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

Teens Call 'Academy' a Private Prison
By JONNY BONNER
            

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     They are represented by Thomas Burton.

If anyone is reading this within a few days of this post, please comment in the article and share. We are trying to drive this to the front page of the Huffington Post, which is read by 40 million people. It is already on the front of the Politics section.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://jilliestake.blogspot.com/2013/11/diamond-ranch-academy-confirmation.html

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

"WE ARE DIFFERENT - BY DESIGN"

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

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

Owners/Founders:

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

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

UTAH DHS

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

Hurricane, Utah Police Department

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

3 comments:

    AnonymousNovember 1, 2013 at 8:43 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is a new show on Lifetime called 'Teen Trouble'. It is hosted by a famous teen coach named Josh Shipp; on it, he has sent 3 kids to 'troubled teen' chains that have been investigated for child abuse and deaths, and at least one more is likely.

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

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

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MORE INFO:

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

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

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

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

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



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

'Abused' teens take aim at Lifetime reality show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lifetime, meanwhile, declined comment.

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COMMENTS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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