This video was found on youtube. A lot of advice from a former participant in several wilderness programs.
søndag den 14. februar 2016
mandag den 8. februar 2016
søndag den 24. januar 2016
"westbeth" at Open Sky Wilderness program
Open Sky Wilderness has an office in Colorado but operates in Utah wilderness areas. This testimony was made by a former participant aged over 18 where the testimonies normally in this blog is made by people who were minors at their time in the program. All rights go to the author known as "Westbeth"
I was at Open Sky in the over 18 program. They were not abusive.
I was in the voluntary program, of course. In theory I could have left at any time. In practice, you have to walk ten miles to a phone with your 50-pound pack, which was not an option I seriously considered. You also get a guide haranguing you the whole way, and an ‘in case we need emotional blackmail’ letter from your parents. Apparently in the under 18 group they took everyone’s shoes at lights out to prevent runaways. [and encourage bedwetting, presumably.]
The guides in my group were pretty clearly sticking to the rules, and the policies were reasonable and safe, as long as never being unmonitored seems reasonable. They did have me strip, squat, and cough, but they never touched me. They made an itemized list of all the belongings I brought, taped the boxes shut, and stored them while I watched. While I was there, nothing escalated to the point where physical restraint would be reasonable, and nobody was allowed to touch anyone else, except for hugs when permission had been explicitly given. Obviously, packs were adjusted, blisters were taped, we gave a hand over rocks, but nothing hinky.
Nobody really got disciplined for anything much while I was there, except for things where you lost privileges like using a knife or going on extra excursions.
For me, Open Sky was 85% a waste of time and 15% helpful. It was basically really frequent group therapy, with a (fairly gentle) dose of boot camp, and wilderness mysticism. They keep you busy 24/7 – basically no unscheduled time. You’re either doing the basic hiking/camping stuff, or you’re working on self-reflection assignments. The assignments were not helpful for me. If you’ve spent more than 2 minutes in therapy, you’ve already done all of it, though maybe not in such an organized way, or with a whole group of people looking over your shoulder. Being required to journal every day was helpful.
Open Sky might have been more helpful if I had been dealing with substance abuse issues instead of depression. Maybe the incredibly authoritarian rules and emotional manipulation would have been easier to swallow if it actually had a purpose with me.
We didn’t spend much time with actual therapists – once a week, with a fairly defined script – not especially helpful. The guides did most of the heavy lifting, on a game plan they cleared with the therapists.
They did take into account individual capabilities. The most strenuous stuff we did was carrying firewood and water for our camp, and if you said you couldn’t take a full load, you would still have to carry a partial load. Peer pressure to carry your weight was definitely there, but we also helped each other out when we had trouble with physical stuff.
The other 3-7 people in your group are intimately involved with your work. They all have their own issues. Watching the other people in my group, I think Open Sky would have been totally useless if it hadn’t been my idea, and if I hadn’t gone into it wanting to do the work. Even starting from there, the almost totally inflexible rules and blatant manipulation kind of alienated me, and I spent a lot of time reminding myself that even though much of it seemed stupid, I had decided to try it their way, and it wouldn’t help if I wasn’t sincere.
I got the impression not everyone had that attitude; one girl in particular was incredibly two-faced – what we said around the guides and what she said to the rest of us were very different. Everyone was there voluntarily, but some people it was because they had gotten an ultimatum from their parents. The people who decided themselves got a lot more done; one of the other guys was basically just telling them what they wanted to hear.
Going in, I had no idea what it was actually going to be like. They didn’t give any hint of the ten-mile to a phone rule, and I asked about it. The receptionist I talked to gave the impression that a few materials like books could be kept if they got approval, and then they didn’t do any thing about the stuff I had asked them to get approved, so I have no idea if it would have passed or not.
All in all, Open Sky seems safe if not generally effective, but people definitely need to be wary.
In January 2016 it was reported that some of the young people attending the program had to be treated for frostbites. As you can read above they have a policy of collecting boots before night which is properly the key factor causing these injuries.
Sources:
I was at Open Sky in the over 18 program. They were not abusive.
