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Messages - cmack

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211
Facility Question and Answers / Where did the money go?
« on: November 09, 2011, 01:29:50 AM »
http://www.fluther.com/70669/should-i-a ... -savannah/

Savannah College of Art and Design

Quote
Wow. My condolences to you. Let me aquaint you with the people behind SCAD.

Dana Poetter got most of her money (as did the rest of the family) from a supposed 501C3 school that was intended for troubled teens and preteens. That school was called Anneewakee (Cherokee speak for “land of the friendly people”). However, i would be happy to show you where my family paid $93,000 annually for me to be there. And I am certainly far from the only one. Anneewakee had thousands of students. That family, besides escaping paying taxes, got filthy, stinking rich. That’s where the money to start SCAD came from.

It was created and run by Dana’s father, Louis J. “Doc” Poetter. In the mid 1980’s, the sadistic rapes and child abuse that went on since the early 1970’s finally caught up with the lecherous fuck, who was then forced to plead guilty to 17 counts of child molestation and aggravated sexual abuse of a minor.

His wife’s name is Mabel. SHe knew everything that went on, since many of the rapes took place in the home they shared just outside of Anneewakee’s “central campus” in Douglasville, Georgia. You will come to recognize her name because her daughter immortalized this kind and loving “Christian” woman by naming campus buildings after her. Hence, “Mabel Hall” was born. If you loike, I can send you an excerpt from a survivor male child who went there, who also testified in court that Mabel came into the bedrrom while Doc was raping him, but closed the door and walked away. SHe never reported her husband in all those years.

Now, I could provide COUNTLESS links to everything I just told you, but really, why bother? It isn’t likely to change your mind, even though there are a zillion other places you culd go that are much more within your field of graphic design. Any number of technical schoolds can provide you a much more on point education, which would also deny the board members of SCAD (most of which are family members who were more than happy to jump at the chance to make themselves rich off the blood money that Anneewakee generously provided them) of your funds.

But you do as you wish. That family has done everything possible to put thier past behind them. Only 2 of them ever served any time in prison for the crimes they commited against children. I won’t allow this to rest, nor will I allow their victims to be forgotten.

Oh, and you can find hundreds of Anneewakee survivors on various websites, including Yahoo and Facebook. Have a nice day.

http://www.fluther.com/70669/should-i-a ... -savannah/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_C ... and_Design

Quote
SCAD was founded in 1978 by Paula S. Wallace, Richard Rowan, May Poetter and Paul Poetter. In 1979, SCAD opened its doors with five trustees, four staff members, seven faculty members, and 71 students. At that time the school offered eight majors. In May 1981, the first graduate received a degree. The following year, the first graduating class received degrees. In 1982 the enrollment grew to more than 500 students, then to 1,000 in 1986, and 2,000 in 1989. In 2010, the university enrolled 10,461 students.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_C ... and_Design

212
Facility Question and Answers / Re: Anneewakee - The Lost Boys of Georgia
« on: November 09, 2011, 01:21:14 AM »
Another survivor site:

http://www.angelfire.com/sc/comicaze/anneewakee.html

Quote
This page has been set up as an attempt to fill a void in my life. Anneewakee was a residential Treatment center for emotionally disturbed young men which operated in Douglasville , Georgia during the 70's and 80's.The center was the brainchild of Dr. Louis J. Poetter and was set up to give the patients a wilderness living experience while participating in scheduled group, vocational, and educational therapy under the close supervision of psychiatric assistants (or group leaders) as well as a full staff of psychiatric and social workers. The center was eventually closed in the late 80's due to allegations of sexual and physical abuse and forced work imprisonment.It has since re-opened under a different name. If you attended Anneewakee I need not fill in any details for you....your experiences were much the same as mine. During my 4 year stay I developed many friendships with people from all over the country.This was almost inevitable as we lived together 24 hours a day.Unlike most schools which have an across the board graduation, patients at Anneewakee were "terminated" according to their individual treatment plans which made keeping in contact or a reunion almost an impossibillity. I have started this page as an attempt to regain touch with some of those friends I made and discuss and perhaps find closure for many of the things we experienced.Although it is a shot in the dark,I felt I must try something. If you would like to get in touch with some of those "ghosts" from your past , please use this page as a springboard Perhaps we can answer some questions that we all have asked ourselves.Anyone interested can e-mail me below.. I attended @1973-1977.I was S-435.I was in Wawoka as my work group and my school group was Achunda.I went on the Mexico trip and I was at Carrabelle for a brief stint. I look forward to hearing from anyone who stumbles across this page. Thanks, Don Sewell [email protected] and I will send you step by step instructions to walk you through membership to anneewakeedot com or Anneewakee. WE have big plans for the next couple of years and we want you to be a part http://www.mental-health-resources.com/

 

http://www.angelfire.com/sc/comicaze/anneewakee.html

213
Facility Question and Answers / Poetter v. State
« on: November 09, 2011, 01:18:29 AM »
http://www.dailyreportonline.com/opinio ... F18%2F2000

Georgia Court of Appeals       Printer friendly version Print      Email this opinion   Email      Make the text smaller  Make the text larger  Text Size
APPEALS: Mootness

Poetter v. State
A00A0196 (criminal case)
June 29, 2000
MILLER, Judge.
00 FCDR 2956 (08/18/00)
Headnote: The Court of Appeals dismissed Louis J. Poetter's appeal from the transfer of his parole supervision from Gwinnett County to Douglas County as moot, holding that Poetter did not deny that his supervision had already been transferred.

Text: MILLER, Judge.

On April 8, 1988, Louis Jerome Poetter pled guilty to 19 counts of sodomy and one count of simple battery in the Superior Court of Douglas County, for which felony offenses he was sentenced to concurrent twenty-year terms, provided that, after serving eight years, Poetter would be eligible for probation. Effective January 23, 1996, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles ordered that Poetter be paroled "until the expiration of the confinement sentence(s)." Poetter planned to reside in Gwinnett County with his wife, and the Board's order specified that Poetter would be supervised by Parole Officer B. Crosby in Lawrenceville, Georgia. One of the special conditions of the Board's parole order was that Poetter would not return to Douglas County. On April 23, 1999, the Superior Court of Douglas County issued an order under the original indictment number, reciting that the court deemed it "appropriate for the actual supervision of [Poetter] to be maintained by and through the Adult Probation Department of the Department of Corrections in Douglas County," and ordering that Poetter's parole supervision be transferred from Gwinnett County to Douglas County. This order contains the certificate of the Douglas County District Attorney that he mailed a copy of the order to defendant, his counsel, the chiefs of Adult Probation in Gwinnett and Douglas Counties, the clerks of the respective superior courts, and an assistant attorney general.

Poetter's direct appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court was transferred to the Court of Appeals. In three related enumerations of error, Poetter complains of the transfer of his parole supervision from Gwinnett County to Douglas County without notice.

An appellate court may hear and consider evidence outside the record as transmitted from the court below that an appeal has become moot.1 As a friend of the court, the Attorney General submits this appeal is moot because Poetter's probation supervision has already been administratively transferred from Gwinnett County to Douglas County. This finding of fact is made in an order of the Gwinnett Superior Court in Poetter's habeas corpus petition, Civil Action Number 99A3349-5, which order is attached as an exhibit to the Attorney General's brief. Where the appellant either admits the existence of the fact of mootness as claimed by the appellee, or fails to deny the existence of the same, the appeal will be dismissed.2 Poetter has not denied the administrative transfer of his supervision. We therefore conclude the issues raised in this appeal are moot, subjecting Case Number A00A0196 to dismissal under OCGA § 5-6-48 (b) (3).3

Appeal dismissed. Pope, P. J., and Smith, P. J., concur.

1The Atlanta &c. R. Co. v. Blanton, 80 Ga. 563, 565 (1) (6 SE 584) (1888).

2Kappers v. DeKalb Cty. Bd. of Health, 214 Ga. App. 117, 118 (446 SE2d 794) (1994).

3Id.

Trial Judge: Robert J. James, Douglas Superior Court.

