wow!

[rdgrant]

so there are people that acutally pay to have there kids taken to places like these? are the parents given psycology tests? do the parents relize they dont get along with there kid because they are not being a good parent?

hey can you elaborate a little more on this subject, types of schools, how many, govenment response etc...

this is a new one to me, look what society has come to.......

[Facekhan]

Well as much as the I would like to just blame the parents on this issue, which in many cases is the correct response. I have to admit that after learning more about these places and their practices I was informed that these so called treatment programs are basically cults. The parents, most of whom do love their kids and are desperately looking to help their family situation, are taken into the cult. The kids are warehoused while the parents are indoctrinated against their own kids. So when little johnny finally gets his 5 minute monitored phone call after 6 months even if he is willing to risk further torture and tell his parents what is going on, they have already been conditioned not to believe them. In program language this is called "manipulation" on the part of the kid. Still there is definitely a correlation between abusive parents, step-parents and the kid being sent off to an abusive program. Certainly abused kids with wealthy parents are often sent away to these types of places when they try to report the abuse.

These programs descend mainly from the Synanon, which was a cult disguised as a drug treatment program that I think began in the sixties or fifties. From the Synanon a cult called the seed with similar aims sprouted which was mostly kids being shuffled around through "foster families" that were already indoctrinated while their parents were told how much their own kids were in to drugs. From there an actual facility called STRAIGHT sprouted which ended up with several locations and a splinter group called KIDS as well. When STRAIGHT was shut down the cult/treatment program renamed itself SAFE and opened in the very same building in Florida while the business and political elements that had kept it running (many originating from the SEED) became the Drug Free America Foundation run by Betty Sembler husband of Mel Sembler a real estate developer, major GOP fundraiser, and close friend of the Bush family, which has secured him 2 ambassadorships (Australia during Bush I and now Italy under W. Bush)

The wildnerness program fad began in UTAH after a supposedly successful wildnerness program for struggling freshmen students was instituted at Bringham Young University. One of those students was a man named Cartisano who has been involved in a number of deaths and abuse charges, and lawsuits and is banned from operating youth programs in several states, and is most recently in the news for running an abusive and fraudulent program in Costa Rica ( I think).

Several boarding schools such as HYDE and Elan (where Skakel, {the Martha Moxley Murder and Kennedy family member} attended) have been around for decades with their varying philosphies of "tough love".

A technique called Behavior Modification combined with brainwashing techniques first used on American POW's in Korea and "group awareness" were implemented by several programs (calling themselves boarding schools) that sprang up starting in the late 70's. These formed into a series of Independent Baptist programs (note: Anyone can become their own Independent Baptist minister so this is not an anti-baptist tirade), a number of Mormon run programs, and the TeenHelp/World Wide Association of Specialty Programs cult of boarding schools all over the world. Also in this group is the CEDU ("see do") group of schools and wildnerness programs some of which have had several children of celebrities. I am informed that Rosanne Bar and Barbara Walters both sent their kids to a CEDU (now called the Brown Schools) program, Rocky Mountain Academy. Note: Barbara Walter's daughter just opened her own program, and it is quite common for program kids to become staff members at similar places and even start their own programs (abuse breeds abuse).

That pretty much covers the history of the problem and despite countless lawsuits, deaths, and a extremely high suicide rate among former inmates at these programs, the government has yet to get involved in any meaningful way. The industry makes so much money since the staff are mostly graduates, they get donations from parents, and most of the tuition is pocketed by the operators while the kids have used uniforms and starvation diets.
I will try to find some good links that go into the processes of brainwashing but for now:
[url="http://www.teenliberty.org]www.teenliberty.org[/URL"] http://www.teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/frontpage.html

should give you a pretty good introduction to the problems.

Keep in mind these abuses are already illegal, the problem is enforcement and the vulnerable legal position of children and teens in regards to being committed to "treatment".






[This message has been edited by Facekhan (edited November 04, 2002).]