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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

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Yeah, I'll accept responsibility for every day she spent in a program.

Faggot.

http://ir.10kwizard.com/filing.php?ipag ... ource=1321

CRC's Recovery division made money hand over fist these last three months, generating thirty million dollars (!) in net profit (before corporate headquarters, which took $8M) and paying down part of their colossal debt.

Its "Healthy Living" division, on the other hand, did not. CRC finally got around to admitting some of what we already knew: that its "Healthy Living" division isn't worth anywhere near what they valued it as. This quarter they admitted facts, and wrote down an intangible asset impairment of $18M and a goodwill impairment of ~$43.7M. (Since it was never a real asset to begin with, the write-down of such impairment isn't a real loss.) This probably displeased the stockholders, who found themselves with about $40M less in equity than they did last quarter. Of course, it means that the "Healthy Living" division, which lost them another ~$1.3M (in real money, not non-assets) this quarter, is easier to get rid of. They still have a lot more non-assets to write down, of course.

Bottom line: CRC's a mostly-profitable company that might actually be able to get out of debt, even with its enormous mistake of purchasing Aspen Education. This should be a lesson to any other large health conglomerate considering getting involved in this industry. If an organization as large and well-backed as CRC Health can't make money off this business, what makes you think it's a good investment? Forget unethical and inhuman; the teen torture business is unprofitable.

Anyone want to buy some land in Utah and make some golf courses (or, for extra irony, the world's largest skatepark) out of it? Wait another six months; CRC'll sell it to you for a song.

(Edit: Just so we're clear, "these three months" and "this quarter" refer to April-June. SEC filings are two months after it happens. No way around it, unless someone at CRC cares to divulge real-time data for the amusement of Fornits.)

http://www.faqs.org/sec-filings/100514/ ... #tx13761_2

First things first: This 10Q is *unaudited*. Are the numbers accurate? There's no way of knowing. That's what unaudited means. They seem to be mostly accurate, save for some wild overvaluings.

For those of you worried that CRC's staying afloat because it managed to make a tiny profit this quarter: Relax. Its total loss was $135M in March 2009, and its total loss in December 2009 was $161M. This means that it managed to piss 26 million dollars away in those 9 months. Also, its "Recovery" division was the cause for most of the gain for 1Q 2010 ($25M); the "Healthy living" division (where the "therapeutic boarding schools" are) lost 4 million dollars this quarter, while its corporate headquarters pissed away $8M. And the remaining $13M was mostly raped by the crushing debt- nearly 11 million dollars of interest for the quarter.

How much crushing debt? Oh, only 650 million dollars of it. And $116 million in deferred income taxes. I'm not even going to pretend to know how they can pull THAT one off.

CRC values its "referral network" at nearly $30M, depreciating over 20 years. I can't figure out why they value it this way or why it depreciates. It's not that kind of asset. Its curriculum and accreditations are valued the same way. This makes strikingly little sense. Its trademarks/trade names it values at $172 million (I wouldn't pay two dollars for them :rofl:) and it values its Certificates of Need and regulatory licenses at $44.6M and $37.5M, respectively. They might be necessary for the company to operate, but what the fuck gives them a book value of 80 million bucks? It's not like CRC paid $80 million to get them!

On the other hand, its contracts, assuming that refers to actual signed contracts with a guarantee of future business, are a real asset- but those total to only $33.5M.

Goodwill isn't really an asset. A thorough discussion of the subject can be found here. Aspen took a $170M goodwill hit on its "Healthy Living" (residential treatment) from an original $240M on goodwill. This means that even the management agrees that the division is fucked. But either way, it only applies if someone else buys the company, and only if they choose to take it at face value; not likely. Goodwill isn't money and can't be converted to money.

In other words, the bulk of CRC's assets are intangibles and nonexistents; it has maybe $250-300 million in something that could be qualified as a real asset, depending on how much shit you want to believe. On the hand, its liabilities, all $813 million of them, are very, very real.

