Pieces of Victory film project

This video can be found on Youtube. The academy shown in the video was named Victory Christian Academy and was located in California until the authorities closed the academy down after an accident where a girl died during construction work. The owners were later involved in project in Mexico and Florida but was finally forced out of the business when former victims were able to tell the truth on the Internet.




Sources:

• Lighthouse Ministries of North West Florida aka Victory Christian Academy factsheet (Fornits Wiki)
• 68. Victory Christian Academy (1000 places You don't want to be as a teenager)

Book: Dead, Insane or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir

This book by Zack Bonnie tells the story about how to be forced to attend a CEDU bording school.

All the CEDU schools closed around 2005 after a number of lawsuits were issued by parents and former students.

Also several students disappeared never to be found again. Some of the children were most likely murdered by a serial killer James Lee Crummel who had unrestricted accesss to one of the campuses. To this day there are families out there looking for their relatives.

CEDU was founded in 1967 by an owner of a furniture business, who after a brief stint at Synanon created the first school in California where the main tool for transforming the children into the products their parents ordered were attack therapy.

The founder died in 2002. The school were sold but closed only some few years later due to the lawsuits.

The book provides a good insight into how it was to be a student in these special schools. After the original schools closed the concept were transferred into other schools where some are open even today.

Sources:

• Website about the book
• Article on Goodreads

RG at Rocky Mountain Academy,

This testimony was found on the Surviving CEDU blog. All rights go the original author known as RG

I went to RMA in 1984 and graduated in 86. I was 16 at the time I went up there and had a decent idea what the program would be like from what my parents said. Although, who could possibly have imagined that a place like that existed. If you haven’t been in a place like that, you just can’t imagine it.

My parents took me to a high school placement counselor in Atlanta who told me she wasn’t sure she had found a place for me at that time. Then a month or so later, my parents said they were sending me to a wilderness school in Idaho where the counselors were really nice and they didn’t allow any violence between the students and they had group sessions where you could talk about your feelings. (Doesn’t that just sound really great??) I knew my parents. I could fill in the blanks.

My parents and I took a flight to Sandpoint, Idaho. When we arrived, we got in a rental car and drove to Bonners Ferry. A boy named Bailey showed me around the school and we took a short walk in the woods. Afterwards, the staff went through my bags, checked the seams of my underwear for, drugs, apparently, and strip searched me. Bailey was a good guy and ended up being my dorm head for the first few months while I was there.

I have no mixed feelings about the program. Sure I did some great things while I was there. I had some good experiences, learned a lot and made some good friends. I was 18 when I left, and, yes, I was a lot more mature, then, than when I arrived.

RMA,CEDU, et al were the product of a self-indulgent furniture salesman’s idea that what’s right for a drug addict strung out in the gutter is right for a teen who’s having trouble coping with school or growing up. The program was run by a bunch of abusive, self indulgent, narcissists/sadists who loved staying on top of us students as close to 24/7 as they could–prying into every aspect of our personal lives, subjecting us to theirs, and expecting us to smoosh with them, WHAT THE HELL? I liked smooshing with girls, but I can’t say I ever did it with a guy unless someone, often a staff member, wanted me to. Well, there was always something you were expected you to be doing. Don’t get me wrong. I think being close to your friends is wonderful, but that just never seemed natural to me. If it did to you, great!

In raps, the staff expected that we all had all these things that we felt bad about. I copped to a few things I actually felt bad about and, apparently, they just weren’t extreme enough for the drug addict, ex-con, ex-gang member, etc. staff. The stuff they expected, most of which, I hadn’t done, and the few things I had, I didn’t feel bad about, but that would be actual honesty. They wanted their usual, sick, over the top stuff. I’d never lit anyone on fire, prostituted myself, or had sex with animals, for instance. (I still haven’t, incidentally.) People who do interrogations seem to say if you push someone hard enough, they will give you information (of some sort or other).

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve told this story since I left: This man came to visit the campus as people did sometimes. We were usually told, “This is John visiting from Burbank.” and not much more. I don’t recall his name, but he was introduced by one of the staff members as his friend, so-and-so. I spoke to him, briefly. He asked me a few questions about the school. I don’t recall much of the conversation.

The next day I was indicted in a rap by one of the staff. Why do you think? Had I said something I shouldn’t?

Here’s how the indictment went:

That guy who was here, yesterday…He had something to say about you…

You can imagine what this was like. I had just met this guy and had no idea what this was about. But obviously, I was going to have, possibly, a whole room full of people screaming at me about it—and that was eminent.

Of all the students here he could have picked out, he said you were one kid we should keep an eye on. He said, “If anyone here is going to commit suicide it’s him.” And he’s someone who knows these kinds of things.

Well I remember being shocked at how totally off base that accusation was. Unfortunately, my “Who is this guy? He doesn’t know me from Adam.” argument didn’t seem to hold any weight. In fact, I think I said exactly that!

The thing was, in raps, if someone pointed the finger at you, you were the victim. You were either the victim of whatever they came up with and you needed to run your feelings about it—or you were their victim until things turned away from you. You could argue in your defense, but if you did, it was just for your own sake. It just didn’t seem to matter. Generally, it made things worse for you. There were times, like this one that I thought I totally debunked the claim against me, and it just never made any difference. It was the helplessness that, even now after 25 years, writing this, thinking about that situation, I just found myself fantasizing about beating up the rap coordinator and ending everything, and then having everyone go home.

Some students just cried. I just don’t seem to cry easily. Sometimes when the heat was on for a really long time, I would try to, hoping I could get them to move on to someone else. A couple of times I actually did it, at least a little. It did seem to focus things elsewhere.

Usually, the focus would turn to someone else, and sometimes what happened to them would be a lot worse than what they had just been getting at you for, but you would be glad the heat was off of you. We all got it. I felt bad when it was someone else’s turn, but that was the way it was. It was nice when it was over, and, especially, when a rap was finally over, and you could go outside and have a few minutes to yourself, calm down, and relax for a while.

So what do you tell a 17 year old kid who is, supposedly, troubled and having a hard time—especially because of the school he is in—that things will be fine; he should just work hard and enjoy his life, take up a new hobby. How about, “You’re going to commit suicide some day?” and then have a whole lot of people yell at him right after you say it for twenty minutes or so?

I remember being told by a staff member in one of the workshops, the story of a former Cedu student who was doing a lot of drugs, was so totally out of his mind on drugs that he put a single bullet in the cylinder of his revolver. And then he spun the cylinder, put the gun to his head and … well, apparently, he went to Cedu afterwards to tell the story.

I kept up with Bailey for about six months to a year after I graduated. I don’t know whether he filled the cylinder or not, but I miss him.


CEDU closed in 2005 to avoid lawsuits

Sources:

• The original testimony (Surviving CEDU blog)
• The CEDU history and organization (Fornits Wiki)

Kimberly at Gentle Spirit Ranch (From the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

This statement was found on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora. All rights belong to the original author named Kimberly

As I said above there were three “counselors”, Armina, Melanie and a woman whose name I can’t remember. There was also the “teacher” whose name I believe is Donna, she lived in a trailer that was further away from the main house and she smelled terrible. Close to the end of my stay there were only a few girls for a time, and there was one weekend where Mark and Ginny left for some reason and Donna was in charge of us. We went over to her trailer and the placed reeked. For some reason that really burned in my head. I think that Armina and the other counselor were fired, even though I didn’t know it at the time. When they came to tell all the girls they were leaving they were equally sad as us and crying right along with us. Melanie stuck it out for awhile with us, even though she was the only counselor and I cannot recall whether or not she was even there in the end. We did not get along very much, but then again I was 15-16 and not a nice little girl, I was pretty much angry at the world just because it existed.

