctor even said that it was not healthy to have them so close together. When one got sick, they all did. The kids were really out of shape. Not enough organized exercise. Their diet wasn’t bad, but very little meat and vegetables. The academics were not what was promised. And the rules were somewhat scrambled. When I returned to the states, I wrote a long letter to the school with my concerns. I represented many other parents. We couldn’t believe how much of our money was being taken in, and how little was spent on the kids. I was granted a phone call from Narvin Litchfield about these concerns. He proceeded to tell me about all the great plans he had. He even sent me the blue prints of what the school would soon look like. To this day, with the quick growth of this school, I don't think that they have built the new dorms yet. It hasn’t changed much except for the building of the “High Impact”.
This brings me to a major concern. When I was there in August to pull my son from this school I saw “High Impact”. This is a place where children are taken to if they do not behave. Dundee already has a punishment system that I feel is very excessive. OP as they call it is a place of isolation. Some kids stay there for weeks at a time until they conform to every rule. The children often have to lie on a cement floor, hands behind them for long periods of time. You may end up there for a very minor infraction. This is something that I would appreciate someone looking into. I don’t know if the High Impact building is open yet, but it is something that really needs to be looked into. They closed the one down in Mexico, where a teen died. Once a child is taken behind those walls, I don’t feel that there is anyone there to be able to make sure that no real harm comes to this child.
Another event happened while I was there in August. A male staff member seriously attacked and raped a female staff member. They were both graduates of the program and returned to this school to work. This happens frequently in these schools, as grads work for very low wages. I was in Joe Atkins office while he was talking with authorities to try and find this boy. It was pretty serious at the time, but later Mr. Atkins shrugged the story off in the Tico Times.
I feel that there is both physical and mental abuse to these teens. Some of the children that are there may have been headed for jail back home but there are also many of them like my son, whose parents wanted them to have an opportunity. An opportunity to catch up in school, learn a new language and culture and get back on the right path. The parents are so manipulated that they don't really know how there son or daughter is doing, and would never get a call from the staff that they thought that this was to harsh for them and they need to go home. I don't believe this has ever happened in any of the WWASP schools. With vertually no screening of these teens before they enter the school, it is hard to understand that some one would not recognize that this is not the place for everyone. Once you enroll your child, you are pressured into thinking that he will only succeed if he "graduates the program". This can take from 18-24 months.
I do believe that there is physical abuse going on. I understand that there are times when a child may need to be restrained, but I believe it is happening to often. The mental abuse is worse. They are not allowed to talk with each other except in group to talk about their problems. They have absolutely no contact with the outside world. They can not read a newspaper or hear a newscast. Current events are taken away from them and my son had no idea what was happening in our world while he was there. I was told that there was a music department at Dundee. I had to fight to let my son have his guitar. They said that he needed to concentrate on other things. It was so sad when I left the school with him last August. So many of the kids were upset and crying because my son would play his guitar at night while they were trying to go to sleep. This was the closest thing to real life that they had.
Mr. Narvin Litchfield, his brother and friends own many of these schools, both in and outside of the U.S.. The ones in Cancun, Samoa, and The Czech Republic were closed down. Carolina Springs is often visited by child welfare in the states and has been cited with many violations. One important one is that the upper level children give out punishment to the lower levels. This is illegal in the states. Children can not dole out punishment to other children. There is also overcrowding.
I also have concerns about your organization interviewing the students. There are ramifications that can happen if the staff or owner do not like what the students say. The children don’t have any representation while at this school. If they say anything to their parents they are called liars and manipulators. From my experience, the parents are just as manipulated as the students in this program. You are told to “trust the program” and let them do whatever they feel is right for your child. Not a good concept when no one at the facility is really trained or qualified to be working with teens.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Thank you,
Martha Martin
-
K says:
Do you find yourself missing Dundee?
M says:
Sometimes,
M says:
I feel so free at home, even though I live with really strict rules in this house,
M says:
and sometimes I feel so alone, and when I was at Dundee, I always had someone there
M says:
you know what I'm saying?
K says:
does too - even tho it was pretty awful in so many ways. I wonder how it differs for the boys and girls. Seems like the girls mostly complain of hygiene factors, where the boys starve and are knocked around.
M says:
I think it was the same on both sides,
M says:
just people have different pet peeves,
K says:
Sure, that makes since. Did you see the crocodile?
M says:
yes ma'am
K says:
That thing worried me. Its not like you can tame them.
M says:
And a lot of the kids were stupid, and they stuck their hands where it could easily bite them,
M says:
and then they would take it away,
M says:
and the teachers were always feeding it,
M says:
and when the boys went out on work projects,
K says:
where you ever sick while there?
M says:
Yeah,
M says:
I have endomietriosis,
M says:
and while I was there I had my first symptoms,
M says:
and so they said that I was manipulating,
M says:
and made me go to the group,
M says:
while in really bad pain
K says:
Thats awful. was real sick once. I think it must've been when they cut off the city water and gave you kids well water.
M says:
I remember that,
M says:
I drank the water, and was fine with it,
M says:
because here in Reno, the water is kinda the same,
M says:
only they take out the dirt specs
M says:
heh
K says:
They never told me a thing about it. I have no idea what kind of shots they gave him. He said he got a bunch of shots. I think maybe it was to stop an allergic reaction. But because they told me Nada about it, I can only guess.
M says:
Morphine.
M says:
They injected you with morphine for a lot of different reasons.
K says:
Are you kidden me?
M says:
And gave you the same pain killer for all the same reasons too
M says:
No, I am so serious.
K says:
Did they tell you it was morphine??
M says:
They told us that it was morphine,
M says:
my friend Kri knows aboot that too.
M says:
The sad thing is nobody believes us
K says:
Well I do, but this is the first I've herd of morphine.
K says:
Damn - did they use sterile equipment??
M says:
Yes ma'am, I'm pretty sure they did,
M says:
I never really thought to look,
M says:
But I'm sure they did
K says:
Well thank God in Heaven for that.
-
Some more comments (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Parents-revile-Teen-Mentor-others-claim-program-s-value_Friday-April-01-2011) left for the above article, "Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program's value (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399521#p399335)" (by Adam Williams; April 01, 2011; Tico Times), #s 11-13:
Emp MTR · Monday April 18 2011
As a volunteer who stayed 24/7 at the facility for several weeks, I can say there was no abuse or mistreatment.
I was there and the Therapist did not quit because there was abuse or mistreatment, they quit because there was
some policy changes requiring them to be more responsible and they didn't like that.
If there was abuse or mistreatment, the Therapist would have:
1. Never taken the job or quit immediately. They would never worked for months as a party to abuse and
mistreatment. No reasonable Therapist would do this,
2. Informed the Operators of the abuse or mistreatment. Never once in meetings, emails, or discussions did
they mention to the Operators that they had seen or had a concern of abuse and mistreatment. In fact, they
stated many times both verbally and in emails their support of the program.
3. At a minimum, the Therapist would have informed parents of any abuse or mistreatment. Never once prior to the closure did they inform
or notify parents of any abuse or mistreatment. In fact just days before they quit, in tours and phone calls from
prospective parents they recommended to the parents they enroll their Teen. No reasonable person would
or should have recommended Parents enroll their child in a program they believed to be abusive.
4. They would have Not told the Program lawyer ( after they quit ) that they didn't see any abuse or mistreatment, they just disagreed
with staff policy changes and wanted severance pay. When this wasn't agreed to, they then took action to close
the program.
