NYT-Wealthy fam. ship kids to discipline schools abroad-Growth industry
Fern5827
When will we correlate the growth of extra-national *discipline* schools with
the enactment of CAPTA in 1974?
Or is that what the government wants?
Subject: Parents sending teens to *discipline* schools-Fast growing industry
From: fern...@aol.com (Fern5827)
Date: 5/12/2003 11:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: <20030512113111...@mb-m15.aol.com>
fwd MSG:
Subject: Parents, Shopping for Discipline, Turn to Harsh Programs Abroad
From: con...@aol.commado (Conase)
Date: 5/10/2003 2:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: <20030510142620...@mb-m24.aol.com>
May 9, 2003
Parents, Shopping for Discipline, Turn to Harsh Programs Abroad
By TIM WEINER / NYTimes
ENSENADA, Mexico — Ryan Fraidenburgh was 14 when he was brought here
shackled, kicking and screaming.
Two men carrying handcuffs and leg irons came for him at his mother's home in
Sacramento, Calif., shoved him into a van and bound him hand and foot. They
drove him 12 hours south, over the Mexican border, into a high-walled compound
near here called Casa by the Sea.
"It was nighttime," Ryan recalled. "I look around and I see kids sleeping on
cement. I was really, really scared. The big honcho, Mauricio, said, `You don't
speak English here.' I didn't know how to speak Spanish."
Ryan quickly learned the rules: stay silent, be compliant, don't look up, don't
look out the window, don't speak unless spoken to. The punishments for breaking
the rules included solitary confinement, lying on the floor in a small room,
nose to the ground, often for days on end.
Ryan was not a criminal. He was only skipping school, his parents said in
telephone interviews. But in August 2000, they said, in the middle of a bitter
divorce and custody battle, they decided to send him away to Casa by the Sea,
which calls itself a "specialty boarding school" for behavior modification.
Like hundreds of other parents, the Fraidenburghs made their choice largely on
the basis of a glossy brochure and a call to a toll-free number in Utah. They
came to regret their choice.
The idea of sending a child to such a program in Mexico was unheard of a decade
ago. But in the United States, behavior-modification programs and boarding
schools for troubled youths have faced increasing legal and licensing
challenges over the past few years.
More and more are moving abroad — some to Mexico, Central America or the
Caribbean — where they operate largely under the regulation radar and where
some employ minimum-wage custodians more than teachers or therapists, say
government officials, education consultants and clinical psychologists.
The behavior-modification business is booming at Casa by the Sea, on Mexico's
Pacific Coast, the largest of 11 affiliated programs with roughly 2,200 youths,
about half of them in Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. The programs are run by a
small group of businessmen based in St. George, Utah, under the banner of the
World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, or Wwasps, and Teen
Help, the programs' main marketing arm.
Over the past seven years, local governments and State Department officials
have investigated Wwasps-affiliated programs in Mexico, the Czech Republic and
Samoa on charges of physical abuse and immigration violations. The Mexican
program, in Cancún, and the Czech program closed, and their owners left those
countries saying they feared unjust charges. The Samoan program cut its
affiliation with Wwasps.
Ken Kay, the president of Wwasps, would not allow a reporter to visit Casa by
the Sea; Dace Goulding, the program's director, declined to answer any
questions. But Mr. Kay, responding to inquiries in writing from his office in
Utah, said no charge of abuse had ever been proven against any of the programs
in any court.
"We are about getting families back together," he said in a written statement.
"We are not for everyone, and there are very few but vociferous critics of not
just us but any youth intervention." He described many of the program's critics
as parents who feel they have been "manipulated, brainwashed or duped" or who
are battling through divorce and taking their anger out "by making us look
terrible."
In telephone interviews, eight teenagers who were formerly in Casa by the Sea
described a system in which the youths try to ascend six "levels" through a
system of rewards and punishments, including being sent to "R and R," a small,
bare isolation room, often for days on end. Discipline, not education, was the
rule, they said.
For Laura Hamel, 17, of Vienna, Va., who counts herself as a success story, it
was a slow two-year ascent to graduation in March. She said she was demoted
from Level 3 back to Level 1 after giving a weeping, lonely friend a hug and a
kiss on the cheek at Thanksgiving. Affection of that kind is forbidden.
