If it was not for the students who got their emotional lives destroyed it could have been fun to research more into how the religious cult like praying of Synanon was developed into so-called therapy. The furniture reseller who founded CEDU was a long-time member of Synanon. It was persons from CEDU who took the initiative to found Carlbrook.
It is hard to understand why it took so many years to close Carlbrook. Why did parents continue to enroll their children at the school when the Internet is filled with testimonies from former students providing a picture of how Carlbrook messed their minds up? Did they trust educational consultants so much that they failed to investigate what the outcome could be?
Maybe. It is time to focus on the role educational consultants have in sending vulnerable teenagers to places where they are put in danger or exposed to methods which would hurt them disguised as therapy.
The fact is: Education consultants receive referral fees from the owners of the programs and school they refer students to. The extent of these referral fees are not known but they exist and various source place them in size almost as close to the amounts parents pay which make people question if the recommendations the educational consultants give are in the interest of the child or the interest of their pockets.
The troubled teen industry needs more overview. The flow of money between transport firms, residential programs and educational consultants is unclear. Some school districts have observed this and there are many cases all over the United States where parents sue the school districts based on the poor advice of private firms aiming at profit.
Money kept Carlbrook operational for too many years. It finally closed but there are still many places out there operating just like Carlbrook paying educational consultants money for referrals to their programs and schools.
Please help organizations like HEAL-online and similar in their work to close these programs down. Every voice makes a difference.
Sources:
- Halifax Co. Public Schools notified that Carlbrook School to close (WDBJ7 News)
- Carlbrook School Permanently Closes; Gives Students and Staff Short Notice (WSET News)
- Enrollment on the wane, Carlbrook School will close (South Boston News & Record and Mecklenburg Sun)
- Forest Ferguson (The Charley Project)
- FOREST FERGUSON – 2010 (CARLBROOK SCHOOL FORMERLY DIAMOND RANCH ACADEMY) (Missing TTI Victims Teens website)
- Missing: Joshua Clay Inscoe (Mark Turner dot net)
- Factsheet about the school (Fornits Wiki)