The evidence is clear. the Therapist issues had nothing to do with abuse or mistreatment of students but was about
job requirements, pay and eventually severance. Otherwise, if it had been abuse the Therapist would not have worked
as a party to that for months, told parents and prospective parents that they whole heartily supported the program, and
sent emails of support to the operators.
liz weaver · Tuesday June 07 2011
I find it very sickening that a few of the owners of the WWASPS facilities all of a sudden are accepting no responsibility for any/ most of the abusive programs that were shut down due to neglect, abuse, and many many other reasons. they say that they have nothing to do with their programs. what about high impact that was closed down years ago. they still are saying its not a WWASPS owned facility when it clearly was. all the payments were through the WWASPS billing process. they all seem to have the same type or new types of abuse being created. i went to cross creek and high impact. mind you ive been in quite a few facilities, but both of those facilities were the worst one ive ever been to. to be honest... i would wake up every day wondering if i would be alive to go to sleep that night. or if it would ever end. im not going to say some of the things that happened there. but i still suffer from major PTSD and flashbacks, nightmares and everything due to just these 2 places. my parents were lied to completely just to get me into these places. cross creek was telling my parents that i wasnt working the program. (well duh... i never got a chance because i was kept in their isolation rooms the whole time) the y told my parents of this gret place in mexico that has a realy good turn out rate, but denied my father the right to transport me to the facility. high impact. they knew that if my father saw it i wouldnt have stepped foot into that program. they tried to break me down by saying my parents hated me and that my father said it was ok to abuse me as long as it got me to cooperate. i spent days in their dog cages. im not sure why these people, Robert Litchfield, Narvin Litchfield any of these people that are part of owning the WWASPS facilities run when one of their programs get shut down. but i can almost assure that within time, all their places will eventually be shut down. and what links all these places together is their forms and techniques of abuse... enough said on my behalf.
liz weaver · Tuesday June 07 2011
i forgot to mention earlier... i find it also odd, that most of the staff from the places are shut down, just go to other facilities that are still open. that proves that the abuse remains through these people that have the nerve to call themselves "staff". at high impact we had to call the females "momma____ or papa_____" i thought that was just sick.
# # #
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ok i will give you the facts right here my name is dallin. i was in mentor. all the rumors of abuse are completly true. but see bob had plenty to do with the operations of the school what he said went. on multiple occasions it was robs decision on how long i was in the intervention room i spent upto 3 days in there at once. i also saw rob tackle a student who was following his directions he then came and talked to some of the students to make it seem as if it was necessary. this school cant hold u once ur passed 18 and rob did not like that he tried telling me he wont give me my passport when i left i replied with have fun in prison i will report it stolen my passport was suddenly on school grounds. rob thought i was going to cause hell to his school so 5 days before my b day they moved me to another town an hour away and on my birthday they gave me a trashbag of my clothes and 3 dollars. luckily i was able to work and gain enough money to return. o wait did i mention i have not seen my laptop we paid for my digital camera or the most important one my birth certificate. Rob you ruined my life and u knew u were doing it you fed us bullshit. you asked me personally what food i was allergic to and disliked ha i should of known u would pull something my meals for the next week consisted of the only two foods i named. after these other students made it home i was still stranded in another country. Rob told me i would not make it 2 hours on my own and said it is gonna be embarrassing when i came back hahaha guess what Rob i told u from day one im not doing ur bullshit and it worked out for me i worked my ass off mixing concrete for 2 dollars an hour but anything is better then mentor teen. btw Rob nina is a BABE haha
-
Question:
Is mentors or whatever it is.. at the same location of Dundee? Or is it same country, new location?
-
Question:
Is mentors or whatever it is.. at the same location of Dundee? Or is it same country, new location?
I think Teen Mentor was at a different location, but I'm hardly the authority on this...
According to an article posted earlier in this thread, Teen Mentor and Dundee Ranch Academy were both located west of San José, albeit in different, perhaps neighboring, towns. Select quotes from "Costa Rica government closes controversial 'tough love' youth camp (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&start=15#p399059)," emphasis added:
- Re. Teen Mentor: "The residents had been staying at the Hotel Carara in the town of Tárcoles de Garabito, in Puntarenas, west of San José near the Pacific Ocean.
- Re. Dundee Ranch Academy: "...the Dundee Ranch Academy in the town of Hidalgo, Orotina, west of San José."
-
According to a webpage on Costa Rica Hotels (http://html://www.costaricanet.net/hotels.html), one can now vacation at the Dundee! :D
Dundee Ranch Hotel
Rooms: 11 · Location: Orotina
Phone: 428-8776/267-7371 · Fax: 267-7050[/list]
Obviously, Lichfield is still using part of that hotel for other purposes.
-
Rob used everything there for other purposes while i was there i remember many days where i cleaned the pool for work project so his kids could go swimming.
-
ok i will give you the facts right here my name is dallin. i was in mentor. all the rumors of abuse are completly true. but see bob had plenty to do with the operations of the school what he said went. on multiple occasions it was robs decision on how long i was in the intervention room i spent upto 3 days in there at once. i also saw rob tackle a student who was following his directions he then came and talked to some of the students to make it seem as if it was necessary. this school cant hold u once ur passed 18 and rob did not like that he tried telling me he wont give me my passport when i left i replied with have fun in prison i will report it stolen my passport was suddenly on school grounds. rob thought i was going to cause hell to his school so 5 days before my b day they moved me to another town an hour away and on my birthday they gave me a trashbag of my clothes and 3 dollars. luckily i was able to work and gain enough money to return. o wait did i mention i have not seen my laptop we paid for my digital camera or the most important one my birth certificate. Rob you ruined my life and u knew u were doing it you fed us bullshit. you asked me personally what food i was allergic to and disliked ha i should of known u would pull something my meals for the next week consisted of the only two foods i named. after these other students made it home i was still stranded in another country. Rob told me i would not make it 2 hours on my own and said it is gonna be embarrassing when i came back hahaha guess what Rob i told u from day one im not doing ur bullshit and it worked out for me i worked my ass off mixing concrete for 2 dollars an hour but anything is better then mentor teen. btw Rob nina is a BABE haha
Geez. He sounds kinda vindictive...
-
wouldn't you be? this man ruined my life. i will personally testify against him in court. i will even take a lie detector test. you read the article and it says all but one student made it back to his parents... Im that student. they did not care about us i mean to make it even harder then just walkin into a different country this asshole took me to a different city cus he said it would make his school look bad. yeah he really cares about helping kids.
-
FWIW, I really don’t think that comment was about you. Rather, it comes across that the mistreatment you experienced and the general behavior of Rob as described by you is what’s been remarked upon rather aptly as vindictive.
I’m very glad you made it out of there in spite of all you were subjected to.
-
thank you very much it was difficult but i proved you dont need a program
-
I wonder what your parents have to say about all this now? I also wonder if you have contacted an attorney or law firm? If you have not already done so and think you would like to, firm me off a private message and I'll give you some contact info.
-
my parents dont talk about it they thought i was lying. they told me not to call if i left the school so i didnt. i have not contacted one but if there is a case i will testify i personally saw Rob tackle a new student for no reason i was shoved to the ground multiple times locked in dark rooms for hours/days. actually i have the most hours in solitary confinement. i talked to my parents 1 time when iwas there i told them it was wack and an administrator grabbed the phone and said i was just upset. i moved rocks on the beach for hours. overall it was them taking the money and giving us shit to do cus they had nothing for us to do all day.
-
FWIW, I really don't think that comment was about you. Rather, it comes across that the mistreatment you experienced and the general behavior of Rob as described by you is what’s been remarked upon rather aptly as vindictive.
I’m very glad you made it out of there in spite of all you were subjected to.
Yes, thank you, Inculcated. I should have said, "Rob Lichfield sounds kinda vindictive," and my meaning would have been crystal clear. :nods:
-
my parents dont talk about it they thought i was lying. they told me not to call if i left the school so i didnt. i have not contacted one but if there is a case i will testify i personally saw Rob tackle a new student for no reason i was shoved to the ground multiple times locked in dark rooms for hours/days. actually i have the most hours in solitary confinement. i talked to my parents 1 time when iwas there i told them it was wack and an administrator grabbed the phone and said i was just upset. i moved rocks on the beach for hours. overall it was them taking the money and giving us shit to do cus they had nothing for us to do all day.
Well, I could try to "talk" to your folks if you'd like. I could explain a little about the long history of exactly the type of abuse you describe. Do send me a private message and I'll give you some contact info you might find helpful.
-
Is Marvin the Narvin involved in this redux version of Gitmo Dundee or is he too busy recovering from his recent anal pillaging in prison?
-
Mentor was located at the beach. Dundee not. Mentor was a former hotel. We were able to locate people who have booked stays at the hotel only to learn from us that the owners had rented the place out to Lichfield.
Dundee is still in operation but with few students and I guess that they are used as cheap labor dealing with the horses which has the only attention by Narvin Lichfield these days. It is not very much of a program. They open school books from time to time but the rest of the time is done with farming. He has left South Carolina and it is all about spending his time with the daughters in Costa Rica. He has either retired or he is waiting until the economy is better.
Robert Lichfield has a closed Mentor School with a worthless lease he has to deal with. Cross Creek Programs has low enrollment so he got Jade Robinson to move his operations for the boys up from Nevada. Down in Nevada they have a water dispute and they were too many living there so they had to get water in from outside. Expensive and we all now that they dont spend a dime on the kids if they can avoid it, so for now the male population from the program in Nevada is living on the Cross Creek main campus.
