bringbackbreeches at Island View

This testimony was found on Reddit. All rights goes to the original author known as bringbackbreeches

Warning: this is gonna be long as hell.

No details on who I am or when I went, sorry, other than I was there when it was still called Island View. I'm ultra paranoid about being identified and want to distance myself from it all. I'm happy to talk via PM. One little hint I'll give out publicly is that while I attended there, someone called in a bomb threat, so we were all moved to the church down the street. Sat around for seven hours bored out of our skulls, but got to eat pizza and not go through the daily miserable routine. It was a nice reprieve, so if you're the person who called it in, thanks man. I owe you a pizza.

I graduated as a test. I spent more than a year there. I graduated having one of the most prestigious 'job' you could be assigned, and was seen as a diplomat between teams and as vastly improved by the facility. By all accounts, I seemed like the perfect success story.

A couple years later, I had a sympathetic therapist who was astonished by all of what I'd told him. He had no idea. Given, he probably didn't have the extensive education a psychologist or psychiatrist would have, but he didn't have a lot of contact with the TTI because he was mostly an adult therapist. He told me a buddy of his was an investigator for these sorts of places, and asked me if I wanted him to try to coax this investigator into giving Island View a closer look. Of course I said yes, so he told me he was going to call him up, put him on speakerphone, and pretend he was just talking to him one on one, and for me to be quiet, so we could get the response he'd give a colleague.

So he rang him up and asked him if he knew about Island View, the investigator said of course, then told him my allegations against the place. Keep in mind, I wasn't pulled from the RTC, I didn't barely graduate on impact, I was well-regarded when I graduated.

The investigator paused, and this is what he said (I'll remember this until the day I die): "That's ridiculous. I've toured that facility multiple times and can attest to the highest level of professionalism in the business. It sounds like you've got a disgruntled ex-patient on your hands trying to get some attention or sympathy."

Even typing this out now makes my heart race. I've never been quiet since then about telling people about the place, but the few times I've had friends start to rally, get angry, get motivated to make a petition or launch an investigation, I've told them not to bother.

Here's why: Anyone who stayed at Island View for a long period of time will remember the routine when they sent investigators over: we were made to double deep clean our rooms. The people who were on yellow zone or individual focus were either sequestered to their room with the door closed, or the door to the whole hallway was closed off. Anyone below an impact caught talking to the investigators could get privileges pulled and were told not to interact with them, not to look at them. At best, if you were asked a question by them, you were pressured to smile and look engaged in your schoolwork. The investigators were led around by tests, usually the team leaders. If anyone of any level said anything bad or incriminatory to the investigators, you could face serious trouble. And if my memory serves me right, which it might not because there are thankfully big great gaps missing from this period in my life, they would serve the 'good' food when these investigators rolled through. The burgers and fries and sometimes even root beers and cream sodas. They did that when parents came through too. And if I recall correctly, they mostly toured the school and only briefly strolled through the actual housing units.

This place practised conversion therapy. They practised solitary confinement. They practised gender confirmation therapy. They used excessive force when restraining non-dangerous patients. (I mean, that's why they had to sell the place.) They practised extreme social manipulation. They practised literal brainwashing! A kid killed himself there. There were multiple accounts of sexual abuse. But I was a 'disgruntled ex-patient looking for attention or sympathy'.

So yep. There's my contribution to 'these lovely human beings have all the possible cards you could imagine stacked against you' argument. If I had no soul, moral conscience, or empathy for other living beings, this whole industry has an amazing business plan.

Island View was part of the collapse of Aspen Education Group. Is was sold and renamed. It is now open under another name. It might not be so bad now if the patients can phone home from day one to family and friends perferally given their own cell-phone

Sources:

• The original testimony on Reddit
• Factsheet about Island View (Fornits Wiki)

Joice at Elan School

Today the now closed Elan is the media due to the retrial against Michael Skakel. Many teenagers who were there later committed suicide. The "confessions" made at the facility were result of extreme pressure.

My name is Joice. I also was sent to E'lan 4 in 1977. The day before my 14th birthday.

As with any new resident the next day I had to sing in front of everyone in m/m. I was there for a total of three years. stayed 2x. I was put in the ring, tried to escape with Cindy Kieth. What was I thinking. The place was sealed tighter than a fortress. The people that were declared "uncontrollable" were placed there. And forgotten about.

Elan did not give hope but rather took it. I remember Frankie. I believe he had cerebral palsy. Know for sure he was epileptic AND had a metal plate in his head. Almost everyday Peter McCann would come into the dining room and start picking out the largest guys and taking them secretly to a room. That was no secret...we all knew he was preparing a cowboy ass kicking for Frankie. Sure enough you would hear Frankie screaming and his body hitting the floor, walls and the big guys fists and feet. Frankie didn't do shit to deserve THAT.

I was always in the ring. I was the one with the head gear on covering my face with my 16 oz boxing gloves. And the spankings. There were these two huge guys. George Washington was one. Really nice guy. Everyone used to pick on him. When he spanked you (me) you knew it. I got so used to that I would start laughing. That frustrated Peter. He got this other guy. Don't know his name. His technique was the two handed spank. One would hit you the other would ricochet you off the chair. I was always a "shot-down". I was defiant. No matter what they did there was no way I was going to do it thier way. "fake it til you make it". All those tight houses. 4 was always on a tight house. I was so depressed there I just went into another realm. I was made to scrub the dumpster outside by the kitchen area with the maggots still in there. It was so fucken gross. Finally they stuck me down in the laundry room with Jeffrey Weintraub as my worker. I let Nanette Walls escape one day during cheerleading practice. She got caught, I got shot down then turned into a "nothing" doing daily's everyday.

