Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) is dedicated to promoting

the human rights and full participation in society of people with mental

disabilities worldwide.

The National Federation, a national family-run organization serves to:

• Provide advocacy at the national level for the rights of children and youth with emotional, behavioral and mental health challenges and their families
  
• Provide leadership and technical assistance to a nation-wide network of family run organizations
• Collaborate with family run and other child serving organizations to transform mental health care in America

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is the nation’s

leading public policy center dedicated to promoting the economic

security, health, and well-being of America’s low-income families

and children. NCCP uses research to inform policy and practice

with the goal of ensuring positive outcomes for the next generation.

We promote family-oriented solutions at the state and national levels.

Our vision:

• Family economic security
• Strong, nurturing families
• Healthy child development

The National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) is the nonprofit

membership organization for the federally mandated Protection

and Advocacy (P&A) Systems and Client Assistance Programs

(CAP) for individuals with disabilities. Collectively, the P&A/CAP

network is the largest provider of legally based advocacy services

to people with disabilities in the United States.

NARPA is dedicated to promoting those policies and pursuing

those strategies that represent the preferred options of people who

have been labeled mentally disabled. NARPA is committed to

advocating the abolishing of all forced treatment laws. NARPA

believes the recipients of mental health services are capable of

and entitled to make their own choices, and they are, above all,

equal citizens under the law. To the extent that the recipients and

former recipients may need assistance to support or express or

achieving their preferences, NARPA is committed to promoting

rights protection and advocacy which focuses upon both the right

to choose and the specific choices of those who request assistance.

Therefore, NARPA's fundamental mission is to help empower people

who have been labeled mentally disabled so that they may learn to

independently exercise their rights.

The Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a volunteer-driven network of academics, attorneys, child and human rights advocates, educators, members of religious and faith-based communities, physicians, representatives from non-governmental organizations, students, and other concerned citizens who seek to bring about U.S. ratification and implementation of the CRC.

CMHS’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care (NCTIC)

is a technical assistance center dedicated to building awareness of trauma-informed

care and promoting the implementation of trauma-informed practices in programs and services.

NCTIC has also facilitated a Facebook Group called Trauma-Informed to promote

dialog around trauma-informed care and to foster the sharing of knowledge and

resources through this social marketing network.

The mission of the National Empowerment Center Inc. is to carry a message of recovery, empowerment, hope and healing to people who have been labeled with mental illness. We carry that message with authority because we are a consumer/survivor/expatient-run organization and each of us is living a personal journey of recovery and empowerment. We are convinced that recovery and empowerment are not the privilege of a few exceptional leaders, but rather are possible for each person who has been labeled with mental illness. Whether on the back ward of a state mental institution or working as an executive in a corporation, we want people who are mental health consumers/survivors/expatients to know there is a place to turn to in order to receive the information they might need in order to regain control over their lives and the resources that affect their lives. That place is the National Empowerment Center.

• A site dedicating to exposing the Troubled Teen Industry!
• This site is brand new, lots to come.
• Please register for our site and take part in our forum.
• We are also looking for bloggers.
• Also visit our Links Directory!

Project No Spank

"The Program" - Documentary

From Publishers Weekly
This important book takes the troubled-teens industry to task, exposing the "extremely harsh, perhaps even brutal tactics [companies use to] keep [kids] in line." For $2,000 a month and more, a program will take an oppositional teen to a lockdown facility or a wilderness boot camp for however long it takes to break him or her. Parents pay more than an Ivy League tuition for their children to undergo some "out-of-line" punishments (use of "stress positions," brainwashing, etc.), and, says Szalavitz, there's no evidence that these facilities cure anything. Indeed, many teens suffer post-traumatic stress disorders for years; some actually die in these facilities. Szalavitz, a freelance journalist and senior fellow at Stats.org, has written a courageous—if horrifying—study of the tough-love industry, focusing on four key players: Straight Incorporated, North Star Expeditions, the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and the KIDS program. These hugely profitable businesses are largely unregulated by legal, medical or ethical codes, avoiding accountability for failure by blaming the victim. With a useful appendix discussing when and how to get responsible help for a troubled teen, this book, filled with first-person accounts, should be required reading in Parenting 101. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve

• Trailer Tease

• Filmed Interviews

If you are a former student or employee of a program affiliate with WWASPS, KIDS, Straight or any similar program and would like to be interviewed for this documentary, please contact : This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Les Enfants Perdus De Tranquility Bay (Documentary -- France) - Shocking docu "Tranquility Bay" presents evidence of abuse at several behavior modification centers for troubled teens run by a Utah-based company. The company's Guantanamo Bay-style approach to education has been reported previously in the media, but this English-language pic by Gallic co-helmers Mathieu Verboud and Jean Robert Viallet provides an in-depth investigation that eschews sensationalism and builds a scrupulously mounted case against the org via moving interviews with victims and parents, as well as present and ex-employees.

Trapped in Paradise: A Memoir

By Cindy Art

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Journalist Scheeres offers a frank and compelling portrait of

growing up as a white girl with two adopted black brothers in 1970s rural Indiana,

and of her later stay with one of them at a Christian reform school in the Dominican

Republic. The book takes its title from a homemade sign that Scheeres and the

brother closest to her in age and temperament, David, spot one day on a road

in the Hoosier countryside, proclaiming, "This here is: JESUS LAND." And while

religion is omnipresent both at their school and in the home of their devout parents,

the two rarely find themselves the beneficiaries of anything resembling Christian love.

One of the elements that make Scheeres's book so successful is her distanced,

uncritical tone in relaying deeply personal and clearly painful events from her life.

She powerfully renders episodes like her attempted rape at the hands of three boys,

the harsh beatings administered to David by her father and the ceaseless racial

taunting by schoolmates; her lack of perceivable malice or vindictiveness prevents

readers from feeling coerced into sympathy. The same can be said for Scheeres's

description of their Dominican school, where humiliation and physical punishment

are meant to redeem the allegedly misguided pupils. Tinged with sadness yet

pervaded by a sense of triumph, Scheeres's book is a crisply written and earnest

examination of the meaning of family and Christian values, and announces the

author as a writer to watch.

Copyright © Reed Business Information,

a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

 Straightling: A Memoir

By: Cyndy Drew Etler

This site is dedicated to uncovering the complete truth about the Family Foundation School located in Hancock, NY. The Family Foundation School does not portray themselves as the horrific school that many alumni swear to. The Family Foundation School ["FFS"] convinces parents not to believe their own kids but rather convince parents through various methods that their children are manipulators, liars, and cannot be trusted. One FFS staff stated "Anything that comes out of your child's mouth is a lie". FFS staff convince parents not to believe anything their children say whle they are at the school, referencing manipulation and lies are common ways kids try to get taken out of the school and are behaviors of addicts. In reality, most kids feel a sense of abandonment from their real families because they are not believed.

Our mission is simple: end abuse at the Mormon Gulag and other similar facilities.

We want to end all forms of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse perpetrated by the Utah Boys Ranch/West Ridge “Academy”. We understand the necessity of facilities that treat youth for emotional and behavioral issues, but the abuse and potential for abuse in privately owned treatment facilities outweigh any positive effect they might have.

Excerpt taken from website: Provo Canyon School has been torturing children and defrauding families for over 30 years. The founders of WWASP (World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools) got their start at Provo Canyon School. Robert Lichfield, confirmed child torturer, began as staff at Provo Canyon School before opening his own torture camps in the US and abroad. And, Karr Farnsworth, current director of Cross Creek (a WWASP program), also got his start at Provo Canyon School.

This website has been created to influence the government to investigate the death of Roberto Reyes and to close Thayer Learning Center. We intend to use it to publish stories of Thayer's acts of child abuse, negligence, and lack of concern for basic human rights.

We encourage employees, former employees, victims and their parents to let us know more about what happens behind Thayer's walls.