All the buildings in St. George which have housed Cross Creek programs over the time is for sale if someone want them. Check the local newspaper.
-
A few more comments (http://http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Top-Story/Parents-revile-Teen-Mentor-others-claim-program-s-value_Friday-April-01-2011) were recently left on the (most recent) above article, "Parents revile Teen Mentor, others claim program's value (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=36851&p=399521#p399335)" (by Adam Williams; April 01, 2011; Tico Times), #s 14-15:
teena suarez · Saturday August 06 2011
How can they say that its just angry manipulative kids? Students of WWASP currently in their 30s have the worst accounts of their expericences. I encourage any parent considering one of these programs to talk to former students who graduated from the facility various amounts of years ago. Not the ones they refer you to... Try facebook and search for groups related to the program you are considering. AND NEVER SEND YOUR CHILD OUT OF YOUR COUNTRY, especially if they can't freely contact you or the embassy...
teena suarez · Saturday August 06 2011
Also, if the Litchfields owned a chain of resturants that kept getting closed down for health violations, would you go to one of their other locations? What if they promised it was the best food of your life? Just a thought...
# # #
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Is it not funny to anyone else that Lichfield literally means "from the field of bodies?" Lich meant corpse in older times, nowadays it means zombie.
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Is it not funny to anyone else that Lichfield literally means "from the field of bodies?" Lich meant corpse in older times, nowadays it means zombie.
Interesting. Also of note: that this was per Narvin's choice and initiative! :D
If I'm not mistaken, his surname was originally Litchfield. I recall reading this somewhere (fwiw)... Narvin had wanted to distinguish himself from his older brother, Robert, who was already more well-known (aka infamous) in the kiddie torture camp industry.
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Lich and Litch are the same. Leetch (like Brian Leetch of hockey fame) is not, as that means a doctor.
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Lich and Litch are the same. Leetch (like Brian Leetch of hockey fame) is not, as that means a doctor.
I couldn't find litch (http://http://www.dictionarist.com/LITCH), just lich (http://http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Lich). Maybe I didn't look hard enough.
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Litch is only an early alternative form, which would have disappeared as spellings became standardised.
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A bit of History:
I managed to find an online source for the full Joel Snider / Dundee Ranch story that came out in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 'bout 7 years ago... Although I'm sure this tale is somewhere in the dark recesses of ancient fornits discussions (probably even posted by you, Buzz), this might be a good time to post it again.
This article was originally published in three parts:
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The Series (http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20071118221223/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=273168)
PART 1: The knock came at 3:05 a.m. Two men stepped from the darkness and went straight to the couch where the boy was resting. Joel Snider went for the back door, but before he could make it, he felt the pinch of a handcuff closing around his left wrist.
PART 2: At the school in Costa Rica, Joel rebelled more. And the school got tougher. Hour after hour, he was forced to stand with his nose against the wall. At other times, he was made to kneel, nose to the wall, hands behind his back, as if he were under arrest.
PART 3: After months of trusting the academy, his mother suddenly was wary. Hours later, she heard her son's voice for the first time in five months. Joel was crying.
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You have to buy it from their archives. The name for the article was "Desperate steps, dark journey".
It also found this old thread with a re-print: Desperate steps, dark journey; prts I & II (http://http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7117) (Fornits)
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You have to buy it from their archives. The name for the article was "Desperate steps, dark journey".
Actually, I found it combing through Web Archive/Wayback Machine. Each part was archived on a different date, but I have them all...
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Desperate steps, dark journey (http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20071118221223/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=273168)
Troubled at home, a young man is spirited off to Costa Rica and learns how extreme tough love can be
By MARK JOHNSON
[email protected]
Posted: Nov. 7, 2004
First of three parts
The mother kept glancing at the clock as it ticked closer to 3 a.m. That was the hour she had told the men to come for her son.
They were professionals, and they had given strict instructions: Open the door. Introduce us. Leave the room.
Cathy Petershack would be delivering her boy to the care of strangers - men with handcuffs.
Despite his thieving, drug bingeing and fighting, despite the fear of him that drove her to deadbolt the bedroom door at night, she did not want to do this to her only son.
Four years earlier, Joel had been just another kid going to Cub Scouts with his stepfather and building a pinewood derby racer.
Now, in August 2002, her son was 16 and a 280-pound gangbanger and truant, the kind of youth people dismiss with a single word: "thug." And yet, Cathy looked at her baby-faced son lying on the couch in his boxer shorts, watching "The Lord of the Rings," and her heart broke.
His clothes lay folded in a Tupperware container, packed for departure. He didn't even know he was leaving.
At 1 in the morning, Cathy could not look in his eyes. She just wanted to hold him again as if he were still a child.
"I love you, hon," she said and left the room.
The knock came at 3:05 a.m.
When Joel's stepfather, Steven Petershack, opened the door, two men stepped from the darkness into his Milwaukee home. They went straight to the couch, where the boy was resting.
Joel looked up, startled. One of the men was actually bigger than him, half a foot taller, 300 pounds, muscular.
"These guys are going to take you to a school," Steven Petershack told his stepson, and at that moment he felt he had failed as a parent.
Joel shot up from the couch and went for the back door. Before he could get there, he heard a sharp, metallic click and felt the pinch of a handcuff closing around his left wrist.
"You're coming with me," the big man said, "either the nice way or the hard way."
As the men led Joel from the house toward a waiting car, his stepfather rushed to hug him. Joel swung with his uncuffed fist. Before he could strike his stepfather, the escorts pulled him away and guided him into the car.
Cathy walked outside, and one of the men unrolled a car window a few inches. She could see her son's face, his brown eyes squinting fiercely.
"I have to do this," she said, "because I love you."
Joel cursed and gave her the finger.
The car drove off.
Cathy prayed that the program would work and that in time her son would forgive her. She believed that to survive in the world, he'd have to learn to make good choices.
She wondered about the choice she had made.
Better than jail
Other options exhausted, parents take extreme action
In a final act of desperation, Cathy had paid $5,000 to have her son taken against his will and flown to a "tough love"-style boarding school in Costa Rica.
Every month, she and her husband would pay the Costa Rican school about $2,100 to do what they could not - straighten out their troubled boy.
Cathy, a boiler attendant at Juneau Business High School, and Steven, an engineer for 65th Street School, took out loans totaling $25,000, money that might have sent their son to college.
Still, if the Costa Rican school worked, it would be worth the cost.
"What's the price of a person's life, especially your son's?" Steven Petershack would later say. "We would have hocked everything to get him on the right path."
Everything they had tried - drug rehabilitation, counselors, threats, love - had failed. For two years they had been surfing the Internet and collecting catalogs on military schools, boot camps, even Boys Town, the Nebraska home for wayward youths.
But the night Joel was jumped in a park, his face beaten bloody in a dispute over girls and snitching, the Petershacks realized they could wait no longer. Cathy believed that without drastic intervention her son would end up dead - if not by someone else's hands, then by his own. A few days after the beating in the park, she phoned the men who would take Joel to Costa Rica.
Cathy knew extreme measures can change a life.
As a teenager in Kenosha, she had rebelled against her mother's strict Southern Baptist morals by drinking in bars and running away from home. After Cathy was arrested for being a habitual runaway, her mother let her sit in jail for almost a month. Behind bars, Cathy saw women in their 20s and 30s, and she wondered whether this was a glimpse of her future.
"I wrote a letter to God and to my mother, and read it in juvenile court," Cathy recalled. "It said something like, 'This is not the path I want to choose for my life.' "
Although the time in jail would not mark the last time she made a poor choice, 30 years later she would view it as a turning point.
Now, worried about the path her son was choosing, she had sent him to a foreign land. The brochures for the Academy at Dundee Ranch showed a swimming pool and assured parents that observing the abundant howler monkeys, green parrots and other Costa Rican wildlife, "one cannot help but gain a new perspective."
At least it wasn't jail.
A burgeoning business
New programs cater to tougher breed of teen
A generation ago troubled teens like Joel ended up in reform school. Today there are mellower-sounding "behavior modification programs," "specialty boarding schools," and "wilderness treatment facilities."
"They're exploding. They're opening all over the United States. They're opening in prairie towns and New England farms and the deserts of Arizona," said David L. Marcus, author of the forthcoming book "What It Takes to Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four Got Out."
