ALE neighbors arm themselves for nothing

We found the thread on the Troubled Teen Industry message board:

Due to a number of runaway cases from Adirondack Leadership Expeditions the citizens of Onchiota are begining to arm themselves. It is the wrong move and it would be a tragedy if one of the teenagers die as result of the escalated conditions in the area.

Fact is that misguided parents have sent their children to this wilderness program based on advice from educational consultants. The industry of educational consultants rely on payment from programs and schools every time they refer children to them.

We are talking of ordinary teenagers suffering from minor struggles academically or with substance abuse derived from emotional problems cause by bullying or grief.

They experience that their cry for help was answered by being dragged out of the bed in the middle of the night only to be shipped out in a foreign wood isolated from peers and family. With their entire support network gone only surrounded by lowpaid staff just out of high school and with a therapist visiting once per week they often see no other option but to run away.

It happens very often at Adirondack Leadership Expeditions.

One of the cases we have found in an article from Adirondack Daily Enterprise, which we quote below:

Franklin residents worry about troubled campers
by Jessica Collier, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, August 9 - 2012

VERMONTVILLE - Anna Owens got up to go to work at 6 a.m. one day last week, went out to her car and found it had been stolen.

Eventually, she found out the car had been taken by a 16-year-old South Carolina boy who ran away from Adirondack Leadership Expeditions, a camp for troubled teens in Onchiota.

Owens was shaken up enough that she and about 10 other residents of the area went to the Wednesday night Franklin town board meeting to ask their town councilors if they could do anything.

"I lost a lot of trust," Owens said. "I'm just infuriated with this. ... They're not doing their job. They're supposed to be watching the children."

ALE Executive Director Tracy Edwards sent the Enterprise a written statement this morning confirming that two boys ran away from the camp last week and saying that state troopers were notified about the incident immediately, "as safety is our utmost priority." Edwards was not available this morning to give further comment about the camp's policies in general or to address the concerns brought up at the Franklin town board meeting.

Onchiota resident Janine Taylor told board members that she thinks everyone in the community is concerned for their safety and the safety of their children. She said she doesn't believe the teens in the camp are getting adequate oversight, noting that the teen who stole Owens' car and a boy who ran away with him had from 10 p.m. till about 6 a.m. before anyone noticed.

"I think everyone has been concerned for some time what the safety risk is," Taylor said.

She said people in Onchiota have reported having teens from ALE knock on their doors at all hours of the night, saying they lost their camping party and asking to use a phone.

"It just happens again and again and again," Taylor said.

She said she wants to know how often teens run away from the camp and whether it's reported to the police each time it happens.

"Who knows what these kids are really up to?" Taylor said. "The community just needs to know what we're dealing with."

She noted that the land the ALE runs the camp on in Onchiota is rented to the company by Paul Smith's College, so it might be worthwhile to complain to the college as well.

Several people referred to the camp as "hoods in the woods." While other Adirondack programs get criminal teens from the court system, ALE isn't one of those.

Town Supervisor Art Willman said he's spent some time in the last week researching the camp, and he found that parents of the teens who attend the camp spend a good chunk of money to send them there. So the parents of a teen who runs away and ends up charged with a crime could have a strong case for a lawsuit, Willman noted.

He said he's been in contact with the state police investigator who has been working the case, Tim Woodruff. Woodruff told him he's looking into the number of runaways who have been reported to state police by the camp, and he wants to compare that to the number that haven't been reported.

"They might have one or two every week, and we don't find out about it," Willman said. "That's unacceptable."

He said he plans to do more research, then put together a strongly worded letter of complaint to the local ALE leaders, plus the heads of the company that runs it, based in California. He also wants to send a letter to Paul Smith's College President John Mills explaining the situation, because he said Mills probably isn't aware of the issues.

Willman said he also plans to invite ALE leaders to the next town board meeting. He said he wants there to be a procedure set up to notify everyone in town each and every time there is a runaway from the camp.

He also noted that people in town need to start encouraging guests to take their keys out of their cars and lock their car and house doors at night.

