New Horizons Youth Ministries Founded by a Pedophile

New Horizons Youth Ministries (parent organization of my reform school, Escuela Caribe) was founded in 1971 by Pastor Gordon  Blossom, a former juvenile delinquent who'd served a stint at Michigan's Floyd Starr Commonwealth Home.* By the time I arrived at Escuela Caribe in January 1990, Pastor Blossom was not active in the "ministry"  except during Spiritual Emphasis Week in the Canada branch, Missanabie Woods Academy. Then he would deliver a sermon in the chapel, segregated by sex, first to the boys, then the girls.  I don't even want to go into details here- but it was awful and we had to sit there and take it because the Pastor was speaking and he was always right. Scarred me for years.  I wrote a chapter about it this summer.

Yesterday a fellow alum rocked our cyberwaves- she discovered Pastor Blossom molested one of his daughters, Shirley Jo Petersen.  Petersen wrote a book, the Whisper, about healing from sexual abuse.  Petersen also alleges (and I believe her) that the pastor physically and emotionally abused her other siblings. She says that in part she has healed because she realizes that he was abused. Which I get on one level, yeah we all are constantly replicating trauma until we resolve it, but there is no excusing it, because at some point you have to face the monster within yourself and change. And I know that I probably am thinking more about my situation with my parents than hers. It is important to note- when she wrote my friend, Petersen said it didn't excuse what he did.

But I don't know what to do with the concrete proof that my parents entrusted me to a pedophile over my grandparents, who loved me and wanted me, to reform me, all because Blossom's "ministry" was Christian®.  And I don't want to think of all the predators who blatantly abused me and my friends.  I'd rather focus on how my writing is taking off in Sabrina Orah Mark's workshop, or the way right now the gingkos are my favorite gold, or that on Thursday night my guy and I saw one of Television's only U.S. shows.  

*Fun fact:  Blossom was once recognized for his civic work by Gov. George Romney, father of Mitt.

October Status Check

Deirdre Sugiuchi with Killick Hinds

I co-curate the New Town Revue, an Athens, GA music and literature series, which is hosted at Athens' Avid Bookshop. Friday, October 11, was sublime.

I volunteered at the Great ARTdoors, a fundraiser for the Hambidge Foundation. They have hosted me for three different residencies; it's one of my favorite spaces on earth. I led a tour of Didi Dunphy's studio. There were so many exciting things to discuss- she made a swing that was set up in the garden. This video was linked to an embroidered QR scan.  This punch list was drawn on her studio wall, things she did every single day at Hambidge. I love the way she reminds us all  to integrate play.  

I began my third workshop with Sabrina Orah Mark. For our first assignment, she asked us to select a piece of work we wished we had written.  I chose Steve Almond's essay about Kurt Vonnegut, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.  You can read the first part here.

Brantley Senn has been rebuilding my website. Heads up- this blog will soon migrate to wordpress.  The whole site will be much more user-friendly. Soon we will debut the design.  

And all of this means so much more to me because this weekend marked the 24th anniversary of my entry into the teen treatment industry.  My gateway to Escuela Caribe began at a place in Olive Branch, MS, then known as Parkwood Behavioral Health Services. I wish I could go back then and show myself how much I adore my life now.

Lost in the Letters, Elf Power, & a User's Guide to Unreformed

I read for Atlanta’s Lost in the Letters this weekend. Listened to some fab writers (Jamie Iredell is hilarious!). Really enjoyed meeting LIL curator Scott Daughtridge. Am looking forward to future collaborations- he's doing much to build the regional lit scene, like this festival in November (to be linked soon) which features some of my heroes- Roxane Gay, Jericho Brown, Mary Miller, and more. Stoked!

I read two Unreformed excerpts*- Certificate of Affection (you had to have a commitment ceremony to have a relationship at Escuela Caribe- which was then horrifying but now is funny- provided you yourself didn't experience it) and First Gulf War, which delves into some of the apocalyptic dogma.  My husband, who is a musician (fave album- Ham 1: The Captain’s Table), helped me prep. When I came to the part where I referenced this verse in First Gulf War, he stopped me. “Wait, so that’s why you make jokes about riding the beast (when referring to difficult situations/people)?" “Totes, babe!”

Saturday night we walked down to the World Famous for Elf Power- a band we LOVE to see live, especially in this current iteration.** Former collaborators Bryan Poole and Jamie Huggins have reunited with Andrew Rieger and Laura Carter, and Peter Alvanos (who plays in our off/on project, High Ranker) is on drums. They closed with one of their oldest songs, Down to the Drugstore, which is about being all messed up in high school. Adored!

And after the show Andrew and I were talking about how much I enjoyed their set. When I watch them play they remind me of how my life could have been- had the adults in our town not shipped so many of us off to teen mistreatment facilities (and my parents not been religious control freaks) but instead helped us find some sort of creative outlet. But that's why I love how my Athens' friends were raised in Greenwood, SC, Ruston, LA, Charleston, Orlando, etc., because they have helped me discover how to be. And even better, that's how the kids in my town (especially my son) are being raised now.