I was in the voluntary program, of course. In theory I could have left at any time. In practice, you have to walk ten miles to a phone with your 50-pound pack, which was not an option I seriously considered. You also get a guide haranguing you the whole way, and an ‘in case we need emotional blackmail’ letter from your parents. Apparently in the under 18 group they took everyone’s shoes at lights out to prevent runaways. [and encourage bedwetting, presumably.]
The guides in my group were pretty clearly sticking to the rules, and the policies were reasonable and safe, as long as never being unmonitored seems reasonable. They did have me strip, squat, and cough, but they never touched me. They made an itemized list of all the belongings I brought, taped the boxes shut, and stored them while I watched. While I was there, nothing escalated to the point where physical restraint would be reasonable, and nobody was allowed to touch anyone else, except for hugs when permission had been explicitly given. Obviously, packs were adjusted, blisters were taped, we gave a hand over rocks, but nothing hinky.
Nobody really got disciplined for anything much while I was there, except for things where you lost privileges like using a knife or going on extra excursions.
For me, Open Sky was 85% a waste of time and 15% helpful. It was basically really frequent group therapy, with a (fairly gentle) dose of boot camp, and wilderness mysticism. They keep you busy 24/7 – basically no unscheduled time. You’re either doing the basic hiking/camping stuff, or you’re working on self-reflection assignments. The assignments were not helpful for me. If you’ve spent more than 2 minutes in therapy, you’ve already done all of it, though maybe not in such an organized way, or with a whole group of people looking over your shoulder. Being required to journal every day was helpful.
Open Sky might have been more helpful if I had been dealing with substance abuse issues instead of depression. Maybe the incredibly authoritarian rules and emotional manipulation would have been easier to swallow if it actually had a purpose with me.
We didn’t spend much time with actual therapists – once a week, with a fairly defined script – not especially helpful. The guides did most of the heavy lifting, on a game plan they cleared with the therapists.
They did take into account individual capabilities. The most strenuous stuff we did was carrying firewood and water for our camp, and if you said you couldn’t take a full load, you would still have to carry a partial load. Peer pressure to carry your weight was definitely there, but we also helped each other out when we had trouble with physical stuff.
The other 3-7 people in your group are intimately involved with your work. They all have their own issues. Watching the other people in my group, I think Open Sky would have been totally useless if it hadn’t been my idea, and if I hadn’t gone into it wanting to do the work. Even starting from there, the almost totally inflexible rules and blatant manipulation kind of alienated me, and I spent a lot of time reminding myself that even though much of it seemed stupid, I had decided to try it their way, and it wouldn’t help if I wasn’t sincere.
I got the impression not everyone had that attitude; one girl in particular was incredibly two-faced – what we said around the guides and what she said to the rest of us were very different. Everyone was there voluntarily, but some people it was because they had gotten an ultimatum from their parents. The people who decided themselves got a lot more done; one of the other guys was basically just telling them what they wanted to hear.
Going in, I had no idea what it was actually going to be like. They didn’t give any hint of the ten-mile to a phone rule, and I asked about it. The receptionist I talked to gave the impression that a few materials like books could be kept if they got approval, and then they didn’t do any thing about the stuff I had asked them to get approved, so I have no idea if it would have passed or not.
All in all, Open Sky seems safe if not generally effective, but people definitely need to be wary.
In January 2016 it was reported that some of the young people attending the program had to be treated for frostbites. As you can read above they have a policy of collecting boots before night which is properly the key factor causing these injuries.
Sources:
- Open Sky Wilderness in Colorado (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
- Open Sky chief says agency ‘deeply concerned’ about frostbite cases (The Durango Herald)
søndag den 17. januar 2016
Reaction on Brat Camp reality show
The first season of Brat Camp in United Kingdom featured Redcliff Ascent. Here is a testimony given on Fornits:
Ok this show is straight nonsense as far as I can see for right now. I went to RCA and that place is no joke. The little bit of film that I've seen of it is so far off the spectrum it's unreal. Honestly I'm sorta stuck on where to even begin because when I went to RCA I was 15 years old. I'm now 22 and can honestly say that I still resent my parents for ever sending me there. It was not what fixed my problems for me and did nothing for the drug habit that I had already well endowed into myself. I was going through crazy withdrawls that were shown no simpathy, and no matter how messed up you are to people and what you have done, hiking 12 miles a day and making fires out of sticks, and having people downtalk you while you hike will not make you feel better about yourself.