What Bain Capital is doing can be best described as corporate necromancy; CRC's total loss so far (again, this is money it's actually paid out, not money it owes) is $160 million, and Bain's paid in $456M. The only reason Bain would want to pour money down this rathole is to maintain stockholder equity, funneling money from Bain's corporate coffers into the pockets of CRC's stockholders, whoever they are. If Bain was actually serious about keeping CRC alive for the long term, they'd do something to pay down the crushing debt; Bain isn't about to spend $650M on this turkey in one shot. Way too much risk.

From an assets/debt perspective, the solution is simple. Sell off the money-bleeding "Healthy Living" division in its entirety, using the proceeds to pay down the debt, and start austerity at corporate headquarters to staunch the bleeding there. Make money from the profitable "Recovery" division and, again, pay down the debt with it. Then maybe Bain can step in, finish off the debt, and turn CRC into an actual investment instead of a money pit.

Why don't they do this? Again, stockholder equity. Because selling off all the "Healthy Living" crap would mean that quite a few of those intangibles/nonexistents would disappear, resulting in a loss of book assets. If Bain had to step in to cover the difference, Bain wouldn't be happy. If the stockholders found themselves holding assets with considerably less book value, they wouldn't be happy and they aren't about to wait for the company to actually be profitable. So the company is fundamentally at odds with itself; it can't do what it needs to do to survive for the long term. Its current solution seems to be to s-l-o-w-l-y sell off the "Healthy Living" piecemeal, letting Bain's steady influx of cash make up the difference, but every quarter it does this, it pays more and more interest.

Can somebody with some econ experience help me figure out *exactly* what the hell's going on, and how it can defer 116 million bucks in income taxes? (No, not the one we know has a financial interest in CRC/Aspen, thanks)

Perhaps as a former student/client/survivor/inmate/whatever you want to call it, I can shed some light on the subject. I was in peer group 17, I was at ASR from October of 2000 to December of 2001. During my stay I was under the impression that the lifesteps were essentially unchanged from the start of the program up until then. I can't say anything about 2002 and onward. As was said before, they were about anger, insecurities, reconnecting with core self, (aka inner child) and forgiveness. They were held in the library in the academic building, and generally started around mid evening on a friday or saturday night, and lasted between 12 and 24 hours. Hard to tell exactly because they made a policy of taking our watches beforehand. All I know was that at the latest, we were asleep in our beds by the normal lights out the next night, except for the 4th lifestep, where we slept in tents overnight outside the library. That was about 36 hours altogether.

They definitely fed us, slightly less than usual, but more than adequate for a day's nutrition. As for sleep deprivation, we were up way past our bedtimes, which were tightly regulated, so any alterations to the routine were quite noticeable. While we were up late, full of anxiety and stress, we were subjected to a lot of yelling, a lot of exercises and workshops designed to illustrate how our behaviors were hurting us. There was a lot of crying, screaming, cursing, quiet time for writing, (read: kids can't talk, counselors walk around reading what's being written and pontificating about the topics being written about. My point is that it was very intense and quite overwhelming. I don't remember every single detail of the experiences, but I will try to include what I can.

The most memorable thing about the first lifestep was an exercise called dyads. This involved pairing up with a buddy and holding them while screaming at the top of our lungs all the things we hated our parents and ourselves for, for minutes at a time. I distinctly remember spitting up blood and being encouraged to continue screaming. There were also short group therapy sessions, there were exercises involving listing all the things our parents had ever done to hurt us, focusing on all the pain and suffering that we'd ever felt and how angry it made us. After all of us were exhausted we read letters our parents sent us about how much they loved us and why they chose to send us away. Needless to say there was a lot of crying.

The second lifestep had exercises where we had to sit in a circle, while one of us would walk around from person to person to hear whether that one or this one considered them a "giver" or a "taker". After we'd all judged each other we had to say to people why we felt this way about them. Some of this took the form of harsh criticism masked as praise. There were exercises involving how we judge ourselves and how we present ourselves to others. We had to wear cards around our necks that labeled us as one thing or another to supposedly demonstrate how restrictive the images we present to people can be. I remember carving images into cubes of sandstone to symbolize all the good qualities we had and who we really were. I also remember listening to Enya and other new age music, and doing a warped guided meditation which, rather than enhancing relaxation heightens emotions like guilt, sadness and fear. It was either in this lifestep or the third that we did an exercise involving manic, happy music, and all of us being instructed to smile until it started to hurt, and walk around laughing and smiling and looking at each other for about 5-10 minutes with the song on repeat. By the end many were crying, some were on the verge of hysteria.

