Author Topic: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry  (Read 5555 times)

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Offline psy

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Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« on: November 27, 2008, 12:30:27 AM »
For each of the new blogs, i'd like to have a repeating page where parents can quickly get informed about what the troubled teen industry is, how it operates, and why it's so dangerous.  While I could write it myself (and probably will write a draft), I believe in the principles of competition, and that there are many around here who are more capable and influential writers than I. What better way to create this important piece of content than to offer it up to the community to write and then vote on and/or edit collectively.

I look forward to reading your submissions in this thread.

 :notworthy:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline Che Gookin

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #1 on: November 27, 2008, 01:33:09 AM »
Dear Parents:

If you want to get your child killed, injured, brainwashed, abused, molested, raped, beaten, harassed, and/or sodomized please contact NATSAP(here) for more information on how to make this come to life.

If you don't want that to happen, please keep reading.


Thank you.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline hurrikayne

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2008, 03:45:09 PM »
Here's a start:

The troubled teen industry has varying formats and varying claims as to what they can accomplish, but all have the same tendency to separate children and parents, limiting contact between a child and their family.  Many also limit contact with the outside world as well. This lack of contact enables programs/facilities to be more abusive due to the lack of scrutiny. The lack of concern that someone will catch them, or find out they've done something wrong.  Why?  Because if your kid is there, then everyone assumes they must be bad; they must be a liar; they must be difficult; they must not be trustworthy.  If they are complaining, it must be because they are whiners.  They're being disciplined and they don't like it.  Discipline is NOT what we're against, it is the line that has been crossed from discipline to abuse that has caused us to stand up and take action.    

"Breaking" the children is a common theme, but it is a harmful tactic that ultimately, has devastating results for the individual, later in life. Some of us know this from personal experience. Some of the tactics used are fear, brainwashing, repetitiveness of menial tasks.  Other tactics are more severe, harder labor, standing/sitting in stress positions, physical punishments that go beyond swats with a paddle and into violence.  Some of this meted out by other teenagers.

"Indoctrination" is the next step.  Repetition of the programs beliefs and standards, without regard to the child involved and without regard to the example they themselves set on a daily basis.  They will tell your child he is not good enough to survive in the regular world until they believe or behave the way the program says they should.  They may tell you and your child that they will end up insane, dead, in jail or on drugs without their 'help'.  

You may believe the driving force behind these programs and facilities is to help your child.  It's not.  Money is.  If you don't believe me, tell them your insurance isn't going to cover the tuition any longer and you've gone bankrupt.  See how fast little Susie or Johnny is redeposited into your life.

We are dedicated to preventing others from experiencing the same traumas we have been through. Our goal is to bring awareness to the troubled teen industry and hold the abusers accountable for their actions.

Feel free to add anything you think is relevant.  I have a turkey to finish.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can\'t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. " - Lee Iacocca

Offline kev (antiWWASP.com)

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2008, 06:01:38 PM »
omg wonderful, and this is just you getting started...? i'm excited. :nods:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline hurrikayne

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2008, 08:16:05 PM »
Thanks, but I did cheat.  I had a blurb containing the main points of it already on a website a couple friends & I ran for a while.  I just expounded on those points while reaping the benefits of child labor today.  My kiddo actually made the turkey feast today, all I did was coach.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can\'t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. " - Lee Iacocca

Offline psy

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2008, 03:29:41 PM »
Well.  It's very well written and it has almost perfect keyword density for what we're trying to accomplish here (though I did add two more instances of "troubled teen industry").

Unless somebody else can top this, I think i'm going to use it.  See it here:
http://www.peninsulavillageexposed.com/ ... -industry/
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline kev (antiWWASP.com)

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2008, 03:44:33 PM »
lol i put it in the portal last night as well.. perfect example of what we need... (portal is just for show right now)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
[9:26:52 AM] Michael Crawford says: it\'s an orange splotch with sentimental value to ginger.