One last thing- a reader (<3) emailed and asked for excerpts from Unreformed. Danzas Con Lobos en Santiago was published in Marco Polo. This Rumpus interview with Craig Zobel begins with a scene from Escuela Caribe. My Guernica interview with Julia Scheeres is essentially a comparison and contrast between Escuela Caribe and Jonestown. And the following posts from this blog include research or explore various topics pertaining to Escuela Caribe/ Caribe Vista/ Caribbean Mountain Academy. Enjoy!

• More from that Guernica Interview with Julia Scheeres
• Everyone Carried the Cross at Escuela Caribe
• Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real
• Caribbean Mountain Academy in Need of Reform
• Lifeline Youth and Family Services Under Scrutiny Stateside
• Escuela Caribe/ Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Crosswinds Updates
• Why NHYM Alumni Are Concerned About Crosswinds
• Petition to End Abuse of Children at Crosswinds
• New Horizons Youth Ministries Expelled from Haiti in 1974
• Abusive Tactics at Escuela Caribe Featured in 1979 Congressional Report
• Romney Linked to Abuse at For-Profit Teen Treatment Facilities
• 1988 Escuela Caribe Promotional Video
• About Unreformed
• For years, I wrote as Deirdre Sayre.  There is so much more on this blog.

*My buddy Scott M. and I were both super stoked that Eno's Needle in the Camel's Eye was my entry music to walk onstage, a song which (ZOMG- coincidence!) Elf Power also covers.

**Not that we haven't loved the other combos- Eric Harris and Derek Almstead from the In a Cave era- wow!

Learning to Fly- July Recap

Ever since I left the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, I've spent almost every free moment in my studio, because, while at Tin House, I figured out where Unreformed stops and starts.* I owe this revelation in part to my mentor, Jodi Angel, who read and critiqued the whole hot mess of my manuscript, Steve Almond, the leader of our “Gimme Fiction" workshop (a.k.a. The Almond Joys),** as well as the crew of writers with whom I studied.  You all ROCK!

On this past Friday, my last true Friday of the summer, my friend Bart Lemahieu recorded me reading Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot, a piece that has helped me come to grips with accepting loss in my life.  Amazing! Afterwards, as the sun set, we listened to the cicadas.  Audio will be posted when we get it right.

During the past few weeks I also began conversations with Escuela Caribe alumni who came after me- and all I can say is- Crosswinds/ Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Escuela Caribe/ Caribe Vista- despite your denials- I KNOW YOU ARE THE SAME PLACE. You kept the same people on as staff.  You were mentored by former abusers.  Many of the procedures remain the same- the only major change seems to be the name (and we have seen that before!).*** And I will address that matter soon- in another post- but now I am writing, writing, writing...

And to all of you who read and engage and comment here- know that I appreciate you.  And I cherish your assistance in helping me expose the abuses of Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Escuela Caribe. Thank you so for being... <3 <3 <3...

*This is huge- I was meandering way over on both ends.

** Album by the band Spoon. My mental soundtrack in Portland. I write nonfiction, but studied fiction this workshop to learn more about craft. Love learning outside the box.

***Newsflash- Crosswinds/ CMA/ EC- in regards to your blog post: writing is NOT a lucrative career.  Most writers have jobs to support their passion. And understand- I am extremely passionate about ensuring that other kids are not abused. 

Down the Rabbit Hole- Mississippi Delta Edition

I’ve been prepping for Rabbit Box Storytelling at the Melting Point tomorrow night- I have eight minutes to tell about a rabbit hole I went down.  The decision is difficult- ever since I was a kid I’ve loved to immerse myself in history- I’m still obsessed with the Holocaust.  Forced exercise, Arbeit Macht Frei, Eichmann "only following orders”- so many parallels to Escuela Caribe in my teens.

However, I decided to focus on 2010’s summer obsession- when I began exploring the untold histories of Greenwood, Mississippi, my hometown. I'd begun writing about this amazing teacher, Mrs. C., who taught me in 9th grade- I adored her- because she was one of the few adults who told us the truth about where we lived. How Emmett Till was lynched in our county.  And how (when I was in high school) Medgar Evers’ murderer still walked the streets and bragged, and how when Kennedy was assassinated  people in my town celebrated. Take note: that scene in the Help (which I only saw because it was filmed in my friends’ houses in Greenwood) where all the white people were crying over Kennedy’s murder, was a white wash.

In 2010, I began writing about the Delta, and, because I’m obsessive, discovered so many things I am not going to have time to tell.  How for a brief period, my hometown was a civil rights hotbed- Medgar Evers, Dick Gregory, Bob Moses, Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, James Bevel, Sam Block and so many others sacrificed so much to make Greenwood a better place.  Dr. King came twice. Stokely Carmichael was provoked into delivering the black Power speech in my town.  There was so much brutality, so many murders- it sickened me- but also beauty- that part in Don’t Look Back where Dylan is playing in the cotton field, it happened right near where I grew up.

But what I am focusing on is how white people behaved in Greenwood, and the segregationist literature, particularly 1957’s Manual for Southerners, which was printed in my hometown.  Because it’s important for people to understand how hate speech programmed generations of Southerners, of Americans, to be racist, and also that the painful history I unearthed was not just from Greenwood, but from Athens, and all over the world. It's important  to explore unwritten histories, no matter how painful- because knowledge is power- it's the only way to create a better world.