The third lifestep was probably the most traumatic and damaging. It involved internalizing immense guilt. We had to write down anything and everything that we'd ever done to hurt ourselves, told how horrible it was, then forced to look at childhood pictures of ourselves that our parents had mailed to the school. Sitting there for what seemed like hours being yelled at because all the mistakes, impulses, and self destruction we'd gone through were "horrible things that we, as horrible people had done to the innocent children that we were" We were told to imagine all these wrongdoings being visited upon these children, as if we'd done them to some helpless little kid ourselves. Hurting yourself because you're horribly depressed is suddenly akin to torturing preschoolers. Talk about cognitive dissonance! We had to draw a symbolic portrait of ourselves involving all our interests, loves, etc., then tack the childhood picture to it. The other focus of this lifestep was the emotional manipulations or games that we use in an attempt to fill holes in our lives. We acted out all the games we each typically used, and had our peer group guess which one. Games such as playing the victim, using intimidation, attention games, the "everything is fine" game, etc.

The fourth lifestep involved a modified Native American sweat ritual. One of these took place before the first lifestep, almost a pre lifestep. This ritual was kind of like group therapy in a sauna, with some new age religious undertones. We were smudged with sage before entering the sweat lodge, there was a little discussion about purification. We talked about grudges we held, and how they weighed us down. To illustrate this concept physically, we took a long walk in the woods late at night, each of us carrying a rock about the size of a large melon and being lectured to about how we weigh ourselves down by not letting things go. We weren't allowed to put down the rocks, and the walk lasted somewhere between 1 and 2 hours. Being able to set down the rock was supposed to symbolize how good it feels to let go of anger and resentment. Perfect timing, the program's almost over, let's assuage some of the anger that comes from having a year of your life stolen.

All in all I would say that these lifesteps are a clear indication of the cult like way that the academy is run. In addition I would like to comment on the pervasive nature of the levels and punishment/reward system that was in effect. Profanity was punishable by doing pushups, we were continually encouraged to report each other for anything and everything, for our own good. Dish duty would be assigned for having a shirt untucked or for not cleaning the dorm before breakfast adequately. Being late to meetings or classes had similar consequences. Consequences, not punishments. There was no such thing as a punishment at ASR, just like there were no rules, only Agreements. Since you agreed to not do this or that, you had already accepted the consequence for breaking the agreement. I don't remember ever signing a contract, but then again, since as a minor you don't really have rights or the ability to sign contracts, none of that matters. The point is, it was a very effective technique for fostering obedience through guilt. You didn't just fuck up, you went back on your word and let down the school. The rule system was so pervasive it was difficult to make it through an entire day without breaking at least one. Privileges were removed at the drop of a hat. If you read too many books, you were avoiding people, and weren't allowed to read for pleasure. If you were rude or rowdy you might go on a restriction and lose the privilege of any and all recreational activity for between 1 and 4 weeks. Restrictions could involve being on "bans" with groups or individuals in the school, such as "bans with all lower school students", or all females, all males, etc. You couldn't talk to people you were on bans with or you faced serious consquences. This often caused difficulty in coordinating schoolwork with therapy. Restrictions ended when counselors felt you'd accepted whatever you'd done was horribly wrong and you felt horrible about it/learned something. Then you'd tell the whole school about it and apologize at the end of the day meeting.

Academics are another concern. The options for classes were limited, the teachers often weren't qualified. My chemistry teacher was an English major who was only a chapter ahead of the class each week. He was filling in until they found someone who knew chemistry. Most of the teachers, even those qualified to teach their subject, did not know how to deal with kids with learning disabilities, or kids who acted out constantly. This had a negative effect on the amount of actual teaching that got done. Student's writings, paintings, etc. were often censored for being to dark, too imagey, too negative, too sexual, etc. Reading material was restricted, the library was full of outdated books and random novels, all of it unorganized. On numerous occasions books I'd found in the library were confiscated, apparently even some of them weren't appropriate.

