Q/A about living in an ordinar religious boarding school

This Q & A statement was seen on the homepage NHYM alumni. All rights belongs to the original person answering the questions.

• What is your name?
  Deirdre Sugiuchi
• To which institutions were you sent?
  Escuela Caribe Jan 1990 - Jun 1991
  Canada 1991
  Marion fall 1991
• How old were you?
  15-17
• When were you enrolled in The Program?
  January 4th, 1990 - Dec 1991
• What was the highest level you attained?
  4th with weeks towards 5th
Please describe the circumstances that got you sent to The Program:
• In which house(s) did you live?
  DR: TKB
  Marion: Herrick
• Please describe instances of abuse you experienced while in the program, if any:
  I entered the program compliantly because I thought it was a Christian boarding school. That impression was reversed my second night when my housefather (HF) made me perform exercises for hours. According to him, I had "an authority problem" at home. He made me do bear crawls, pushups and duck walks. He had me hold my arms out balancing books until I cried from pain. Such interrogations are typically used to brainwash individuals.
  - When I entered the program I was very sick with an ear infection and strep throat. The staff ignored my illness. Later they said it was because they did not know if I was faking. I had to do the daily drills, and make it up the casita with my 6'4 (?) HF outrunning all of us girls. As a “low-ranker” I had to stay within an arms-length of him. On my first free day, I couldn't keep up with him (I am 5'4") when we hiked up a mountain, so he gave me push-up support- ten pushups for every five steps that we walked. Everyone else watched me. This continued until the house mother asked for a break. For the record, the supervising group leader did nothing to stop this mistreatment by the housefather.
  When I was depressed it was viewed as something I could control, and my points were routinely slashed because of it. I got low points for “moodiness” when I became withdrawn.
  - I was part of a group punishment session in which my entire house was forced to maintain a push-up position for hours. The house mom couldn't find a spatula. We were blamed for its disappearance. The session ended only when the house mom came in with the spatula, which she had misplaced. It hurt to laugh for days.
  Once I moved up the levels and became a high-ranker, I had more responsibility. Part of this responsibility entailed narc-ing on my peers. Another responsibility was that I had to inspect the low-rankers to make sure their privates were soaped during showers. One girl did not wash herself properly; the housefather said he could smell her. He required all low-rankers to have their soaped privates inspected during showers. This was an edict of a HF who later became assistant director. For the record, all students had a maximum of fifteen minutes to wash, dress, and leave their personal areas in perfect order. Low-rankers usually had much less than 15 minutes. Her hygiene problems most likely resulted from not having enough time to wash.
  The house fathers regulated how much food we ate at meals. My first HF enjoyed assigning a large amount of food to students. Many girls had a problem eating the large portions, not just me. His own wife, who was closer to our size, would eat about half of what he required us girls to eat. Eventually my stomach became accustomed to the portions, but I gained several pounds during my time in the program, despite spending the majority of my time working or completing forced exercises.
• Describe abuse of other students you witnessed, if any:
  During one of my first weeks in Escuela Caribe, my HF made a housemate do exercises for "becoming angry" during a counseling session. She “performed” exercises long past midnight; I could hear her outside the dormitory window. I learned from this incident never to express my true feelings about anything - not a healthy reaction in a supposedly “therapeutic” boarding school.
  - Two girls were molested by a housefather, K. When the school administration learned of K's inappropriate conduct he was fired, but he was never prosecuted. At the same time, a male teacher, R, confessed to looking at pornography with K. Not only did the administration not discipline R, they later promoted him to housefather in a GIRLS' house (see Tara's questionnaire for details about living with him). A few years later, he was convicted by an Indiana court of molesting one or more girls in his charge.
  These incidents should have never happened-the administration knew the staff member had predilections, but they ignored the danger signs, keeping R on staff. Furthermore, the administrator who failed to discipline R kept his position even after R. was convicted of sex crimes.
  - One fellow student asked K, the HF, for permission to use the bathroom for 8 hours straight, but he wouldn't let her because he claimed she was being “manipulative in the way she asked permission.” After dinner that night, she could no longer hold it and urinated on herself in front of the whole house.
  Another HF, JB, singled out a friend of mine. He played mind games with her, ignoring her requests to move from room to room. He abused her often in different sections of the house. We knew she was doing exercises; we could hear him yell. Once he ordered her to do pushups in front of the rest of the house, and when she was physically incapable of completing them (from exhaustion), he insisted that she continue. She kept falling and hitting the patio. The next day she had large purple bruises on her hipbones.
  - There were several students in the program who had obvious mental health issues. Instead of getting the psychiatric help they needed, they were treated as if they had authority problems and kept on low levels. Being on a low level for a long period of time was the kiss of death in the program because the staff would single out low-level students for punishment and humiliation.
  There are many more instances. I am in the process of writing a book detailing the abuse.
• Do you have any good memories of The Program? If so, what are they?
  I liked hiking in the pine forests. I enjoyed going to the aquarium. I liked going on privileges with Lisa, Liz and Doug, getting to know staff like Eric, Susie and Jay. I enjoyed participating in service projects. I made some friends. It was hard to form deep relationships because everything was monitored, and when you became close to someone, they would confront you for excluding others.
• What is your overall impression of The Program? Did it “help you”?
  No. I had several sets of house parents; the instability was difficult, especially since most were abusive and/or sadistic.
  I am a teacher and have completed courses on teaching students with special needs. Everything the program does—the strict schedule, the point sheets, focusing on negative behavior, not the positive, etc.—is how you are not supposed to treat children, at least according to the research.
  I would have been much better off had I gone to a normal, rather than punitive, boarding school, or if our family had gone to counseling.
• What do you think of the quality of education you received?
  Abysmal—we learned from workbooks.
  As a teacher, I realize that a lot of my classmates at Escuela Caribe struggled in school because the administration made no attempt to accommodate different learning styles. Any deviance—behavioral, emotional, academic—was viewed as rebellion.
  I learned to read at the age of four and have always been a self-learner. I attribute this skill to any academic success.
• How old are you today?
  38
• Did you go to college after attending The Program? If so, what degrees do you have?
  B.A. in English Literature, M.Ed. in Instructional Technology
• What is your profession?
  School Library Media Specialist, Writer
• Do you consider yourself a Christian today?
  I have spiritual beliefs but don't consider myself a Christian.
• What effect did “The Program” have on your faith?
  Before I entered the program I was a Christian. I was raised in a strong Christian family. Being in the program and being tortured in the name of God changed the way I felt about Christianity. I equate my experience there with religious abuse. I no longer participate in organized religion.
• Please feel free to add comments here:
  Despite their “certification,” staff members are not certified to treat students with special needs. Any program as isolated as the Escuela Caribe is almost guaranteed to be abusive, by virtue of its isolation.
  According to the National Institutes of Health, boot camp programs like EC do not work, and may exacerbate a student's problems. What does work is utilizing family counseling to address dysfunctional relationships, as opposed to placing the burden of responsibility on the child, who is simply acting out in response to the family's problems.
  Any program that restricts communication is suspect, especially at the level used by Escuela Caribe.
  Escuela Caribe uses excessive physical punishment, emotional and verbal abuse to keep children under control. It has a history of neglecting the health of students.
  Most of my classmates were sent to Escuela Caribe for minor offenses. However, isolating your child with other troubled children, makes deviance become that child's norm, practically guaranteeing they find it difficult to adjust to “normal” life after they are released or find “normal teens” as friends.

