Anonymous at Heartland Christian Academy (From:Topix)

This testimony was found on Topix in December 2012. All rights goes to the originally author who wants to remain anonymous:

This is an absolutely horrible place. I spent a year there with my entire family back in 2000. It was the worst experience of my life. The staff do not care about you a all. My parents originally sent my sister there because she was being rebellious and they didn't know how to handle her. They should have received counseling or something, anything but send her/us there. We ended up staying with her and they split our entire family us, saying we all needed help. It was heart breaking. My brothers were all split up and sent to live with a family, who physically abused them, but they were too afraid to talk about it. And my sisters and I were slit up as well. My parents were aso separated into different recovery programs, which my parents didn't need to recovery from anything. My parents or any of us children, including my sister had done alcohol or drugs ever. My parents needed guidance on how to deal with my sister, not on how to recovery.

I hate this place, with all my heart, and I am a Christ follower.This place does not exude Christ's love, instead it follows the philosphy of continual punishment. The school was not a good experience either. They separate the guys and girls in the classroom and you're not allowed to talk to each other or have any interactions with each other either in school or out of school. It's basically a prison.

We ended up leaving when another family who had once been there helped us to realize the evil therein. I think my parents were brainwashed into thinking they had all these problems which is why they stayed. I didn't find out what happenned to my brothers until years later. My little sister who was about 5 at the time, would pee in the bed sometimes, which I believe is a symptom of the familial split, and the director of our girl's home would give her cold showers in the morning, with her clothes on as punishment. That happenned a lot.

I cry as I think about the abusive way these people treated individuals there. I can't believe any parent would resort to this. Another reviewer is right, there were a lot of kids I knew who had been adopted from Russia and then just left there, as if it wasn't their responsibility to raise their own children. This place harms families and does not promote recovery. I could go on an on about this place, but it still hurts me to talk about it.

Please do not send your children here. Instead, find a marriage and family therapist and invest in your relationships instead of throwing them and their problems away as if you can't handle it. Thankfully everyone in my family turned out alright after this experience. All of us kids are successful adults with great careers.

I am currently a licensed counselor and I know that what happenned there is wrong. The Bible clearly says that parents are to train their children up in the way they should go so that when they are older, they will not depart from it. Therefore, parenting is the parent's responsibility and with God's help you can succeed. No child/teen is beyond help, and definitely does not deserve to go here.

Sources:

• The originally testimony from Topix
• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)