More from that Guernica Interview with Julia Scheeres

 I remember it was 1978 and I saw this magazine cover on our dining room table.  And there were bodies lying on the ground and I remember asking my mom what is that? She didn't answer my question, just flipped the cover over, said something about a bad thing happening. And I remember I kept hearing this name on the news "Jonestown" and for a while Jonestown was the news- it was inescapable- and I know I realized lots of people- including children- died- and as a kid, that resonated. I thought about it constantly. So I guess you could say I've been a Jonestown obsessive since I was four. 

I remember I didn't understand how parents could kill their children. I remember I didn't understand how so many people could kill themselves. And until I read Julia's Jonestown book, A Thousand Lives, which we discussed in the Guernica interview, I didn't understand that most people there didn't just "drink the Kool-Aid"- many died after months of being broken down- many were violently coerced.  She talks about it in our Guernica interview, and other things- how Jim Jones staged traumatic events to bond with his congregation, and how having been at Escuela Caribe (our reform school, where her memoir Jesus Land is set) helped her and Jonestown survivors bond. Her take (again in the interview) on how Jim Jones fits in culturally is not to be missed.  As is the witness she bears to racism in America- which resounded differently with her than with most whites- her adopted brother David was black. 

I loved our entire conversation, but obviously the Escuela Caribe parts hit the closest home. Ever since she and I spoke, and then I transcribed it and thought about it, I've felt like I understand so much more about myself, about so many survivors.  Some of my favorite parts are after the jump....Or read the entire interview at Guernica.

Interview With Julia Scheeres in Guernica Magazine

Recently I interviewed Julia Scheeres.  She wrote Jesus Land, a memoir about our reform school, Escuela Caribe, and A Thousand Lives: the Untold Story of Jonestown.  

One of my favorite aspects of the Jonestown book is how Scheeres captured the day to day tyranny of life under Jim Jones' rule.   I was intrigued to discuss how living in captivity at Escuela Caribe helped inform her Jonestown work, but I came to understand so much more not only about Jonestown, and racism, and religion, but also about myself.  Like why I shut down emotionally. And why one of my integral values as an adult is living in an open-minded community. But this is just why I'm interested personally.  There's so much more to be gleaned (such as how Jones used deceptions like the King Alfred plan and staged shootings to trick people into following him, his theory of revolutionary suicide, or details of racism in the heartland) in Guernica Magazine. 

Lifeline Youth and Family Services Raising Questions Stateside

Lifeline Youth and Family Services, the organization that took over Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic (renaming it Caribbean Mountain Academy) has had the efficacy of its tactics questioned at one of its Indiana facilities, Pierceton Woods Academy.  Most recently two juveniles left the facility on March 31 and made threats to return with guns.  Last December, one of its students shot a man during a foiled carjacking attempt.

As a former student of Escuela Caribe, a facility isolated in the mountains of the Dominican Republic, I am concerned.  If Lifeline is having these sort of problems here in the States- what is happening in the D.R.- where there is no real oversight?  at least five of the staff were employed by the previous abusive administration.  One of the staff is a former student. What abuses are being used to control the students in the D.R.?

Thanks to Stacey Page Online for being a watchdog here in the U.S.

New Red Flag for Caribbean Mountain Academy- Former Students Employed as Staff

The Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse (CAICA) has a 40 point list of warning signs of potentially abusive facilities. Caribbean Mountain Academy (formerly Escuela Caribe &  Caribe Vista- this facility has a history of changing its name) fulfills many of these (i.e. communication monitored, outside of the U.S., students denied access to telephone, level system etc.).  What troubles me today is that they now are boasting about violating #13- The staff includes former clients/students of the facility. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not making a character attack on the staff member in question.  He's probably a decent guy, a pawn in their game.  He probably cares for the kids- I had several friends who went back as staff- some were great, others were NIGHTMARES.  However, having been a former student, especially a former student under the old order, when Tim Blossom, Phil Redwine, and Jeff Seabrooke were in charge, parents considering CMA need to understand that his norm for what typifies abuse is skewed.  

Also troubling, his answer for what drew him back to the D.R.: 

"God solely drew me back to CMA...Even when I came home after a student I did well in the program...but the day I left and went home...I was back into it...The battle I have from there from all the way up to when I came back to Christ all the way up to when I came back to here...it's just been a crazy story.  I just felt I had something to offer to students.  I had a heart to help. I know how it is when you go home after being in the program..it's one of the toughest times you can endure..I just wanted to help the teenagers here."

For how CMA enacts change in students:

"Culture shock helps...it gets them out of their comfort zone..." (note: culture shock is code for brainwashing). 

The answer for how he deals with students anger is revealing because it shows the petty reasons why students are sent to CMA.

I let them verbalize that anger...I let them verbally process what they were doing at home...skipping school or talking back or whatever it may be.

His final thoughts on CMA are taken straight from the Escuela Caribe playbook- lines I once used myself.

If I were never to come down here, I'd be dead right now...it essentially saved my life.