Mark and Ginny were rarely around, and they were busy doing who knows what. I remember seeing them on any outings we had, and then also on the days that we didn’t go to church but they held “church” in the house. There was one or two rare occasions when we were allowed to go into their “house” (pretty much an apartment that was the second story of the main house) and that was so we could do their housecleaning. I remember thinking even then, considering who I was and all I had done to get myself there, that their daughters had some serious issues. They wouldn’t walk everywhere, they trotted like horses. Now I know little kids do this when they are playing, but they stop to go to other activities and then at a certain point they stop all together and grow up. These girls were 6 and 7 I think and they were trotting everywhere, even outside. Looking back, those girls needed some serious socialization with kids there age and maybe the horse thing was a coping mechanism.

The girls that I remember are limited unfortunately, I have a hard time remembering a lot of my childhood, I guess that was my coping mechanism. Ok well there were more than the 6 girls that they said they always kept it at or wanted to keep it at. If I remember correctly, There were 4 bedrooms in the main house that the girls had and also a trailer that a girl had that had been there for a long time. I remember a girl that we all called Daisy, I cannot remember her real name, and she had bleach blonde hair and seemed real normal to me. She shared a room with a girl that left shortly after I got there and then a girl named Jessica came and shared the room with her. When Jessica first came she told all of us that her name was something different all together and she ended up alienating herself in a way. I had the room next and I shared it with a girl named Jamie, who I became fairly close to simply because we were roommates and that she lived close to where my aunt did. I remember a girl named Brenda that was 13 and she was so funny, a very shy girl and her father worked for Frito-Lay. She had a room with a girl that ran away and actually got free. There was also Tabitha who I remember quite a bit about, she was my best friend there and I really would like to know how she is doing. I remember she lived in Humboldt at the time. She had a roommate that was Mexican with long hair that was straight and really pretty, she always wore baggy sweatpants. The girl that lived in the trailer by herself had been there for over a year and her name was Shar (short for Sharlene I think.) I got close with her as well. I know that there were other girls there but I cannot remember their names at all.

We went to a church that was in Temecula and the drive was terrible because the ranch literally was in the middle of nowhere. We were called the Hidden Valley Ranch girls by the people there; it was absolutely humiliating to go out anywhere. Depending on how new you were to the ranch or how bad you acted you had to stay no more than 2 arms lengths away from an adult, can you imagine how difficult that became at certain places? There some other activities that we got to do that were quite fun despite the situation, we went to another ranch and were taught vaulting with a horse. We saw a Cirque Du Soleil show that involved horses- Cavalia.

We did go to school for a set amount of hours during the day and we were all told that it was accredited. Well, when I came back to the real world I found out that it was not and had lost almost a whole school years worth of work. I was a junior in high school, but I had to work twice as hard to make up for those lost credits. We read the bible a lot- 3 times a day to be exact. When you woke up after you did chores and then got ready you read for an hour. We also read when we first got into the school room and then again at night before bed by ourselves. We had to cook our own meals and clean up after ourselves. We had work hours which were pretty much extra chores like cleaning up the horse pens if you misbehaved. We would get a trailer or truck full of food once a week, that I’m guessing came from one grocery store or a few and it was the reject stuff. We would sort through it and take out what we wanted and the box up everything else and sale it. They took away any personal belongings that you came with and locked them away for example when I came, I came with very little but I had a yearbook, medication that was supposed to help level my moods and various other things. My yearbook was gone through and censored, yes censored. Anything that they felt was inappropriate was blacked out with a marker, I still have the yearbook and there is barely anything to read in the thing. The medication was taken away from me and I was not allowed to take it, they believed that medication was unnecessary and against their religion-Christian. And it’s but at the time what bothered me about them taking away the meds were that they were taking yet something else that was mine that I felt I had rights too, I could care less that I wouldn’t be able to take the meds, I felt like a zombie on them anyway. Unfortunately, I quickly became a very angry person that didn’t know how to control my anger and soon I was screaming at everyone uncontrollably, throwing things at walls and people, putting holes in the walls and doors, at one point my anger was so intense that I was laying on my bed thoroughly upset at something and I started to hit my head up against the wall, until I couldn’t do it anymore. I also cut myself while I was there, it was amazing how easy it was to hide and get away with.

The ranch did not give me one tool to help me learn or cope with my emotions. I didn’t learn why drugs or alcohol was bad. If anything one bad habit was taken away only to be replaced so quickly with something else, like anger and food. I came to the ranch sometime when it was warm, I do not remember the month of course and I remember leaving for Easter break and never coming back thanks to the allegations. I refused to speak to my father (who was the reason I was there) up until my last month there, and the only reason I did speak to him is because he said that I would leave. Neither he nor I knew that it would be that soon. Now I know that I may sound like a spoiled brat or typical troubled teen that blames her own problems on other people, but I am very honest and very realistic about things. I do not sugar coat and I certainly accept when blame is mine. My father was a drug from the high school and still is actually, he beat me whenever he was clean. I was on a downward spiral and I was going fast. I was cutting myself a lot then, I was using drugs and drinking a lot and I didn’t use pot, it was pills and crack and anything else I could get my hands on, the same with the alcohol, it was usually straight vodka because it was easy to get and clear. I was very promiscuous and in general didn’t care about my life. My father certainly didn’t seem to care about his life or mine so why should I? I called the police on him and CPS many times during my childhood, the police couldn’t do anything because he usually had consumed all the coke by the time they came and then hey no evidence; CPS wouldn’t do anything because there was a roof over my head and the place wasn’t infested with rodents. The events that lead directly up to me going to the ranch are something that I will never forget, although I wish I could. I was 15 a sophomore in high school and one day I was outside my apartment sitting on the curb hanging out with some friends. My father came home and was mad that I was outside even though I asked him if I could be outside, he told me to go inside. He grabbed his belt and beat me until my rear had bloody welts and puss welts. My downstairs neighbors heard me crying and screaming and called the police. When the police came, my father said that he was just taking care of a bratty child. The police came and spoke to me and I broke down completely, I showed them my arm where I had cut the word “DIE” into it from my wrist to my middle of my forearm. I begged them to take me out of there and take me anywhere else because I was going to kill myself soon if this stuff didn’t stop. The police were completely unaware of the beating I had just gotten and did not know about my rear. The police officers went and spoke to my father more and I heard him just saying that I was spoiled and starved for attention, the police officers and father thought it would be a good idea to teach me a lesson, so I was handcuffed, arrested and admitted into a hospital where I had pictures taken of my rear for proof. I spent the night there where I was later evaluated by a psychiatrist and my grandmother also came to see me in that condition. Everyone kept asking me what happened and when I told them, I was told that I was a liar, by everyone. I was later admitted into the mental hospital where I stayed for two weeks and was put on the medication because the psychiatrist there said I had about 6 different mental issues. I really was starting to believe I was the crazy one and at one point my father told me that I was so crazy that he could have me locked up forever in a straight jacket. The other option was to go to the ranch. Now like I said earlier the ranch didn’t teach me anything about how to deal with my family or life in general and a lot of what I was going through was normal stuff but intensified by other factors. I believe that maybe if someone would have showed me that I wasn’t crazy but I was just trying to deal with my life in the only way I knew how then maybe things would have gone a little more smoothly. When I left the ranch I still really hadn’t learned from the past and I still continued to use drugs, drink, be promiscuous and hurt myself. I eventually came to a point where most people come to where they learn to grow up. I needed to learn that I am the only person that can change me.