Inmates faced a barrage of emotional abuse from counselors and students alike. Students tried to curry favor by enforcing rules and ratting on others. Once an accusation of rulebreaking, innapropriate behavior, telling "warstories" i.e. talking less than disdainfully about anything ASR didn't like, such as drugs, sex, stunts we'd pulled that got us sent there. Challenging the rules for any reason was being manipulative, denying an accusation was being in denial. Getting upset at false accusations was an attempt to intimidate the accuser. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

At least a third of the inmates were on either wellbutrin or adderall. You got to see one of the 2 psychiatrists the school employed, no one from outside. You weren't allowed to refuse medication either.

Some of the other issues in the program were a lack of policies on various issues such as religions, sexual orientation, and a number of other things. For example, Rudy Bentz the headmaster would frequently speak of a higher power in thinly veiled judeo-christian propaganda terms, and there was a clear preference for mainstream religions. Shortly after 9-11 in a schoolwide discussion, he failed to reprimand or even comment on an inmate yelling in front of the school an insensitive comment about "fucking towelheads". Wiccan or Buddhist students were often slighted, or accused of using the religion as part of their image rather than professing a sincere belief. Big fucking christmas tree up in the common room, slight chanukah concession for the few jewish kids, nothing for anyone else.

On other occasions, I was told by certain counselors that I did not know what my sexual orientation was and I was going through a delusional phase where I mistakenly believed I was bisexual. Yet other counselors told me it was normal and natural and to trust myself. The lack of clear policies on these and other issues created untold confusion and despair.

All in all, I think the program has absolutely minimal potential to help anyone, and most of the help it offers comes solely from the extended period of time away from a harmful home environment, and the substantial reflection it necessitates. The entire premise revolves around group mentality, breaking down and moulding psyches, a complex reward and punishment system combined with censorship and constant, constant, constant reinforcement of obedience that comes from never knowing whether or not you're "in agreement" (currently not violating or witholding a confession about past violations of the rules), and always worrying about being punished.

Through the use of repetitive propaganda, peer pressure, and psycholinguistics, the process of conveniently rephrasing everything to give it a slant that is in line with the belief you're trying to force upon a captive population. Rules are agreements, punishments are consequences, shoveling snow for 6 hours is "getting back in agreement", expressing your feelings in an unapproved manner is either acting out or manipulative behavior.

The Academy at Swift River has done untold damage to hundreds of children whose only crime was being born to parents who held them to unreasonable standards, often abused them mentally, physically and sexually, often were alcoholics or drug addicts or suffered from mental disorders, and thought that money could fix their kid. There is a certain amount of accountability on the parents part, but it's pretty much lip service when you get right down to it. Kids are beaten, berated, treated as less than human, and shipped away to prison without a trial when they understandably start to act out in these circumstances. They go through a 14 month sentence of emotional torture under questionable auspices, subjected to the horrors I've described above. To claim that the parents who sent them there are being called to task because they have to go through a 3 hour group therapy session once every 3 months and hear about how they fucked up their kid doesn't even begin to address the issues at hand.

The whole thing is a twisted mixture of cult and psych ward, it should be burnt to the ground and its founders should be jailed.

In b4 "2000-2001, old": they still do it, or worse. MBA was closed in 2008 for this sort of thing, only with added sexualized roleplay. Pretending that ASR somehow magically got better in the interim is wishful thinking at best.

The FTC has a shitload of warnings. The GAO investigated deaths and found a huge list of problems.

But a few local morons will gladly tell you, without hesitation, that it's all just "mythology" and that the majority of experiences with programs just like this are good ones. Please. Let's hear some more of that. Let's hear all the good things that come from systematic abuse of children.

You know who I'm talking about. Or should.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=244 has some kooky HTML in the middle that hoses the rest of the thread.

http://www.conductdisorders.com/forum/f ... nce-33774/

It was me, hubby, gfg and our somewhat compliant children - 9 yo, 7 yo, 7yo.

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stori ... 3464.shtml

For the 14 children ages 6 to 17