The school previous known as the Family Foundation School is to close early august 2014.
Here is a statement from a former student. She also made some Youtube videos:
You're right the school has changed their program over the years, but the staff were in no fit state to be leading young vulnerable adults into a better life when they didn't even have a grasp of their own. I attended in 2009, and there was a lot of emotional, mental and physical abuse. It was hard for any of us to articulate the abuse to our parents because our parents were told that if we did say anything about the school we were trying to manipulate them into taking us home. Being so scared of the punishments we might receive and risk losing contact or being put on 'blackout' with our parents, it was the easiest option just to play by the rules in hope that one day you might get out.
The Argiros clan are very good at pretending to be honest and caring people, but when I was there and I expressed to them that I did not believe in God and I needed professional therapy like my parents thought they were paying for, they neglected my needs and continued to punish me and put me into isolation until I complied. They restrained me for the simple matter that I refused to go to school because my grades wouldn't transfer back to England and they failed to find me an alternative solution. They restrained me because I would not pray, as I articulated I was an atheist and that I needed professional help. I spent two weeks in isolation, my parents being as naive as they were thought that I was getting help, and were lead to believe that it was in my best interest to be put on black out. My parents had no idea of what was happening.
To this day I still question how they did not see the signs of abuse, I ran away, i got myself arrested, I slit my wrists and wrote on the walls with my own blood. I articulated in one of my letters that I constantly needed to use the bathroom, and that is a pretty clear symptom of Fear. I did things I had never even done when I was home. The Family School convinces you that your kids deserve to be there, and they constantly remind you of how 'uncontrollable, unmanageable and bad' your kids behavior was at home, they convince you to keep them there and maintain the hindsight that you're doing the right thing, and that actually it wasn't your parenting or any other experiences that your child may have been prone to growing up, but it was just the fact that you had a dis functional kid.
What they fail to do is work with you as a family and look into the deeper issues of the behavior that your child presented while they were at home, and the pain that your child expressed in a way, that unless you are a professional psychologist or an understanding parent with a deeper and professional understanding of your kid, that actually, hey, this kid isn't bad. They are just in pain, and we need to help them. Not punish them.
As a parent, you need to be doing as much self reflection as your kid will be doing over the next few years, and unfortunately this is a program that as much as it says it does, does not offer you that kind of clinical approach to therapy- that is exactly what these kids need. So please, before you start slandering those of us who have been subject to institutionalized child abuse at FFS, do your research first. Mental and emotional child abuse is a lot harder to prove than physical abuse, so the answer to your question about the NY State Investigation is because it is so well hidden. When you are that scared, you don't say anything. But you wouldn't know about that because you haven't been in the same position as us. My mum was exactly like you, but 5 years later. God is she sorry.
It is extremely hard to believe that people could do that to someone, I know. But do you really think that now as grown adults we would come out of our way to warn perspective parents of students at the school of what happens in there? No. People move on, but the reason we haven't is because we are still stuck there, and we are still searching for our justice. So who will you trust most? The people you hand over thousand of dollars a year, or people that can educate you about the program for free? & before Allynwood can shove another excuse down your throats about why we might be warning you about the school, I have a good life. I'm engaged, I have my own home and puppy. I study psychology at college, and do you know why? Because I want to be a professional that can wipe these criminals that claim to be people that they're not right off of the face of the earth. Not because I am angry, not because I am resentful. Because I am a good person, and I don't want any kid to have to go through what I did.
Below is the first part of the youtube statement:
Source:
Boarding school for troubled teens set to close (WBNG News)
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