I am certain that I would not be here if it wasn’t for the ranch though, but the only reason I believe that is because it was a change in scenery-nothing more. I truly hope that the other girls have found their way in life. Every day I think about the path that I took to get where I am and hope they are as fortunate as I am. So that is a little bit of my story and some of what happened at the ranch. If I remember more I will be sure to add more. I am also looking for a photo album that was given to me while I was there, when I find it I will scan some pictures and put a link up of them. If anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask or email me. I have no problem talking about my past, in some ways it helps to get it out. I keep hoping that I will start to remember more of what happened in my childhood but who knows.


Sources:

• Abuse Allegations Re-Surface at California Faith-Based School (The original statement found on Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
• 66. Gentle Spirit Ranch (1000 places You don't want to be as a teenager - blog)
• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Movie: Just The Right Amount Of Violence

The movie directed by Danish Jon Bang Carlsen provides us with a rare insight in the modern lives of idyllic, peaceful middle-class existence families.

We are shown how real-life transport firms works. The drama which in the future will result in trauma and broken child-parent relationships.

Source:
Just the Right Amount of Violence (Internet Movie Database)

greenpea at CEDU High School (From:HEAL-online)

This testimony was made on the survivor message board belonging to the human rights organization HEAL-online. All rights belongs to the original author.

I went to Cedu High School which is owned by the Brown schools.

Most of it is a blur, but I do remember that I experienced a lot of terror. Since my experience there I have nightmares every night involving the school in some way, and wake up with anxiety accompanied by sweats and a fast heart rate.

I recall that while I was at the school I was on a heavy sedative called Remeron for depression, anxiety, and a sleep disorder. It was prescribed to me by a psychiatrist before I went to Cedu, and it made it almost impossible for me to get out of bed in the morning. Our dorms had no air conditioning, even though all of our parents were paying $10,000 a month for us to be there.

The only way they dealt with us was through discipline and scare tactics. I had fallen asleep without a shirt on one night because it was so hot in our dorms. Before the alarms went off to wake us up, one of the upper class students came into my room and pulled the covers off me. She yelled at me "get the f*ck out of bed!" She pulled me out of my bed and threw me in the bathroom and told me to do my morning chores. I did so, in a half asleep state because of my medication, without a shirt on until the girl gave me permission to get dressed. She had been given free reign to do this to me by a counselor, and she did without supervision. This type of humiliation was normal, and went unnoticed.

The fact that I was on a sedating drug wasn't taken into account. The brilliance of their methods was that they turned the other students against you, and promoted their (other students') mean spiritedness to get across the school's message.

When I was caught for kissing a boy later, I was told that I was a "sexual predator" and put on a restriction where there was no singing, smiling, laughing, touching, or talking. It was called a "full time". They pulled me out of my schooling and put me on a "stump". This meant that I was left in the middle of nowhere with a shovel and a small saw to dig a tree stump out of the ground.

There was no staff around to make sure I was alright, and I was forbidden to talk to anyone. Like I said before, no singing, smiling, laughing, touching or talking. The phrase was spoken to me so many times I still have it memorized, 6 years later. This was in the 100 degree weather. I had to wear steal toed work boots, jeans, and a collared shirt. At night time I ate alone and had to write in a restriction booklet.

They would give me assignments and pushed "issues". If your mother was dead, they'd make you write about that. If you had a mental illness they'd make you write about that. For me, considering that I was a christian, they made me write about "how I hide behind God". You couldn't say "I don't hide behind God" or anything like that. You had to submit to the idea given, or you would never get off your full time.

They challenged me on everything. After dinner I was assigned "pots and Pans", which meant I had to scrub the pots and pans that the cooks used to make the entire school's meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By myself I did this, for about a month.

Eventually I was pulled out of the program early by my parents, but the most sickening part about it is that they don't want to talk about it. It took me until this year (6 years) to get them to listen to what they had put me through. Leaving Cedu was terrible. I feel like I left a piece of myself there.

Their policy was to break down the student and then build them back with discipline. But my experience was cut short, and I only progressed through the breaking down process. I left Cedu feeling like I was a nothing. I was unable to make friends and relate to the people at my school.

My parents put me back into public schooling the next day. I remain bitter about the whole thing. The moral of the story is to not send your kids to these places.

Sources:

• Link to the original testimony on the message board belonging to HEAL-online
• Factsheet about CEDU (Fornits Wiki)

Book: Reform at Victory

We were happy to learn that the school that once was named Victory Christian Academy and housed the now deceased author Michele Ulriksen is closing. For many too late. For decades this school and the people behind it had made life miserable for the girls who happened to be captured inside it.

The book "Reform at Victory" is the story about how the author lived through the difficult years when she was forced to live locked up on the campus of the school.

The school was placed in California until an accident killed one of the girls and the authorities forbade the management from ever running a school in California again. They moved to Florida where religious school could do whatever they liked until the free and independent press decided to investigate the boarding school business in Florida and found evilness which forced the authorities into action. Being put under pressure the management decided to close their school before they could be forced to do it.

Sadly Michele Ulriksen is no longer among us. The past she the school gave her was a heavy luggage to carry through life despite her actions to write it down and put it on paper.

She would have been happy to learn that the school is closing. We can only hope that she is happy where she is now.


Sources:

• Reform at Victory (Homepage of the book)
• Michele Ulriksen (Red room)
• Christian girls' reform home closes after Times investigation (Tampa Bay Times)

Book: Lake Convict

The book covers a dark chapter in the area. Years ago a terrible accident happened when teenagers fell through the ice. Several people came to their rescue and some of them lost their lives as well.

The teenagers came from a camp where they excelled in behavior modification. It is not known how the employees were trained. The court system secured an agreement with the owners that they never would establish a program in the state again.

The owners started a new program in another state and it only took a few years before a teenager was discovered on his own at sea while he was trying to escape the program.

The book focuses on the impact the tragedy had on the local community.

It also questions why many programs like Camp O'Neal to this very day continues to hire employees with no or very little training. A terrible accident happened in 2010 in Utah. Two teenagers were killed in a traffic accident. The driver was no professionel driver. In 2011 a poor driver with many fines on his record managed to kill another teenager in Florida.

Maybe it is all about profit. We don't know how much the care of the teenagers in their care count in their mind but it seems that the teenagers are looked upon as a necessary burden - a cost needed to run the business.

For more information about this book please visit the home using the link below:

Sources:

• Homepage of the publisher
• Book on Convict Lake drowning accident both heals, hurts (Mammoth Times)

Heather Harding at CEDU (From:Youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Heather Harding, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org

My name is Heather Harding and I give full permission to use my statement.

