Fornits

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

BELLEFAIRE JCB: A TRUE DICKENS NIGHTMARE

(Here is another post I contributed to a review site regarding Bellefaire JCB. One can only hope that parents read internet reviews before they destroy their children's lives...):

A true Dickens nightmare. Physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and intellectual abuses.If a child or teen manages to survive this experience, there is no question that they will suffer severe psychological damage for the rest of their lives. Please do not consider Bellefaire JCB as a viable resource. This institution and its foster care adjuncts should be subject to extreme scrutiny and full exposure. I can't believe that they have not already been shuttered for brutality against their wards and illegal actions from torture to billing abuses. Your adolescent has a better chance for survival in an abusive home or on the street as a runaway. Bellefaire is a psychological concentration camp for young people. Let us never forget and let us make this institution a bedlam of the distant past. If I can save a single child's present life and his/her life down the road as a confident, psychologically-healthy adult, this post will be worthwhile.

Ganymede

Pile:

I didn't mean I would reply to disrespectful posts with respect. I've been dealing with the internal fallout from my treatment experiences alone for centuries. I don't need allies or conversation partners. However, I make the assumption that we're somewhat in this shit stew together and righteously angry. Did anyone know that the Unabomber (Ted Kacszinski) was the victim of psychological experimentation as an undergraduate at Harvard. That shack in the forest looks really good on bad days. Lastly, I encourage you to read the article for any information you require. IMO the names of the perps are far more important at this point than the names of the fallen--a never again style call for action.  It's not about grief but prevention.

Ganymede

I knew a number of people who were imprisoned on the "campus" at Bellefaire; I was one of the lost ones thrown to the group and foster homes, each one being worse than the next. My conservative parents thought that they were protecting me from myself and the streets. My only goal was to become a so-called "emancipated minor." Also a "gender person" and AP English student (after dropping out of school and returning to finish in order to avoid the GRE, hating and fearing the oppressive branding of standardized testing), I presented as a mad romantic poet who was pathologized and abused for my nonconformity and my gifts, I was bullied and shamed for reading philosophical texts, my own treatises viewed as aberrant, my visual art often seen as representing suicidal urges rather than an expression of the complexities of my head and heart. Asher, your posts are dead on. I've been googling Bellefaire abuses for a long time and finally found the Fornits site. This week, I added an abbreviated and likely, more restrained post to a MerchantCircle review of Bellefaire for people to read who are trying to get information because they are searching for resources (?!!?) for their teenagers and children. It's a small thing, obviously, but if only one person is spared these experiences, it is well worth it to tell our stories, if only briefly. I was the only one who had written anything. Would you consider posting a paragraph from your description there? No matter. Have you found anyone else who has written about Bellefaire JCB abuses, finally, exposing this hell which has been burning out there for far too many years. I hope you will reply to my post. All are invited and encouraged to reply. Thanks!

 Lifelong Trauma JCB Bellefaire

If it were possible to travel down a negative number line beyond 0 Stars and continue on to negative infinity, I could not leave a more accurate rating of JCB Bellefaire. I was a profoundly gifted, troubled runaway escaping from an intolerable situation at home. I suffer incredible lifelong trauma largely attributable to the Jewish Children's Bureau: a series of inhumane treatments and abuses (physically and emotionally abusive foster parents, the indescribable shock of my entirely unanticipated, psychologically damaging exposure to the juvenile injustice system (although no prosecutable "crimes" were committed--stayed overnight at a friend's house without permission, which under my real parent's jurisdiction would have merited a curfew for a couple of weeks), resulting in detention home prison strip-searches akin to anal rape, solitary confinement, and various isolation punishments after being beaten by other juveniles. Shortly after, I experienced gratuitous hospitalization and unnecessary pharmacological treatment--astronomical, unwarranted doses of Thorazine (the shot was so powerful that I developed jaundice within 24 hours!) as punishment, despite the fact that I was at no time psychotic.This mega-shot given to me in restraints despite the fact that I was not physically resisting, resulted in iatrogenic hepatitis from which I nearly died, which was then covered up by JCB and Mt. Sinai, (both Bellefaire and Mt. Sinai Hospital Cleveland claimed that I had contracted hepatitis from dirty needles used to inject heroin [I have never used intravenous drugs!]). Because they had to pretend that I had infectious hepatitis, to create their self-protective sham, I was placed unnecessarily in quarantine and no one was allowed to come near me--Law suit? Too late for that. The hospital is no longer in operation, records do not exist, and more relevantly, the statute of limitations has long expired, so no legal action can ever be taken. Human rights? (teenagers still don't have them!). Criminal abuses? (teenagers have little recourse when they are legally underage.) Has this organization done anything in the last couple of decades to create humane and respectful treatment options for children and adolescents who are essentially victims of their family's problems and are just trying to find a safe space? Caveat emptor. Before considering Bellefaire as an option for your child, consider instead, saving your child's life.