Offline hurrikayne

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2008, 04:40:25 PM »
Thanks gentlemen, I'm flattered.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can\'t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. " - Lee Iacocca

Offline psy

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #8 on: November 28, 2008, 06:40:00 PM »
My shot (a re-tooled essay from my Benchmark site):

Quote
I know what you're thinking. Since I'm criticizing the troubled teen industry I must be a manipulative, drug-addled drama-queen program-reject, reaching out from my junkie squalor at one last chance of revenge before I end up dead, insane, or in jail. All I ask of you, for the next five minutes or so, is to see me without colored glasses as a fellow human being. For the sake of your son or daughter, please keep an open mind.

In the "Troubled Teen industry", parents are preyed upon by legions of Educational Consultants insisting that without a program, their kids will inevitably end up "dead, insane, or in jail". Parents, vulnerable in their fear, are often asked to submit unquestionably to the will of the program, reassured by the repetition of "Trust us, we know what we're doing, we're professionals, we know what's best for your kid better than you do." They are prepped to expect "manipulation'' from their kids, told that "they'll say anything to get home and run the show again".

The fact of the matter is that there are "manipulative" kids in programs, and there are genuine instances of "manipulation"; however since all kids who criticize program or attempt to report abuse are labeled with this stigma, it is impossible for a parent to ever truly know whether or not their child is telling the truth. Staff in the troubled teen industry already know whose side parents will pick and a dispute, and this fact gives them carte blanche to do as they please without fear of repercussion. The more extreme the violation, the less likely it will be thought of as credible.

After enough of their cries for help fall on deaf ears, and the consequences of "manipulations" rack up. Kids of the troubled teen industry are gradually conditioned to suffer in silence. They learn nobody will believe them when they speak out. They learn their own parents won't or don't care. They begin to feel abandoned, and start to lose hope of ever getting out of program.

Some kids attempt to "work the program", to follow all the rules, to do all the requirements, only to gradually figure out that in many cases they will never be allowed to graduate as long as their parents can still afford to pay.  This is often justified as "we don't think you're serious" or "we think you're faking".  The unspoken requirement is the subjective evaluation of character, based upon unqualified opinions of staff whose entire experience is often summed up by their own propensity to failure.

You may have heard from staff that experience is what truly matters, that it trumps book knowledge -- that without having failed themselves, the staff would never be able to truly understand the kids. Although experience can bolster existing qualifications, it should never be seen as an substitute (especially in this case, in which peoples minds, and very lives are in the hands of the staff). When behavior modification is practiced by staff who are not qualified, properly trained, or licensed to practice psychotherapy, the consequences can be grave.

What you may not have heard from the staff is this: a very large portion of the troubled teen industry (indeed, the treatment industry in general) is based of a series of cults.  While it might seem alarmist or irrelevant to mention, one should keep in mind that cults were and are not designed to truly empower people, but to create a dependency on the organization or group (untimately in order to make money).  While cults do produce apparent results in the form of "converts" proclaiming "this group saved my life", the intended result is almost always temporary (though the side effects may last a lifetime). This cultic connection in the troubled teen industry is well documented and at this point not even disputed by those who support and work for the industry.  An educational consultant who runs a very pro-industry website, Lon woodbury weighs in on this issue in his essay "Out of the Sixties",

    "In personal growth, we saw est, lifespring, synanon, a variety of eastern mystic ideas brought to this country, and a host of other movements with new visions of how to increase human potential... So, what's my point? First, if you start tracing the history of influences on many of the schools in the network of Emotional Growth/ Therapeutic schools and programs, you usually wind up back to just a handful of early founders. Also, much of what is most successful and creative in the schools and programs in this network came directly out of the creative thinking and experimenting that occurred in the 1960s." [links added]

As a parent, do you feel comfortable knowing that unqualified, cult influenced staff members are performing potentially long lasting mental modifications on your son or daughter using experimental techniques psychologists have long since condemned as dangerous cultish quackery? You may think, "Well i'm sure they know what they are doing. They claim such a high graduation rate. And they have such wonderful testimonials."  Well, such is marketing and does not necessarily reflect reality.  If it did, Dianetics would be a feasible option.