Cedu Survivor June 1989- Dec 1991

I attended CEDU school in Running Springs, California from June 26, 1989 until December 7, 1991. I was 14 years old when I arrived and graduated the program 3 days after my 17th birthday.

On the morning of June 26, 1989 I was abruptly awoken by a bounty hunter standing over my bed and telling me to get moving. He was recommended by the school and/or the educational consultant that handled my case. I arrived to the campus, was toured, and then taken to the administration building to say goodbye to my father and supposedly sign away my rights to tell anyone outside what happened inside. Legal action was threatened regularly if ANY information was divulged to the outside or people inside that had not gone through the experience yet. I was too young to know that this was illegal.

The Program:

The program consisted of seven 24 hour emotional growth based "propheets", one 3 day workshop, one 6 day workshop, three wilderness trips (a 3 day, 5 day and 14 day trip), 30-36 hours of physical labor (work crews) per week and 12 hours of "group" therapy (raps) per week.
The basic layout went as follows: (meals excluded for simplicity)

• Monday Wednesday, Friday: You would have 4 hours of work crews in the morning and a 4 hour rap in the afternoon.
• Tuesday, Thursday: You would have work crews for 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon.
• Saturday: Saturday work crews where the entire campus would be cleaned top to bottom for 4-6 hours
• Sunday: 2-4 hours of cleaning with free time in the afternoon

Work crews changed every 6 months. The first six months you would chop wood with a cross cut saw and sledge and wedge. The second six months you would work on the farm taking care of the animals. The third six months you would maintain and add to an upper and lower ropes course. The last year of the program you would do miscellaneous chores. This was supposed to be the major time for classwork, yet I only attended one class during that entire time which was about an hour long and we talked about PeeWee Herman getting caught in an adult theatre.

Every evening after dinner there was "free time" called floor time where people would share personal stories and "smoosh". If you had been in trouble you would also fulfill your punishment at this time called dinner dishes.

Dinner Dishes: You are assigned an area to clean by an upper school student after dinner (pot and pans, upper level, lower lever, etc.) Bans were enforced where you could not acknowledge any other person, could not smile, be touched, talk, sing and could only be speak if spoken to by an approved peer or staff. The detail usually lasted 1-2 hours with Deep meaningful conversations or personal beration for whatever you did to get into trouble. This was the lightest punishment anyone would receive, usually for leaving your snow boots in the closet overnight or something similar. It was also mandatory during harsher punishments like a Table or Full Time.

Table and Full Times: This was a harsher punishment for breaking an agreement on accident or deliberately. It consisted of your regular rap cycle Monday, Wednesday and Friday. During your regular work crew times you would be doing "work assignments" or "work details". These consisted of hard labor that usually had no real purpose. Many people would work at digging a hole that is 6 feet deep just to fill it back up. The point is to see how "You dig holes in your life" or "run yourself into the ground". During any other free time you were restricted to sit at a table in the dining room with a hard wooden bench and would have to work on writing assignments which were usually harsh and defamatory. You were on a ban from the entire school except approved upper school students and faculty. You were not allowed to be touched, smile, sing, laugh and could only speak when spoken to. You were escorted everywhere by the upper school student who was running your table. Tables could last several weeks. Full Times were longer tables that could last between 1 and 3 months. People on tables were an easy target in raps and usually suffered extreme defamation and verbal abuse at the hands of their peers and faculty. If you tried to run away from the school a Full Time was an absolute once the police or bounty hunter picked you up and brought you back. If you refused and continued to not participate the school would recommend a 21 day.

21 day: Many kids were taken from the school and put on a 21 day in an attempt to get them to cooperate. It is a harsh wilderness experience ran by an affiliated program like Ascent or Outward Bounds. I did not experience one so I will not make a personal comment, but if you did not succeed at the 21 day and come back the CEDU, Provo Canyon in Utah was usually suggested by the school to your parents. I knew many many kids that went on 21 days, one in particular that did 3 consecutive 21 days... (a 63 day)

Propheets: There were seven 24 hour propheets based off of chapters in Kahlil Gibrans book "The Prophet" They propheets get their name because we were "learning to put feet under the prophet" Supposedly learning "tools" that would later help us succeed in life.

Here is list of the propheets in order through the program

• The Truth
• The Childrens
• The Brothers
• The Dreams
• The I want to live
• The Values
• The Imagine

The basic outline of propheets were the same during the 24 hour period, but the intensity and harshness increased with each one. Basic outline: Your "peer group" enters a secluded building away from the rest of the school at around 5pm. All the windows are covered so you never know what time it is. The kids would sit in a semi-circle of hard chairs with one of more faculty at the front in plush arm chairs. Dirt lists are written and disclosure circles start. A few emotional growth based exercises and bio-energetic exercises are done with the attempt to weaken you. These exercises are usually harsh in nature and the faculty will take personal experiences from you and berate you with them. (example: If you were molested by an uncle... they would yell something around the lines "Yeah, you deserved it didnt' you..... You asked for it because you are a whore". Most were physical and emotionally humiliating. A certain song designed for each propheet would be played repeatedly for hours on end. Around 2 or 3am, a rap is started. You would only be allowed to wear a short sleeve shirt, sweatpants and socks. The room was kept at around 50 degrees all night and faculty would come up behind you and slap their hands really loud if you were to fall asleep and make you stand behind your chair. This rap would end around 6 or 7 am where you would have some meaningless uplifting exercise, eat a small breakfast and take a nap for 1 hour or so. The rest of the propheet (about 6 hours or so) was designed to "build you back up". The next day exercises were usually soft in nature. Unfortunately, the emotional trauma, physical exhaustion, and malnourishment would defeat any feel good moment. You would exit the propheet around 5pm the next day and re-introduce yourself to the school and share your newfound personal wisdom.

The Workshops were similar with harsher exercises and lasted 3 days or 6 days. These experiences were pinnacles in the program. You would get your next set of issues to deal with in each propheet and expand on prior propheets.

In my 3 day workshop they made me lay on the ground, bite on a towel while keeping my head on the ground and pull up as hard as I can while they played the rocky theme song several times. My meniscus disc in my jaw joint was displaced anteriorly and posteriorly. They would not let me see a doctor for several months until my parents demanded it. Scar tissue developed on the joint making it difficult to do the surgery and the doctor hit a main nerve and half of my face was paralyzed for almost 3 months. During this time the school only allowed me 2 eye drops per day.

The belief was that I really didn't have a physical injury. They told me to "take care of my feelings" and everything would be ok. My physical wellness was neglected for almost 5-6 months. I have had 2 other surgeries for this injury after leaving CEDU.

This is only the tip of the iceberg that was CEDU school. This is only an outline of a few key ingredients. Day to day you were berated and I personally lived in fear of doing anything because any faculty at any time could make it "out of agreement". An example: I used to yelled at for having curly hair (which I was born with!?!?!) One faculty decided that if my hair was curly I was "off"... if I was "off" I had done something out of agreement. I would be a sitting duck in raps for all the school to attack. Punishments were typically ludacris and irrational. I was put on a table just before I graduated only because I had not been on a table yet. The staff also liked to put you in lose lose situations that would end in work details or worse.