Red Telephone Redux

I found out about Boston from J. For the past month we've been studying with Sabrina Orah Mark.  "Deirdre, just to let you know I am thinking of you in light of this Boston incident," J emailed me. I remember I had this moment where I sat in my driveway wondering why I was associated with Boston.  But then all too quickly I understood what she meant. 

The day before, Sunday, we'd discussed my September 11th piece- the day when my two lives- before and after Escuela Caribe- became one.  Until that day I'd done my best to  compartmentalize- blocking the worst aspects of my repressive childhood, especially being locked up in an evangelical reform school during the buildup to the First Gulf War.  I was at Escuela Caribe when we dropped bombs over Baghdad.   I was at Escuela Caribe and terrified- we'd been told that the END is HAPPENING NOW (1991)...oh, the echoes of Jim Jones! The new section, the one J referenced, explores my reaction to September 11th, how it affected not only me post- 9/11, but America and the implications for the rest of the world.

And now we have come full circle to Boston. Again, people are hurt.  Again, innocents have died. Again, we focus minutely on destruction in America- not what is happening in the rest of the world. Again the coverage is rife with propaganda, which Roxane Gay nailed early last week.  Again those in power are using the attacks to justify eroding our civil rights. Slate actually published an article arguing for more surveillance. (And also one where we shouldn't judge the media if we want our news quick- seriously?). 

Take the calls for more surveillance seriously. You don't want it. I know what it is like to live in a fascist state where your every move is watched- and here I am not talking about America post- 9/11 but life at Escuela Caribe- where every gesture was scrutinized to determine how you think/thought/felt.  It was crazy-making, and I don't want it here in the United States where my child is living, or any other child, no matter her or his class or creed.
   
All I want now is what Steve Almond argued for here- more empathy, not emoting. We need to ask why people feel marginalized in the United States and the world. Instead of pointing fingers we need to practice what every major religion deems to be the guiding principle, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to treat them as we want to be treated- and only then, from that place of understanding, can we understand and prevent acts of horror committed in our world.

  
"They're locking them up today/ they're throwing away the key/ I wonder who it will be tomorrow/ you or me..." - Love

Everyone Carried the Cross at Escuela Caribe

  On Good Friday, we took turns hauling a cross up the cacita to the peak of our part of the mountain. We started with the highest ranking staff member, the director, Phil Redwine, and concluded with the zero levelers, all according to house. (To this day I despise hierarchies of any kind). We'd stop along the way at intervals and different staff members would read what I now realize were sections from the Stations of the Cross.  
   Odd fact: you can actually buy Stations of the Cross themed jewelry- I debated over a bracelet at my favorite Orlando vintage store last year, but decided against it- didn't want to creep Child-Thing out.

   I took part in two different Good Friday celebrations.  This picture is from my second, in March 1991.  Allison P. has assumed the cross.  Mike H., Director of Discipline (he actually used a strap called "Mr. Brown"), is to her left.  Phil is on her right.  We are about two-thirds of the way up the cacita- Hyuck House is in the background.

   At the top the cross was placed in a hole that had previously been dug. We prayed, then Kathy Jo sang, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" And we all joined in- "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble..." At that time, it did, because it was this glorious bonding experience, the whole school assembled on the peak at sunrise. I remember thinking that if every day at Escuela Caribe were like Good Friday, when we were united to worship or help others with service projects (once we built a school way back in the campo) I could understand why we were there.

  But it's not like I focus on this all the time, just when anniversaries come up, and I remember for two years I hauled a cross up the cacita to honor Christ, but then on the same day witnessed or received abuse. And I think of how the staff never realized their lack of compassion was a violation of what Jesus considered to be the greatest commandment, to treat others as you want to be treated.  And that can lead me down a whole rabbit hole of the cognitive dissonance in mainstream Christianity-unless I stop myself, short-circuit that thought with this one-    it was all so weird...

Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real, Part Two

    There were always kids at Escuela Caribe whose parents had heard of the school from someone else's- "the program" encouraged our parents to recruit. In my time, there was a group from San Diego , from Pennsylvania, and of course kids from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and other parts of the Midwest.  Before sending me, my parents had talked to a family from Alabama about how "the program" changed their life.  Not only did the recruitment keep the program supplied with more kids. It kept our parents from questioning when we obviously weren't right when we came back.*
    
    I think it was 1994 when my dad brought the kid to our house.  I was home for the holidays, still trying to negotiate how to interact with my family. I had just completed my first semester at the University of Georgia, which meant that my parents had relocated to southwest Georgia about a year before.

   The kid and I sat in the living room while our parents had a discussion in the den.  He was a few years younger than me, cute (a brunette), his parents only child.  He kept bragging about how "hard" he was, about all the things he had stolen, how no one could control him.  I want to say he trafficked in drugs, small time .  But then I could just be getting him confused with some other kid from Parkwood Behavioral Services, the gateway program that got me sent to Escuela Caribe.  I never would have had a conversation about drugs at Escuela Caribe- we weren't allowed to talk about our "negative pasts" or pretty much any past at all.  There you were stuck in the eternal present.

