Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry
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Susan G. Hayden, MEd, Director of Education
Mrs. Hayden grew up in the South. She has a Masters in Education from Pennsylvania State University and three undergraduate degrees from the University of Alabama, two of which are education related. She has been involved in the rehabilitation of at-risk teens for over 20 years. She has worked as a classroom teacher and has led workshops for enhancing parenting skills. Mrs. Hayden has worked extensively in reconciliation and understanding between parents and their children. She enjoys crafts, floral design and aerobic exercise. She and her husband have three sons.
Duane S. Hellebrand, Phase Manager
Mr. Hellebrand grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, the grandson of a German rocket scientist. He is a graduate of North Georgia College, majoring in Psychology. Since 1990, he has been involved in the treatment of behaviorally disordered teens in direct care and related roles such as Safety Officer and other administrative, leadership positions. He served in the United States Army in an artillery unit and was honorably discharged. Mr. Hellebrand enjoys outdoor sports including hiking, camping and fishing with his daughter, Gracie. He and our CEO participate in sports car racing. He enjoys reading historical novels and military history.
Charles I. Lee, MD, Medical Consultant
Dr. Lee was raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a graduate of the LSU Medical School, completing his Doctor of Medicine in 1984. He is a Board Certified Anesthesiologist, practicing in Huntsville, Alabama. He is the Founder of the American Association of Physicians and also a Founder of Comprehensive Anesthesia Services of Huntsville, Alabama. He loves the out-of-doors and his hobbies include bow and rifle hunting and fishing. He is the father of three teenagers.
Karen O. Lee, RN, CRNA Director of Health Services
Ms. Lee grew up in Louisiana, a native of New Orleans and has practiced nursing since 1984. She is a graduate of Charity Hospital/Xavier University, earning her Masters degree in Nurse Anesthesiology. In addition to her nurse practitioner skills, she has been involved in the organization and management of a large anesthesia practice. She developed a keen interest in behavorially struggling teens when her own son manifested problems, prompting her to place him in a wilderness treatment program. She is the mother of two sons and a daughter. Ms. Lee is the Chair of the Board of The Pinnacle Schools, our parent organization.
Beth Ragland, Director of Admissions
Ms. Ragland is from Huntsville, Alabama, where she has resided her entire life. She has been involved in the marketing and management of programs for struggling teens since 1994. For most of her career, she worked with one of the largest providers of residential services for struggling teens. Her hobbies include travel, reading, and exercise (weights and aerobics). She is the mother of a teenaged daughter.
Email: [email protected]
Rusty Russell, Base Camp Director
Ms. Russell is a native of Alabama. She grew up in the Presbyterian Home for Children in Talladega, Alabama. She has worked with struggling teens since 1990 in direct student care, management, program development and staff supervision, being a corporate trainer for a large provider of services to troubled youth. She has consulted with residential treatment facilities for adolescents. Ms. Russell has led groups of behaviorally disordered teens into the wilderness on expeditions. She is an active participant in canoeing, fishing, softball and basketball.
John H. Shapiro, Chief Expedition Instructor
Mr. Shapiro grew up in Columbia, Tennessee. He holds a B.S. in Social Work from the University of Tennessee. He has been working with troubled/at risk youth since 1984. He worked as a Juvenile Probation Officer/Contract Manager for eight years and then spent the next thirteen years working with indoor/outdoor adolescent treatment programs. He has led hundreds of teens and staff on expeditions into wilderness areas in the Southeast. He is certified as a Wilderness First Responder and an American Canoe Association White Water Paddling Instructor. He has facilitated low and high ropes courses, artificial climbing walls, Alpine towers, and white water rafting trips. He has been Honorably Discharged from the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army Reserve. His numerous hobbies include golfing, paddling, backpacking, Tennessee football and coaching his daughter's fast-pitch softball team. He is the father of two daughters.
Mike Watson, Director
Mr. Watson has lived in the South all his life, raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He has worked at all levels in treatment programs for struggling teens since 1972. He has been a direct care provider, supervisor, program director and the President/CEO of one of the largest organizations in the United States for treatment of behaviorally disordered teens. He is a graduate of Shorter College in Rome, Georgia. He has many hobbies such as hunting, fishing, golfing, sports car racing and horseback riding. He is CEO of our parent company, The Pinnacle Schools.
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.