A youth who rises to Levels 4, 5 and 6 can become a "junior staff member" and
"participate in the discipline process" against lower-level youths, Casa's
contract with parents says.
"The authority is in your hands," said Ryan Pink, 19, of El Paso, who reached
Level 5 at Casa. "You can discipline kids. The younger kids — they were
constantly being restrained, being punished, put in R and R for four or five
days. Nose to the wall. Or nose to the ground. And at night you sleep in the
hallways."
Many parents and youths say the behavior-management system of discipline and
punishment scares youths into sobriety and obedience. Others — parents and
youths formerly enrolled, education experts, government authorities and a
former Wwasps program director — say the programs profit from struggling
parents unable to handle their depressed, delinquent, defiant or drug-abusing
children.
"Their goal is not to help teens in crisis or their families," according to a
former director of one Wwasps-affiliated program, Amberly Knight. "It is to
make millions of dollars."
The financial success of Casa by the Sea is evident. Its enrollment has nearly
tripled, from about 200 youths when it opened in 1998 to more than 570 today,
almost all American teenagers. Already among the biggest programs of its kind
outside the United States, Casa by the Sea has just spun off another program
for those 18 and over.
Tuition and fees at Casa by the Sea run about $30,000 a year, half of what some
United States-based programs cost. Its staff members "do not need and may not
necessarily have" teaching credentials, Casa's contract with parents plainly
states.
Lon Woodbury, publisher of Woodbury Reports, which rates schools and programs
for troubled teenagers inside and outside the United States, said one reason
that American programs have moved abroad is "to avoid the laws and regulations
of the States." He added, "They can hire minimum-wage staff and still charge
stateside prices."
Profit margins and growth within the programs run by Wwasps appear solid. Teen
Help, the affiliation's main marketing arm, was the single biggest corporate
campaign contributor in the state of Utah in the 2002 election cycle, donating
$215,290 to Republican campaigns, according to online federal election records
posted in March.
Mr. Kay, the Wwasps president, said that the proof of the programs' success is
the way in which "behavior of students generally changes drastically." The
organization's internal surveys, he said, proved that "more than 98 percent of
the schools' parents are completely satisfied." He wrote, "No wonder these are
the fastest growing Schools of their kind in the world!!!"
The overseas "specialty boarding school" industry is growing so fast that
United States consular officials in overseas embassies say they have no idea
how many such programs exist.
"No authorities in Mexico control these institutions," said Elisa Ledesma, a
lawyer at the American Consulate in Tijuana. Consular officers demanded and
received access to several such programs in Mexico, one official said, after
they "heard horror stories from parents."
The consular officers have the power, under the Vienna Convention, to visit
overseas programs to check on the well-being of American citizens under 18.
In January, after several such visits, the State Department issued a notice on
"behavior modification facilities" in Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. The
programs may "isolate the children in relatively remote sites" and restrict
their contact with the outside world, it said.
At least seven programs in Utah, Montana, South Carolina and New York are
Wwasps affiliates, according to the organization's Web site; at least three
have faced legal challenges. Utah state officials say they are reviewing the
license of the flagship Wwasps program, Cross Creek Manor, and that a second
program, Majestic Ranch, is operating without a proper license.
Six weeks ago, according to the state attorney general's office in Utah, a
director of Majestic Ranch entered into a court agreement to have no
unsupervised contact with children after he was charged with misdemeanor child
abuse.
Attorneys for both programs contest the licensing challenges. South Carolina
officials have fined a third Wwasps program, Carolina Springs Academy, $5,000
for operating without a license.
While some dissatisfied parents have sued Wwasps and its programs, the contract
that parents sign with Casa by the Sea sets high hurdles for them. It states
plainly that the program "does not accept responsibility for services written
in sales materials or brochures" or promises made by "staff or public relations
personnel" and that any dispute between a parent and the program must be
settled in a Mexican court, not in the United States.
The Wwasps programs market themselves under a multitude of interlinked Web
sites. Their sales personnel offer thousands of dollars in incentives to adults
who recruit new youths or host Web sites advertising the programs.
Some parents said in interviews that they enrolled their children in programs
they had never visited after browsing Web sites, brochures and videotapes
depicting happy children in a wholesome setting.
"I sent him there sight unseen," said Patti Reddoch, of Sweeny, Tex., who
considered Dundee Ranch for her son, Edmund Brumaghin, now 17, but chose Casa
by the Sea instead. "The music he was listening to started getting darker and
he was getting more into the drugs, and that's when I decided I needed to do
something.
