Has anyone noticed that Guest appears constantly for half the posts and that the time between posts is measured in 4 to 10 minute spans? Is this one person spamming, pretending to be multiple posters giving positive stories about Aspen?
One thing I will always point out to parents is the depth of the incest in these programs. Specifically how staff from one school migrate to another as soon as the last one gets shut down. And the qualifications of these staff are highly dubious.
To give a couple of examples, I went to a CEDU school in the 80's. When I arrived there was a handyman from town who helped the students chop wood. Within a few months he was a therapist. No schooling, no training. Running therapy programs for troubled teens. 20+ students in a room and he's qualified to handle their problems and give therapy? After leaving the school he became an "escort", transporting teens to these programs. He had no training and qualifications for that job either. Later he raped a co-worker, who was also a former staff member at the CEDU school, who was also working in the "escort" business with no background or qualifications to do so. Now this former handyman runs his own wilderness program.
After I had been at the school for about six months the school hired a "chef". This guy had worked in a 2 star restaurant in a small town. Within months he was a therapist as well. Again, no training, no background, no experience. He worked for CEDU. He then went to work for an Aspen school. He now runs his own school.
So do these totally unqualified people do this for the love of kids and a desire to really help them for very low pay? Or do they see the money to be made after a few years as a low level staffer when they get rapidly promoted up the food chain or can secure funding to begin their own programs?
The original poster said he hired an escort to take his child to the Aspen school? Care to enlighten us on the costs of this service?
I recommend the poster check out the CEDU Documentary either on YouTube or at LiamScheff.com. The director of these schools ran Monarch (An Aspen school) and now runs yet another teen treatment facility. Another former director had a son, who back then was probably all of 18, but now runs his own Aspen school as well. And no less than six other former CEDU staff, none of whom had any qualifications to counsel or provide therapy to teens, also migrated to Aspen schools. Parents need to understand that this industry is incestuous in the extreme.
Because so many of these staff migrated over from the CEDU/RMA program, it is important for parents who have sent their kids to an Aspen program, founded by former CEDU staff members, to watch the CEDU Documentary to get some understanding of just how bizarre and abusive the background of these programs have been, during time periods in which the same staff working for Aspen today, worked for CEDU back then. They are the same people. Thus their backgrounds in this industry can be traced from where they began to where they are today. If the founders of Aspen are related to CEDU, you can be assured the current program at Aspen is built upon the same foundations. Abuse, lack of oversight, cult-like settings, remote locations, highly restrictive especially with communications, unable to meet the needs of individual children as advertised. (Meaning any child with actual emotional of developmental issues.) And of course, a long list of untrained staff who claim "life experience" as their sole source of qualifications.
