Special Schools for Special Needs.
Many private schools do not have the resources to help students with learning disabilities or emotional issues. However, there is a burgeoning industry of private schools that cater to parents of students with special needs. The industry calls itself the Therapeutic Education Industry. The industry consists of educational consultants, transportation specialists, specialty boarding schools, therapeutic wilderness schools & camps, special military or boot camp schools, and specialty Christian schools.
Paul and Diana Lewis had already used an educational consultant to help their older daughter navigate through the college maze and they were very pleased with the services they received. So naturally, when their son Ryan began having some difficulties during the first semester of his eighth grade in a conventional private school, Paul and Diana Lewis once again sought the help of an educational consultant. This time they chose to speak to Steve Bozak, an educational consultant who advertises himself as someone who specializes in helping parents of children with 'special needs of any kind,' find the 'most suitable school' for their child.
Paul and Diana Lewis spoke at great length with Mr. Steve Bozak about what Ryan's needs were with regards to education. They told him he was a very well-read and bright young man who preferred being in the great outdoors to being in a conventional classroom. He enjoyed learning, but suffered from clinical depression, ADD and slight learning disabilities which made it difficult for him to get the most out of his conventional private school setting. Upon hearing what Ryan's parents were looking for in a school, Mr. Bozak gave them a list of possible schools with a special emphasis on Alldredge Academy in Davis, West Virginia. Alldredge was a program which combined the elements of wilderness camping, special academic help, and therapy.
The Lewis's thought this school sounded like a perfect match for Ryan with one exception, the location of the school. As the Lewis's, who lived in Massachusetts, considered Steve Bozak's recommendation of Alldredge Academy in Davis, West Virginia a few red flags went up for the Lewis's. Steve Bozak said location shouldn't be as much of a deciding factor as finding the perfect match for their son's educational needs. They were leery of having their 14 year old son in a school so far away from home, but of course, they wanted the best for their son.
They decided that their next step would be to find out what Ryan thought about attending Alldredge Academy in Davis, West Virginia. Ryan thought it sounded like a neat opportunity. Finally, a school that seemed almost as though it was made for him, with outdoor camping activities, therapy and education combined. Ryan's parents still wanted to get a few more opinions before making a final decision, so they asked Ryan's psychiatrist to talk to the people who ran the Alldredge Academy to be sure it would be a safe place for Ryan to attend. After Ryan's doctor spoke to the people at Alldredge Academy he told the Lewis's that he believed the concept was good. Next, Paul Lewis called the program himself to confirm that Ryan would be in a group with other children of similar age, and with similar difficulties. Mr. Lewis wanted to take precautions to make sure that Ryan was not going to be around kids who were much older than him or children who had more severe problems. He also wanted to be sure this program didn't have any type of religious undertones, since Ryan's problems were medical not spiritual. When Mr. Lewis called Alldredge, he was assured that the program met each and every one of his criteria. With so many positive responses about the program, Ryan and his parents decided that the right thing to do would be to try out this new school. Ryan and his parents had hoped for a situation where Ryan would feel as if he "fit in," and people understood him, thereby helping his self-esteem which had gone downhill due to his difficulties in the conventional private school. Due to Ryan's clinical depression and falling self-esteem, Paul, a salesman and Diane, an educational psychologist wanted to get Ryan extra help before anything tragic happened.
There was an air of excitement during the car ride down to Alldredge Academy. Everyone was looking forward to the new possibilities they imagined this new school would have for Ryan. During the first days of Ryan's stay at Alldredge Academy, the Lewis's and the therapists kept in constant contact. The therapists consistently reassured the Lewis's that Ryan was adjusting quite well. Therefore you can imagine the shock that overcame the family when on Ryan's seventh day at the school; the Lewis's received a call from Alldredge Academy telling them Ryan was dead.
Unfortunately, the reality of Alldredge Academy turned out to be anything but the perfect match for Ryan. While the Lewis's have no way of really knowing what happened when Ryan first arrived at the school, they now know by the sixth day he was at Alldredge he used his camping knife to slice his arm from his elbow to his wrist. Since Ryan was very knowledgeable about his clinical depression, later that night after he realized the despair he was falling into, hen went to one of the counselors to show him what he had done and told him to take his knife from him before he did anything worse. At this point Ryan didn't receive any counseling but the counselor spoke to Ryan briefly, extracted a promise from him that he wouldn't hurt himself again and within twenty minutes gave the knife back to Ryan. The following day, the therapists visited the camp. There was individual and group therapy. They addressed Ryan's behavior in the group, by telling everyone that Ryan was trying to manipulate his way out of the program (even though Ryan had gone to this school voluntarily) by using attention-getting behavior like cutting himself. They did not counsel Ryan individually as they did all of the other campers because they did not want to reward and encourage his "attention-seeking behavior." Later, that night after the therapists had left the camp, the youngest camper of the group, a 13-year-old, found Ryan. He had hung himself with a tent cord. The Lewis's have since learned that they along with Ryan's psychiatrist had simply been told only what they wanted to hear about the program. In contrast to what they had been told, Ryan was in a group of kids whose ages ranged from 13 to 18 years, and they all experienced a wide range of behavioral problems, including drug problems. Mr. Lewis believes that upon Ryan's first day at Alldredge Academy, he realized that the school was nothing like what he and his parents were led to believe and told the counselors as much, but he was ignored. Instead thirteen year old Ryan who weighed ninety pounds was made to carry a seventy pound backpack made of plastic which would double as his shelter, a plastic lean-to, at night. "With the various ages and varying severity of problems of the other children in attendance with Ryan, he probably felt more out of place than ever," Ryan's father said.