Attorneys: Thomas E. Maddox, Jr. (Thomas E. Maddox Jr. PC), Tucker, for appellant. James D. McDade, District Attorney, Douglasville, for appellee. Other party representation: Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Mary B. Westmoreland, Deputy Attorney General, and Paula K. Smith, Assistant Attorney General, Atlanta.

Scheduled to publish in the Daily Report on August 18, 2000

http://www.dailyreportonline.com/opinio ... F18%2F2000

214
Facility Question and Answers / Re: Anneewakee - The Lost Boys of Georgia
« on: November 09, 2011, 01:10:39 AM »
Some more relevant links:

A survivor site:

http://anneewakee.org/

From the above page:

Quote
Anneewakee was a residential treatment center for troubled teens that was founded in the early 60s. One of the first and at the time most successful wilderness treatment programs in the country. Anneewakee boasted a better than 80% success rate for the young men and ladies that completed the program.

In its peak, Anneewakee had a campus for boys in Douglasville, GA, a campus for girls near Rockmart, Ga, and another campus for boys near Carabelle, Fla.

Anneewakee closed in the mid 80s amid allegations of Child abuse. With allegations and charges against the founder and many of the staff ranging from sexual abuse of the children, to violations of child labor laws, it became clear that Anneewakee was not the safe, nurturing help for troubled teens that their brochures displayed. Anneewakee's dirty secrets became fodder for local news in the Atlanta area as well as much of the South East, eventually grabbing the attention of national media.

Anneewakee was plagued by the allegations and ultimately criminal charges were filed. Plea bargains were accepted, and some people served time. Anneewakee as a treatment center could not survive the scandals. Licenses were pulled and insurance companies who were a cash cow for the center began refusing to cover the children there. In time Anneewakee was shut down.

So why do we find it necessary to open a web site for Anneewakee? This is not to glorify what happened; this is a place where the former students, many of whom consider themselves survivors can join together.

wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneewakee ... rbed_Youth

This is the program now:

http://www.youthvillages.org/what-we-do ... ampus.aspx

215
Facility Question and Answers / Re: Anneewakee - The Lost Boys of Georgia
« on: November 09, 2011, 01:07:17 AM »
http://rushwho590.tripod.com/anneewakee ... /id17.html

Information compiled from the Florida Democrat, "Anneewakee A House of Cards" By Albert Oetgen, Creative Loafing "Anneewakee Their Secret Shame" By Moret and Atlanta Journal/Constitution staff writers David Corvette and Charles Walston

Michael Laken, a 23-year-old former patient described Anneewakee as the "Chernobyl" of teen-age therapeutic center because of the "emotional meltdown" patients underwent there.  Laken recalled stories of patients being forced to eat human feces and "run hills all day if Anneewakee policy was not obeyed.

Kim Caspari was married to Jim Caspari a former Anneewakee patient and admitted pal of Doc Poetter.  Kim lost custody of their child to his parents after a Massachusetts judge ruled that she did not adequately protect herself from his abuse while in the presence of their toddler.  Kim reported that he beat her, locked her in closets, forced her to eat feces, replaced apple juice containers in the fridge with urine and hired a cab driver to cruise S. Cobb Drive while he pulverized her face beating her to a pulp and dumping her in a remote, wooded lot.  Jim Caspari is a registered sex offender in Norton, Massachusetts and expressed admiration for Doc Poetter.

Another former pal, William Anthony Lipham, was convicted of malice murder, rape, armed robbery, and burglary in 1987, and sentenced to death for the murder. His death sentence was overturned by the Georgia Supremes.  http://www2.state.ga.us/Courts/Supreme/ ... htm#Powell

"People became human closed-circuit cameras," Laken said "You could either sow the seeds of more rebellion or become someone like 'Doc' Poetter."

Leaning against a wall or picking up a pencil without permission could easily result in another day of E&O, where sparse surroundings were punctuated by sound monitors and watchful eyes.  A patient sent there might be subject to the degrading "green robe" ritual where he was forced to remove all clothing in front of people.  They would watch as he rolled the clothing into a tight bundle before the onlookers threw him a green robe, signifying "scarlet letter" status, to wear for a duration determined by the staff.

Gary Laken concluded that the old program was doomed to failure because it was based "not on conditional love but conditional hatred."


"Its like, 'If you perform this act it's not that I will respect you but I won't hate you," he explains of the old Anneewakee philosophy.

The silver-haired, bespectacled man -- well-trusted as the founder and director of the Anneewakee Therapeutic Center for Troubled Adolescents -- had initiated his slow methodical seduction of the 17-year-old with kissing, hugging and promises of affection.  One of many victims, Gary Succumbed to the sexual advances of the older man, who under the guise of therapy, fed the boy's need for love and affection with a mock substitute.

The hugging and kissing led to fondling and, eventually, repeated acts of sexual abuse.  The manipulation spread like a slow, terminal cancer, as an increasing number of young male patients were drawn into Poetter's web.

For more than two decades, clinical psychologist Louis J. Poetter seduced many of the male teen-age patients who were seeking therapy at Anneewakeee. Eventually, forced by his attorney, to plead guilty to 19 counts of sodomy and one count of simple battery before the case went before a jury and before he completed a plan to murder his accusers, Poetter served an eight-year term and appealed his conviction after the Supremes ruled Georgia's sodomy laws unconstitutional.

In the suit - Brown, et al. vs. Anneewakee [Anneewakee, Inc., Anneewakee Estates and Poetter himself] a record $35 million settlement was reached arising from the sexual abuse and malpractice scandal at Anneewakee psychiatric treatment center for adolescents. [In addition to Carol Brown, et al, v. Anneewakee, Inc. et al. Civil Action No. 144620, Fulton State Court, were William Smith et al. vs. Anneewakee, Inc. Civil Action File No.:  D-36724;  and Becky Stone, et al vs. Anneewakee, Inc. et al. Civil Action File No.:  148018]

Terms of the settlement were sealed, but a source involved in the cases said the agreement allocates $34 million for 110 plaintiffs in eight lawsuits, plus $1 million to create a therapeutic care trust fund for other psychiatric patients who suffer abuse or neglect in mental institutions in Georgia. After the agreement was announced in court, parents, plaintiffs and other participants - some wearing buttons that said, "Please uncover child abuse" - exchanged hugs and handshakes.  Beneath the elation, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness.

"There are no bragging rights to this case," said Randall Blackwood, lead counsel for the plaintiffs.  "Anneewakee represents a chapter in our community' history that should never have been written and should never be repeated."

Co-counsel Patricia S. Edelkind said the lawsuits "helped bring justice to a group of people who had become essentially disenfranchised.  They would have gone unnamed and uncompensated."

For one key participant the settlement was a bittersweet ending to nearly four years of investigation and litigation.

"I feel empty that the true story of what really went on at Anneewakee has not been told, and probably never will be, but it needed to be settled for everyone." said Sarah Tillis, a former Anneewakee trustee who in 1986 alerted authorities to the abuses at the center.

Both sides in the case agreed to split the costs of that trial, estimated to be at least $100,000.  They also will pay $50,000 for two special courtrooms constructed at the Rich's office building downtown, primarily for the Anneewakee trials.

Poetter was cited in Brown vs. Anneewakee as having engaged in exploitative methods to "amass personal wealth, to satisfy his own sexual perversion and to illegally siphon off portions of the huge profits of this "non-profit" corporation to avoid taxes [with the help of his attorney [Governor Roy Barnes] and buy real estate in foreign countries and invest money in foreign banks.

To Poetter's victims, his eight-year sentence for the 19 counts of sodomy is a "slap in the face," when each count carries a 20-year potential sentence, says one former patient.  Poetter's attorney, Robert Fierer, has speculated his client will be a free man in two years -- an average stay for one Anneewakee patient.  "If he is treated like a regular, he'll probably run into some of his victims," a victim surmises, "In his 25th month he'll be f---g kids again."

While Poetter's plea has resolved a few questions in the ongoing Anneewakee saga, shrapnel from the Wreckage left behind by Poetter's physical and mental Abuse continues to infect the lives of many former patients.