Sources:

• The original Statement on NHYM-ALUMNI
• Datasheet about the boarding school on 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)

A Red Rock Canyon School testimony

The statement was given on the message board belonging to the HEAL-online organization. All rights belongs to the unknown author

Hello, my name is ******* **** and I am 16 years old.

Orange County Mental Health and the Capistrano Unified School District recommended me to go to Red Rock Canyon School through the courts because I was truant. On March 14th, I was arrested at court and held overnight and at 6:00 am Westfield, or Westerfield Transporters came and picked me up and drove me out to Red Rock Canyon School. They were nice. Apparently, my mom did not sign the papers but my father was manipulated into signing them.

The courts made Red Rock out to be something much greater than it was. Anyhow, I was told on the way there by the transporters that right when I got there I would be allowed to call my mother and my boyfriend of almost one year. I got there, and they told me that I couldn't write letters to anyone, including my parents, or have any contact with them whatsoever for the first 21 days I was there. Need I remind you, this is a level 14 lockdown facility. I couldn't leave. But for kids there that do try to run and get over the fences, apparently the only requirement for staff members is that they bring the child back alive when they go looking for them. I can recall a story that was told to me by a lady named Gina who worked there about a young girl trying to escape, and when they got her, she did not fight back, but yet they tackled her, stepped on her face, and cracked her jaw.

But back to what I was saying, the first 21 days there were the worst hell. I had to wear these shoes they would call "Jesus Sandals", was only allowed to have my jeans, I had to be "belt looped" everywhere I walked off the unit, and I had to be body searched before and after showers.

Every time we use the restroom we had to have the door 6 inches cracked, no less. I was on Green Unit, and my group leader was Alan Shalby. Him and the registered nurse, Nicole, were the only nice people there. My therapists name was Carol Williams, and I later came to the conclusion that she was a polygamist.

After 21 days, you get one family therapy phone call per week, where you and your therapist talk to your parents on the phone on speaker for 45 minutes. After my second therapy call with Carol and my mother, Carol ended up hanging up on my mother because she was "being rude" and I was "breaking the phone rules". The phone rules were "No cussing, no bashing on staff, no bashing the program, no guilt-loading, and no manipulating/lying". Apparently I broke them by saying that "I didn't feel my medical needs were being met". During my first treatment team meeting, Dr. Shannon told me that my family therapy had been suspended and I wouldn't be allowed to contact my mother for 60 days.