The 21st Century Con-Game
Mr. Lewis and his wife are highly intelligent, educated people, who only wanted the best for their children. They couldn't understand what had happened to their son. The Lewis's had to find out what could have led to such devastating consequences.
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis were stunned when they learned that they had been victims of a modern-day con-game. Upon speaking to other parents who had children, with varying ages and problems, in the program with Ryan, Mr. Lewis learned that each parent was given a sales pitch either by the program or by an educational consultant which led each of them to believe this program was the perfect fit for their child. While the Lewis's were told that the school had therapists that could help children with clinical depression and A.D.D., other parents were told that the therapists acted as drug counselors for children who were beginning to head down the path to addiction, or behavioral therapists for children with oppositional defiance disorders.
Next, the Lewis's learned that the 'therapists' that were treating Ryan could and did legally call themselves therapists despite the fact that they had no formal therapy training and in fact they were attorneys by education. He learned that Alldredge Academy had no procedures in place to handle suicidal children and that the staff that was with the children 24/7 had not been properly trained to help children with significant mental health disorders. Alldredge Academy was not even licensed facility.
The Department of Health and Human Resources investigators also made some interesting discoveries. They reported that the staff neglected to notify police when students ran away; they inappropriately mixed children who had severe behavior problems with others who had milder problems. The Alldredge Academy staff members were administering mood-altering drugs even though they were not licensed to dispense these medicines; they weren't trained or certified to assure they knew how to recognize side effects or complications.
The Lewis's also learned that in 1985 there had been a teen death in another program, SUWS of Idaho, which was owned and operated by Alldredge Academy's founder and director, L. Jay Mitchell. Yet it took five years of litigation just to get the wilderness treatment center to admit their responsibility in the death of Ryan Lewis. The program is still operating in West Virginia today. (Today they go by the name Alldredge Wilderness Journey.)
Unfortunately, Ryan is only one of many children who have died in similar programs that make up the unregulated Therapeutic Education Industry. These "specialty schools" are located throughout the U.S. and abroad. They are owned and operated by business men who have found an easy way to make a lot of money off of desperate parents with troubled children.
The Internet as a Tool of the Con-Game
The internet has played a big role in the advancement of this industry. Many parents want to keep their personal problems private, so look to the internet for a private way to find help for their child. As soon as you type in keywords such as troubled teen, or help for children with A.D.D. you will see numerous sites with links to schools, or educational consultants who will be more than happy to charge you a hefty fee to help you find the "perfect match" for your child. They cross-sell each other's programs, so generally when a child is finished with a wilderness program, it is advised that they then move onto a specialty boarding school, to help them be consistent in the changes they have made. Sometimes they even recommend that you use a special teen transport service which can bring your teen right to the program in the event you can't take off work, or you think you can't get your child to cooperate in going to one of these schools.
This industry generally recommends schools that are out of state, and then generally only allows parental communication through a counselor, therapist or staff member. There is hardly ever direct contact with your child since they may try to "manipulate" their way out of the program.
Parents have begun to fight back. Since there is no consumer protection agency or any oversight of this industry, some parents have come together to produce web pages to present the other side of the story to desperate parents. The International Survivors Action Committee (ISAC) at http://www.isaccorp.org is one such non-profit organization, made up mostly of volunteers who have come to the aid of desperate parents. This site provides parents with any information they may need about programs parents are considering. The organization also provides Warning Signs of a Potentially Abusive Facilities. Paul Lewis said he wishes these sites had been available when he was looking for an alternative education choice for his son.
For further information about the warning signs of potentially abuse facilities, please visit http://www.isaccorp.org/warningsigns.asp
More helpful web sites include:
The Michelle Sutton Memorial
http://michellesuttonmemorial.homestead.com/
The Michelle Sutton Memorial was founded by a mother whose young daughter died from dehydration in a residential wilderness therapy program.
Teen Advocates USA
http://teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/home.html
Teen Advocates USA is a non-profit children's rights educational and public advocacy website.
Help-For-Teens
http://help-for-teen.com/index.shtml
Helping parents world wide to make informed and intelligent decisions regarding the care of their children
Referral Free Zone
The Referral-Free Zone lists internet sites with just one purpose - to provide essential information about the growing troubled-teen industry.
And there are many links on each of these sites that can point you in the direction of other similar sites.
The Government Accountability Office's Investigation
Chairman George Miller, of the Committee on Education and Labor asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a comprehensive investigation of residential treatment programs for children which was then followed up by hearings in Washington D.C. in October, 2007. You can find the GAO report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08146t.pdf It was determined by the committee that further investigation would be needed. There is to be a follow up hearing in the early part of 2008. You can check for dates (as well as video from the hearing, including Paul Lewis's testimony) on the Committee on Education and Labor web site at http://edlabor.house.gov/issues/othereducation.shtml
A Warning About Private Specialty Schools
The 'therapeutic' education industry may not always deliver what it promises. Beware of the growing trend of secret institutional child abuse.
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