*Information compiled from the Florida Democrat, "Anneewakee A House of Cards" By Albert Oetgen, Creative Loafing "Anneewakee Their Secret Shame" By Moret and Atlanta Journal/Constitution staff writers David Corvette and Charles Walston.

For more on Louis Poetters Anneewakee, Psych of Shame, see:  http://nafcj.org/ChronAnneewakee.htm

 

J. Tom, an internationally reknowned child sexual abuse expert, who couldn't race to the door fast enough when introduced to Jeannie Wrightson, after turning a deaf ear that Sheriff Pat Jarvis and Judge Gail Flake had covered-up a serial child molestation case in behalf of child Internet porngrapher, habitual DUI offender, violent batterer and dog biter.  Since J. Tom's appointment, over 800 children died in DFACS custody as covered by AJC staff writer, Jane O. Hansen.

http://rushwho590.tripod.com/anneewakee ... /id17.html

216
Facility Question and Answers / Re: Anneewakee - The Lost Boys of Georgia
« on: November 09, 2011, 12:59:40 AM »
http://rushwho590.tripod.com/anneewakee ... /id15.html

Georgia political ped fest at Anneewakee and beyond


Political Ties - Anneewakee officials, Louis Poetter, Jim Parham and Jimmy Webb, were adept at making friends with Business and political leaders in Georgia and Florida.

But it certainly is unique to have a major political candidate trying to attract votes by highlighting support from a sex offender who needed a presidential pardon to restore his own voting rights.

n      n     David Kline on Jimmy Carter

n      n      

Senator Zell Miller

For more on Zell see:  Zell protects an alleged serial child molester.

Zell appoints D.A., J. Tom Morgan, to chair newly created Statewide Child-Abuse Prevention Panel,
and Leah Sears as Georgia Supreme Court Justice and they all protect above alleged serial child molester.

Zell, a close friend, named Jarvis [subject of several grand jury investigations] in late 1995 to head the Criminal Justice Coordinating Counci and later named Jarvis director of the state Peace Officers Standard and Training Council.  Jarvis  his girlfriend,  Judge Flake, also appointed by Zell to two judicial seats, also protected above alleged serial child molester.

Just to cover his backside, Zell appointed Thurbert Baker as State Attorney General after his buddy, "Honest" Mike Bowers announced his gubernatorial candicy and 10-year affair with Griffen Bell's secretary, a former PlayBoy bunny.  Baker then represented Flake in two separate suits and refused to allow a GBI investigation on the above and below mentioned cases.

Good Old Boy Injustice At Its Best  
http://web.cln.com/archives/atlanta/new ... /anews.htm

[also worked for Governor Jimmy Carter and the notorious racist, Lester Maddox]

Zell helps himself to lottery lobby funds and hosts fundraiser for Clinton.

A Brick Wall, By Stan DeCoster - More Articles, Published on 10/1/2000, Jacquie Glassenberg/The Day, Jeffrey Rubenstein's son, Randy, was abducted by his wife and Faye Yager into the Children of the Underground three years ago. Yager fabricated allegations of abuse by sending Bonnie to a hired-gun psychologist. Despite federal and private investigations, and Faye's enormous political clout with The Clinton Administration and Sen. Zell Miller, no solid leads have emerged on the boy's whereabouts.

A Platform for Pedophiles, 10/30/2000 -- By Judith Reisman, WorldNet Daily

"I'm a warrior in an ancient battle. This campaign is straight out of the Bhagavad-Gita -- the classic battle between materialism and illusion against truth and light." Jeff Gates, Green Party Candidate for U.S. Senate, Creative Loafing 10/28/2000

Former President Jimmy Carter

http://www.metnews.com/articles/affairs091902.htm

Luckily for the folk singer, he had a friend in a very high place. President Jimmy Carter pardoned Yarrow the day before leaving office, thereby protecting the singer from ever having to register as a sex offender.

When Poetter was removed as executive director, then Governor Jimmy Carter  reorganized  the Department of Children and Youth and appointed Jim Parham , a powerful state official, to head the state of Georgia Department of Human Resources in 1971 and who placed in charge of agencies that were supposed to regulate Anneewakee.  He was also placed in charge with Anneewakee's day-to-day operations overseeing Poetter.  In 1972 Parham revamped DHR and the charges dismissed.

According to Douglas County Sheriff Earl Lee, Parham did not cooperate with the criminal investigation of Poetter by denying access to witnesses and documents and refusing to share information with law enforcement.

Parham knew about the allegations as early as 1970 when he testified on Poetter's behalf at a hearing of the State Board for Children and Youth investigating molestation accusations by some patients and counselors. Parham testified  that he had known Poetter for 20 years, beginning when they worked together in the Fulton County Juvenil Court.  Later they often took boys to Mexico on "camping" trips.

The hearing resulted in an agreement that Poertter would be replaced as director and have no direct contact with patienets.  In July 1972 Poetter was again investigated by the newly revamped DFACS of violating the 1970 order.  In 1973 Parham, as Director DHR, helped Poetter get licensed  as a medical hospital enabling him to recieve medical insurance payments and transferring Anneewake from DFACS to a different state agency.

Former Anneewake board member Bete Advani said she reported Poetter's sexual abuse to Parham before and after he bacame chairman in 1986, but he did not report it to the police.

Parham was named as a defendant in two of six lawsuits that were filed against Anneewake and various individuals on behalf of more than 100 former patients.

Parham went to Washington as Carter's personal assistant in 1977 and remained there until 1979, when he accepted a full professorship at the University of Georgia.  Poetter called him again that year and aked him to join the Anneewake Board of Trustees. Parham accepted, joined the Anneewake bord of directors in 1979 and became chairman of Anneewakee's board of trustees in July, 1986.  See Poetter's letter to Carter, page 2.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~gadekalb/parhamtm.txt -- Carter & Anneewakee


Governor Roy Barnes


Excerpts from:  Troubles at Anneewakee: Mental facility for youths faces its adversaries

"the land of the friendly people," as the name translates from Cherokee, is not without adversaries.

Anneewakee and the Douglas County government are fighting in court over whether the facility is the non-profit, charitable hospital it claims to be, and whether it should be exempt from paying property taxes.

Insurance companies have refused to pay on patient policies because they question whether living at campsites in the woods constitutes hospital care. They also say some youths are kept at Anneewakee - which can cost an average of $33,000 a year per patient - longer than is medically necessary.

In addition, some county residents were concerned for their safety after a 13-year-old Florida boy, who had been evaluated but not accepted at Anneewakee, escaped from his Florida caseworker and days later was charged in the March 30 slaying of Douglasville businessman J.D. Hall.

In a presentment last month, a Douglas County grand jury said for the protection of citizens, Anneewakee should find out all information about prospective patients before they come to the county. The grand jury also said Anneewakee authorities should cooperate with the Sheriff' s Department when they know potentially dangerous youths have run away in the county.

In 1982 the Douglas County board of tax assessors revoked the facility's property tax exemption, and Anneewakee has gone to court to get it back.

Anneewakee's attorney, state Sen. Roy Barnes, not only believes the hospital should be exempt from property taxes, but he also is seeking an exemption for a profit-making corporation held by Poetter' s three daughters, two of whom work at the hospital.

The corporation, called Anneewakee Estates Inc., leases hundreds of acres of land to the hospital. Court documents show the hospital paid the Estates some $144,000 in rent in 1982.

In the same year, the hospital paid about $230,000 in salaries to Poetter, his wife, two daughters and two sons-in-law, and the hospital had a surplus of about $2.9 million at year's end, court records show.

O'Neal Dettmering Jr., an attorney for Douglas County, says money Anneewakee makes in donations and by charging an average $92 a day per patient is not used for charity cases, and therefore the hospital should pay taxes.

Anneewakee's articles of incorporation state that "both charity and pay students shall be received, the income from the pay students to be used to extend the charity work." However, court documents indicate that youths who have no funds generally are not admitted.