17 years have passed since I graduated from this program. I left with no high school education and started college at an 8th grade level. I did receive my high school diploma somehow from CEDU which boggles my mind. I was later told that the state had approved the program and that I got math units for chopping wood and english credits for floor time. This is ludacris! My parents paid an extremely expensive tuition for me to be physically and emotionally abused while doing free labor. And the worst part, to this day they don't know what I actually went through while I was there. I wasn't allowed to tell them while I was there and now, they just don't want to hear it. I am just coming to terms with what happened at CEDU.

Again, My name is Heather Harding and I give full permission to use my statement.

CEDU war a large organization and very much founded the term "Therapeutic Boarding School". The first CEDU school was opened around 1968 and all the school closed in 2005 due to some lawsuits.

References:
Datasheet about the boarding schools from the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on Youthrights

JYA survivor, mother - about Julian Youth Academy

The testimony below was published in LA Times on November 6, 2008. All rights belong to the author:

I am a survivor of a faith-based residential treatment center called Julian Youth Academy, located in the mountains of San Diego, CA. Although the extent of my abuse was psychological and emotional, I consider the damage to me as harmful as any other form of abuse, such as physical abuse. Broken bones may heal in 6-8 weeks, but hearts sometimes never heal.

My goal has been to legally support the regulation of private institutions. I want private institutions that house children (minors) to be held accountable to the same basic civil laws that public institutions are, such as access to advocacy. There lies a problem with regulation and accountability in private institutions.

The scars that “programs” inflict are not seen on the outside or on one's skin. They go much deeper. With respect to what daughters and children go through at home and in life--I believe that those experiences are necessary in order to reach maturity, which is the ability for a young adult to make decisions on their own. I believe that programs not only prolong this important part of social development, but that they cause sometimes irreversible damage to a person with the isolation and lack of trust or belief which programs like Julian Youth Academy’s staff encourages: thinks is "helping."

I believe children should be seen, heard, and most importantly, believed.

Here is the exact truth about my personal experience. Nothing is falsified or exaggerated. I am a real person who feels obligated to share my experience in effort to expose the truth about this program. I support Senator Miller’s bill H.R. 6358, Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008.

My Testimony:

At 14 years old, I was awakened on a cold August morning at 5am to strangers who forced me to either dress in front of them or remain in the scant pajamas I was in. I chose the latter for obvious privacy reasons. I was not granted permission to use the restroom, or any other personal hygiene habits before what I was told would be "a long trip." My younger brother was asleep, and I would not get to see, write to, or talk to him until a year later. My older sister, I will never forget, stared into my eyes with such sadness and intensity that I was stricken to muteness and shock for the entirety of the 6 hour car ride to Julian, CA. I knew not that I would also not have contact with her, nor family other than my mother and father, for about a year.

As the escorts asked me if I knew or wanted to know where they were taking me, I remained in shock and was unable to speak or express needs to these strangers.

Upon arrival, I remained in “intake” status for almost nine hours, refusing to dress and demanding that I should get one phone call, “Even criminals get a phone call.” I was not a criminal, nor was I ever involved in using drugs or alcohol, promiscuity, or otherwise physically harmful behavior. I was a victim of a statutory rape crime, and the perpetrator is now walking the streets! Due to the emotional trauma that caused and the abandonment I felt from my parents not seeking understanding from me, retrospectively I hold to the fact that I “rebelled” as mildly as any “normal,” healthy teenager would.

During my imprisonment at Julian Youth Academy (aka JYA), which was a period of fifteen months and sixteen days, I was treated like property through lack of sympathy, lack of care for emotional needs, lack of care for health needs, constant disbelief from staff and directors and punishment for expressing my human and health needs, lack of anyone to trust, zero advocacy, and lack of experienced and trained staff.

When taken down from 4,000 ft elevation to 3,000 ft to attend mandatory church services every Sunday for fifteen plus months, I would suffer from debilitating and extremely painful migraines. The first two Sundays, I was given no more than 400mg of Tylenol each instance, which was 200-400mg less than the recommended dosage for my weight and age at the time. The third time I was suffering from these migraines, I was denied medicinal relief of any kind, was told I was manipulating staff for merely requesting medicine, and was verbally forced to stop crying or making any noises or movements in attempts to relieve or take my mind off the excruciating pain. I was never granted medicinal relief for the remaining fifteen months, and was forced to suffer in silence with the threat of punishment if I ever asked for medicine for my headaches again. I know that had I had access to an object that could puncture, I surely would have punctured my brain just to relieve the blood from my head. Seeing and reading about the sufferings and numerous deaths of children under the “care” of treatment facilities, my suffering seems humble, but valid nonetheless.

The other regulation I’d like to emphasize is the need for one or more neutral, medically or otherwise qualified third-party evaluation(s) prior to admittance of a child (US resident under the age of 18) into a residential or non-residential private treatment center. The reasoning behind this is that parents do not always know how to approach their children when a problem is suspected or have the courage or rapport with their children to do so anyway. A neutral and qualified third party evaluation can significantly bridge the gap of communication between parent and child, and can positively influence the parents’ ultimate decision to be an appropriate one.

I have forgotten, by choice and through determination of self, a lot of what happened at JYA. Happenings were not easy to push out of my mind, and it took years to do so. I do remember as clearly as it was at the time, the cloud of fogginess in my head and in my heart following leaving the program. My brain had fully disassociated with true reality because of the false reality that took place within the walls of the program. I was lost. It would be years before I could be alone in a room or even a public place without having a panic attack. I also suffered from panic attacks when in environments that shouldn't have been socially overwhelming, like a baseball game or the city college. I had to start from scratch, as if the program literally re-programmed me (Its no wonder why they call it that) and none of my software was in yet. I walked like a zombie, not knowing what windows to open to get where I needed or wanted to go. Its like they erased all my drivers (for those of you who don't know about computers, those are what run each program). So I knew where I wanted to go, but was emotionally, mentally, physically unable to connect where I was to where I needed to be. I was always an A student before the program, now I was finding it difficult to take regular college classes that would have been a breeze for me if I hadn't been "dumbed-down" by the lack of trained professionals present at the "school." 90% of my school-related questions (the only questions we were allowed to ask) were unanswerable by the "teachers"--most staff had little more than high school education.

I was emotionally detached. I was unable to feel love for my parents, even when I tried. My younger brother and I grew apart, when previously we were the two playing cars in the dirt together. My sister has always been here for me, and I can truly say that without her love and support, I would not be where I am today. I had much difficulty in relationships, and felt uncomfortable around people in general. Because I was never able to stand up for myself and be assertive in my needs, those needs went unmet in my marriage which of course led to periods of marital separation. I suffered from not only the panic attacks (sometimes total loss of consciousness) I mentioned, but sexual difficulty as well, which had to do with my past abuse (only the statutory rape, no other family or other sexual abuse) but more so the fact that I never received professional help for healing for that trauma.