   My parents were telling his parents about Escuela Caribe, how the program had saved my life.  And it is weird that they did this when you realize that at this time I had asked the state of Mississippi to issue me a restraining order a violent obsessive (the judge granted it after telling me this would never have happened if I "let(the guy) have what he wanted"),  that I had destroyed my GPA  because I couldn't seem to force myself to weather the land of ice and snow and get to Taylor's gym class, that I had moved from Indiana to Mississippi to San Francisco before transferring to my third and final school, that several of my program friends were pregnant or had had a child (We'd been out two years).  I was barely scraping by. But if there is one thing about my family- we want to believe (so much more later on that).

   So his parents came in and asked do you think the program would be good for him?  And I wanted to say no but I just shrugged. I remember that I had all these images flashing of hour long sessions of  group punishment for asinine reasons (like the housemom who hid the spatula because she wanted to get us girls) or watching Mark B being forced to do push-ups with two kids on his back, or all the different kids I saw slammed against the wall, or....but the other part, the part of me that had adopted the group's mores, forced the real me to shut up. 

  I remember I thought of myself at fifteen- how I got sent away mainly because I couldn't get along with my parents, and I remember I qualified it, saying "I think it would be better for (your son) than me."  I remember I emphasized the me- because he was the one bragging abut how hard he was.  Because they didn't ask me how the program transformed me into a cowed submissive who didn't backtalk her parents- all they asked was would it give them results.

   And I am telling you this now because that confusion correlates to Stockholm Syndrome and mind control, how for years I adopted the group norms and didn't have the words to speak out. And also because in 2005 after my father read Jesus Land and we had a big cry on Easter morning, me asking how could you do this? I remember I was shocked when he asked me how could you help me do this to my friend's kid? And I tell you now, that until that moment with him, I had completely forgotten.


*(If anyone knows if Lifeline/ Caribbean Mountain Academy does this, can you please let me know?)

Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real (for all NHYM Survivors...and anyone who has triumphed over trauma)

I was fifteen.
We were building the Director's house.
Our housefather would punish us if we didn't move
 faster, faster, faster...

What I need to tell you now is about Stockholm Syndrome and how it impacted me.

I need to tell you because for the past eight years I have been working on my book about the evangelical reform school Escuela Caribe. I have been vocal in speaking out against Escuela Caribe, both here and in an online private group for survivors of New Horizons Youth Ministries.  I need to tell you because I wasn't always like this, concrete that what happened to us was wrong.  I need for you to know that I had a (short) period where I adopted the party line and thought the program saved me, followed by years of ambivalency, all this before the outright surety I have advocated for the past several years ...

I need to tell you because I keep getting responses to this one post I wrote last summer.  And because of that post I need to tell you again- I wasn't always like this- concrete that what happened to us was wrong- because I too had Stockholm Syndrome, that phenomena where survivors of captivity relationships defend those who abused them.  

The last time I experienced an extreme version of Stockholm Syndrome was in 2006.  It was after Julia Scheeres' Jesus Land had been released (thank you, Julia for confirming I was not alone), when I (accompanied by the ever-amazing esposo) visited the Dominican Republic.  I had to see with my own eyes whether Escuela Caribe was abusive.

I went back to the campus outside Jarabacoa. It is beautiful-nestled high in these emerald mountains, the Cordillera Septrional. I haven't hiked the pine forests at the top of the mountain in over twenty years but it's still my safe place.

I was met at the gate (still guarded by locals- this time they had guns) by A. B.S. ( a staff member who has been affiliated since the eighties.) She took me on a tour of the school.

It was all prepped just like when we had visitors back in the early nineties (my time)- everyone smiling- no one being yelled at- no one receiving exercises- no one in the director's office being slammed. Certainly no one doing forced labor- digging a garbage pit, macheteing, moving rocks. After the tour, A and I sat alone in a new (to me) gazebo (which I recognized as being built by student labor- nice craftsmanship, my friends).  She brought out photo albums- she had all these pictures I didn't even know existed (there is one of me by the trash pit, back when I was on zero that I would love to own--I can't remember ever looking that young). 

As we talked, she reminded me of all the good memories- Bacardi Beach and whale-watching in Samana, the aquarium and Tropi-Burger in Santo Domingo, eating helados in Santiago’s park- things I had forgotten were amazing- things that looked fun but that I could remember turned ugly, once the camera was off.  And for a little while I was overwhelmed with love. I smiled and laughed mechanically all the while thinking "Is speaking out wrong?" and other variations of "Do I dare disturb the universe?"...We smiled and laughed and looked into each other's eyes and I was so overwhelmed with love that I almost caved and agreed that “Yes, you worked miracles.” 

I almost caved until I pushed back. Because we were looking at pictures back when my friends and I were young and beautiful---but then the rational part of my mind remembered how we all have struggled as adults and I had to fight those Southern girl/ Christian submissive repressions against speaking out- I had to question the system.  I asked her "why did we had to have zero level?" "Why did students have to broken in order to be fixed?"  Because do not mistake me- that is Escuela Caribe's (and most teen treatment centers) philosophy- that students HAVE to be BROKEN through demeaning loss of all freedom (to stand, to sit, to eat, to use the restroom without being watched, etc.) in order to enact change. For some people, this "change" has devastated their life. I told her that for me to believe that they were doing no harm they had to abolish the level system.  