"So I went on the Internet and started searching around and found the Wwasp
program. I contacted them and made the arrangements, and that's pretty much it.
It didn't take me any time at all."
Mrs. Reddoch, speaking by telephone, said she then hired an "escort service"
familiar with Casa by the Sea to handcuff and transport her son away at 5 a.m.
one Sunday last September.
That morning, her son cursed her bitterly, but now his attitude is changing,
she said.
"I am very pleased with the school," said Ms. Reddoch, who said she visited
Casa by the Sea once, for a weekend, last January. "I've started putting out
brochures for referrals. I would recommend Casa to anyone."
Reality may differ from the brochures, however. "Everyone has a shaved head,"
Michael Zieghelboim, who was formerly enrolled at Casa by the Sea, said in a
telephone interview. "They walk around like zombies. Most of the staff have no
training."
"Casa by the Sea was the scariest thing that ever happened to me," said Mr.
Zieghelboim, who now lives with his father in El Salvador.
He said that despite falling behind in his education at Casa by the Sea — at
17, he is now in the 10th grade — he rates himself a success. "If I had never
gone there, I'd probably still be doing cocaine," he said.
This kind of tough discipline is an attraction for many exasperated parents.
The program runs "a very tight ship," said Virginia Day, of Redmond, Wash., who
sent her son, Gabriel, 15, to the program in July.
"The staff that works most closely with the kids are not necessarily
professionals, and I know that this is an issue," said Ms. Day, who called
herself a very satisfied customer. "This is not a school that specializes in a
therapeutic component."
Carol Maxym, an educational consultant in Maryland, said: "What they are
looking for at Casa is compliance. Compliance is easy, if you break the kid
down enough. And compliance is cheap." She added, "The parents often don't
realize what's going on."
Youths and staff at other overseas Wwasps programs have described harsh
conditions. One was Aaron Kravig, now 19. He said he contracted scabies,
untreated for six months, ate meals of watery porridge and fish entrails, and
was schooled almost solely with "emotional growth" videos at Tranquility Bay,
the Wwasps-affiliated program in Jamaica, according to a transcript of sworn
testimony he gave last year at a Virginia state court hearing.
In Costa Rica, Ms. Knight, the former director of the Wwasps-affiliated Academy
at Dundee Ranch, resigned in August after sending a letter to the national
minister of child welfare calling for the program to be shut down.
The letter said the program was "hiring unqualified, untrained, staff" and
providing "the bare minimum of food and living essentials." It said the program
"takes financial advantage of parents in crisis, and puts teens in physical and
emotional risk."
The speed with which some parents choose an overseas behavioral-modification
program for their children baffles some educational consultants.
"I find it incredible that parents would send their kids off to some place
they've heard about on the Internet," Mr. Woodbury said.
Ms. Maxym, author of "Teens in Turmoil: A Path to Change for Parents,
Adolescents and their Families" (Viking Penguin, 2000) said, "I find it
interesting that parents will spend less time finding a school for their child
than buying a new car."
Ryan Fraidenburgh's father, Bob, an aerospace engineering executive, said he
had only glanced at Casa by the Sea's "brochures that looked like Club Med." He
said he removed Ryan from the program by himself in January 2001 after deciding
he had been too hasty.
"We made a huge mistake," he said. "Until the day I die I'll regret that."
Ryan's mother, Carolyn, said: "We were expecting treatment, not a minimum-wage
person to watch over your kid like he was an animal in a cage."
Super Pissed Dad
child-welfare laws in U.S. ? Question : Does anyone know of any situation where
CPS went to another country to interview a kid ?
spd
The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly
the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A
mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be."
-Raymond Chandler
Chrisbranin
Would CPS go to another country to interview kid?
I'll bet they would like a vacation in Mexico or Trinidad or Jamaica.
Shhh........better not tell the drones......
Actually, I know a few families who have had to resort to these schools.
CPS has disempowered parents.
Dad asked:
>Subject: Re: NYT-Wealthy fam. ship kids to discipline schools abroad-Growth
>industry
>From: vis...@aol.com (Super Pissed Dad)
>Date: 5/14/2003 9:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <20030514091241...@mb-m27.aol.com>
toq...@verizon.net
getting interested in regulating the "Behavior Modification" industry.