Teen crisis centers run by Americans also have opened in places such as Mexico and Costa Rica, where cheap labor and the strength of the U.S. dollar allow them to charge lower fees. But the practice has brought international scrutiny to the treatment of children tolerated by the United States, one of only two nations (Somalia being the other) that have never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.N. document broadly defends the rights of children, including contact with their families, freedom of expression and protection from physical and mental abuse.
Moreover, critics have charged that some overseas facilities catering to American teens have employed harsh methods that violate the laws of their host countries.
In the U.S., the new programs fall into a regulatory gray area between residential treatment centers and traditional boarding schools; monitoring varies from state to state. No one even knows how many such facilities exist.
The 5-year-old National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs boasts 127 members in 30 states, "but I know there are a lot more than that out there," said Jan Moss, the association's interim executive director.
Today's programs must deal with a tougher breed of teenager, Marcus said, kids who face more temptations, take bigger risks and "are tripping up in bigger and more dangerous ways than kids did 50 years ago."
To bewildered parents like the Petershacks, these children are stumbling toward an overdose, suicide, imprisonment or life on the streets.
"Most of these families are strapped. You mortgage your house. You cash in your 401(k). But if your kid needed a liver transplant, you'd figure out where to get the money," said Ken Kay, president of the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, a group of schools for troubled teens.
Kay's association included the school in Costa Rica that Cathy Petershack chose for her son.
Father figures
Modeling his own upbringing, stepdad gave time, attention
Cathy, 47, had always hoped to give Joel and his big sister, Julie, a less turbulent childhood than her own.
Cathy was just 7 when her father effectively vanished from her life. He spent time in prison, and after his release, moved away. His contact with Cathy became a check at Christmas.
Cathy's son, Joel, was 4 when she divorced his father.
During a miserable first marriage, Cathy spent time in a shelter for battered wives. She claimed her husband punched her in front of the children, even as she told them, "Go play in the bedroom."
Joel took his surname, Snider, from his birth father - but little else. In an echo of earlier times, a check from his dad arrived at Christmas. On the rare occasions when they spoke, Joel took to addressing his birth father by first name, never "Dad."
That title passed to another man, Cathy's second husband, Steven Petershack. The couple met through friends in the school system and married six months after Cathy divorced her first husband.
Cathy was heartened by the way her son took to his stepfather. Joel was a loud, funny, independent child, much as Cathy had been.
When Steven introduced Joel to the structured world of Cub Scouts, the boy thrived. They went to troop meetings and played baseball together. On weekends and holidays, they fished at Steven's cabin up north.
"I sort of treated him the way my Dad treated me," Steven said.
Steven's own father had been generous with his time, and strict with his discipline. Steven felt such a mix of fear and respect that he craved his father's approval long after the old man died.
The bond between Steven and his stepson turned out to be more fragile.
The bond loosens
Rebellion escalates into drug abuse, violence
About the time Joel turned 13, he left Scouts and the family moved to another neighborhood in Milwaukee. Father and son found nothing to replace the Scouting activities that had helped them bond. The only time they were good together anymore was up north in the cabin.
Soon, Joel was less eager to make the trip to Rhinelander. He sat at home more, watching television and snacking. He gained weight, topping 200 pounds. With the weight gain came depression. He felt isolated - by his size and by the birth father who had rejected him.
Joel made no effort to hide his dark mood. When Cathy and Steven asked him to pick up clothing or lectured him about schoolwork - he'd already been held back a grade - Joel maintained a stony silence or walked away.
Very quickly, the Petershacks found themselves facing more than the typical surly teenager. The first clue was a call from Kmart security. Joel had been caught stealing pens and pencils.
He was in sixth grade.
His parents grounded him for weeks.
As he felt Joel pulling away, Steven grew angrier and less patient. He could not understand why Joel seemed unconcerned about consequences. The boy skipped school often, something Steven had been too afraid to do when he was young.
He yelled at Joel. That only made the boy rebel more against Steven, a man he began to view as merely a substitute father.
Early on, Steven had spanked Joel, just as his own father had spanked him. But Cathy disapproved; violence rekindled the bad memories from her first marriage. As a result, Steven was unsure how to discipline Joel.
"I didn't know whether to be nicer to him or be more strict," he said, "give him more privileges or take privileges away."
Like other parents, Cathy and Steven took away TV and video games and sent their child to his room. Like other parents, they heard the door slam in response. Like other parents, they searched their child's bedroom.
In Joel's room, they found his old toys - plastic bats and even a ceramic teddy bear; he had hollowed them into marijuana pipes.
He was in seventh grade.
Cathy knew about youthful rebellion, but her son's version seemed extreme and frightening. How can he be so unhappy? she wondered.
He ran away, and not just once or twice. He ran for days, even weeks, then returned to fill a backpack with fresh clothes, and ran again.
Joel bolted so often that Cathy took home a stack of "missing person" reports and filled out everything but the date and what her son was wearing.
He was in eighth grade.
When he was home, Joel brought new friends who wore dark "Goth" clothing, including long black coats. They made Steven and Cathy feel like intruders in their own house.
Joel and his friends broke into Cathy's prescription bottles, stealing not only pain pills, but blood pressure and even hormone pills.
She bought a small safe and locked up her medications.
One night Cathy awoke to find a friend of Joel's on the bedroom floor rifling through the pockets of her clothes and snatching wadded-up dollar bills. She chased the boy downstairs and forced him to return the money.
Then, Steven installed a deadbolt on the bedroom door.
"We couldn't lock him up," the stepfather explained, "so we locked us up."
Outside their house, Joel did worse things. He and some friends were involved in a gang. They mugged people for drug money. They fought in school and outside.
Sometimes Joel came home with black eyes and swollen lips.
However, no one damaged Joel's body more than Joel himself. What he did went beyond anything Cathy could imagine from her teen years.
One day she grabbed her son's arm because he was ignoring her. He jerked his arm back, his face stiffening in pain. Cathy rolled up his sleeve and discovered a series of cuts, more than a dozen, some deep and raw.
At the time he could not explain why he cut himself. Several years later he would put it this way:
"I didn't have any emotions at all. Feelings were what I couldn't feel. That's why I was a cutter. I was so numb inside that the only way I could feel was to cut my body."
One day Joel saw his mother crying at the kitchen table, and he knew she was crying over him. He felt nothing.
Alarmed by the cuts on his arms, the Petershacks took Joel to Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital to undergo drug rehabilitation.
He was in ninth grade.
He spent at least three weeks at the hospital. He started taking the anti-depressants Zoloft and Wellbutrin. He saw a psychiatrist.
Nothing changed.
He was using cocaine. To pay for it, he sold a Game Boy his parents had bought him just a day earlier, shoplifted compact discs, and stole his father's collection of quarters, worth close to $1,000.
At one point, Joel lived with his sister, Julie, who was married and had children, but after six months he moved back home. Whatever progress he made with her was short-lived.
The drug use, fighting and stealing continued. His weight peaked at 350 pounds, before he resumed running away and eating irregularly.
Cuffs and barbed wire
Parents hatch plan to move son out of country
It was no secret to Joel that his parents had been looking at military schools and boot camps. Sometimes he picked up the mail, laughing as he delivered the brochures to his mother. Like you can afford these places, he'd say.
The Petershacks were not rich. But they were running out of ideas.
One day Cathy went to the computer and began typing phrases into an Internet search engine: "teen problems," "help for troubled teens."
A few keystrokes led her to a network of facilities for troubled teens, known as the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. With headquarters in Utah, this trade association included more than half a dozen schools that used similar methods and treated 2,000 teens a year.
The schools were expensive, some well over $3,000 a month.
Cathy found that the most affordable was a place called Academy at Dundee Ranch. The academy, which opened in Costa Rica in 2001, looked beautiful in the photographs, a former resort set amid tropical fruit trees and flowers. Students took classes, as they would at school, and earned credits toward their high school diploma.
There was a videotape with testimonials from grateful parents and students, who explained over and over that the program had saved lives. Parents got back the loving sons and daughters they thought had been lost forever.
Cathy knew that Joel would not enter the academy voluntarily. Nor could he be tricked into believing the family was taking a vacation to Costa Rica. An official at the association of specialty programs and schools suggested one other option: Hire men to "escort" Joel.
Cathy soon faced a barrage of forms, waivers and applications, so many she bought a small fax machine to send and receive everything. She and Joel's birth father agreed to give temporary custody of their son to the men taking him to Costa Rica. They gave the academy permission to monitor Joel's mail, place him under observation away from other students and even physically restrain him.
It seemed as if Cathy was giving up a lot. But if Joel overdosed or crossed the wrong gang member, she might lose him forever. She signed every form.