In his 1983 deposition in the tax case, Oliver Pedigo - Poetter' s son-in-law who does accounting at Anneewakee - answered questions about the hospital's charity:

Dettmering: Do you ever take a patient in that is not able to pay you?

Pedigo: Totally?

Dettmering: Totally. Nothing. You can't get funds for him from anywhere.

Pedigo: No, we've never taken one like that.

'Smoke screen' charged

Pedigo added that about 25 patients received financial aid from the hospital and about 12 were supported by the state at a fee of $74 a day.

Anneewakee attorney Barnes said questions of public charity are "a smoke screen" thrown up by the county to cloud the appeal.

"Public charity has nothing to do with this," he says, adding that Anneewakee should be exempt from paying taxes because it is a non-profit hospital. "We never have said we met the charity" standard for property tax exemption, he says.

At stake in the appeal, which is scheduled to go to trial in August, is at least $275,000 in property taxes from 1982 through 1984, according to Douglas County Tax Commissioner Ann Jones.

The county also wants Anneewakee to pay taxes for seven years prior to 1982, which could add up to another $400,000, said Dettmering.

Aside from the tax case, Anneewakee has wrangled with insurance companies which have refused to pay patient claims.

Last week, Aetna Life Insurance Co. reached an out-of-court settlement with Anneewakee attorney Baxter Davis [see AAML] won four claims - totaling more than $260,000 -that the company had declined to pay.

A main issue in those cases was whether Anneewakee's complete program constitutes hospital treatment, says Aetna attorney Tommy Holland.

"Hospital insurance is designed to cover acute care," he says. "It's hard to understand how (the youths) can be in a hospital when they live in teepees."

Counters Davis, "`Our position is the entire program is a hospital because it is licensed as a hospital. It isn't your traditional hospital where people run around in starched white uniforms, but it works."

In the recent cases, Aetna argued some youths were kept at Anneewakee longer than medically necessary, and the firm supported its contention with an affidavit from a former Anneewakee psychologist, J. Stephen Ziegler.

Ziegler said that Anneewakee's staff members were encouraged to diagnose patients inaccurately to keep them at the facility longer, and were told "the insurance boys need a picture of doom and gloom if we are going to be permitted to keep our patients hospitalized for any length of time."

Davis says he "vehemently disagrees" with Ziegler's statements. "We've got no business having a well kid out there. We've got a waiting list," he says.

Finally, Aetna questioned whether some of Anneewakee's fees are reasonable.

"One of the problems we've discovered is what Anneewakee calls vocational therapy. We think it is also free labor," Holland says, adding that youths who do construction, maintenance and housekeeping at the facility should be paid minimum wage rather than billed for therapy.

Copyright 1985, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, All rights reserved.

Barnes, divorce attorney in Faye Yager's first divorce, the custody case of the century, precurser to the
Children of the Underground, an extortionist ring which profits from the sale and capture of small children.


Fulton County Solicitor Jimmy Webb

Poetter OK'd illicit sex, 1970 witness said
BYLINE: By David Corvette Staff Writer
DATE: 10-09-1986
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
EDITION:
SECTION: Newspapers_&_Newswires
PAGE: A/01

Anneewakee founder Louis J. Poetter encouraged sexual relations between staff members and the patients because he believed it was good for the boys, according to a witness in a state hearing 16 years ago.

The testimony was contained in an 800-page transcript of a September 1970 hearing into charges of sexual misconduct at the Douglasville psychiatric facility by a three-member panel of the state Department of Family and Children Services. The transcript was released Wednesday by the state Department of Human Resources.

Among the charges aired during the hearing were allegations by patients and staff members that Poetter engaged in frequent homosexual relations with boys who were patients at the residential facility.

No formal charges were lodged against Poetter as a result of the departmental hearing. But, under an agreement with the state, he was removed as administrator, a job that had placed him in daily contact with the boys, and named executive director.

Poetter, 67, was charged last week with five counts of sexual and physical abuse of former student-patients at Anneewakee. He remained in the Douglas County Jail late Wednesday after waiving a bond hearing earlier in the day.

Poetter testified during the 1970 hearing and called the charges of homosexuality a "damn lie." He said the patients accusing him were the guilty ones.

"I deal with psychotic people," Poetter testified. "I deal with women and girls in my offices, as well as boys, and they do nearly anything when they're working through their problems to try to seduce you into whatever they're doing."

Two students who testified during the hearing first accused Poetter of taking advantage of them sexually but later recanted.

One of the students, who left Anneewakee at the age of 20 in 1966, testified he was hypnotized by Poetter because "this would make it easy for me to relate and what I needed was a homosexual experience with him."

The witness, whose name was blacked out of the transcript along with those of other alleged victims, said he had sex with Poetter once a week for about three years.

When the hearing resumed a few days later, however, he recanted his earlier accusation, saying Poetter had never tried to hypnotize him and "has never done anything against my will."

Psychologists and other staff who worked with Poetter at Anneewakee testified that Poetter encouraged sex between staff members and the boys, as well as participating himself.

Roger Rinn, a counselor and psychology trainee at Anneewakee in the late 1960s, testified Poetter told him that homosexuality was good for the boys, "in particular, homosexuality with staff members, because it got a good relationship with an adult going." When Rinn disagreed with Poetter, "he smiled," Rinn testified.

Poetter said he would hate to forbid sexual relations between staff members and the boys because "it feels so good," Rinn testified.

Roger Rozelle, who was a staff leader at Anneewakee in 1967, testified that Poetter once "tried to kiss me, but I turned my head." Rozelle said Poetter subscribed to a theory that boys "had to have a homosexual experience in order to work through their homosexual fear."

Rozelle said he became involved as a witness in a $1 million civil suit Rinn filed against Poetter and Anneewakee because he was upset by Poetter's treatment of the emotionally disturbed patients there. The suit never came to trial and now is on the dead docket in Douglas County Superior Court.

"They were being entrusted to the care of someone who was entrusted to take care of them. And I felt that there were things that were illegal, immoral and irresponsible going on there," Rozelle testified.

An Anneewakee student identified only as "Buddy" testified that Poetter lured him into a sexual liaison at Poetter's house by promising to set him up with a date with a girl there. Buddy, who was 19 at the time of the hearing, said Poetter fondled him in the shower at Poetter's house.

"So while I was in there taking a shower . . . I was kind of played around with," he testified.

However, Buddy later changed his testimony saying, "I stretched the truth to a great extent there." Buddy told the hearing panel his charges against Poetter were false and said he had been pressured by Rinn to make the accusations.

Other witnesses at the hearing testified that they saw no evidence of improper sexual activity involving Poetter or other members of the staff.

James L. Webb, currently Fulton County solicitor and an assistant solicitor at the time, testified he made an unofficial investigation into the validity of the sex charges and found "absolutely none, or else I am a poor investigator." Webb also said he had been an Anneewakee trustee for several years.

Dr. Juan A. Mascourt, a staff psychiatrist, testified that he "worked closely" with Poetter for six years and that he never had seen anything to indicate any abnormal sexual behavior or other misconduct on his part.

Claude Abercrombie, who was Douglas County sheriff at the time, testified that he had talked to several boys at Anneewakee and "none have ever reported any sexual activityto me or any of my staff that I know of."

John J. Perpall Jr., an Atlanta dentist who said he had known Poetter since 1941, testified Poetter's character was "above reproach," and added that he would have no qualms about sending his own son to Anneewakee.

Copyright © 2000 The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution

Fulton County Solicitor, James "Jimmy" L. Webb, a long-time trustee on the board of Anneewake testified as to the validity of the sex hcarges that he found "abolutely none, or else I am a poor investigator."

Jimmy Webb was instrumental in indicting Wayne Williams as the murderer of Atlanta's Missing & Murdered Children


Former Georgia Congressman Elliot Hagan

Robert D'Agostino, Dean of John Marshall School of Law, was a counseler at Anneewakee, who sued Poetter, and tried to expose abuse at Anneewakee in 1969, but Poetter was too rich and powerful to convict.

James McKnight, Anneewakee's Carrabelle, Florida adminstrator since 198 told police, and HRS that he and other Anneewakee officials intentionally did not report suspected cases of abuse.