I also don't want parents to think that this is necessarily a safe place either, and Redcliff can quote me on this next part that I'm about to get into.
When you go to RCA you have to go to the DR's and you usually go within a group that you have arrived at about the same time with. On the way to and from you have to blindfold yourself in order to "Not know where your going" In the middle of Utah though you have no idea where the hell you are neways. So anyways our driver thought he was just too hot to trot and was going way too fast on a dirt road for any vehicle especially for the lifted Suburban that we were in. So we start fishtailing then eventually the Suburban flips over and whaddya know...A whole bunch of injuries occur. The kid next to me wasn't wearing a seat belt and injured his neck, I shattered the growth plate in my left arm, one of the female counslers got hit in the face with a gasoline canister that we carried water in, another kid cut his hand open.....Needless to say it was an eventful day. Not over yet though. If I knew what was going to come next I would have ran away, it was chaotic enough and the problem was though most of us were too injured to do anything about it. After 45 minutes of waiting for an ambulance, and another hour trip into town we received medical attention at the hospital. All of us asked to speak with our parents to let them know what happened and that we were ok and everything. WELL THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. We all had counslers with us the entire time to make sure that we didn't use the phone to even call out parents. I mean what is that? My parents did not know the severity of the situation that the driver was showboating whilest driving and it was his fault that we were injured. The DR's that treated every one said that we needed bed rest for a few days, the counslers said that wouldn't be possible and so for all of us that were injured we got taken to Wendy's for food and the 2 kids in Neck Braces along with me and all the others that were injured went back into the field the same night. Now I know this was a severe instence of something that could happen newhere but the people there are not about your well being and you becoming someone better. You see the Therapist once a week or maybe every other I forget but you only talk to them for like 30 minutes and they tell you what you need to do. My therapist suggested my folks not write me as much so that I could focus on me and that looking for letters from them sets me up for failure. In the middle of nowhere, with no idea of when you'll get out, no help for drug addiction which is half the kids problems, and no letters from the parents...You tell me does that sound helpful.
In the end I was at RCA for 88 days. There was a kid that had been there for 4 months when I got there and was still there when I left. The kid had a learning disability and was unable to focus on bookwork like we did. Since it's also part of the curriculum he was just sorta stuck but had become so accustomed to living there that you felt no need to change.
My group had the handcart because we were a bunch of injured retards. Like I say the money is not worth it for the parents, the resentmeant that alot of us feel towards our parents is not worth it, and for some it does change them completely but for others it just shows them to not get caught. I also did 35 days of my time with a cast (Which shoulda been 28 but they didn't have time to take me to the DR.) An experience I wish I had never lived and I thank ABC Family for making it seem like it's some sorta joke or something, I sure hope you give it a proper justification.
So my name is Matthew R. aka Gimpy (From the Injury) aka Storm Fox the name I was given in my name ceremony at RCA.
Oh yeah sometime people should look up the day that the kids rebelled at RCA when counslers got beat up and rebelled in an uprising...That's always a good story.
And why the hell are the kids English or something? I don't understand TV sometimes.
Source:
The original testmony (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
Ok this show is straight nonsense as far as I can see for right now. I went to RCA and that place is no joke. The little bit of film that I've seen of it is so far off the spectrum it's unreal. Honestly I'm sorta stuck on where to even begin because when I went to RCA I was 15 years old. I'm now 22 and can honestly say that I still resent my parents for ever sending me there. It was not what fixed my problems for me and did nothing for the drug habit that I had already well endowed into myself. I was going through crazy withdrawls that were shown no simpathy, and no matter how messed up you are to people and what you have done, hiking 12 miles a day and making fires out of sticks, and having people downtalk you while you hike will not make you feel better about yourself.