Then, in the early hours of Aug. 7, 2002, the men with handcuffs came for Joel.
At Mitchell International Airport, sheriff's deputies checked with Cathy to make sure she approved of her son being taken away. The two escorts removed Joel's handcuffs as they boarded a plane to Atlanta. They took three seats and put Joel in the middle.
I'm screwed, he thought.
At the airport in Atlanta, Joel realized they weren't heading down the hallway to pick up baggage. The men were marching him toward the area for connecting flights. He pressured them until finally they told him where he was going: Costa Rica.
At 8 that morning back in Wisconsin, Joel's sister, Julie, awoke suddenly. Her mother had come over and was standing beside the bed. Cathy told her daughter that Joel was going on a plane. He was leaving the country. If she wanted to talk to him, she had to do it now.
Cathy dialed a number, then handed the phone to Julie. Joel said he didn't know what was going on. He sounded scared. He was crying. Julie hadn't known he was capable of tears.
Joel told his sister he loved her. But there was something he needed to get straight. Had she known he was going to be sent away?
"No," Julie said. "No, I didn't."
She wished she could jump through the phone and save him. All she could do was say goodbye. When she got off the phone, her mother was crying.
After the flight to Costa Rica and a two-hour drive through the green, mist-shrouded mountains, Joel arrived late in the afternoon at Academy at Dundee Ranch.
The academy, a 15-minute drive from the Pacific Ocean, had a curious entrance for a school: a barbed wire fence with old branches for posts. Inside, Joel passed an abundance of tropical flowers and palm, mango and lemon trees.
This would be his new home, though for how long he did not know. Legally he could be compelled to stay until his 18th birthday - 16 months away.
Joel was taken to the cafeteria, where he insulted a member of the staff.
Then, left alone for a moment, he remembered something. He'd hidden a small amount of cocaine inside a seam in his shoe. No one had stopped him at the airports. He reached down.
Still there!
In his first hour at the $2,100-a-month academy, Joel snorted cocaine.
For the last time.
© 2005-2007, Journal Sentinel Inc.
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(http://http://web.archive.org/web/20071118221223im_/http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/news/img/nov04/joel/joel10-125.jpg)
Now 18, Joel Snider faced the toughest challenge of his young life when his parents sent him to a harsh school in Costa Rica. Photo/Gary Porter
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Months at ranch leave son bruised, parents in turmoil (http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050405100149/http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/nov04/273251.asp)
By MARK JOHNSON
[email protected]
Posted: Nov. 7, 2004
Second of three parts
Joel,
You don't know how bad I felt doing this to you, but I truly did it out of my love for you. I know you won't think so for a while, but this was the hardest thing I felt I faced up to in a long time...
I love you son. Please believe I'm doing this to save you from yourself...
Love, Mom & Dad[/list]
- August 2002 letter to Joel Snider from his mother[/list]
Forced to fly from his home in Milwaukee to a tough Costa Rican boarding school in order to turn his life around, Joel Snider was not off to a promising start.
The staff at the $2,100-a-month Academy at Dundee Ranch had left him alone for just a few minutes. Joel, 16, hastily had snorted cocaine he'd hidden inside a seam of his shoe.
It was cocaine - along with the stealing, truancy and gang activity - that had convinced his parents, Cathy and Steven Petershack, to borrow $25,000 to send him to this last-chance school.
In the smoldering heat of Costa Rica, Joel's rebellious streak would collide with the academy's rigid system for breaking teens of destructive behavior.
That first day, Aug. 7, 2002, Joel met with a "buddy," a senior student who was supposed to explain the academy and its rules. Instead, he seemed more interested in hearing Joel talk about his misdeeds.
Joel would learn the rules on his own - mostly by breaking them.
In the first 24 hours, his hair was cut short. When the staff shaved off his goatee, he struggled so much he was shoved against a wall.
He had joined 134 teenagers at the academy.
At night, Joel and nine other boys shared a three-walled room, or "bat cave" as it was called. They slept in triple bunk beds. Speaking was not allowed.
The academy used a point system to reward students for good behavior and punish them for bad behavior. Points for good work and positive attitude allowed kids to move up in levels and gradually gain privileges.
A phone call home was a privilege that took students at least three months - and more often six - to earn.
Losing points was easy. Students forfeited points for rolling their eyes, burping, making rude comments about the program, looking at a member of the opposite sex.
After a few days, Joel realized he faced a choice: "If you're not working the program, you're refusing the program." From the beginning, Joel was a "refuser," the term the academy used for defiant kids.
His first act of rebellion: talking.
His first punishment: more than 12 hours of exercise - jumping jacks, push-ups and walking laps in the sizzling Costa Rican heat. Such physical activity did not come easy for Joel, who arrived at the academy weighing 280 pounds.
And yet, the punishment failed to make him compliant. He swore at the guards. In the classroom, students weren't allowed to glance up from their books, but Joel stood and walked out.
The staff responded day after day with more exercise and less food. They gave Joel rice and beans for all three meals, and as long as he refused to cooperate, he got less to eat than the other students.
At times, the exercises were so grueling that Joel thought he would pass out. He began to lose weight.
Anger kept him going. He knew the academy was costing his parents plenty; he would show them it was not only expensive, but futile. They would see no change in him, no improvement whatsoever.
No family contact
Treatment causes rift between mother, daughter
When he wrote his first e-mail to his mother and stepfather a few weeks after arriving in Costa Rica, the message was: I hate you. This place sucks. Do you know what you're doing to me?
The staff refused to send it. Nor would they send his second e-mail. Too angry.
Weeks passed before Joel's parents finally heard from him. By then Cathy and Steven had been warned to disregard any complaints from their son. Over the phone, a Dundee official had told the Petershacks to be wary if Joel claimed he was being abused. Staff routinely warned parents not to believe their children's complaints, according to Amberly Knight, a former director of the academy who quit in August 2002.
The Petershacks were told that kids will say anything to get out of the academy. They manipulate. Hadn't Joel been manipulating them for years?
But the phone call from the school alarmed Joel's older sister, Julie.
"You know Joel," she told her mother. "Joel's not going to be, like, 'Somebody's abusing me.' He's a tough kid. If he starts saying that stuff, you need to pull him out."
Cathy trusted the academy. She knew that Joel hated going to school and following rules. She'd have been suspicious if he loved the place.
Besides, the academy staff stressed the importance of not removing Joel from the program too soon. That would be like taking a cake out of the oven before it had fully baked, Cathy was told; the cake would collapse.
Such arguments did not persuade Julie, who is five years older than Joel. Secretly she and her husband discussed a radical step: fighting for custody of her brother.
In the end, Julie was talked out of a custody battle by her father-in-law; he feared the fight would drive a permanent wedge between Julie and her mother.
More than 2,000 miles away, Joel was still dividing his family.
Bruised knees, lost weight
Punishment begins to take physical toll
In Costa Rica, Joel rebelled more. The academy got tougher.
"It seemed like he was always in trouble," said Lindsay Garner, a teenager from Alabama who attended the academy with Joel. "I would always see him in O.P."
O.P. was shorthand for a punishment called "observational placement."
Day after day, while other students went to classes and watched educational videos, Joel was ordered to the observational placement room - a small, former bathhouse with a hard tile floor. There, he was forced to stand with his nose an inch from the wall, hour after hour, with only short breaks. At other times, Joel was made to kneel, nose-to-the-wall, hands behind his back, as if he were under arrest.
The kneeling bruised his knees. More noticeable than the bruises, though, was the weight Joel was losing.
"After a while, he got real skinny," Garner said. "He looked drained a lot of the time. His clothes were so baggy, they didn't fit anymore."
Although academy officials have insisted that students received plenty of food, the school's doctor, Edgar Leguizamon, said he saw some children who were losing too much weight. The doctor said he insisted they receive more food and even made a list of students to be given second helpings. For a few months, the students on the list did get seconds, but after a while, the academy stopped, the doctor said.
Leguizamon also worried that students were suffering from overcrowded conditions, insufficient psychological counseling and excessive sun exposure during the forced exercises. Many times he considered leaving the academy.
"I stayed for the kids," he said.
Broken will
After months of resistance, 'I just gave up'
The Spartan conditions at Dundee Ranch had not softened Joel's attitude. He still refused to obey rules, and that brought even harsher consequences.
One of the many forms Joel's parents had signed before sending him to Costa Rica had given the academy staff permission to restrain Joel in extreme circumstances, for example, if he endangered himself or someone else. In the observational placement room, Joel learned what was meant by "restrain."