My physical health covered up the damage inside. I smiled for years after the program while crying on the inside, because that was the only "coping" method I knew how to do. I had carried that same smile for the last 15 and one half months.
These are some conditions of the facility, and some of the rules I can remember:

1. No freedom of speech
2. Calisthenic punishment for minor infractions, such as forgetting water bottle or looking at other student you were not allowed to talk to ("no talk")
3. Forced eating
4. Monitored communication in all forms
   
   • letters were to be handed to staff without closure, to allow for strict monitoring and alteration, up to and including having to re-write as many times as necessary to fit the standard of what was allowed to be written to parents NOTHING "considered "negative" against the program was allowed at any time
   • phone calls were "earned" and only after four months, to parents only, completely monitored, staff would hang up if anything negative about the program was said
   • parent visits on campus were constantly monitored closely by staff (conversations required staff presence), and parents were required to tell staff if daughter spoke negatively in any way about the program.
5. Bathroom resrictions, inadequate facilities during school hours (one double bathroom to 30+ girls), only two girls allowed to use restroom at a time, which was a walk to and from the facility 100 ft away, next buddy group unable to ask until the last group came back. (sometimes we'd have to wait 45 or more minutes to use the restroom)
6. Continuous student cleaning. we did all maintenace of grounds, including chopping trees, which gave me bloody, blistered hands. Raking each and every single leaf of large forest or endure punishment. Extreme cleaning standards. all cleaning done by students. Staff did for a short time upon my arrival, help with cleaning/chores, but then staff was not permitted to help per superior staff.
7. Students were held responsible for other student's failures to follow rules. Low level students were spoken for by higher leveled students. Low level students were not allowed to speak directly to staff unless spoken to or if higher leveled student asked for them to speak with a staff member. Low level students were restricted from speaking to (in any form of communication, including glancing) other students who had not yet attained a certain level of the program.
8. No treatment for individual issues. Speaking about issues were not allowed until staff approved (average length of stay before allowed to speak about issues at home or personal issues: 8-9 months). All students were regarded as manipulative, untrustworthy children (all students were over the age of 13) who deserved no respect and were not regarded as individuals.
9. Forced attendance of church services.
10. I was forced to grate blocks of cheese until I had blisters on my hands.
11. Denied proper medication. Medication not dispensed by licensed or qualified medical personnel.
12. Forced calisthenics in mountainous terrain, hills so inclined and at such high altitudes (4,000 ft) that I was nauseous, dizzy, and felt like I was going to faint (I'm not sure how I didn't). I believe this was part of the mental breakdown prior to and during brainwashing.
13. Not permitted to speak with siblings until a certain level (usually after one year), and only if those siblings supported the program. I never saw my sister, who felt what my parents did to me was wrong, the entire time of being held at the program. I was not allowed to write siblings or grandparents or any other immediate family, only parents.
14. Never permitted to communicate with friends at home.
15. Not allowed to express creativity, such as drawing or musical instruments, until reaching a certain level (usually about 4-6 months after admittance, and only if you attained that level). No "secular" (non-Christian) music, and music was only played in the car in the way to church.
    That's just the tip of the iceberg. Most rules were mild, and punishment did not include physical abuse reported in other programs. What is wrong about this and all other programs in this class is the brainwashing tactic. The mental and verbal abuse and conditioning, and monotonous strict schedule conformed us into thinking that everything was okay, and that we would have died if we hadn't been sent there. The threat which stopped me and probably most others was the fact that we'd get sent to the physically abusive programs if we did not comply.

Girls there are not allowed to talk to each other very much. A girl is on what's called "no talk" (no communication whatsoever, including gestures and eye contact) automatically for the first 4-5 days. She can only tell her "up buddy" (a girl who has been there a certain amount of time and has achieved a certain level in the level system they use) if there's a need to use the restroom, or wants to talk to a staff member. Those first 4-5 days is when you're supposed to observe the rules and are expected to know and follow ALL rules after that time is over.

However, this is really difficult because you cannot talk or be spoken to. right after those first days, you get off "no talk." and are allowed to talk to your own up-buddy (everyone is either an up buddy or a down buddy depending on the level achieved) and she is supposed to tell you all the rules. If you have a bad up buddy (isn't helping you at all) then you won't know the rules and will go punished a lot because you are then expected to know and follow them. Another person's up buddy is not allowed to help another person's down buddy with rules.
The level system goes A-L3. A is the first 4-5 days of no talk. after that, girls go to B automatically. C-J are levels where they receive "privileges" (I would call them rights) back. for instance, you cannot draw pictures until you are on D. you get to use stickers on level C. I can't remember what you get on E. plus these might have changed a bit, and can be revoked at any time for an individual (i.e. if staff thinks you're drawing "too much" at their discretion they will take that "privilege" away without notice or reason.), or for the whole group.

Once they get to level G, girls can talk to all the "down buddies." It's very difficult at first because you're not used to being discerning about who you can or can not talk to. in the real world, obviously you have the ability to choose who you want to talk to. You can also become an up buddy, and usually do at some point if staff thinks you're ready, at level G or H or so. Level F is one 15-20 minute phone call to the parent. They're not allowed to keep a journal until E or F, even then staff reads everything and they can't write friend's names and they can't talk about anything in your past unless it's positive. Things may have changed, but knowing the changes that were made shortly after I left, they must be less lenient.

When I was there, they did not have cameras, just speaker boxes in the corner of each room. Just before I left, they added cameras in each hallway and when I went back for "graduation" there were cameras in the rooms. I do not know if there are cameras in the bathrooms. As the place burned down a couple years ago, everything is new and I'm sure the technology has been updated.

The fact that JYA expects uncompromised, unquestioned dedication and commitment from parents is one of the scariest signs to me and is reflective of many cultist organizations. Personally, I question my doctors, my therapists, and any professionals recommending treatment or solutions for me. I believe it is my right to refuse treatment and my right to know the intentions of those professionals. As far as I know, they do not require parents to seek professional opinions regarding their child's mental, emotional, or physical state prior to acceptance of entry into the program. Programs telling parents "your child will die without us" is another very scary statement, and parents who are vulnerable (of course) and at their last ounce of emotional strength will believe them. I probably would, too, if I didn't know better.

This is where I stand, and I am not a professional but I am a mother. I am currently in an early childhood education class where I am learning a tremendous amount about children and humans as the social beings that we are. Because my parents were supportive and truly wanted the best for me, I believe that would have been enough, in addition to professional therapy, to get me through the non-violent trauma I endured as a teenager. I was a victim of a crime, and being sent away couldn’t have been further from the healing I needed. It was isolation at its worst, when all I needed was hugs, comfort, support no matter what mistakes I made, and unconditional love, especially from my parents and especially at times when I was hurt the most. Not receiving that affection due to being isolated at JYA has affected me in every single area of my life.

Tags for this letter
my perspective:
youth
now a parent who will NEVER pay to send my child to be raised by someone else, that is our responsibility as parents.
concerned citizen
Program types:
therapeutic boarding school
behavior mod program
faith-based program
reasons sent:
family conflict
breaking rules
other issues (psychological trauma, rape)
experience in program:
escort/transport service
medical care
facility conditions
discipline
privacy violations
human rights violations
abuse
suffering
no access to advocates

nomorehurt84 at Julian Youth Academy (From:endinstitutionalabuse)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author nomorehurt84, who posted the original story on End Institutional Abuse.

Thank you for the opportunity to share experiences, and to urgently request the changes so many of us Americans--parents, youth, teachers, health care workers, etc.-- feel is neccesary in order to protect our children.