When Carol hung up on my mother that afternoon, my mom knew something fishy was going on. Somehow, she had a man named Kelly come to Red Rock to speak to me about what had happened. Apparently he is the man who "gives these places licenses to operate". We spoke in Brian Pace's office. I brought up the fact that I was scared and didn't quite know what was going on with my mother and how long I would be staying for. He replied by saying that I'm just a child and I shouldn't know what's going on in my life as far as how long I'm supposed to be in "treatment" for, and that adults have more rights that children, therefore I should just listen and behave myself because there's nothing I could do to get myself out of there. About the whole "not meeting my medical needs" part, you see, I have had surgery on my spine 4 times, and to this day there is something wrong with my spine that hasn't been fixed yet.

While I was at Red Rock, whenever I asked for tylenol, they told me to "drink water". After a while, they gave me advil, and I was coughing up blood from it. They did nothing. The following weekend, I had a fever of probably 100% or more, and a horrible cold. I asked a lady who takes care of the "student store", Tami, if she could call my mother just to let her know I was really sick. Tami called my mother and told her "Naomi isn't feeling well but she's being given medicine and as much rest as she needs. No worries." My mom didn't know until she got a letter from me that I was given an allergy pill for my cold and fever, yet I have no allergies, and was forced to go sit in the schoolroom and work on schoolwork all day long and was never given a chance to rest. Now about the staff...well there's a lot of shadiness, and a lot of "drama" and rumors breaking confidentiality of the children.

Last year, (I was not there but certain staff members like Annie, Gina, Laura, and Alan Shalby all on Green Unit have told me this themselves) the paramedic, Adam, had sexual relations with a young girl in the program. They brought it up to him and questioned her, but when they came to the child, she put the attention on someone else, and he was never given a consequence. In fact he still works there. Even the days I was there, I would see him flirting with all of the young girls, ages 12-17. In my unit, there was actually and 11 year old girl there, when the minimum age was 12, who was placed there for "attitude problems".

Anyhow, another horrible staff member was Melvin, the weekend supervisor. He was always going around, staring inappropriately at all of the young girls. There was a girl named Sabrina who was there while I was, and he apparently "wanted to be with her". Which is quite interesting, considering Melvin is waiting for his child to be born. The mother of the baby is a woman who worked at the front desk, and they conceived the baby on the Red Rock campus in Melvin's office. And Darlene Blackburn...you have her down as "Girl's Resource Room". Darlene is the IEP teacher for both girls and boys, and Tami M. is who the boys and girls go to for resources, such as toiletries, clothes, ect. Oh, and Vincent, the PE teacher; when I told him I had back problems so I couldn't participate in PE, he let me sit out everyday, but he would never call me by my name- he would call me "broke back", making fun of the fact the I have rods and screws up and down my entire spinal cord.

And Brent...well he is very manipulative. He is the person that loves making sure these poor kids are becoming institutionalized, so they think that it isn't "wrong" for them to be there. Now, Oscar. Oscar is very scary. There is a ground of four girls on Coral Unit who always physically beat up the most vulnerable girl in their unit at the time.

As a punishment, Oscar would make them all go into a small room together called "RI", or "re- investment", from 5 AM until 11 PM. They would eat their meals in there. The RI rooms are very cold and you aren't allowed to have any of your belongings including your sweater or shoes until you get out. Oscar would send them there daily for this amount of time. Bo Hunt is Oscar's sister, or they are related in some kind of way. There was never a day where I didn't walk by Bo and see her screaming at a different kid each time, putting them down, making them feel at fault about everything bad that's happened to them. Kaitlynn Robertson is the Green Unit teacher, and she is a drunk. She'd always come into work very hungover, and very grouchy towards all of the kids. She rubs it in the children's faces that she gets to go home at night, but we don't. Angela, the nurse, was another large problem for me. She was always very rude, and when I would ask for help with my back pain, she would always tell me I was "drug seeking". Excuse me if I said this once before, but to kindly correct your information, Alan Shalby is the group leader on Green Unit. Steel Unit is no longer running, but before I left they were going to open it back up again because all of the other male units were filling up. Green Unit was very crowded. There were two bunk beds and one normal bed in my room, which I'm sure exceeds the legal population of a tiny room in a place like this. Kasey Nelson no longer works for Red Rock either.

This place is very unhealthy and unsafe for children. I was there for fourty- something days. With barely any contact with my mother, I prayed to God every night that he would bring a miracle my way. In the end, he answered my prayers, and my mother drove out and picked me up and pulled me from the program out of the blue and placed me in a very nice dual diagnosis treatment center that was a 60 day program in Long Beach, CA called Center for Discovery. My therapist at Center for Discovery saw the report and told me she was disgusted to the point of vomiting from reading all of the nasty, untrue things they wrote on the report about myself. I was released from there on May 24 and am at home now.

I apologize for my email being so scattered, but hopefully this information will be useful. I saw my surgeon two days ago, and I'm waiting for the CT scan to come back. The second I find out what is wrong with my spine, my family is going to be filing a lawsuit against them for not meeting my medical needs while I was there and not meeting my therapeutic needs. There are a few things that I left out. Sherman Habibian, the owner, is engaged to a nurse in the clinic at RRCS named Lacey. And also, they have two potbelly pigs there at Red Rock in a pen, and the students sexually abuse the poor pigs all of the time. Sources:

• The original statement on the message board of HEAL-online
• Datasheet of the facility on Fornits Wiki