And A. was startled. Her hazel eyes widened.  The smile dropped.  "But students have to be broken," she insisted "You have to have zero level.” 

And that's when the rational part of my mind took over, and I began more pointedly (quelling that Southern female, Southern female- never say what you really think) pushing back.  "Oh yea this person (you are showing me) has an eating disorder.  That one (and that one, and that one) is a drug addict.  They found that boy’s body in the desert...his corpse was burned."

That boy, M, haunts me. He had the face of a choirboy- and oh! the voice.  Large blue eyes.  Brown curls.  After his parents’ divorce he was sent to Escuela Caribe- not once but twice.  He’d come in young---I want to say twelve---I guess they convinced the family when he came back to the States the first time and acted out (because that's what PTSD does to you) that the second time would be the charm. 

I heard they identified his body with dental records. I could be wrong. Whatever happened was gruesome and undeniably in part connected to his trauma. Part of my mission is to pay you tribute, my friend. I hope you have found peace.

So I am telling you all of this to say that yes, I comprehend that people can feel affection for people for staff at my reform school, Escuela Caribe.  And I am telling you that even though face to face I spoke up, that later, when I went back to my hotel, I was still conflicted.  Somewhere (I WILL find it) I have this notebook where in BIG BLOCK LETTERS I wrote (like Mulder) I WANT TO BELIEVE.  Because OH I wanted to. I wanted to believe that what they were doing wasn't wrong.  I wanted to believe that in my silence I had not been complicit in allowing two more decades of student abuse.  I wanted to believe because that's what bonding under trauma does to you.  You have all these intense emotions and love for the one who hurt you and it is super hard to break.

Lifeline Youth and Family Services Under Scrutiny Stateside

Lifeline Youth and Family Services, the company which assumed control of Escuela Caribe, the abusive juvenile detention facility located in the Dominican Republic, is under scrutiny stateside for negligence.  

In a recent article in the Stacey Page Online (Kosciusko County, Indiana's only digital newspaper), writer Stacey Page reports that three commissioners of Kosciusko County "signed a letter to Indiana State Representatives asking that they evaluate the facility."

For several months there have been many calls to local law enforcement asking that they help break up fights or locate runaways.  However the letter was prompted largely because of violent incident, where a student ran away, "hid in the vehicle of an employee of nearby Paragon Medical and shot the man in the chest."  The juvenile has been charged with attempted murder.

It's unsurprising to read that the U.S. (or D.R.) schools are chaotic- Lifeline employees are not required to have experience working with juveniles and are underpaid. These facts in part  prompted Julia Scheeres to write a petition to Lifeline CEO Mark Terrell asking him to enact reforms at the Dominican Republic campus (now known as Caribbean Mountain Academy). However, it is extremely disturbing to discover that the negligence at these supposed therapeutic schools is so blatant here in the states, where facilities are required to have some modicum of regulation, that local communities are asking Indiana for inspections.  How much worse is the situation in the Dominican Republic?    

Caribbean Mountain Academy in Need of Reform

 This summer, I signed a petition addressed to Crosswinds/ Lifeline Youth and Family Services CEO Mark Terrell.  Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres wrote the petition after requesting input from various survivors of New Horizons Youth Ministries, including myself. 

Why NHYM Alumni Are Concerned about Crosswinds

In 2011, Escuela Caribe and its parent company New Horizons Youth Ministries shut down. The property was donated to Crosswinds, a subsidiary of Lifeline Youth Ministries.  At first we celebrated. However, now we alumni are concerned.
Caribbean Mountain Academy, a division of Crosswinds, is predominantly staffed by former New Horizons Youth Ministries/ Escuela Caribe employees.  These are employees that were employed by an organization that professed that children must be broken in order to be fixed. They worked during a time when students, teenagers, were given swats and being sent to the Quiet Room (often for days) for minor violations, when students were being "slammed" against the wall for minor infractions, even when the story of waterboarding recounted by "Emily" occurred sometime around 2009. (For further reference, read this student's account of abuse in 2008, when many of these staff were employed).
Another troubling aspect is that this summer Crosswinds uploaded a parents' guidebook (since removed from their website).  The students are on a level system similar to the one utilized by Escuela Caribe. It does not say how their placement on levels is determined.  (In the past it was via a point sheet).Zero Level, which we all considered an abomination, is no longer mentioned in the guidebook.  However, it seems to have been replaced with Level One.  
This summer, Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres created a petition to protect students at Caribbean Mountain Academy.  A series of requests to protect basic human rights was outlined.  Nearly 600 individuals have signed, including Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Crosswinds CEO Mark Terrell.  
Terrell added comments.  Many are problematic. The two things that worry us most is that he carefully qualified his answers on employing former staff and on uncensored communication between students and families. 
In order for students to be protected, they need uncensored communication with their families.  They need a hotline to report abuse, and an outside agency that monitors the facility to ensure that abuse is not occurring.  For students to be safe, they shouldn't be in the Dominican Republic at all, cut off from their families.
We believe all former staff should be dismissed.  Two of the current staff members have written a post for the Crosswinds facebook page defending why they should still be employed. Even if they did not commit abuse, they still were there while it was occurring.  In the United States, teachers or counselors who do not report abuse happening to children lose their jobs.  Why should the rules be different in a therapeutic program?