I claim 'survivor' status from a faith-based residential treatment center called Julian Youth Academy, located in the mountains of San Diego, CA. Although the extent of my abuse was mostly mental and emotional, I consider the damage to me as harmful as any other form of abuse, such as physical abuse. Broken bones may heal in 6-8 weeks, but hearts sometimes never heal.

At 14 years old, I was awakened on a cold August morning at 5am to strangers who forced me to either dress in front of them or remain in the scant pajamas I was in. I chose the latter for obvious privacy reasons. I was not granted permission to use the restroom, or any other personal hygiene habits before what I was told would be "a long trip." My younger brother was asleep, and I would not get to see, write to, or talk to until a year later. My older sister, I will never forget, stared into my eyes with such sadness and intensity that I was stricken to muteness and shock for the entirety of the 6 hour car ride to Julian, CA. I knew not that I would also not have contact with her, nor family other than my mother and father, for about a year.

As the escorts asked me if I knew or wanted to know where they were taking me, I remained in shock and was unable to speak or express needs to these strangers.

Upon arrival, I remained in “intake” status for almost nine hours, refusing to dress and demanding that I should get one phone call, “Even criminals get a phone call.” I was not a criminal, nor was I ever involved in using drugs or alcohol, promiscuity, or otherwise physically harmful behavior. I was a victim of a statutory rape crime, and the perpetrator is now walking the streets! Due to the emotional trauma that caused and the abandonment I felt from my parents not seeking understanding from me, retrospectively I hold to the fact that I “rebelled” as mildly as any “normal,” healthy teenager would.

During my imprisonment at Julian Youth Academy (aka JYA), which was a period of fifteen months and sixteen days (August 1999-December 2000), I was treated like property through lack of sympathy, lack of care for emotional needs, lack of care for health needs, constant disbelief from staff and directors and punishment for expressing my human and health needs, lack of anyone to trust, zero advocacy, and lack of experienced and trained staff.

1. My utmost request to you, honorable members of Congress, is the need for qualified, trained individuals to either BE staff or to hold unqualified and untrained staff accountable according to human and civil rights laws already in place and intended for public or state institution regulations. The private label is a blanket that has cast an ugly shadow on the abuse and neglect that occurs every single day at these treatment facilities. How much more documentation of deaths and injuries and traumatic experiences do you need? How many more children will you allow to be abused? How much more will there be until there’s ‘enough’?
   
   When taken down from 4,000 ft elevation to 3,000 ft to attend mandatory church services every Sunday for fifteen plus months, I would suffer from debilitating and extremely painful migraines. The first two Sundays, I was given no more than 400mg of Tylenol each instance, which was 200-400mg less than the recommended dosage for my weight and age at the time. The third time I was suffering from these migraines, I was denied medicinal relief of any kind, was told I was manipulating staff for merely requesting medicine, and was verbally forced to stop crying or making any noises or movements in attempts to relieve or take my mind off the excruciating pain. I was never granted medicinal relief for the remaining fifteen months, and was forced to suffer in silence with the threat of punishment if I ever asked for medicine for my headaches again. I know that had I had access to an object that could puncture, I surely would have punctured my brain just to relieve the blood from my head. Seeing and reading about the sufferings and numerous deaths of children under the “care” of treatment facilities, my suffering seems humble, but valid nonetheless.
2. The other regulation I’d like to emphasize is the need for one or more neutral, medically or otherwise qualified third-party evaluation(s) prior to admittance of a child (US resident under the age of 18) into a residential or non-residential private treatment center. The reasoning behind this is that parents do not always know how to approach their children when a problem is suspected or have the courage or rapport with their children to do so anyway. A neutral and qualified third party evaluation can significantly bridge the gap of communication between parent and child, and can positively influence the parents’ ultimate decision to be an appropriate one.

I believe that, based on my experience and communication post-treatment with my parents, residential treatment centers deceive and take advantage of parents who feel hopeless and without choice, who feel they have no other options other than admitting their child(ren), who are vulnerable emotionally, who are physically spent from researching treatment for their child(ren), and who are easily persuaded into the false reality that their child will only benefit from what the program has to offer. In addition to that is the corruption of referral kickbacks, which should be just as unlawful as financial kickbacks between physicians and supplies/drugs in the medical field. So why is this being overlooked?

Residential and non-residential private treatments centers need to be held accountable to human and civil rights laws just as any other treatment facility, regardless of internal policies or practices, because our children are dying and suffering. And we only know about the situations that have been publicized.

Our children are our future. One day they’ll be in your shoes, trying to make the world who spit them out a better place.

Thank you for your time and concern.


References:

Datasheet about the boarding school at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora

The original statement

Laura DuPuy Weeks at CEDU (From:youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Laura DuPuy Weeks, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org

CEDU Survivor. October 1989-May 1992

Hi My name is Laura DuPuy Weeks. I give full permission for my statement to be used. Let me start by thanking the people who are doing this. I have thought of this often. My friends and I have just recently made a documentary on CEDU with everyone telling there stories. Our hope is to raise awareness about therapeutic treatment facilities and to maybe, just maybe give some rights to adolescences and offer some protection, to break this horrible trend.

I was sent to CEDU October 4th 1989. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was 14 years old and I was tricked into going there by an educational consultant and my parents. I had behavioral problems growing up, a lot dealing with adoption. I also had a history of alcohol and drug abuse. But it was the "oppositional defiance disorder" that sent me there. Basically a label thrown on me however I do not remember seeing a doctor to receive this label. I was experimenting with alcohol and weed. I snuck out of the house, fought with my parents and was an average student at school. I hung around with the troublemakers, all though it seemed that it was I that was the trouble maker, mostly do to the fact that I was always grounded and never allowed to do anything. So that is the behavior that landed me that label. Let me also include that I am from North Carolina. I was sent to the top of a mountain in California.

The program at CEDU was 2 1/2 years. I never got to say goodbye to anyone. I didn't come home for a visit till almost 2 years later. I was not allowed to speak with or correspond with siblings or grandparents for the first 9 months. I spoke on a monitored phone call to my parents every 2 weeks. My mail was read before it was sent and before I received it.

I felt completely abandoned...again. The program was based on one mans idea turned philosophy, to be implicated not by a highly trained therapist or doctor, but by other recovering addicts and criminals most of whom had no education in working with children. These so called faculty verbal, emotionally and mentally abused us repeatedly. They climbed inside our heads, used our horrible thoughts and issues against us in front of our peers. Convinced us all that obviously we were not wanted by our families and that this was the last stop. I remember specifically being told many times that we had no rights and that our parents signed them over to the school.

Three days a week were divided into groups and sent to sit in a circle and have these "raps" Basically being screamed at by the faculty and then your peers at how much your a loser, slut, whore, mistake and so on. Until you broke down and cried. I was 14.. I had not lost my virginity yet. They also had emotional growth experiences where we had 7 different ones that lasted 24 hours. They kept us up all night screaming and yelling at us telling us awful things until we all finally broke. They made us do bizarre things and humiliated us in front of our peers.