In 1985, A grand jury in Douglas County accused Anneewake of not screening patients well enough, and of failing to protect local residents from potentially dangerous yous.  The findings were precipitated by a slaying on March 30, 1985 of a Douglasville businessman by a 13-year-old Florida boy who had been under Anneewakee's care and was charged with committing the crime.

 DHR, now known as DFACS, to this day dismisses child sexual abuse cases or does not investigate them at all.

*Information compiled from the Florida Democrat, Creative Loafing and Atlanta Journal/Constitution

Chronology of Anneewakee events, 1962-89
BYLINE:
DATE: 03-20-1990
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
EDITION:
SECTION: Newspapers_&_Newswires
PAGE: A/12

- 1962: Louis J. Poetter founds Anneewakee as an adolescent psychiatric care institution specializing in wilderness therapy.

-1970: Poetter is removed as administrator of the facility following a state Department of Human Resources (DHR) investigation of alleged sexual misconduct with male patients. The investigation is not made public, and Poetter remains executive director.

-July 1, 1986: Poetter resigns as Anneewakee board chairman, remains executive director.

-Mid-August 1986: Douglas County Sheriff's Department and GBI begin examining allegations of patient abuse.

-Oct. 1, 1986: Poetter charged by Douglas Sheriff Earl Lee with three counts of sodomy, one count of cruelty to children and one count of simple battery. At the time, Poetter is believed to be in Mexico City. Carl Maxwell Moore, Poetter's chauffeur, is charged with sodomy.

-Oct. 5, 1986: Poetter surrenders to authorities.

-Oct. 6, 1986: DHR begins its Anneewakee investigation.

-Oct. 9, 1986: Six victims of alleged physical and sexual abuse file suit charging facility officials, including Poetter and Moore, with racketeering to defraud and abuse patients.

-Oct. 14, 1986: Douglas deputies arrest James C. Womack, co-director of therapeutic services, and charge him with "numerous counts of sodomy."

-Oct. 17, 1986: Daniel T. Herrera, an Anneewakee employee, charged with cruelty to children. Second group of alleged victims sues.

-Oct. 30, 1986: Poetter charged with stealing $29,500 in Anneewakee funds to buy land for personal use in Mexico.

-Nov. 3, 1986: Robert Lee Winebarger, former group leader, charged with sodomizing young male patient between January 1978 and January 1980.

-Nov. 7, 1986: Nine young women, ages 19 to 24, sue Anneewakee, charging the hospital with racketeering and conspiracy to abuse them sexually and physically, and defraud them financially. Poetter released after five weeks in the Douglas County Jail when friends and supporters raise his $1 million bond.

-Nov. 21, 1986: Twenty-two former Anneewakee patients sue the hospital, naming Poetter, board chairman Jim Parham and other current and former trustees as defendants. This is the fourth suit against the facility and the first to name Parham as a defendant.

-Jan. 25, 1987: Subsidiary of Hospital Corp. of America - HCA Psychiatric Co. -agrees to take over the day-to-day operations of the three Anneewakee facilities. Arrangement prevents the state Department of Human Resources from revoking the facility's license.

-Feb. 27, 1987: Poetter indicted in Douglas County on 22 more sodomy counts dating from 1971.

-March 6, 1987: Poetter, his wife, Mable, and his son-in-law, James Henry Evans, charged with failure to report child abuse. By now, there are 10 criminal defendants in the case.

-March 8, 1987: HCA Psychiatric Co. signs five-year agreement to manage the camps. That same week, the parents of a former patient sue in federal court in Atlanta over dispute in therapy time. Fifth civil action.

-April 8, 1988: Poetter pleads guilty to 19 counts of sodomy with former patients, sentenced to eight years in prison, 12 years probation.

-Oct. 10, 1989: First of six civil trials begins in Fulton County. To date, there are eight lawsuits, 131 plaintiffs and 31 defendants.

-Dec. 19, 1989: After 10-week trial, Fulton Superior Court jury awards $5.2 million to three young women made to work as construction laborers.

Copyright © 2000 The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution

-May 24, 1999:  Poetter Seeks to Overturn Sodomy Conviction in Anneewakee Attacks.  Fulton County Daily Report

Return to NAFCJ main page

 

 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   
Governor Roy E. Barnes

Roy E. Barnes was born in Mableton, Georgia, and grew up talking politics and selling merchandise at his familys general store nestled between the highway and the railroad tracks in Cobb County. It was there helping customers buy everything from fruit to work boots and swapping stories with neighbors that Barnes developed his business sense and honed his populist touch.

In 1998, Barnes began his second run for Governor, taking his message of education and healthcare reform to the people of Georgia. Though he was outspent two-to-one, Barnes won the election with 53 percent of the vote. On January 11, 1999, he was sworn in as Georgias 80th Governor.

Barnes had two major legislative accomplishments during his first year as governor. He persuaded the Georgia General Assembly to create a transportation superagency, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, with broad powers over transportation issues and urban sprawl. He also pushed through major healthcare reform legislation giving Georgians the protections of a Patients Bill of Rights, allowing people to go outside their managed healthcare systems to choose their own doctors, and creating a consumer advocate to fight insurance rate increases.

In his second year, Barnes focused on improving education. The education reform act which he signed into law on April 25, 2000 requires smaller class sizes and more accountability, provides merit pay for teachers and gives parents, teachers, and principals more control over their own schools.

Barnes is a lifelong legislator, lawyer, and businessman.

After law school, Barnes became a prosecutor in the Cobb County district attorneys office.

In 1974, at age 26, Barnes ran successfully for the Georgia Senate, becoming one of the youngest legislators ever elected in Georgia. Within a few years, he was appointed to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee and became the Senate floor leader for then-governor Joe Frank Harris in 1983.

While establishing himself in the Senate, Barnes built a private law practice in Marietta and began raising a family. In 1970, he married Marie Dobbs, his college sweetheart. They have three children: Harlan, Allison Barnes Salter, and Alyssa, a son-in-law John Salter, and a daughter-in-law Amy Crist Barnes, all in their 20s. The family attends the First United Methodist Church of Marietta.

Roy Barnes first ran for Governor in 1990, finishing third in the Democratic primary behind Zell Miller, who went on to win the general election, and Andrew Young. Barnes returned to the Georgia General Assembly in 1993 this time to the House of Representatives.

Barnes graduated from South Cobb High School in 1966, and then enrolled at the University of Georgia. In college, Barnes rebelled against his party roots, joining the Young Republicans in protest of the segregationist statements of some Georgia Democrats. (The corruption of the Nixon Administration later brought Barnes back to the Democratic Party.) He was also a member of the Universitys debate team.

In 1972, Barnes received his law degree, cum laude, also from the University of Georgia, where he was president of the student bar association.

Barnes was born on March 11, 1948 to Agnes and W. C. Barnes.

Since taking office, Barnes personality and politics have won widespread praise. Dick Pettys of the Associated Press wrote that Barnes is "a little bit like Tom Sawyer and a little bit like Clarence Darrow. But mostly, hes like the garrulous neighbor who swaps stories over the backyard fence only funnier." In an editorial, The Marietta Daily Journal wrote, "After they made Roy Barnes, they broke the mold. There just arent many politicians and public servants with his populist touch any more. There arent many who embody the Jeffersonian principle that government officials are the publics servants, not its masters."

http://rushwho590.tripod.com/anneewakee ... /id15.html

217
Facility Question and Answers / Anneewakee - The Lost Boys of Georgia
« on: November 09, 2011, 12:53:32 AM »
I grew up only a couple miles from this place and the brother of a good friend of mine was confined there. From all I could tell there was nothing particularly wrong with him other than he was rebelling against his strict Mormon parents. This was an early wilderness type program similar to Eckerd I believe. They built shelters out in the woods and roughed it, but there was no trekking. My understanding is that the boys accepted there didn't have real psychiatric problems. They were there more because their parents couldn't control them. When the sex scandal broke the local paper ran a picture taken at the facility by one of the adults. It showed a group of 10 to 15 naked boys lying side by side in a line during some kind of ceremony. Their genitals were blurred out in the photo. It was very cultish and creepy.