Take it from those who have been there that there are other at-home community based ways of dealing with issues such as drug addiction and family conflict.  I don't pretend to have all the answers to what is the right way to deal with these issues but I can tell you that a program of the troubled teen industry is not the answer.

Tor more information on the troubled teen industry and it's dangers, please see the following:

[links]

Feel free to edit (I like collaborative writing)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline hurrikayne

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2008, 10:22:59 PM »
Take paragraph one, move it to the paragraph 9 position, do not lead with it. You'll lose them johnny on the spot.  If they make it to paragraph nine, you're in the home stretch.  You're butter.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can\'t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. " - Lee Iacocca

Offline hurrikayne

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #10 on: November 28, 2008, 10:47:28 PM »
I don't want my story up there yet, as I'm not finished with it...but your welcome to use my past, present & future interviews about protests/survival of/in facilities & programs...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can\'t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. " - Lee Iacocca

Offline kev (antiWWASP.com)

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #11 on: November 28, 2008, 10:57:13 PM »
sure thing hurri, i actually don't intend on publishing anything without permission. only the forums and the feeds section of the site, to show how seamlessly our information can be displayed and syndicated. psy and i have decided to use the [tag] system on your thread titles to show me what stage you guys are in... for example... [research]- [writing] - [editing] - [FINALIZED]

i posted to the wrong thread with that last message, sorry for the confusion... (HELP PSY, DELETE MY LAST POST ABOVE, I'M REPOSTING TO CHE'S ARTICLE NOW)
« Last Edit: November 28, 2008, 11:02:42 PM by kev (antiWWASP.com) »
[9:26:52 AM] Michael Crawford says: it\'s an orange splotch with sentimental value to ginger.

Offline Ursus

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Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
« Reply #12 on: November 28, 2008, 10:58:55 PM »
Quote from: "psy"
Well.  It's very well written and it has almost perfect keyword density for what we're trying to accomplish here (though I did add two more instances of "troubled teen industry").

Unless somebody else can top this, I think i'm going to use it.  See it here:
http://www.peninsulavillageexposed.com/ ... -industry/

Regarding opener, just accessed from the above link:

    The troubled teen industry has varying formats and varying claims as to what they can accomplish, but all have the same tendency to separate children and parents, limiting contact between a child and their family...[/list]

    I'm not sure it is such a good idea to open with the "tendency to separate children and parents" thought, since a lot of them don't quite see it that way, even though that is what actually happens. Many of these programs emphasize that "the whole family" gets involved, even though the reality is that this is done under very contrived and manipulated circumstances.

    Better to open with a more universal statement?

    Perhaps I am not accessing the latest version?
    « Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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    Offline psy

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    Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
    « Reply #13 on: November 29, 2008, 06:06:54 AM »
    Quote from: "hurrikayne"
    Take paragraph one, move it to the paragraph 9 position, do not lead with it. You'll lose them johnny on the spot.  If they make it to paragraph nine, you're in the home stretch.  You're butter.

    See.  I'm just not sure I want to lead anywhere near the word "cult" without explaining it thoroughly in the surrounding areas.  Paragraph 1 gets the attention and is likely to results in a "ok... ok... i'll hear this out".  When I talked to Phil Elberg about the benchmark case he said the number 1 thing to get past would be the "troubled" monker...  the prejudice people already have.  I tend to agree.  What I wanted to do was try and build up some more credibility between the parents and their kids first...  reduce that amount of prejudice.
    « Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
    Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
    Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
    "Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

    Offline psy

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    Re: Essay Contest: What is the Troubled Teen Industry
    « Reply #14 on: December 03, 2008, 03:05:45 AM »
    so do we have a consensus on what statement will be used?  Maybe splice the two together.  Input please.
    « Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
    Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
    Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
    "Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)