Dusk at the Cubist Castle

   I moved to Athens, Georgia a few years after Escuela Caribe, knowing I needed to be surrounded by people compelled to create. Around the same time a group of artists moved here from Ruston, LA.  Back home they'd formed bands like the Synthetic Flying Machine and the Gerbils,  discovered Daniel Johnson and the Tall Dwarfs on college radio, played at the Fun-o-Mat. They'd established a collective, Elephant 6. 
   Once they moved to Athens, they formed other bands.  The Olivia Tremor Control. Neutral Milk Hotel. Always Red. the Marbles. The Sunshine Fix. Their music became the soundtrack of my generation.
   Bill Doss (Synthetic Flying Machine, the Olivia Tremor Control, the Sunshine Fix, Apples in Stereo, etc...) was a leader of the Ruston group.  He was one of the last people I saw before I left town for July.  We ran into each other on Washington Street, in front of Flicker.  He was with Peter Alvanos (Fabulous Bird, Sunshine Fix, etc.), one of the many people Bill inspired.
   Elf Power and the Glands had just headlined on the main stage. It was the first hot weekend of summer, all of us were sticky from sweat. Velena and I are were headed for the Manhattan's air-conditioning. I told Bill about an article I wanted to write, how his hometown Ruston had inspired him and his friends to be creative, how our community in Athens had done the same.  Bill raised an eyebrow, intrigued.  We talked about how more than thirty artists had migrated here from Ruston, how back when we were younger, the Olivias practiced across the street from our house. We made plans to talk this month, when I got back.
   I returned home Saturday, missing OTC's Thursday show- 500 plus watched them rock out. Tuesday I outlined the article, preparing Bill's questions.  After lunch, my son and I  walked down to Vision Video. Jim Hicks met me inside.  His face was face flushed, eyes rimmed red.  He'd just found out Bill had died. Bill was only 43 years old.  He was married. He was at the top of his game, touring with the Apples...The Olivia Tremor Control had reformed. The news sent shock waves through Athens, to fans around the world, devastated friends and family at home.
   That night, I rode my longboard for a long time ... no helmet, sandals, listening to my ipod...thinking of how Bill embodied the best of what makes life sweetest, always creating, encouraging those around him to do the same.  Occasionally, the cicadas drowned the music out. 
                 

Petition to End Abuse of Children at Caribbean Mountain Academy (Escuela Caribe)

In 2011, Escuela Caribe, the Christian reform school where I was incarcerated in the early '90s, was taken over by Lifeline Family and Youth Services. The Escuela Caribe campus is now called Caribbean Mountain Academy.  (This is the fourth time this school's name has been changed).  Many of the staff who were employed by Escuela Caribe now work at Caribbean Mountain Academy.

Why is this disturbing?  These same staff were complicit in the abuse of children. Read the case of "Emily," a student from 2009...

"Emily was suffering from severe depression when her parents decided to send her to this self-described “Christian therapeutic boarding school.” Shortly after her arrival, she was confined to the “Quiet Room” for several weeks, where she was forced to sleep on a concrete floor and use a bucket as a toilet. The other students were told to ignore her anguished cries. After releasing her from solitary confinement, the staff gave her a potent sedative each morning whose sleep-inducing side effect prevented her from completing her chores. In an attempt to rouse her, three men routinely dragged her outside, pinned her to the ground, and poured water over her face with a garden hose. She was terrified they would drown her."

Julia Scheeres, author of Escuela Caribe expose Jesus Land, crafted this petition to Mark Terrell, CEO of Lifeline Family and Youth Services.  It includes the previous example.  It requests that Terrell dismiss all staff employed by Escuela Caribe, ends the level system (where students are required to ask permission to enter each room, stand, sit, eat, use the bathroom, etc.), allows uncensored communication between children, their families, and other students, and abandons harsh physical and emotional confrontations, among other requests.

Please sign this petition.  Please share it with your family and friends.  Thank you for helping protect the students of Caribbean Mountain Academy. 


xoxo, Deirdre

New Horizons Youth Ministries Expelled from Haiti in 1974

New Horizons Youth Ministries' first overseas academy, Caribe-Vista Youth Safari, was established in Haiti. 

In 1974, they moved to the Dominican Republic. They changed their name to Caribe-Vista. (Five years later, after a 1979 Congressional Report alleging abuse, it would become Escuela Caribe...today it is known as Caribbean Mountain Academy).Various rumors were given for the program’s move, usually casting blame upon the students:  some kid had burned down native huts in Haiti.  A girl had run away and been forced into prostitution.

However, an article from 1974, tells the truth.

The program was cited by Michigan officials for being unlicensed and not offering proper care.  They were particularly concerned with Blossom’s advocacy of corporal punishment resulting in excessive bruises and bleeding.  He also was sending court-ordered students to Haiti who were supposed to be housed at Michigan’s Honey Creek Christian Homes.