--------------------------

http://www.nafcj.net/ChronAnneewakee.htm

Poetter OK'd illicit sex, 1970 witness said
BYLINE: By David Corvette Staff Writer
DATE: 10-09-1986
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
EDITION:
SECTION: Newspapers_&_Newswires
PAGE: A/01

Anneewakee founder Louis J. Poetter encouraged sexual relations between staff members and the patients because he believed it was good for the boys, according to a witness in a state hearing 16 years ago.

The testimony was contained in an 800-page transcript of a September 1970 hearing into charges of sexual misconduct at the Douglasville psychiatric facility by a three-member panel of the state Department of Family and Children Services. The transcript was released Wednesday by the state Department of Human Resources.

Among the charges aired during the hearing were allegations by patients and staff members that Poetter engaged in frequent homosexual relations with boys who were patients at the residential facility.

No formal charges were lodged against Poetter as a result of the departmental hearing. But, under an agreement with the state, he was removed as administrator, a job that had placed him in daily contact with the boys, and named executive director.

Poetter, 67, was charged last week with five counts of sexual and physical abuse of former student-patients at Anneewakee. He remained in the Douglas County Jail late Wednesday after waiving a bond hearing earlier in the day.

Poetter testified during the 1970 hearing and called the charges of homosexuality a "damn lie." He said the patients accusing him were the guilty ones.

"I deal with psychotic people," Poetter testified. "I deal with women and girls in my offices, as well as boys, and they do nearly anything when they're working through their problems to try to seduce you into whatever they're doing."

Two students who testified during the hearing first accused Poetter of taking advantage of them sexually but later recanted.

One of the students, who left Anneewakee at the age of 20 in 1966, testified he was hypnotized by Poetter because "this would make it easy for me to relate and what I needed was a homosexual experience with him."

The witness, whose name was blacked out of the transcript along with those of other alleged victims, said he had sex with Poetter once a week for about three years.


When the hearing resumed a few days later, however, he recanted his earlier accusation, saying Poetter had never tried to hypnotize him and "has never done anything against my will."

Psychologists and other staff who worked with Poetter at Anneewakee testified that Poetter encouraged sex between staff members and the boys, as well as participating himself.

Roger Rinn, a counselor and psychology trainee at Anneewakee in the late 1960s, testified Poetter told him that homosexuality was good for the boys, "in particular, homosexuality with staff members, because it got a good relationship with an adult going." When Rinn disagreed with Poetter, "he smiled," Rinn testified.

Poetter said he would hate to forbid sexual relations between staff members and the boys because "it feels so good," Rinn testified.

Roger Rozelle, who was a staff leader at Anneewakee in 1967, testified that Poetter once "tried to kiss me, but I turned my head." Rozelle said Poetter subscribed to a theory that boys "had to have a homosexual experience in order to work through their homosexual fear."

Rozelle said he became involved as a witness in a $1 million civil suit Rinn filed against Poetter and Anneewakee because he was upset by Poetter's treatment of the emotionally disturbed patients there. The suit never came to trial and now is on the dead docket in Douglas County Superior Court.

"They were being entrusted to the care of someone who was entrusted to take care of them. And I felt that there were things that were illegal, immoral and irresponsible going on there," Rozelle testified.

An Anneewakee student identified only as "Buddy" testified that Poetter lured him into a sexual liaison at Poetter's house by promising to set him up with a date with a girl there. Buddy, who was 19 at the time of the hearing, said Poetter fondled him in the shower at Poetter's house.

"So while I was in there taking a shower . . . I was kind of played around with," he testified.

However, Buddy later changed his testimony saying, "I stretched the truth to a great extent there." Buddy told the hearing panel his charges against Poetter were false and said he had been pressured by Rinn to make the accusations.

Other witnesses at the hearing testified that they saw no evidence of improper sexual activity involving Poetter or other members of the staff.

James L. Webb, currently Fulton County solicitor and an assistant solicitor at the time, testified he made an unofficial investigation into the validity of the sex charges and found "absolutely none, or else I am a poor investigator." Webb also said he had been an Anneewakee trustee for several years.

Dr. Juan A. Mascourt, a staff psychiatrist, testified that he "worked closely" with Poetter for six years and that he never had seen anything to indicate any abnormal sexual behavior or other misconduct on his part.

Claude Abercrombie, who was Douglas County sheriff at the time, testified that he had talked to several boys at Anneewakee and "none have ever reported any sexual activityto me or any of my staff that I know of."

John J. Perpall Jr., an Atlanta dentist who said he had known Poetter since 1941, testified Poetter's character was "above reproach," and added that he would have no qualms about sending his own son to Anneewakee.

Fulton County Solicitor, James "Jimmy" L. Webb, a long-time trustee on the board of Anneewake testified as to the validity of the sex charges that he found "abolutely none, or else I am a poor investigator."

Jimmy Webb was instrumental in indicting Wayne Williams as the murderer of Atlanta's Missing & Murdered Children

Robert D'Agostino, Dean of John Marshall School of Law, was a counseler at Anneewakee, who sued Poetter, and tried to expose abuse at Anneewakee in 1969, but Poetter was too rich and powerful to convict.

http://nafcj.org/PoetterDAgostinoLtr.JPG


Chronology of Anneewakee events, 1962-89
BYLINE:
DATE: 03-20-1990
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
EDITION:
SECTION: Newspapers_&_Newswires
PAGE: A/12

- 1962: Louis J. Poetter founds Anneewakee as an adolescent psychiatric care institution specializing in wilderness therapy.

-1970: Poetter is removed as administrator of the facility following a state Department of Human Resources (DHR) investigation of alleged sexual misconduct with male patients. The investigation is not made public, and Poetter remains executive director.

-July 1, 1986: Poetter resigns as Anneewakee board chairman, remains executive director.

-Mid-August 1986: Douglas County Sheriff's Department and GBI begin examining allegations of patient abuse.

-Oct. 1, 1986: Poetter charged by Douglas Sheriff Earl Lee with three counts of sodomy, one count of cruelty to children and one count of simple battery. At the time, Poetter is believed to be in Mexico City. Carl Maxwell Moore, Poetter's chauffeur, is charged with sodomy.

-Oct. 5, 1986: Poetter surrenders to authorities.

-Oct. 6, 1986: DHR begins its Anneewakee investigation.

-Oct. 9, 1986: Six victims of alleged physical and sexual abuse file suit charging facility officials, including Poetter and Moore, with racketeering to defraud and abuse patients.

-Oct. 14, 1986: Douglas deputies arrest James C. Womack, co-director of therapeutic services, and charge him with "numerous counts of sodomy."

-Oct. 17, 1986: Daniel T. Herrera, an Anneewakee employee, charged with cruelty to children. Second group of alleged victims sues.

-Oct. 30, 1986: Poetter charged with stealing $29,500 in Anneewakee funds to buy land for personal use in Mexico.

-Nov. 3, 1986: Robert Lee Winebarger, former group leader, charged with sodomizing young male patient between January 1978 and January 1980.

-Nov. 7, 1986: Nine young women, ages 19 to 24, sue Anneewakee, charging the hospital with racketeering and conspiracy to abuse them sexually and physically, and defraud them financially. Poetter released after five weeks in the Douglas County Jail when friends and supporters raise his $1 million bond.

-Nov. 21, 1986: Twenty-two former Anneewakee patients sue the hospital, naming Poetter, board chairman Jim Parham and other current and former trustees as defendants. This is the fourth suit against the facility and the first to name Parham as a defendant.

-Jan. 25, 1987: Subsidiary of Hospital Corp. of America - HCA Psychiatric Co. -agrees to take over the day-to-day operations of the three Anneewakee facilities. Arrangement prevents the state Department of Human Resources from revoking the facility's license.

-Feb. 27, 1987: Poetter indicted in Douglas County on 22 more sodomy counts dating from 1971.

