Last Chapter of Hidden Lake Academy / Ridge Creek School?

We have just learned that Ridge Creek School in Dahlonega has closed its doors. Any plans to let the school open under a new name seem not to be emerging any time soon.

Hidden Lake Academy did open its doors back in 1994. Very soon it became one of the most well-known therapeutic boarding schools in Georgia.

They opened a wilderness program which they used for evaluation of coming boarding school students. Maybe too many were "diagnosed" as suiting for the regime the school wanted to use in order to treat the students.

It didn't take many years before the first complaints became public. After the internet became widespread it was no longer possible to keep former unsatisfied students from communicating with each other.

Lawsuits were in the making. Change of staff and management over the time did not improve the situation. The rather isolated environment which the school had established itself in made it rather difficult to attract employees with the right type of education. Sometime the employees who had to deal with the students on daily basis were only just out of high school.

Were there power trips executed by the employees? According to various testimonies it was very often the case. Inexperienced and uneducated staff given too much power in such an environment is an explosive combination no management should allow but what does the management do when the shareholders demand profit?

As result suicide or suicide attempts is an all too common thing happening to the alumni’s.

The news station FOX5 did cover the last months of the timeline up to the closure. 10 to 15 years too late after many opinions. It is not a pretty sight.

What do the future hold for the local community in now where one of their larger workplaces is closing down? It doesn't look good. All too many group homes and therapeutic boarding schools are establishing themselves out in the countryside where they force the local communities to become dependent of them.

Was there something overlooked by the local authorities due to this marriage of pure need between the school and the local authorities? Did the political establishment and law-enforcing agencies try to play some of their more extreme occurrences at the school down in order to save jobs for the local community?

Many things indicate that it was the case.

And when it comes to cover-ups in scandals in group homes, foster care families and therapeutic boarding schools it is rather common. Even as far away as in Denmark we have learned that local teachers and other locals did complain about violence at a foster care family in the Danish hamlet named Mern. 20 years some knew that something was very, very wrong. Reports were made and they were lost - by whom? The police investigation by the local police is not targeted at other than the accused parents. None want to investigate such a cover-up. Everybody knows that thousand of DKK exchange hands between social services, foster care families and group homes.

• Should Denmark be anything different than Pennsylvania known for the Kids-for-Cash scandal?


• Should Denmark be anything different that just the next educational consultant which are paid both by parents to find the best treatment for their child and the various schools and programs for sending the child to their school?

It would be naive to believe so!

But back in Georgia everybody are now waiting to see whether the closure is the end of 17 years of suffering among teenagers or it will be the start of a new chapter under a different name.

Only the future will tell.

Sources:
Hidden Lake Academy on Fornits Wiki
I-Team: Ridge Creek School, Fox 5 news, July 8, 2011
I-Team: Ridge Creek School Closes, Fox 5 news, August 1, 2011
Children abused for 20 years, by Jes Højen Nielsen, Denmarks Radio, August 1, 2011

Minors in residential placement research center will feature the Swedish foster care system

Over the next 6 month on their main blog we will see a number of posts covering the defunct Swedish foster care system.

World over the Swedish system has been admired. The Danish minister of social services once asked the Danish social workers to look at what is working in Sweden and try to incoporate into the Danish system.

In reality it is very difficult to achieve that because the Swedish system is to place youth far out in remote places in their numerous forests isolated at foster families without the proper skills to deal with the problems the youth may suffer from. It does work because the youth become too demoralized to act out when there are none to act out in front and they cover their problems up until they are adults where they then can start earning money enough until they can afford treatment for themselves unless they have committed suicide before or fallen victim to some kind of substance abuse they have started to get away from their painful memories.

Here is the link to the blog of Minors in residential placement research center

Marketing traps is the basis of the industry

I-Team: Ridge Creek School: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Fox has investigated Ridge Creek School - formerly known as Hidden Lake Academy.

It is by far the first care where parents have been fooled by deceptive marketing to enroll their children in residential programs only to find out that nothing they saw on the homepage had anything to do with the reality.

It doesn't help to visit the schools. The students parents may talk to are students chosen by the school and offered the favor of promoting the schools in return for advancement in the program or even early release.

If parents really want to protect their teenagers they should choose out-patient therapy where they can intervene if the situation gets out of hand. Secondly they should take the chances by the social services or even at the justice system. Then of course it would be a question if the foster care system protects the children well enough and there are flaws, but in the public system they have appeals and they can urge the media to go after the social workers who neglect their jobs.

Once you are up against a private company you as a parent has not the right to be given oversight about what is happening with your own child.

Parents should be very carefully not to grant custody of their own children to private firms obviously operating only for profit both inside the United States and outside.