Joel was seized by male staff members more than a dozen times - once for striking a guard and the rest for minor offenses such as talking. Each time, Joel lay on his stomach while a guard pressed a knee into his back and wrenched his arms back toward his head.
"You'd scream," Joel said. "Everybody screamed."
He fought the urge. As he felt his arms jerked behind him, Joel would tell himself: Don't let your enemy hear you scream. Before you know it, it will be over.
Garner said that as she studied in the classroom, she could hear the shrieks of fellow students coming from the observational placement room some 50 yards away. In her view, the practice "was like torturing people into being good."
Students were restrained only as a last resort, said Ken Kay, president of the association to which Dundee Ranch belonged. But Knight, the academy's former director, disagreed, saying that restraint "was commonly used as an intimidation technique, not as a last resort."
Joel found that during the days of exercise and observational placement, there was nothing to do but think. He picked over every aspect of his life.
It wasn't like a movie in which all of the thinking swells into a great wave of regret. Joel daydreamed about beating up the guards or running away. Often, he simply thought, I wish I hadn't got caught.
Still, there were things he regretted. Neglecting school was one. But what haunted him most were his last words to his mother as he'd sat in the car waiting to be taken far from home. He had cursed her. It pained Joel to think that if anything happened to either of them, his last message to his mother would not have been "I love you," but something ugly.
In December, with Christmas approaching, it dawned on Joel that he had been at the academy almost five months and was no closer to going home. He was tired of exercises, staring at walls, going to bed hungry and waking up the same.
"I just gave up. They broke my spirit. They broke my will," Joel said. "I'll write the letters you want me to write. I'll say what you want me to say. I'll be a goddamn robot."
He had refused the program. Now, reluctantly, he tried to follow it.
On Christmas Day, Joel got his first phone call home since his arrival four months earlier. It lasted five minutes.
With a member of the Dundee Ranch staff hovering nearby, Joel apologized to his mother for cursing at her in Milwaukee. Cathy Petershack wept and told her son that the family loved him and missed him.
She chose her words carefully, making sure not to say that she wanted him home right away. The academy staff had warned her not to tell Joel anything that might lead him to believe he'd be coming home soon.
In his absence, it was a grim Christmas. The family had not been told precisely when Joel would phone, and his sister, Julie, missed the call by a few minutes when she ran out for diapers. She spent much of the day in tears.
Raw emotion
As time wears on, frustration builds
After Christmas, Joel made a push to gain points, hoping this would help him to leave the academy sooner. He struggled, torn between rebellion and resignation.
Jan. 13.
"Hello mom and dad: I am doing great so far in school and in the program. I am busting butt. But I feel my anger has come up for me in a big way today."
When he wasn't in trouble, Joel now spent hours in the classroom staring at a world history book. Although the Dundee brochure had called the education "self-paced," the promotional video that the Petershacks watched appeared to show an instructor looking at a student's work and offering assistance.
In practice, no teacher lectured students. Kids were given a book to read, and when they finished, a test to pass. They could keep taking the test until they passed.
Cathy Petershack said she was told her son could keep up with his high school class in Milwaukee and perhaps even catch up the grade he had fallen behind. But Joel never approached that best-case scenario. For months, when Cathy phoned the academy for updates on Joel, his curriculum consisted of the same lone course: "World history."
He also was attending a daily "group session," in which students got to talk about their lives and reflect on their choices. At first, Joel said little. Gradually, though, he began to open up.
"He would talk a lot about his sister, how he had bounced around, drugs," said Christopher Carbo, a Florida teenager who met Joel at Dundee Ranch. "Everything he said was real on point, mature, the kind of thing an adult would say."
According to Joel's e-mails home, he was trying to follow the program. Yet at times he made little progress. The rules had changed, and Joel found it harder to earn points. He lost points for small infractions, like having a stain on his white T-shirt.
Frustration boiled over into his letters and e-mails, and into those from Cathy and Steven.
Joel to his stepfather:
"... As for me being a disrespectful Bleep that's the way you perceive me ... The reason a man would have done all you have as my father is because you LOVE my mother and eventually LOVED me. The fact is I am your son. I am more like you. No not blood, but values, behaviors, life. I am you."
Cathy to Joel:
"... I am at work right now, 2 a.m. with two hours sleep, feel like throwing up over the messes you put yourself into and dad and I along with you!! ... You are only headed down an express lane highway called Life ... At the rate of speed you keep going you are going to die. I don't care to watch it happening."
The lectures flowed both ways. Joel wrote Cathy about her drinking. Sometimes she thought it showed how much he cared; other times, it only proved how far he'd go to provoke her. Before her son sat in judgment, there were things she wanted him to know. She wrote:
"I have devoted myself to you from the day I made the conscious decision to want another child (YOU) enough to go 'cold turkey' in a clinic, off shooting heroin & cocaine to give birth to you. I have fought so much and overcame so much. You don't even know."
Joel sent drawings home. Cathy looked at his sketches of kids with angry faces and wondered if that's how Joel felt when he thought of her.
On other occasions, he doodled the word "mother" in graceful pen strokes and sent a beautiful drawing of a rose with a tear drop; Cathy saw love and sadness in these efforts.
As often as the good days lifted her spirits, the bad ones jolted her back.
She had borrowed so much money to send Joel to this school, and sometimes he just seemed angry.
After five months, Cathy reached a breaking point. Some relatives had grown tired of Cathy and the chaos that surrounded her. Her drinking had gotten worse. And harsh as Joel's letters were at times, she missed him and felt alone.
One day she typed an e-mail to her husband at work.
"Goodbye," she wrote. "It's not that I don't love you. I just can't handle any more of this."
She said she was leaving.
Steven placed frantic calls to Cathy's relatives. He brought home flowers and told Cathy that he loved her.
She didn't leave; in truth, she didn't know where she would go. But for several days, she shut herself in her room. Finally, Steven told her that together they had decided what to do about Joel; together they should see it through.
Shared experience
Parents get bitter taste of what son is enduring
From the beginning, Cathy had known that her son would have to work hard in Costa Rica to straighten out his life. Now she realized the struggle was not his alone.
That was a point Dundee Ranch officials impressed on parents by urging them to attend special seminars similar to those the children must complete. The seminars, which preach honesty, accountability and self-esteem, were sold to parents as a vital step in healing the whole family.
Over a long weekend in the spring, Cathy and Steven Petershackwent through their first seminar, "Parent Discovery," at a hotel in Chicago.
The rules were strict. Each day, parents had to be seated by the time the theme to "2001: A Space Odyssey" finished playing. If they were late, they were reprimanded.
Inside the training room, parents were not allowed to eat, drink or chew gum. Nor could they record the proceedings or take notes without permission.
During the seminar, parents were singled out and pressed to talk about traumatic events. Cathy was led to the front. Her knees shook. Under questioning from one of the seminar leaders, she talked about an event buried deep in childhood that did not involve her directly, but forever changed her family: Her father was convicted of incest and imprisoned.
In front of all those strangers, Cathy wept so heavily that when she had finished speaking, she asked to be excused to change her contact lenses. No, she was told, not unless she wanted to face a "consequence" or punishment.
Two thousand miles away, her son's school in Costa Rica was using a new punishment.
For several months, instead of exercises, Joel and other students were made to build a walled compound known as a "high impact" center.
The students dug trenches 5-feet deep, carried heavy bags of sand and mixed cement. Joel realized there would soon be a harsh, new place for the academy's hardest cases.
He was building it.
From the Nov. 8, 2004, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
© Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc.
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(http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050405100149im_/http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/news/img/nov04/joel/joel11-125.jpg)
At Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica, officials of the harsh school cut Joel Snider's hair and shaved off the teen's goatee. Considered a "refuser" to the rules of the program, Joel (center), at the school about six months in this picture, was repeatedly punished for hours, painfully restrained and fed less than other students. Photo/Contributed
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Academy's grip lingers as son, family transform (http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20070929091509/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=273497)
Ranch closes amid allegations, but some praise it
By MARK JOHNSON
[email protected]
Posted: Nov. 8, 2004
Third of three parts
Eight months had passed since the night Cathy and Steven Petershack hired men with handcuffs to escort their troubled son to a harsh boarding school in Costa Rica. In all that time, they had heard his voice on the phone just once, for five minutes on Christmas Day.