-March 6, 1987: Poetter, his wife, Mable, and his son-in-law, James Henry Evans, charged with failure to report child abuse. By now, there are 10 criminal defendants in the case.

-March 8, 1987: HCA Psychiatric Co. signs five-year agreement to manage the camps. That same week, the parents of a former patient sue in federal court in Atlanta over dispute in therapy time. Fifth civil action.

-April 8, 1988: Poetter pleads guilty to 19 counts of sodomy with former patients, sentenced to eight years in prison, 12 years probation.

-Oct. 10, 1989: First of six civil trials begins in Fulton County. To date, there are eight lawsuits, 131 plaintiffs and 31 defendants.

-Dec. 19, 1989: After 10-week trial, Fulton Superior Court jury awards $5.2 million to three young women made to work as construction laborers.

Copyright © 2000 The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution

-May 24, 1999:  Poetter Seeks to Overturn Sodomy Conviction in Anneewakee Attacks.  Fulton County Daily Report

http://www.nafcj.net/ChronAnneewakee.htm

-------------------

I found Anneewakee mentioned in passing twice on Fornits. The nurse in the Anderson Boot Camp death was a former employee of Anneewakee's Florida camp.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=23463&p=286276&hilit=anneewakee#p286276

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13885&p=179314&hilit=anneewakee#p179314

218
Feed Your Head / Reaction after Teen Mania comes under fire
« on: November 08, 2011, 06:23:33 PM »
http://www.cbs19.tv/story/15986617/teen ... under-fire

Reaction after Teen Mania comes under fire
Posted: Nov 08, 2011 10:37 AM EST Updated: Nov 08, 2011 10:42 AM EST
By Courtney Friedman - email

TYLER (KYTX) - A national network documentary on East Texas based Christian youth organization Teen Mania, claims parts of the program are too extreme.

The organization has come under fire before for it's unique programs, but the program's Executive Vice President David Hasz believes Teen Mania is often misunderstood.

He says, it's all about the big picture, and putting things into context.

Hasz says, "We have had young people voice concerns over the years in the Honor Academy. We listen to those concerns, we take that feedback very seriously."

Hasz says more than 6,000 teenagers have completed the Honor Academy, a one year internship program that includes weekend retreats.

These retreats feature activities related to a traditional boot camp, and are the target of controversy.

Hasz says, "It's optional. Young people these days like to get involved. They like to do a mud run or do the edgy stuff. but interns do not have to participate."

Hasz says they are continually evaluating their programs with input from both people in Teen Mania, and people in the community to form the Honor Academy.

David Hasz says Teen Mania has tried to contact the girls who spoke against them in the documentary, but he says they did not get a response.  

People like Lindale parent Tommy Roden have heard negative things about Teen Mania.

"That it's cult-like, and it's a little extreme compared to the other youth organizations around, and me personally, my kids wouldn't be involved in that."

He says it's a matter of opinion, but he does know people who are involved in the organization.

"I've worked with a couple people that are high in Teen Mania," he says, "and they talk nothing but good about it."

He says regardless of what he's heard, the documentary should have been more balanced.

"I think you should hear both sides of the story too. You can't just judge on what you hear."

Others have also heard mixed opinions about teen mania.

Tylerite Michelle Baetz says, "I've heard things that kind of relate it to a cult and I've also heard from people that they do a lot of good work and that it's a good organization."

Baetz says when it comes to big religious groups, there's bound to be controversy.

"I think with any religious organization that requires so much commitment, which I think that this organization does, that there's going to be talk."

That's something Hasz agrees with.

"There are individuals over the years who have said, 'You guys are crazy, and why are you like that?' I really don't think they understand that we believe this is who God has called us to be."

219
The Troubled Teen Industry / Review of Arivaca Boys Ranch
« on: November 08, 2011, 05:28:40 PM »
I'm reluctant to post Tom's whole review, but I think it is worth reading for anyone interested in Arivaca.

http://www.familylight.com/link3/3.03/3 ... rivaca.htm

Quote
The principal partner (yes, there are silent partners who have invested and are not visible) is Ron Searle, a man who has had a thirty year career as an educator, most recently on the faculty at Arizona State University.

Quote
It is a true diamond first and foremost because of the relationship basis of the program (key staff with staff, key staff with boys, and boys with boys).  We frankly are not aware of any other teen program with a more intense relationship basis, and there are clearly a number of programs that in the range we usually deal with that are outstanding in this regard.  This exceeds the best of them.

Quote
 However in both cases (Arivaca and  Intermountain) the first goal with each boy is keeping the him physically and emotionally safe rather than demanding behavioral conformity, as is true in most programs.    Think carefully about that.   Almost every teen program we are familiar with, including those we give high marks for relationship based interaction, puts a very high priority on conformity to behavioral expectations.  At Arivaca, if it isn’t tied to safety, in most instances the staff will follow Arbinger principles and let the boy deviate from the expectations.

This explains the beds that are unmade or made sloppily, for example. Boys will come on board in time.  Rebellion is no fun when there is no one to fight against.  We think the long established high quality mainstream programs should stop and take a look at this.  The payoff is a more rapid and complete buy-in by the boys than we have seen in more typically run programs.

Quote
  Tom says, “When I meet with students in a program, I consistently ask the students, ‘What are three things you would change about this program?’   I heard answers like I had never heard before in any program.   The three of the most common:  ‘Free up Ron from administrative duties so he can spend all of his time with us,’ ‘Allow us to stay longer and don’t make us go home so soon,’  and ‘Get Ron more money.’    Note that the third answer related to the fact that the boys trust Ron to spend any available resources on them.  (A fourth answer was ‘Don’t let the program get bigger,’ but it is growing).   I have never seen teenage boys – even teenage boys who were not previously severely oppositional – develop such intense loyalty and frankly affection for the adults to whom they are responsible.”    

When Loi Eberle commented on the program to us in an email, she said (quoted with permission):  “The student residents are given a lot of room to choose to cooperate, which sometimes involves someone riding off into the sunset on their horse, and ultimately turning around and coming back.”  She expressed it better than I could.  The boys are not molded or forced to do much.  They are kept safe. Physically and emotionally safe. They are invited and encouraged to do things the program thinks will be good for them.  Some do not do so immediately, but after a time they all do.  The boys do not at any time feel coerced or put down.  When we describe the flexibility, it sounds like anarchy, but it anything but anarchy.  This is the most self regulated group of boys we have ever seen not just in a therapeutic environment but in any other places that boys congregate.  Ron Searle explains it by saying, “The boys begin to do the things we want them to do when to do so is really who they are.  We don’t encourage phony compliance.”  

Quote
While boys will be able to progress with accumulating academic credits and might even catch up from being behind, this is not a high powered academic environment for students who should be getting a strong academic challenge.   Students with special academic needs will get learning support.  The academic area leaves room for improvement, a fact Ron Searle does not attempt to hide.  

Quote
We would like to see this or another program that has a similar relationship base also offer the clinical and educational sophistication that we see in some of the better programs that are well established.   But we never forget the great body of research that that says most of the them, quality relationships are far more important to positive outcome than clinical sophistication.  In almost every case we would prefer a setting with this kind of relationship base and lacking clinical sophistication over the clinically sophisticated setting that does not sustain quality interpersonal relationships.

Quote
It did not appear that any of the boys we spoke with directly had gone to Arivaca from wilderness.   However, Ron advises that they have had a few boys come from wilderness. He says those boys got into the program more quickly, but after a month in the program at Arivaca there was no observable difference between their progress and that of the boys who had come directly to Arivaca. Since this program can stand alone effectively in preparing boys to “buy into” treatment and personal growth, we do not recommend a wilderness program prior to Arivaca unless it is needed for assessment purposes,  prior to selecting a longer term program.  

I'm uncomfortable with any program that holds people against their will, and I'd like to know what their communication policy is regarding letters and phone calls and whether they are monitored, but in total Arivaca seems to be a rather soft program as such places go.