I also don't want parents to think that this is necessarily a safe place either, and Redcliff can quote me on this next part that I'm about to get into.
When you go to RCA you have to go to the DR's and you usually go within a group that you have arrived at about the same time with. On the way to and from you have to blindfold yourself in order to "Not know where your going" In the middle of Utah though you have no idea where the hell you are neways. So anyways our driver thought he was just too hot to trot and was going way too fast on a dirt road for any vehicle especially for the lifted Suburban that we were in. So we start fishtailing then eventually the Suburban flips over and whaddya know...A whole bunch of injuries occur. The kid next to me wasn't wearing a seat belt and injured his neck, I shattered the growth plate in my left arm, one of the female counslers got hit in the face with a gasoline canister that we carried water in, another kid cut his hand open.....Needless to say it was an eventful day. Not over yet though. If I knew what was going to come next I would have ran away, it was chaotic enough and the problem was though most of us were too injured to do anything about it. After 45 minutes of waiting for an ambulance, and another hour trip into town we received medical attention at the hospital. All of us asked to speak with our parents to let them know what happened and that we were ok and everything. WELL THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. We all had counslers with us the entire time to make sure that we didn't use the phone to even call out parents. I mean what is that? My parents did not know the severity of the situation that the driver was showboating whilest driving and it was his fault that we were injured. The DR's that treated every one said that we needed bed rest for a few days, the counslers said that wouldn't be possible and so for all of us that were injured we got taken to Wendy's for food and the 2 kids in Neck Braces along with me and all the others that were injured went back into the field the same night. Now I know this was a severe instence of something that could happen newhere but the people there are not about your well being and you becoming someone better. You see the Therapist once a week or maybe every other I forget but you only talk to them for like 30 minutes and they tell you what you need to do. My therapist suggested my folks not write me as much so that I could focus on me and that looking for letters from them sets me up for failure. In the middle of nowhere, with no idea of when you'll get out, no help for drug addiction which is half the kids problems, and no letters from the parents...You tell me does that sound helpful.
In the end I was at RCA for 88 days. There was a kid that had been there for 4 months when I got there and was still there when I left. The kid had a learning disability and was unable to focus on bookwork like we did. Since it's also part of the curriculum he was just sorta stuck but had become so accustomed to living there that you felt no need to change.
My group had the handcart because we were a bunch of injured retards. Like I say the money is not worth it for the parents, the resentmeant that alot of us feel towards our parents is not worth it, and for some it does change them completely but for others it just shows them to not get caught. I also did 35 days of my time with a cast (Which shoulda been 28 but they didn't have time to take me to the DR.) An experience I wish I had never lived and I thank ABC Family for making it seem like it's some sorta joke or something, I sure hope you give it a proper justification.
So my name is Matthew R. aka Gimpy (From the Injury) aka Storm Fox the name I was given in my name ceremony at RCA.
Oh yeah sometime people should look up the day that the kids rebelled at RCA when counslers got beat up and rebelled in an uprising...That's always a good story.
And why the hell are the kids English or something? I don't understand TV sometimes.
Source:
The original testmony (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
søndag den 27. december 2015
Max at Second Nature Wilderness
A few of my friends have. I have been through Second Nature and ASR Base Camp (shut down now I believe) and from what I've heard RedCliff might be somewhere in between those two. This is an extremely emotionally charged topic for me. I am currently researching and investigating these kind of places as well as RTCs and "therapeutic" boarding schools for an on-road expose tour this summer, invovling demonstrations in the towns hosting the programs. If you've ever read 1984 you have a toned down version of it already.
Where I was, Through humiliation(One girl had to crawl every where she went and cry out loud-a councelor continued to throw a water bottle into the woods and make her crawl and cry to retrieve it while saying things like "If your gonna cry and compain like f***in baby I'm gonna treat you like a baby. this is how you f*** up everyones lives around you Im here to unf*** your life do you f***in understand me?" another kid had to sit in a circle of peers and have human feces be wiped on his face) , forced labor ("You don't have to do this but if you don't your going to RTC lockdown) disorientation, and poor physical conditions(inadequate shelter, frostbite, malnutrition, jardia[did I spell that right?] Reality is completely controled by staff. If they tell you 2and2 is 4 you better not just say it is but you need to believe it, they'll know. When inspectors came they whould tell us we would never get out basically if we told them anything and everything would be changed. At the top of this pyramid of evil the directors sit on they're plush thrones rolling in hundreds of thousands (programs often can cost up to ten thousand a MONTH.