I wanted to pretend like this part of my life never happened and I was doing really good at it. But then something made me look it up and to my JOY I see it has been closed forever. It never should have lasted as long as it did. I have also seen a couple of peoples names that I remember being there with. I hope to be able to get in touch with some people.

Elan School closed in 2011.


Sources:

• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
• The original testimony(Heal-online's message board)

Anon at Devereux Glenholme

This testimony was found on HEAL-online's message board

I had the 'pleasure' of being sent to this place when I was around 11 or 12,in 1992 or '93. My stay there was cut short, thank God,because my stepfather, a Navy man, was being transferred out of state.

First of all we'll start with the glamorous brochures and outlandish claims of lavish accommodations afforded the 'students' at their 'school'. I was,at the time,in an acute care mental facility for children and adolescents in Rhode Island,diagnosed with bipolar disorder, when discussions for my future care were being held by all concerned.

Somehow, Devereux Glenholme was included. With glossy brochures featuring pictures of go-kart tracks (that I'd never get to use) and ice cream shops, they lured me in. Nothing but a shameless sales pitch. Well, the first week I was there I was on the phone to my mother, desperately begging for her to come get me out of there. It all started with the 'discipline' regime which involved, as another poster had said, having to stand behind your chair at mealtimes and having to march around single file, not allowed to speak or anything - but that really wasn't too bad compared to what had me on the phone.

One morning, I was accosted by two older,bigger (I was 11 or 12) 15-16 year old boys who,wearing blankets,gave me a 'blanket party' while I was still in bed. Kids will be kids, right? But this happened in the full view of a staff member who watched the entire thing happen, without intervening - this staff member being a full grown man - he watched as a boy older and bigger than me climbed onto the top bunk with me and punched me repeatedly in the face and head. This man said he wouldn't intervene because it could expose him to liability. What a coward.

More fun at Devereux Glenholm included finding my suitcase with my belongings rifled thru and vandalized in their basement of one of their oh-so-lovely 'cottages'. Apparently, Glenholm places more emphasis on collecting its hundred + thousand a year 'tuition' than on protecting the wellbeing or the property of the 'students' who they collect it from.

Also there were the little tile rooms - probably the most egregious of offenses to humanity and sanity that Devereux Glenholm had to offer in my stay with them. They had several of these rooms -not included in the information in what can only be described as their sales brochures, to be sure - all across their campus,about the size of a small bathroom. These rooms were covered from floor to ceiling with tile, they were dimly lit and featured a door with no handle on the inside and a drain in the center of the room. Oftentimes, I was placed in one of these rooms and there was excrement left in them from children who had been held in them before. Just as the poster above mentioned - they didn't let you out of there for hours for anything; bathroom, water, food,etc. Yes-these criminals denied children access to basic human needs. And an interesting note was that at the time,or so I was told, it was illegal in the state of Connecticut to lock a child in a room using an actual deadbolt or other fastening device, so they used to have the older kids act as 'holders', or in other words, they would throw a kid in one of these holes, and have another child hold the door shut so that you could not get out. Speculatively, one can imagine what the 'holder' could get away with regarding tormenting the child he was keeping in the room when he was unsupervised - perhaps even while he was supervised, given the manner in which staff dealt with even physical assaults between the children as I have described above.

As to the 'amenities' at Devereux Glenholm - I was there maybe 9 months. Not once was I allowed to use the go-karts, the track seemed to never get used either. The pool -interestingly, if you look at their website, its the same one they had there back when I was incarcerated there in the early 90s, and looks like it was built in the 70s - I got to use once. For maybe 15 minutes. I don't recall the horses there,but I'll tell you, just like all the other 'amenities' at glenholm, those horses are just there to entice people to pay them to take their kids. Most of the time we were either in what they call 'classrooms',or the 'cottages', or we were being forced to participate in some form of what they called 'leisure activities', which was just more excersize in 'discipline', as 'leisure' meant doing things like practicing square dancing or other horribly dull and droll (square dancing,for kids?seriously?) 'activities' that if you didn't participate in, and with a 'good attitude'- see above about the little tile rooms. As for 'therapy' sessions - I remember one 'session' in particular that was being led by a so-called 'councilor', the excersize was to compose a 'group rap'. So we all had to sit around and make rap lyrics. How therapeutic.

Devereux Glenholm,as I remember it, was a nightmare. There is nothing a child can do,nothing so 'wrong' with a child,that should ever prompt a parent to consider sending them to this private, run for-profit juvenile prison that masquerades itself as an amenities rich 'care facility'. I'd like to,at this time,remain anonymous unless and until a class action suit or other suitable remedy is ever pursued,but feel free to post my story on your website. Your doing a good thing exposing these adolescent gulags to the world- as much as they like to claim and aggrandize their success stories about their 'students' going on to become doctors and such,for every one of those kids- theres probably 20 kids that were terribly ruined by them who's stories they don't post on their slick web sites.


Sources:

• The original testimony
• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)