220
The Troubled Teen Industry / Arbinger Principles
« on: November 08, 2011, 05:13:49 PM »
I like the principles and can see how their practice can be beneficial in interpersonal, family, and business relationships. The question is how well they can be implemented in any program.

http://www.arbinger.com/downloads/princ ... olence.pdf

THE ARBINGER PRINCIPLES OF NONVIOLENCE

The Arbinger Institute is the worldwide leader in scholarship, information, and training
regarding the age-old problem of “self-deception” and its solution. Arbinger’s work
demonstrates that there is much more to violence and crises involving violence than
meets the eye. The prevailing view of violence is that it is a behavioral issue. But this is
incorrect. Violence is actually a matter of what is called “way of being”—the way one
person, whatever his behavior, is seeing and responding to another at any given time.
An outward act of violence is actually a symptom of this deeper violence—violence in
one’s way of being. There is no real or lasting solution to outward violence without a
solution to this deeper violence.

The solution to violence grows out of the following foundational principles:

1. Every human being is a PERSON—a being with hopes, needs, cares, and fears.

2. When we regard others’ hopes, needs, cares, and fears as inferior to, or less
legitimate than, our own, we see others as less than they are—as objects rather
than as people.

3. To see a fellow person as an inferior object is to harbor a violent heart toward
that person.

4. No matter our outward behavior, we end up communicating how we feel about
others. To see others as objects, then, is to do violence to them—it is to swing at
them with our hearts.

5. When others detect violence in our hearts, they tend to become defensive and to
see US as objects. Violence in one heart provokes violence in others.

6. Most occasions of outward violence are manifestations of a prior, and often
escalating, conflict between violent hearts. And attempts to curb violence, if
done with a violent heart, actually provoke further violence.

7. Any effort to reduce outward violence will succeed only to the extent that it
addresses the prior and core problem—the problem of violent hearts.


Arbinger has been helping organizations replace violence and conflict with cooperation
and peace for over 20 years. For an introduction to this work, see Arbinger’s recent
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221
Hyde Schools / Re: Seeking People to Tell Me Their Hyde Withdrawl stories
« on: November 06, 2011, 11:30:05 PM »
Sorry to hear about your father, you have my condolences.

You sound like a normal teen going through normal grief. Hyde is a therapeutic boarding school for 'troubled' teens. I don't have personal experience w/ Hyde, but I don't think you belong there. If your previous public or private school wasn't working for you there are many normal small college prep boarding schools you could consider. Or you could homeschool. Or depending upon the laws of the state you live in, you might be able to quit HS, get your GED and get a head start on college by enrolling in a community college. After two years at a CC you could transfer to any University to complete your degree.

It's a myth that you must go to an Ivy school in order to have a good future.

See these links:
http://www.martynemko.com/articles/why- ... -in_id1247

http://www.martynemko.com/articles/we-s ... ege_id1238

http://www.martynemko.com/articles/sure ... ege_id1456

I can't give you a personal story about Hyde, but here are some links that might help you. Keep us posted on what you decide. Good luck

http://hydestudents.tribe.net/thread/fb ... 9cbe3df763

http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php?title=Hyde_Schools

.

222
Open Free for All / Re: Intellectualization
« on: November 04, 2011, 04:25:39 PM »
I think 'Intellectualization' is one of those words that can be confusing because people have different definitions of what it means. I had to look it up on one of my favorite online sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectualization just to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

According to wikipedia:

Quote
Intellectualization is a defense mechanism where reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress, by 'using excessive and abstract ideation to avoid difficult feelings'.[1] It involves removing one's self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

Gee, you've had a lot of stressful events recently in your life, and since you are highly intelligent ("I was always a pretty bright kid" per this post viewtopic.php?f=22&t=37760) I think it is natural that you used your intellect as a defense mechanism while in program. I don't think that's a bad thing. They were trying to break you down and get into your head, mess w/ who you are as a person, and you rightly resisted that. Also, I suspect that you may have resisted showing raw/real emotions or revealing your true self because you feared that information would only be used against you.

I know from you posts that you have empathy for others and you said in your introduction thread that "I have a heart". So, I assume you feel emotions like anger, resentment, fear, joy, love, etc. Are you able to express those feelings satisfactorily when you are in circumstances where you feel secure and accepted? I can understand a reluctance to express them fully in situations where you felt insecure or threatened, or were with people you didn't know well.

Does this describe you?

Quote
Intellectualization is one of Freud's original defense mechanisms. Freud believed that memories have both conscious and unconscious aspects, and that intellectualization allows for the conscious analysis of an event in a way that does not provoke anxiety.

Quote
Intellectualization is a 'flight into reason', where the person avoids uncomfortable emotions by focusing on facts and logic. The situation is treated as an interesting problem that engages the person on a rational basis, whilst the emotional aspects are completely ignored as being irrelevant.

You said in one of your other posts that you have social anxiety so intellectualization may be one of your coping mechanisms. As you gain confidence in yourself and surroundings wouldn't your anxiety decrease and perhaps then you would feel more confident in expressing emotions?

On the other hand, some people have an entirely different definition of Intellectualization. Some seem to live their lives based upon emotion rather than reason. Much like lower animals they feel: cold, heat, hunger, pleasure, lust, etc. and they seek to satiate those appetites with little or no regard for the consequences.

In this vein I think emotions are an important part of what makes us human, but alone emotions are a poor guide to decision making. I believe reason is superior to emotion. It's okay for emotions to inform the decision making process, but in the end it should be reason that has the final say.

In closing, you are an intelligent, caring young man with an amazing future. Hug a friend, watch a sunset, and enjoy your life. :cheers:

223
The Troubled Teen Industry / Re: Arivaca Boys Ranch
« on: November 04, 2011, 04:28:55 AM »
From the Arivaca website: http://arivacaboysranch.com/index.php

http://arivacaboysranch.com/troubled-te ... -signs.php

Message to parents:

Quote
What Arivaca Boys Ranch offers, most parents cannot provide...

Most of all, the staff at Arivaca can teach you how to detach from the guilt associated with this traumatic experience...

http://arivacaboysranch.com/troubled-teen-transport.php

Quote
Once the decision to enroll your son into a program is made, the method to get him there becomes and important issue...
 
Transport Services. For the young man that simply will not come, you can hire the services of a transport company. These professionals are bonded and insured and know how to get your son to the program with little incident. They generally help the young man understand what is happening and work to lessen the anxiety. Costs run from $1500 to $3500 for transport. We are happy to provide some referrals.

Once a young man arrives at the Ranch, several things happen to make it easier for him.

    * First, we are happy, upbeat, and enthusiastic about his attendance and participation in our Ranch.
    * Secondly, we tour the ranch and get him settled in.
    * Thirdly, we let him talk to the other boys who have all gone through the similar experience and will tell him that the Ranch is great and that he will actually like it.

It is amazing how the other boys reach out to a new placement. Some of the more difficult boys take a little more time to adjust and accept their enrollment into the program. This is not a problem, but is part of the therapeutic process that helps us direct him to change.

224
The Troubled Teen Industry / Re: Arivaca Boys Ranch
« on: November 04, 2011, 04:16:23 AM »
From http://www.heal-online.org

Quote
Arivaca Boys Ranch--Located in Arivaca, AZ (on Mexican Border).  It looks to be a basic slave/labor camp.  These ranchers get free labor that they can exploit and abuse while charging families big money.  The website plays into the scapegoating of children by taking all responsibility off the parents or family dynamic and blaming the child.  This is a sign of an abusive environment.  Children, teenagers, and the adults in their lives all contribute to the overall social environment that can create imbalance, lack of good communication, and a complete breakdown of the family dynamic.  It is up to everyone to work together to resolve family issues.  Any program that sets parents and children against each other and takes the "side" of the parent without having properly assessed the needs of the family, including the child in question, is likely fraudulent and abusive.  We would recommend against placing any child at such a facility as Arivaca Boys Ranch.  Please   contact us if you need to expose abuse or violations at this facility.  For staff and background info,    click here.

http://www.heal-online.org/childtortureusa.htm#arivaca

225
Feed Your Head / Re: Cook County Jail Boot Camp
« on: November 04, 2011, 04:11:30 AM »
Sounds like racism to me.

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