I cam out of those and the 14month program competely delusional, affraid of everying and very heart. It took a lot of wonderful people and majical experiences to come out of that, experiences of freedom and love, not hate and oppresion. Now my life is PERFECT and incredulous as that may sound. I work in carpentry and microbiology and live on an intentional community in GA. Above all what helped me is my deep love for nature backpacking and all and the strength I draw from that, and many mystical experience. I found God Or the Universal cosmic mind and he she is with us. Plus my beautiful and wonderful girlfriend who I was seperated from through the experience and now live with. This all happened about 5 years ago. The "therapeutic program" community has hid behind deciet and legal loopholes for many years but they can't hide from God and we will bring them down with love! We the human race are one divine family and we need to come togather to overwhelm this evil. with love sincere -Max
PS post any questions about my history or intent or whatever if you wish.
Source:
The original testimony (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
Where I was, Through humiliation(One girl had to crawl every where she went and cry out loud-a councelor continued to throw a water bottle into the woods and make her crawl and cry to retrieve it while saying things like "If your gonna cry and compain like f***in baby I'm gonna treat you like a baby. this is how you f*** up everyones lives around you Im here to unf*** your life do you f***in understand me?" another kid had to sit in a circle of peers and have human feces be wiped on his face) , forced labor ("You don't have to do this but if you don't your going to RTC lockdown) disorientation, and poor physical conditions(inadequate shelter, frostbite, malnutrition, jardia[did I spell that right?] Reality is completely controled by staff. If they tell you 2and2 is 4 you better not just say it is but you need to believe it, they'll know. When inspectors came they whould tell us we would never get out basically if we told them anything and everything would be changed. At the top of this pyramid of evil the directors sit on they're plush thrones rolling in hundreds of thousands (programs often can cost up to ten thousand a MONTH.
I cam out of those and the 14month program competely delusional, affraid of everying and very heart. It took a lot of wonderful people and majical experiences to come out of that, experiences of freedom and love, not hate and oppresion. Now my life is PERFECT and incredulous as that may sound. I work in carpentry and microbiology and live on an intentional community in GA. Above all what helped me is my deep love for nature backpacking and all and the strength I draw from that, and many mystical experience. I found God Or the Universal cosmic mind and he she is with us. Plus my beautiful and wonderful girlfriend who I was seperated from through the experience and now live with. This all happened about 5 years ago. The "therapeutic program" community has hid behind deciet and legal loopholes for many years but they can't hide from God and we will bring them down with love! We the human race are one divine family and we need to come togather to overwhelm this evil. with love sincere -Max
PS post any questions about my history or intent or whatever if you wish.
Source:
The original testimony (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
mandag den 30. november 2015
Redcliff Ascent experience
I have also been through Redcliff, graduated in december '03 was there 90 days. They were filming some brits or whatever and I remember that one kid from Brooklyn that was in our group (aah shit it wasnt bullfrogs it was lions something like) left and joined the filmed group. It did help me considerably, I was a whinely little bitch and needed a good slap of reality. It helped me with depression but say 4 months afterwards i feel into a more anti-social 'conduct disorder' routine, and 6 months after I was arrested and am still on probation for my crimes.
I respect RCA more than juvies/psych hospitals/residentials blah blah and any other institution I have been to since they didnt just try to shove fucking pills down my throat and attempt to diagnose me with ODD or this and that. It was an emotional experience to say the least.