I ran away 7 times. Again I am from North Carolina. I didn't know where I was going and I did not care as long as I wasn't there anymore. I hitched hiked with strangers, wandered the woods and hung in the shadows. I always got picked up by the cops. Once I refused to go back there and told them to send me to Juvenal Hall. I sat there for three days. Once brought back I was not a loud to speak unless spoken to. I=No laughing, no smiling, no singing, and I could not be touched or touch. Only a few people were a loud to speak to me. I did work and dish detail, as well as sit at a table in the dinning room, for all to see, but they had to pretend like I didn't exist. The longest I sat at one was for 28 days.

There is so much more to say that it could be put in a book. There was no doctor or nurse during the time I was there. No licensed therapist. There were children there that needed far greater attention and could have benefited from some medication, that was not allowed. We had no contact with the outside world. Education there was a joke. I left there at 17. My education was the same as when I went in. At a 9th grade level. Somehow the school got strange things approved for education. For example, chopping and crosscutting wood was science. Tending a farm was for something else. We only had one real teacher there and she was part time. We did a lot of craft stuff as classes too. So when I started college. It took me over 2 years to catch up to a freshman level at college.

The lack of education is not what scarred me, it was the rest of the awful experience that did. I have struggled for the past 17 years with that school. I have been diagnosed with PTSD form the school. I have had night terrors ever since I left. Mostly about being sent back. Waking up in utter terror sweats and so on. I have literally run away from the emotional scarring by moving all the time, problems with drugs, anger,pain and confusion. It was not until last year that I was able to get some help and deal with the things that happened to me there at that school.

Again I give my permission for you to use my statement. If there is any further information I can give ( because I have tons of it)please don't hesitate to contact me. thank you for your time,

Laura ldupuy1

CEDU war a large organization and very much founded the term "Therapeutic Boarding School". The first CEDU school was opened around 1968 and all the school closed in 2005 due to some lawsuits.

References:
Datasheet about the boarding schools from the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on Youthrights

Alia Michelle Weiner at CEDU school (From: Youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Alia Michelle Weiner, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org

I was sent to CEDU school when I was 14 years old. The trauma that I experienced there sent me into a state of complete isolation from which I have only just begun to emerge from recently, being jarred out of my denial when my Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor February of 2007.

I have spent the past 15 years believing that I was defective, that I was a sexual pervert, that my parents thought this and were too afraid of being judged to address it openly, and that no matter what I did I was never going to be able to have a healthy sexual relationship. I was celibate for 6 years and cloistered myself in the Christian church for 10 years to try to prove to my parents that I was not this horrific thing that they thought I was, but could not speak to me about.

Then, last year, when I was under so much stress that I allowed myself to speak with my parents about these thoughts, they were shocked. It turned out they had no idea about the 5 hour long screaming sessions we were put through at CEDU, or the all night 'propheets' we were subjected to. They had no idea that they were teaching me that self hatred, humiliation and shame were the way to 'salvation' and they never would have allowed me to be there if they had.

As soon as we got there, though, our communication with our parents, family and friends was completely shut off. They monitored our phone calls and read our outgoing mail, and because they benefited the community financially, all police and local business turned their heads and closed their ears to any stories they may have heard from the teens who were sent there, dismissed by the community as drug addicts and losers.

And so society had branded us, and so we branded ourselves, and punished ourselves for the crimes we had committed, in my case, being interested in sex at 14, in others' cases, having eating disorders, not playing along with our families usually dysfunctional habits. My father was a good man, but he had no talent for intimacy and not much more for understanding others, but he loved me. They preyed on him because he did not know himself well enough to see through their distorted and exaggerated ideas, and it cost me my entire life with my father.

My parents sent me there because they feared for my safety, and they told my parents that they were creating a stress free environment for us, pampering us, nurturing us in ways that they, with their stress filled city lives, could never provide. They told my parents that they had failed me, that they were bad parents, and that I needed real help now to repair the damage they had done.

My parents were not perfect, but they loved me, and they are to this day some of the best people I know. And so I learned the lessons CEDU taught me, learned that no one cared about me, learned that hatred of myself was the only way I would ever avoid being destructive, isolated myself and kept myself from people while inside trying to find a way to prove my worth. I got a BA in Business from Pepperdine, but still could not see myself as accomplished. Spent 6 years celibate and 4 years married but still could not see myself as virtuous. Worked as hard as I could to solve every one around me's problems, but still could not see myself as having worth, let alone consider that my own problems might need solving.

I see a therapist twice a week now to try and undue some of the damage they did to me. She makes me feel good because she reacts with shock and care when I tell her the things that happened to me there, like being read my own epitaph or labeling myself slut in front of all my peers, or pounding pillows that I was instructed to picture my parents' faces on, and my own. She doesn't react the way I react internally to my own memories, the way I react is how they trained me to react, pitiless, merciless, and ever placing blame on myself.

I don't know how to give adequate testimony in text form as to the kinds of destruction they enacted upon my young and vulnerable mind. I am a smart person, gifted, high IQ, and so I was smart enough to shut out as much of what they did to me as I was able to, but being smart doesn't protect you from this kind of brainwashing because they play on your emotions and they destroy your sense of self. No thought, no idea, no impulse was acceptable in this environment without somehow referencing the cultish, empty philosophies they pretended to espouse there. We were told to be honest while they lied to our parents. We were told to have integrity while they called us losers and junkies who would never succeed. We were told to have compassion while they provoked us into sobbing, hysterical messes 3 times a week. We were told to persevere while they drained our parents' bank accounts.

They said they were making us strong when really they were making us crazy, and no one has been held accountable, no one has even taken a counting of the damage that has been done. They told us all this was our parents' fault, they even scoffed at our parents at how flippantly they gave up their children, saying things like, 'If they really loved you, they never would have sent you to a place like this, would they?'

As far as real physical evidence of their abuse, I ran away once while I was there and was raped. My rape was neither addressed nor viewed as any different than any other sexual deviance that I had enacted. It went right up there on the list of evidence that I was a 'slut'. I pretty much just kept my head down in that place, as best as I could, but no matter how hard I tried, they still got in my head and convinced me of my worthlessness. This is why I feel more raped by this school than I do by the man who actually raped me when I ran away from there and hitchhiked all they way from San Bernadino to the Hollywood Hills at 15 just to avoid going into the next propheet, or being on my 'full-time' punishment where I was not allowed to sing, smile, laugh or be touched by another person. They revoked the 'priviledge' of touch. This alone causes psychological illness, and to do this to teens is truly cruel and unusual punishment.

As for being defined as a school? I fell behind in all my studies being there. There was no adequate education: staff member's spouses and whoever they could get to stick around in their crazy program was all we got to teach us, largely because they made the staff go through raps and propheets just like the teens, so we all got put through the self hatred machine and went along with the program or we got the boot (fired if you were staff, full time if you were a student)

And the deepest tragedy is that this self hatred kept me in fear of speaking my true mind to anyone, especially not my parents, and so I have gone all this time with little real guidance or sense of my own life. I feel robbed and raped by these people, and although they owe me the very life of my father, who died too soon for me to explain in full to him why I had been so distant for so long, all I want is that nothing like this ever be allowed to be done to any other family.

CEDU war a large organization and very much founded the term "Therapeutic Boarding School". The first CEDU school was opened around 1968 and all the school closed in 2005 due to some lawsuits.

References:
Datasheet about the boarding schools from the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on Youthrights