Better still, the new US Attorney General may be sympathetic to the
idea as well.
If you want to write the Utah State Legislature in support of their
measure, here's some contact info.
http://lcpdutah.org/List2005.htm
http://se16.utahsenate.org/perl/spage/slead2005.pl
Also, if you have personal experience with this troubled industry, you
can write to Attorney General Gonzalez at:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
The text and web address of the Trib article are given below.
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2564302
New push for camp regulation
At-risk teens: A Utah organization could see closer federal oversight
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - President Bush's new attorney general says the Justice
Department may take a more active role in oversight of boot camp
programs for troubled teens.
The comments by Alberto Gonzales came in response to a question
submitted by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the
House Education and the Workforce Committee. Miller has been pressing
the Justice Department unsuccessfully to investigate allegations of
abuse at World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), a
Utah-based chain of programs for at-risk teens.
"Mr. Gonzales' comments suggest he will be more sensitive to this
serious situation than the Justice Department has been to this
point," Miller said in a statement. "I will be watching carefully
to ensure that he fulfills the commitments he has made in response to
these questions."
In his written responses to questions during his confirmation process,
Gonzales said the Justice Department would work to engage states and
directors of private facilities to ensure children are protected. If
cases of inappropriate or abusive practices cannot be resolved, they
may be referred to the Civil Rights or Criminal divisions at the
department for action, Gonzales said.
Previously, former Attorney General John Ashcroft had responded to
Miller's inquiries by stating that the department lacked the authority
to investigate abuse allegations at private facilities.
Ken Kay, president of WWASP, said he has invited Miller's staff to
visit the WWASP schools and would welcome the attorney general if he
wanted to visit, but "unnecessary government intrusion is never the
answer."
"I, and all our affiliates, maintain that our No. 1 concern is always
for the safety of our students and children in general," Kay said.
"I would be more than willing to be part of any fact finding
committee with members of the [attorney general's] staff."
There are seven schools in the WWASP network, including three in Utah.
One of WWASP's facilities, Majestic Ranch in northern Utah, was
investigated by state officials three times last year, resulting in one
conviction. Others have been shut down, including Casa By The Sea,
which was closed by Mexican authorities last September.
Last week, a committee in the Utah Legislature approved a bill
sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, that would toughen
state regulation of the schools.
WWASP founder Robert Lichfield, his family and business partners have
given more than $1 million to politicians in the last two election
cycles, including hundreds of thousands to Utah officeholders and
candidates.
toq...@verizon.net
New Abuse Claim Against Bethel
Feb 15, 2005, 04:36 PM EST Email to a Friend Printer Friendly Version
Another allegation of physical abuse at Bethel Girls Academy has an
angry parent taking action.
"I got a call at 11:30 at night telling me they're taking my child to
the emergency room because my child's wrist is swollen and they think
it's broken, so when I get a call back they're telling me it's broken,"
says Angela Roberts.
Last Saturday, Roberts says, she received some shocking news. Officials
at Bethel told her that her 16-year-old daughter Angenika injured
herself after she slammed her fingers in a door and punched a wall. But
Roberts says she's not buying it. She claims the school's director
Herman Fountain is responsible.
"My daughter says Mr. Fountain grabbed her and took his knees and put
it in my daughter's pelvis area and grabbed her wrist and pushed it all
the way back until it popped," she says. "That is ridiculous."
Angenika McNeil, the alleged victim, says: "He just jacked me up and he
slung me into the door and that's how I got this cut on my eye and when
I got into his office he put his knee into my stomach and started
bending my hand back and then I jerked it away from him."
Roberts has filed a complaint with the Forrest County Sheriff's Office
against Bethel Academy.
But Fountain gives a different account of what happened. He says it was
last Thursday, and he tried to restrain Angenika after she lashed out.
"She bit my arm right here. I've got a bruise right here," he says.
"She kicked me in the chest and in the legs and I just held her down
until she calmed down."
Fountain says Angenika was not injured during Thursday's incident, but
instead had to be taken to the e-room Saturday after she injured
herself.
"Mr. Fountain needs to pay for his actions," Roberts insists. "He needs
to be put in jail for his actions. It makes no sense for a man to do
those types of things to these children. I don't care what type of
children they are."