I was taken from Horsham Clinic (behavioral health hospital in PA) and escorted by a pig and my mother to the airport and flew into vegas. From there I meet the intake people, a chick and a man both huge and tall, mouthed off to them a bit and was driven to Utah. I got to base round 1:30 Am and then preceded with intake. After I was stripped and given those 'battle tested' fatigues, I was blindfolded and was off to the wilderness. 3 hours latter I arrived at my camp Bullfrogs and became acutely aware how damn heavy those packs are and that I was seriously in the middle of nowhere--contrary to what I was told and assumed, that it was some haughty taughty cliche "lets go camping and learn about nature!" Bullshit.
After pissing and moaning about hiking in my first letter i wrote home, I got depressed. Even to my dismay I couldnt make fire. I continued this little ruitine of mine for nearly two months till I got my first fire, rushed through all my phases, got named "White Falcon" and graduated. We had to take a shower, but at grad camp they just built it and it had no heat--i remember it was colder than just using a pot and soap, but I really didnt care. Cold meant shit to me then, after 'gut-bomb', 3 peak, fires, my hair freezing (always wash your body first then your hair kiddies), blisters etc. I was just happy i was going home. They make you run like a mile down to your parents, and that first month home is really the most thankful. I remember i had trouble trying to explain my experience to kids in my school and they all backed away from me cause I was 'bad'. So eventually I gave in started to chill with punk/skin crews more and eventually got myself into some run-ins with the law.
I meet some interesting people that I did seriously like to meet again Mike "Red Badger" or that hobo chick Ericka.
Abuse was there if you cared to notice (staff dismissing the group to another area to piss off on some kid, degrading remarks, instigating etc) but most of the time 'consequences' involved carrying rocks if you swear, having a looooong day of hiking, camp drills/pack drills, no peanut butter, cheese or meat rations (replaced by the nastiest greenish brown shit ever) and the 'cart'. My group got the cart just "to see if we can handle it". All in all though it did just depend on the staff and thier mood.
Getting sick is just horrible. They dont give you conventional medicine but make you drink sage tea which id imagine tastes exactly like shit laced with pesticide i remember I could hardly get it down and vomited but they insisted to drink up because of how sick I was (and for two weeks after I was discharged I still was taking medicine for it). It was the worse I have ever been I was freezing cold couldnt eat coughing up green phlegm, couldnt walk 100 yards without huffing and puffing and all I would do was stare off drooling by the campfire haha I spilt my honey and when someone finally noticed it was all gone and I didnt even care which to an RCA kid is fucking extreme. When we hiked (only 6 miles or so) I barely made it and got about a dozen or so faint spells where honestly I had no clue what the hell was going on. Fortunatly I graduated that weekend right befor the 15 miler we were going to pull off (dont know how I wouldve fared with being sick and all)
RCA doesnt change shit let alone profoundly, it just grows you some hair on your chest and leaves your suburbanite mommies and daddies 30 grand poorer (and for a poor family like mine, well lets just say your going to be eating lots of canned patatoes and ramen)
RCA dont work. Nuff said.
Source:
The original testimony (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
I respect RCA more than juvies/psych hospitals/residentials blah blah and any other institution I have been to since they didnt just try to shove fucking pills down my throat and attempt to diagnose me with ODD or this and that. It was an emotional experience to say the least.
I was taken from Horsham Clinic (behavioral health hospital in PA) and escorted by a pig and my mother to the airport and flew into vegas. From there I meet the intake people, a chick and a man both huge and tall, mouthed off to them a bit and was driven to Utah. I got to base round 1:30 Am and then preceded with intake. After I was stripped and given those 'battle tested' fatigues, I was blindfolded and was off to the wilderness. 3 hours latter I arrived at my camp Bullfrogs and became acutely aware how damn heavy those packs are and that I was seriously in the middle of nowhere--contrary to what I was told and assumed, that it was some haughty taughty cliche "lets go camping and learn about nature!" Bullshit.
After pissing and moaning about hiking in my first letter i wrote home, I got depressed. Even to my dismay I couldnt make fire. I continued this little ruitine of mine for nearly two months till I got my first fire, rushed through all my phases, got named "White Falcon" and graduated. We had to take a shower, but at grad camp they just built it and it had no heat--i remember it was colder than just using a pot and soap, but I really didnt care. Cold meant shit to me then, after 'gut-bomb', 3 peak, fires, my hair freezing (always wash your body first then your hair kiddies), blisters etc. I was just happy i was going home. They make you run like a mile down to your parents, and that first month home is really the most thankful. I remember i had trouble trying to explain my experience to kids in my school and they all backed away from me cause I was 'bad'. So eventually I gave in started to chill with punk/skin crews more and eventually got myself into some run-ins with the law.
I meet some interesting people that I did seriously like to meet again Mike "Red Badger" or that hobo chick Ericka.
Abuse was there if you cared to notice (staff dismissing the group to another area to piss off on some kid, degrading remarks, instigating etc) but most of the time 'consequences' involved carrying rocks if you swear, having a looooong day of hiking, camp drills/pack drills, no peanut butter, cheese or meat rations (replaced by the nastiest greenish brown shit ever) and the 'cart'. My group got the cart just "to see if we can handle it". All in all though it did just depend on the staff and thier mood.
Getting sick is just horrible. They dont give you conventional medicine but make you drink sage tea which id imagine tastes exactly like shit laced with pesticide i remember I could hardly get it down and vomited but they insisted to drink up because of how sick I was (and for two weeks after I was discharged I still was taking medicine for it). It was the worse I have ever been I was freezing cold couldnt eat coughing up green phlegm, couldnt walk 100 yards without huffing and puffing and all I would do was stare off drooling by the campfire haha I spilt my honey and when someone finally noticed it was all gone and I didnt even care which to an RCA kid is fucking extreme. When we hiked (only 6 miles or so) I barely made it and got about a dozen or so faint spells where honestly I had no clue what the hell was going on. Fortunatly I graduated that weekend right befor the 15 miler we were going to pull off (dont know how I wouldve fared with being sick and all)
RCA doesnt change shit let alone profoundly, it just grows you some hair on your chest and leaves your suburbanite mommies and daddies 30 grand poorer (and for a poor family like mine, well lets just say your going to be eating lots of canned patatoes and ramen)
RCA dont work. Nuff said.
Source:
The original testimony (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
søndag den 11. oktober 2015
A mother about Redcliff Ascent
This testimony was found on a message board. All rights goes to the original author.
I'm sure ABC family is going to portray the staff at Redcliff Ascent as good and caring and the kids as manipulative brats, hence the name Brat Camp.
I've read the message board for brat camp and some people are shocked that RCA would sell out this way. I am not at all surprised. Our daughter attended RCA in 2001. The therapist at RCA led us and our insurance co. to believe she was making progress all along when in fact she made no progress. They kept her there for 5 months leading us to believe she was getting better.
Our daughter was 13 and suffering from severe depression. She took an overdose one night, was taken to the hospital, had her stomach pumped and transferred to another hospital that night. A psychologist from Ohio State University came and evaluated her and said RCA was exactly what she needed. We were pressured and rushed to make a decision about issues we had never dealt with before.
Having your child so distraught she tried to kill herself and being told by all these so called professionals was so overwhelming.
We live in Ohio and left early one morning from the hospital and drove our only daughter nearly 2000 miles away and left her with complete strangers because it's what the doctors said was best for her.
I had weekly phone sessions with her therapist who assured me she was making slow but steady progress. i kept notes of each phone session throughout her stay. We were not allowed to talk to our daughter, we could only write letters. The therapist told me she had lost some weight but said that it was common with the kids due to all the hiking.
About three weeks before we went to pick her up, RCA sent some pictures of our daughter to our e-mail. The first two were disturbing but she looked ok. In the third picture she looked bad. Emaciated, scraped up and unhealthy. We left the next morning to pick her up.
Nothing could have prepared us for how she looked when we arrived in the wilderness of Utah. We couldn't wait to get her out of there.
Our daughter had gained weight due to her depression and weighed in at 178 when we left her at RCA. When we picked her up 5 months later she weighed 106. Her face reminded me of the pictures you see of children who had been in concentration camps. She had lived on lentils, rice and rolled oats for the past 5 months. They got peanut-butter or cheese once a week. At times they had to drink water from troughs for cattle in the fields or from ponds.
Since she had no salt in her diet, she retained huge amounts of water after she began eating regular food again. She threw up all the way home. She was starving but her system couldn't handle food. We took her to the doctor when we returned to Ohio. She was anemic, malnourished, iron deficient, albumen levels were low, blood sugar levels were high, liver enzymes elevated. Her hair was falling out due to malnutrition. She said the staff at RCA had started calling her baldy.
Our insurance co. did an investigation of RCA after hearing of our daughter’s condition. We were not informed of the outcome.
Children’s services in our home town gathered information for their own. That was sent to Columbus, our capital. Columbus sent all the information to Provo, Utah who sent it to the local sheriff’s office in Beryl, Utah who, as far as we know, had done nothing.
That was 4 years ago and this place is still operating at an average cost of 10,000 dollars a month.
If we had gotten our daughter in this physical condition while in our care, she would have been taken away from us. Many kids have been seriously injured or have died in these wilderness programs and not only are they still in business, now they are also entertainment.
One concerned and upset mom in Ohio.
Source:
NOT SUPRISED!!!!!! (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
I'm sure ABC family is going to portray the staff at Redcliff Ascent as good and caring and the kids as manipulative brats, hence the name Brat Camp.
I've read the message board for brat camp and some people are shocked that RCA would sell out this way. I am not at all surprised. Our daughter attended RCA in 2001. The therapist at RCA led us and our insurance co. to believe she was making progress all along when in fact she made no progress. They kept her there for 5 months leading us to believe she was getting better.
Our daughter was 13 and suffering from severe depression. She took an overdose one night, was taken to the hospital, had her stomach pumped and transferred to another hospital that night. A psychologist from Ohio State University came and evaluated her and said RCA was exactly what she needed. We were pressured and rushed to make a decision about issues we had never dealt with before.
Having your child so distraught she tried to kill herself and being told by all these so called professionals was so overwhelming.
We live in Ohio and left early one morning from the hospital and drove our only daughter nearly 2000 miles away and left her with complete strangers because it's what the doctors said was best for her.
I had weekly phone sessions with her therapist who assured me she was making slow but steady progress. i kept notes of each phone session throughout her stay. We were not allowed to talk to our daughter, we could only write letters. The therapist told me she had lost some weight but said that it was common with the kids due to all the hiking.
About three weeks before we went to pick her up, RCA sent some pictures of our daughter to our e-mail. The first two were disturbing but she looked ok. In the third picture she looked bad. Emaciated, scraped up and unhealthy. We left the next morning to pick her up.
Nothing could have prepared us for how she looked when we arrived in the wilderness of Utah. We couldn't wait to get her out of there.
Our daughter had gained weight due to her depression and weighed in at 178 when we left her at RCA. When we picked her up 5 months later she weighed 106. Her face reminded me of the pictures you see of children who had been in concentration camps. She had lived on lentils, rice and rolled oats for the past 5 months. They got peanut-butter or cheese once a week. At times they had to drink water from troughs for cattle in the fields or from ponds.
Since she had no salt in her diet, she retained huge amounts of water after she began eating regular food again. She threw up all the way home. She was starving but her system couldn't handle food. We took her to the doctor when we returned to Ohio. She was anemic, malnourished, iron deficient, albumen levels were low, blood sugar levels were high, liver enzymes elevated. Her hair was falling out due to malnutrition. She said the staff at RCA had started calling her baldy.
Our insurance co. did an investigation of RCA after hearing of our daughter’s condition. We were not informed of the outcome.
Children’s services in our home town gathered information for their own. That was sent to Columbus, our capital. Columbus sent all the information to Provo, Utah who sent it to the local sheriff’s office in Beryl, Utah who, as far as we know, had done nothing.
That was 4 years ago and this place is still operating at an average cost of 10,000 dollars a month.
If we had gotten our daughter in this physical condition while in our care, she would have been taken away from us. Many kids have been seriously injured or have died in these wilderness programs and not only are they still in business, now they are also entertainment.
One concerned and upset mom in Ohio.
Source:
NOT SUPRISED!!!!!! (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
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