Town Clerk Sandy Oliver said the last time problems with the ALE came up, in 2006, ALE workers talked with the town and set up a phone tree to notify residents about runaways, but three months later, all of the staff in the phone tree were transferred out of the state.

"It's sad that this is occurring" said Mildred Vorrath. "People are beginning to load their guns."

Source:
The original thread on the Troubled Teen Industry message board

Karl Johanson's reply to a local article in a SUWS runaway case

Karl Johanson wrote in response to this article:

Runaways located after 14-hour search, By Richelle Bailey, The Mcdowell News, May 09, 2010

I am happy that they were found safe.

But I am concerned because knowing the type of wilderness program they were detained in, they were not provided with legal representation as they would have if they had committed a crime.

Most of the so-called clients or detainees, which are a better term, are either tricked by their parents to such program or simply pulled out of their bed at night by private youth transport firms and transported to the wilderness camps in handcuffs and shackles on the orders of their parents.

How come that criminals are better protected that an ordinary teenagers, who may only have problems as little as an ordinary depression or being picky at the dinner table?

What kind of society are we, when we send a message to our kids that you have to commit a crime in order to secure legal protection for you?

As I stated above I volunteer for a NGO where we track records of possible abuse and deaths among minors in treatment. Every year we must acknowledge that we once again can observe how teenagers lost their lives in a treatment aimed to "treat" them. Every year we also most acknowledge that some cannot live on with the memories of the so-called treatment and choose to end their lives prematurely.

When will it stop? We hope that 2010 will be the turning point, but as this story show, it will most likely not happen.

My heart goes out for these girls. May they one day be able to return to their families safe and hopefully without so many scars from the "treatment".

References:

Deaths of minors in residential settings year 2005 - 2009

Chanel Mare - Victim of possible parent outsourcing?

In Denmark our government has battled marooning children to foreign religious boarding schools for quote a while.

Many of these kids who were abandoned abroad return unable to be fully integrated into our culture because they were forced to live in a confined environment where they didn't receive skills to socialize as people do in our part of the world.

Sadly Denmark is in the front battling parental outsourcing to enclosed religous boarding schools.

In the United States a long tradition exist using religious boarding schools for behavior modification. The State of Texas battled the so-called Roloff homes for a long time forcing the schools to move to states with poor or none regulation and oversight.

In a state like Missouri there are no authorities to look out for the welfare of children placed in boarding schools if the boarding school choose to label itself as a religious boarding school. In other states the behavior modification business is so huge an industry that regulation will become a question about preserving jobs rather than looking out of the welfare of the children.

A federal law named HR 911 was supposed to apply just a little oversight and safety for the children, but this proposal is presently stuck in the Senate.

It is however important that something is done, because the authorities in several states have interfered several times but with harsh legal struggle lying in front of them.

Mississippi raided the Bethels Academies later known as Golf Coast Academy several times. This place was in existence as late as 2007. Missouri knows only too well what Mountain Park Academy stood for. While not being a religious program Thayer Learning Center made headlines when they were targeted by a federal investigation.

Just last year the authorities in Alabama raided Reclamation Ranch where they found shackles which were used on the kids. This case is still in the court system.

There are so many reasons that kids from Europe shouldn't be sent to the United States, if they are causing problems to their parents. Unfortunately there are no laws in Britain preventing parents from sending their child abroad for behavior modification. It doesn't matter if we are talking the Middle East or the United States. The dangers for the children are the same.

Now 17 year old Chanel Mare is on the run from a ranch in Missouri. A ranch where she had no other choice than taking part in religious activities regardless of her belief. We must ask ourselves how we would react if we were forced to partipate in worshiping a different God than the one we believe in back home.

She was denied contact with her peers back home. She could not attend a church of her own.

Where is the authorities in this matter?

The answer is that she properly will be jailed when she is caught because running away is considered a criminal offense regardless if she is running away from abuse.

This must stop.

It is time for the British authorities to get her back home so she can enjoy a life in freedom.

Please support HR. 911.

It is time for this madness to stop.