His e-mails home to Milwaukee only added to the mystery of how he was doing. In some, Joel, now 17, seemed contrite, ready to give up the thieving, drug use and fighting that had driven the Petershacks to send him to Academy at Dundee Ranch in August 2002.
In other e-mails, he just sounded angry.
By spring 2003, his parents wondered what was going on at the $2,100-a-month academy. Unbeknown to the Petershacks, Costa Rican authorities were asking the same question.
The school had tripled in size, from about 65 students in March 2002 to 200 students roughly a year later. With 10 or more children sharing some rooms, viruses spread rapidly.
"Twice, they had this virus - we did not know if it was the food or the water. They had vomiting and diarrhea," said Edgar Leguizamon, the academy's physician. "Half of the students had it."
In 2003, complaints about the academy reached the Costa Rican child welfare agency, Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, commonly called PANI. Susan Flowers, an American who reportedly had lost custody of her daughter in a divorce, told government officials the girl was being held at Dundee Ranch against her will.
The agency visited the academy in February, and again a month later. In March, former Dundee Ranch Director Amberly Knight sent the agency a letter warning that the school was using "untrained, unqualified staff," "providing the bare minimum of food and living essentials," and putting students at "physical and emotional risk."
There had been articles, too, in the Costa Rican press raising questions about the unusual school operating in a former resort outside Orotina, about a 15 minute drive from the Pacific Ocean.
Joel knew none of this. He saw no newspapers or television. He did not know the United States had gone to war in Iraq.
The controversy over the school built slowly in Costa Rica until the day in May 2003 when Flowers sat down with a local prosecutor named Fernando Vargas.
"She told me a very unusual story, like a movie story," said Vargas, a square-jawed 35-year-old, who was filling in for a colleague in the office halfway between Orotina and the Costa Rican capital, San Jose.
The story, Vargas recalled, was about a large, wealthy educational organization that used extreme methods to punish difficult children. From experience, he knew that people often tell outlandish stories in the prosecutor's office.
He would see if this was a "movie story," or real.
Catching attention
Costa Rican prosecutor heads to the academy
Vargas spent the weekend scanning the Internet for information on the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, the group of teen centers that included Dundee Ranch. The prosecutor read accounts of the punishments used by these schools. News articles described affiliated schools in Mexico, Samoa and the Czech Republic that closed following allegations of abuse.
The following week, Vargas applied for a warrant to raid Dundee Ranch. He found out there already was a thick file on the academy compiled by the child welfare agency. Among other problems, the agency had found overcrowding, insufficient food for some and a number of children with immigration problems.
"Some did not know where they were," said Rosalia Gil, Costa Rica's minister of children's affairs.
The prosecutor was annoyed that child welfare officials had allowed Dundee Ranch time to correct practices that he considered human rights abuses. He believed some of the physical punishments - restraining children and forcing them to exercise or stare at walls - violated the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document ratified by Costa Rica, but not by the United States.
Before heading to Dundee Ranch, Vargas said, he told the child welfare agency, "If they can't comply, you have to close the place and take the children away."
On the scorching, muggy afternoon of May 20, Vargas arrived at the academy accompanied by 50 police officers, detectives and officials from the child welfare agency. As required by Costa Rican law, a judge also accompanied the raid.
Joel was eating lunch in the cafeteria when he saw the cars drive up and men with guns jump out. The students kept eating. No one remarked on the men with guns because they were not allowed to talk.
Outside the cafeteria, students approached the prosecutor.
"When we got there, young people were seeing us as saviors," Vargas said. "They were saying in English, 'Shut down this place,' 'Help us,' 'I want to talk with my mom.' "
But that was not what Susan Flowers' daughter said when Vargas spoke with her. She said she was fine.
Nonetheless, Vargas planned to take statements from other students, especially those who had fewer points for good behavior and were unlikely to earn their way out of the academy anytime soon. They would have less to risk by speaking out.
The young prosecutor led students into the cafeteria. Academy staff were ordered to remain outside, 50 meters back.
"You cannot be in a place against your will," Vargas told the students, explaining their rights under Costa Rican law.
He said the students could communicate with their parents and send e-mails home without anyone editing or censoring them. Even inmates in the country's jails retain those rights. Vargas then passed out sheets of paper on which students could make complaints anonymously.
As the prosecutor spoke, an excited chatter rose among the students. Some cried and hugged. Joel felt something absent in him for a long time, "that little spirit of hope."
When students left the cafeteria, chaos ensued.
The judge and prosecutor argued, the judge insisting this was a "witch hunt" because the one girl the prosecutor had come to see - Flowers' daughter - had reported no abuse.
Vargas insisted he needed more time to gather evidence. But under Costa Rican law, Vargas could not remain on the property once the judge left.
When the judge drove off, Vargas was forced to follow, leaving behind computer files and other evidence.
'Just bring me home'
Reports of student riot make mother take action
The judge and prosecutor were not the only ones departing the academy in a hurry. More than two dozen students - some barefoot - fled, hopping the fence and following the dirt road toward Orotina. Other students began vandalizing the school.
"Everybody ran in every direction," Joel said.
After nine months of rebellion and punishment, Joel was surprisingly low-key. When the other students ran, he walked back to one of the rooms. He picked up a guitar, lay on the bed and began to play.
He could hear students running and people chasing them. It made no sense, he thought, to flee into the countryside. How far would he get in a land he didn't know?
Later, the academy and its supporters would say that Vargas caused the riot at Dundee Ranch by telling students they were free to leave. Jan Bezuidenhout, a parent who was visiting the academy, took detailed notes describing the raid and riot. She said the prosecutor and other officials left that afternoon because "they saw the chaos they had created and didn't want to face it."
The prosecutor denied this, offering his own theory.
"I think this riot was because we promised something to the children and then we left with no explanation," Vargas said. "They always thought that we will take away the suspects or take the children out. But they never thought we would go out and leave them with their captors."
On the morning after the riot, Dundee staff gathered students in small groups and asked them to sign a form saying that they had been treated well and not abused.
"I thought it was an outrageous request for the staff to make of the kids," said Bezuidenhout, who supported Dundee Ranch in other respects.
Joel read the form and handed it back.
"I won't sign it," he said.
Joel and other students who refused to sign the form were placed inside the "high impact" facility, the walled compound Joel had helped to build. Academy staff stood guard at the entrance preventing the students from leaving. When Joel tried to walk out, one of the guards cracked a wooden board across his legs.
In Milwaukee, Cathy Petershack clicked onto the Web site for Dundee Ranch parents, and her eyes went straight to a message asking if anyone knew about the raid. Students had run away.
Cathy grabbed the phone and punched in the academy's number.
The staff member in charge of Joel answered brightly, telling Cathy there was good news. Joel had finally earned enough points for a phone call later in the day.
After months of trusting the academy, Cathy was suddenly wary. What about the report of a raid and students missing?
"Tell me," she said, "is my son even there?"
Joel is here, the man answered. He's cooperating. Yes, the academy is having a little difficulty, but it will be taken care of in a day or two.
Cathy wanted to hear her son.
Hours later, in the early evening, she heard his voice for the first time in five months. Joel was crying.
"Just bring me home. Give me a chance to talk to you," he pleaded. "Let me tell you what's happened."
Cathy asked if he could wait a day for her to fly to Costa Rica and bring him home. Joel wanted to leave right away. He was willing to fly alone.
When they finished talking, Joel's family representative got on the phone. He told Cathy: Joel is manipulating you again. He is not ready to come home.
This time Cathy believed her son.
"Joel is coming home," she said.
Leaving it behind
School closes amid praise, condemnation
On May 22, 2003, at 4 in the morning, Joel left Dundee Ranch for the airport in San Jose. Tired as he was, he could not sleep. He thought how happy he'd be to eat airline food.
As the small plane rose, Joel took a last look down at the dark Costa Rican landscape and thought: I'm free.
The place he'd come to view as his prison would close within a few days, reeling from the riot and a government investigation. The owner, Narvin Lichfield, would be arrested by Costa Rican police, then released.
Vargas, the young prosecutor, would receive e-mails and letters of support from more than a dozen parents of Dundee students. But those would be far outnumbered by messages from academy supporters such as Bezuidenhout, who said that in her daughter's case, "I honestly do think it kept her alive."
Finally, Costa Rica's human rights ombudsman for children would write a harsh report criticizing the child welfare agency for knowing about abuses at Dundee Ranch for more than a year and failing to act.
Joel left all of the controversy behind.
At Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Cathy scanned the crowds in the arrivals area, looking for the boy she had not seen in nine months. Her eyes caught a glimpse of a skinny young man in white pants and a white Nike shirt. His face looked gaunt. Dark circles ringed his eyes. Skin drooped down from arms that were once bulky and muscular.
Joel had left Milwaukee weighing 280 pounds. He returned weighing 180.
"Oh my God," Cathy said. "What did I do?"
Measured steps
Change is apparent, but price was steep
They took things slowly.
That weekend, the Petershacks drove their son to the family cabin in Rhinelander, the place where Joel and his stepfather had bonded years ago.
They didn't press Joel for details about what happened in Costa Rica. They waited for him to raise the subject. He didn't. A year would pass before he spoke about Dundee Ranch, and then the story would emerge mostly in fragments.
"Some days I'll push him to talk, and he says, 'Mom, please leave it be,' " Cathy Petershack said. "He's told me he'll never forgive me for doing it."
Cathy said she never realized how harsh the punishment would be at Dundee Ranch and never would have authorized the academy to restrain Joel had she known what that meant.
As for the classes Joel took, they had little value in Milwaukee. None of his credits in Costa Rica were accepted here.
All told, the decision to send Joel to Dundee Ranch cost the Petershacks close to $25,000. When Cathy complained, the company sent her a refund check - for $985.
And yet, it was clear Joel had changed.
Now, when he left the house, he would give his mother and stepfather a hug and kiss. For the first time in his life, he got a job. He worked at United Parcel Service, then took a second job at a pizza parlor.
In fall 2003, Joel began attending classes four days a week to gain his high school equivalency diploma.
His teacher, Pamela Bolden-Etter, had heard about Joel's rebellious past but saw no hint of it in her classroom. He was quiet and focused on his work. With two jobs, Joel often came to class tired.
Though friendly, he didn't socialize much.
"I do not allow people to know who I am," he said.
Even so, Bolden-Etter liked him. She described him with a word that would have shocked the people who knew Joel before he went to Costa Rica: lovable.
Sometimes he hugged her. Always, he thanked her.
The teacher had no doubt Joel would get his degree, and he did.
On a rainy evening in June 2004, Cathy and Steven Petershack relaxed with their son and daughter in the small teachers lounge at Juneau Business High School.
It was less than an hour until Joel's graduation, and he looked excited, though he would not be going to any of the graduation parties. He had to work the 3 a.m. shift at UPS.
"How are you feeling?" Bolden-Etter asked.
"Tired," he said. "I haven't slept."
"That's how your life goes," the teacher said gently.
The graduation speeches were short; everyone seemed eager to get to the awarding of degrees. As the names were called, graduates crossed the stage, pumping their fists, waving, dancing, strutting, high-fiving.
When his name was called, Joel smiled and opened his right arm in an expansive gesture, as if to say, Of course, I made it.
Cathy cried.
After the ceremony, the graduates left the auditorium. Then the Petershacks filed into the hallway, wading into the sea of parents looking for their children.
Steven and Cathy eased down the hallway, standing on tiptoes, straining to see their son.
"Here he comes," Cathy said finally.
Steven surged forward and caught his stepson in a bear hug.
"Yeah! Yeah!" he shouted. "You did it, my son."
Cathy leaned in and kissed her son's face.
Joel was smiling - for the first time in months.
Postscript
On a warm afternoon in early fall, more than a year after the riot and the closure of Dundee Ranch, a man named Harold Dabel walked the flowered grounds of the academy, showing off the new boarding school rising from the ruins of the old one. It is called Pillars of Hope and will cater to troubled American youths graduating from other programs. It will be very different from Dundee, said Dabel, the new administrator.
No longer will students be brought by force, as Joel was. The new school won't be affiliated with the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, Dabel said, adding, "We don't want to get into the past history of Dundee Ranch."
The observational placement room, in which Joel and other students were punished with hours of staring at a wall, has become a storage shed. The high impact center Joel helped build has been converted into a courtyard with adjacent rooms containing weights and ping pong tables, and a stable of horses in the back.
"Instead of a boot camp," Dabel said, "this is our fun camp."
Still, links to the past remain. Dabel said the new school will offer scholarships to graduates of schools in the World Wide Association. One of Dabel's partners in the new school, Francisco Bustos, was the finance manager at Dundee Ranch, and Dabel himself was featured in a photograph of Dundee Ranch's "management team." The new school will lease the 45-acre Dundee property from Lichfield, the owner of the former academy.
"A lot of the ideas here are a credit to him and his dreams," Dabel said of Lichfield. "He's one of our major investors."
The school has received a health permit, Dabel said, adding, "We could have students very soon."
That news caused grave concern in San Jose at the Costa Rican child welfare agency.
"They have no permission from us whatsoever," said Rosalia Gil, the nation's minister of children's affairs. She vowed to send government officials to visit the school.
"It's important that what happened at Dundee Ranch doesn't happen again," she said. "We're going to be there to see that it doesn't."
Days after Dabel and Gil spoke, Mexican authorities closed one of the other schools in the World Wide Association, Casa by the Sea. There had been complaints of abuse at the school.
Ken Kay, president of the association, said he expects "total vindication" on the abuse allegations and believes the school soon will receive permission to reopen. Kay said, too, that schools in the association have discontinued the use of observational placement, opting instead for something he described as "more coaching in intent."
As for Pillars of Hope, it has yet to open.
What happened at Dundee Ranch changed the Petershack family in Milwaukee, turning the brittle bonds between a son and his parents into sinew. Relationships no longer rupture in the heat of an argument. Cathy and Steven Petershack don't wake up to the exhausting worry of a son careening from one crisis to the next.
Still, they regret sending Joel to Dundee Ranch.
"There's absolutely no way I would send him now," Cathy said.
She has asked herself: Could something else have saved Joel? What would have happened had he stayed in Milwaukee instead of going to Costa Rica? She does not know.
Joel, now 18, insists he has not changed, all evidence to the contrary. He has been slow to shed the deep reserve he brought home.
This summer, he began seeing Brittany Sutton, an outgoing young woman whom he met through friends. They dated for three months before she learned about the place his parents had sent him. Even then, she said: "He wouldn't let me in. He wouldn't talk to me about it."
Nonetheless, Joel and Brittany got engaged. She is pregnant with his child, and Joel has been imagining what parenthood will be like.
"Raising a kid is difficult," he said. "With great responsibility comes great power."
He paused.
"And great love."
From the Nov. 9, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
© 2005-2007, Journal Sentinel Inc.
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Breaking Joel
Desperate Steps, Dark Journey
(http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20070929091509im_/http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/news/img/nov04/joel/joel17-125.jpg)
Joel Snider's stepfather, Steven Petershack (center), grabs him in a bear hug just after the 18-year-old graduated from Juneau Business High School in June. His mother, Cathy, cried at the event, a celebration that she thought at one time seemed unlikely. Photo/Gary Porter
(http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20070929091509im_/http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/news/img/nov04/joel/joel15-125.jpg)
The Petershack family was changed by the nine months Joel Snider (center) spent at a harsh Costa Rican academy. In the front row (from left) are: Cathy Petershack, Joel's mom; Joel; his girlfriend, Brittany Sutton; and his stepdad, Steve Petershack. Joel's sister, Julie Grayson (back row, far right), and her husband, Denver Grayson (back row, far left), are with their children, Megan, 2, Thomas, 3, Jonathan, 6, and Breanna, 4. Photo/Gary Porter
Dundee Ranch
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About this story (http://http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050829060740/http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/nov04/273178.asp)
Breaking Joel: Desperate Steps, Dark Journey
Posted: Nov. 7, 2004
This narrative is drawn from primary sources, with reporting in Milwaukee and Costa Rica.
Dozens of interviews were conducted with Joel Snider, his parents and his sister. Extensive interviews also were conducted with four of Snider's classmates at the Academy at Dundee Ranch, all of whom witnessed or experienced the school's disciplinary practices; three school officials, including the doctor; and several Costa Rican government and law enforcement officials with a direct role in addressing the school's activities. (One spoke through a translator.) All of the information on the academy was checked with its former director.
In addition to interviews, Snider and his family provided access to letters, e-mails, photographs and financial records. Written statements from a half-dozen students at Dundee Ranch were reviewed. And Costa Rican legal letters, child welfare documents and human rights reports on the school were examined.
Information on the school and its rules came from promotional material, its enrollment agreement, a 60-page parent manual, and interviews with students and parents.
The company the Petershacks paid to take Joel to Costa Rica refused comment.
From the Nov. 7, 2004, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
© Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc.