I arrived to the Family Foundation School Inc. on January 7th 2003 and was expelled on May 1st 2004; I would like to enter this testimony to this case:
As many other people have stated in their testimonies, when I arrived to the school I was coming out of a home situation where I was out of control and out of line. My entire life had been spent behaving in an almost animalistic way where I did what I felt was good for me without regard to reality or the wellbeing of others. With that said, I am now as my parents put it a "taxpaying, productive, introspective member of society" and a large part of that result comes from tools I acquired in the Family School.. Note I use the word "acquired" not "learned" because the fact is that learning was very difficult in that environment.
The Family Foundation School is a for-profit bastard child of a rehabilitative therapeutic community and a low budget school, the problem is that one of the main driving forces of TC's is that most of the inhabitants are there willingly and have no feasible alternative to being there. Moreover, therapeutic communities are geared towards fully developed adults with deeply ingrained problems that have existed for longer than the life spans of the majority of the students. The idea of a TC is to be caustic enough to etch away the bad, the problem of the FFS is that they are just as caustic as a TC but at the same time dealing with kids who are still developing.
A big problem with the school is the sexual issue. The school approaches human sexuality on a strictly Catholic perspective of sexuality is immoral and sexual urges of unwed teens are inappropriate and shameful. The school's entire basis of expelling me was for not admitting to my rampant masturbation, something which did not exist due to my lack of homosexual urges and knowing that less than 4 feet away from me in any direction was another guy wasn’t exactly arousing. A memorable experience was when two staff members confronted me on this very issue and when I denied that I was acting out sexually, one of them suggested that anyone in my situation would need some sort of release, at the time I was very heavy into prayer and meditation because I did not want to act out violently, and my retort was that my release was in prayer and meditation to which the staff member suggested that I by saying this I was somehow massaging his prostate (in cruder words of course). Verbal abuse was one of many ways the family school operates, which is sad but is not an isolated evil.
The family school advertises itself as a secular environment that promotes each individual religion. However, one should note the blatant disregard for dietary laws upheld by Islam and Judaism, and beyond sacrilege the family school was derisive towards these rules. A specific example of Passover comes to mind. Jewish people are not supposed to eat leavened food during Passover. Year round Jewish people are not supposed to eat pork, meat and dairy or seafood. The family school insisted that all of their students eat all the food placed in front of them, so during Passover when the rest of the students were having bacon lettuce and tomato, the Jewish kids had that too, on matzo. When the other kids were having Philly cheese steaks, the Jewish kids had that too, on matzo. I understand that the majority of the kids at the school were not Jewish and so it is justifiable ignorance to force the Jewish kids to participate in Catholic service with the justification that the Catholic kids had to go through the Jewish production (I call it a production because no real prayer books were used nor a real rabbi) but the mockery exemplified by the blatant disregard for the dietary laws was unacceptable and quite frankly a school that boasts to be so respectful of other religions should probably actually do so.
Next I would like to address the issue of labeling. The Family Foundation School was a big fan of labeling their students and using labels. The School purports to be a proponent of the 12 Steps but one part of the 12 Steps is that a person in recovery cannot tell another person that they are or are not an addict, it is a determination that is made by the addict for the addict as a personal revelation moreover the 12 Traditions (an accompaniment to the 12 steps) clearly states that recovery should be based strictly on attraction, rather than promotion because to force another person into recovery can be more harmful than to allow them to continue harming themselves because while in the short run you can get them to go to meetings in the long run you scare them off. The Family School loved to label their students with addictions and maledictions, they took great delight in informing me, 6'2 175 LBS at the time that I am a food addict and that I am obsessed with food and I use food as an escape. Moreover, I (according to them) was a sexual pervert who compulsively masturbated and I would inevitably wind up jailed, institutionalized or dead if I did not manage to graduate their program. The school didn't offer much for the imagination, there was very little encouragement for students to pursue their own wants or goals but rather goals were set by the school and if one did not choose to pursue those goals they risked punishment or a lengthier stay. These goals and expectations could be as simple as participating in an activities or extra curricular activities or as intense as committing to not date for at least 6 months after leaving etc. These things weren't really the bulk of the issue but they most certainly indicated deep rooted problem with the structure of the school that makes the school rather ineffective.
Another problem that the school posed was lack of accountability for their staff members. Staff members were openly verbally abusive and derisive to students, there were incidents where staff members were physically abusive but that wasn’t really prevalent the main form of abuse that I felt was the most sinister was food depravation. It is understandable to not feed someone who is actively being violent or physically acting out but if someone is physically cooperating to any extent they should not be deprived of food for long term period and kids who go there are customarily. The school is set up in a way where kids are forced to be paranoid their entire stay; because at any given moment what little dignity you are granted in life can be stripped away from you. At the school reality and truth is not dictated by reality and truth but rather by the whimsical perceptions of the staff members who take on a holier than thou role.
After leaving the school I had no contact with them. Several times I reached out to the administration and several times I had my hand slapped away. At one point per a conversation I had with an alumnus in which I made a joking reference to bringing a Swiss army knife to the alumni reunion in the event of any shenanigans as a device of self defense, the administration sent police officers to my home to inform me that if I showed up at the reunion I would be arrested. As far as success rates, indeed in order to leave the school one needs some sort of college plan but that doesn't mean that anyone who leaves is prepared for college. The school doesn't allow organic growth and therefore causes the students to be completely incapable of studying without a strict framework, hence the vast majority wind up failing miserably in college life. Also no reasonable framework is setup for the students to have a support network at the school, students are sent off into a cold cruel world with dead ideals involving principles that weren't upheld by those who enforced them upon them and as a result the rate of failure is staggering, rather than making recovery appealing to the students in the school recovery is made abhorrent a "do this or else" scenario is set up and so any success attained while in the school is just that, success attained in the school, and any success outside of the school is a fluke not a given.
I am a perfect example of a fluke. I was expelled for not working the program prescribed to me by the school (supposedly). I was informed quite assuredly by the principal that I would be dropped off in Binghamton and that I wouldn't last a very long time. When I finally failed I would be accepted back as I had hit bottom. I arrived in Binghamton and immediately continued where I had left off in the school, doing everything I could to replicate the life I had envisioned in the school using religion and recovery as my backbone. I found solace in a 12 step program and found myself a home group and a sponsor, my sponsor to this day makes efforts to break me of emotional damage inflicted by the school. My parents still are in a haze about what went on and are not quite sure how to perceive things. My own achievements are numerous but are not important to this testimony, what is important is the fact that I, one of the proud few who was expelled from the FFS is also one of the proud few who still holds onto the principles taught to me there and somehow I am also one of the proud few blindly rejected at all costs by the school's administration.
Pass this bill so that the school can be given the lubricant it so desperately needs. Schools like FFS are a necessary evil in this day and age, but they have no business operating in the way they do and should be monitored closely and regulated by the strictest procedural measures.
2013 the school changed its name to Allynwood Academy due to the bad press.
References:
Datasheet about the boarding school at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on cafety.youthrights.com
It was nice to see about the school here. Thanks for sharing this information.
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