The Haitian officials deported Blossom’s organization on drug charges and for not keeping their visas and other documents current.  If the Duvalier regime expels you, you must be really corrupt.

Caribbean Youth Camp Attacked As Unfit by Paper

Detroit (AP) A Caribbean camp housing 18 Michigan youths is unlicensed and may not offer proper care, according to a Detroit newspaper. Half of the youths at the camp were sent there by state probate judges and five of those six judges have ordered their charges returned to the states pending an investigation of the Caribe Vista Youth Safari. The nine other Michigan youths were placed in the camp by their parents.

The sixth judge said he planned to make a decision today after reading a state Supreme Court memo which questioned whether the courts could legally make the placements and which said use of state funds for the care of youths at the facility “may be improper”.

The youths and their director Rev Gordon Blossom, a Baptist minister from Grand Rapids, were deported from Haiti to the Dominican Republic because of drug charges and because Haitian officials said they failed to keep visas and other documents current, the Detroit Free Press said.

They have since been lodged at two sites on the island, and will be moving to a third camp soon, the paper said.

Judges ordered the youths placed in the camp, believing the 53-year old minister was running a legitimate operation based on what he called “culture shock.”

Blossom believes the disorientation resulting from living in a different country with a strange language, monetary system, life-style and social-political problems will make it easier for the campers to overcome influences that get them into trouble in the first place, the paper said.

Blossom runs a licensed Michigan camp called Honey Creek Christian Homes in Lowell, Michigan. He told judges that their wards would be sent to Honey Creek, then to the Caribbean.

However, the paper said it learned the youths were flown directly to Haiti. Part of the stir that has prompted some judges to order their wards back to Michigan stems from Blossom’s questionable maneuvering and advocacy of corporal punishment. They said they were worried by Blossom’s failure to keep them up to date on what was happening with his charges.

“Kids need a swat on the butt when they mouth off,” Blossom was quoted as saying. However, the Free Press said it learned excessive bruises and bleeding sometimes resulted. Physical punishment has been discontinued, however, and group therapy substituted, the paper said.*

Although some of the judges have deplored Blossom’s operation, he argued in his defense: “If authorities….. are unaware of the sexual abuse, social stigma, destructive influences, and psychological assaults experienced by children in the reform schools, detention centers and mental hospitals to which our kids otherwise would have been sent, we have just cause for their replacement.

“If, while knowing these things, they continue to stifle programs calculated to avoid these traumas, they justly indict themselves in the minds of all knowledgeable persons.”

from the The Daily Globe, Ironwood, Michigan, August 19, 1974, p.6.

*Physical punishment was resumed once NHYM moved to the Dominican Republic.  It was documented in a 1979 Congressional Hearing. 

Abusive Tactics at Escuela Caribe Featured in 1979 Congressional Report

On January 4, 1979, Congress began a hearing on the Abuse and Neglect of Children in Institutions.   Escuela Caribe, then called Caribe Vista, was condemned for its abuse of children.


Children's Advocate Kenneth Wooden delivered the following testimony:

"I would like to share with you my 1976 observations of the facility that is currently charging taxpayers in Evansville, Indiana $8360 a year per child. Caribe-Vista was totally unsupervised by any outside American. Blossom's daughter and son-in-law ran all three group homes. Staff was paid $100 per month and a promise of a better job elsewhere, because of their experience gained at Caribe-Vista. A key point is parents were not permitted to visit for the first four months. The mail was censored at all times. I submit to you parents cannot visit their children so Gordon Blossom can brainwash their children on his religious programs. If the child had any dental problems, local unqualified students who pulled tooth for quarter. Education was nothing more than correspondence courses.

Forms of discipline were demonstrated to me as I was talking to him about 10 kids. One young girl who had her head shaved was taunted by a staff member to tell me why she was bald. As she stood in silent shame, he harassed her about her weakness of the flesh-she ran away for the weekend and mingled with the local Dominican male.

The director of religion freely admitted that the children were beaten with a stick on the rump "hard enough to make them fear it." Three days of solitary confinement was given before the beatings.

 Can you imagine forcing a child 16 years old to explain to a strange man, myself, why her head was shaven and how the director of religion required that girl to talk about her sexual life on weekends when she would slip out of the facility and how she was beaten with a stick and how she was placed in solitary confinement?

The young girl who was so degraded by these people was there without any government scrutiny on the part of the United States.

Gordon Blossom is making a lot of money figuring the amount of kids there down there, figuring what he is paying, the cost he is paying for his program-what appears to be a glorified babysitting outfit, could have made Gordon Blossom a millionaire and four years. His program is now eight years old. I believe that the state of Michigan is refused to allow New Horizon's Youth Ministries to operate at home, certainly someone from the State Department with a background in public health, should visit and evaluate the operation in the Dominican Republic."

The only outcome of this hearing seems to be that Escuela Caribe changed its name to Caribe Vista.  Prior to that, when the program came under scrutiny, it moved from Michigan to Indiana.

In 2011, after pressure from our alumni website, The Truth About New Horizons Youth Ministry, response to Julia Scheeres' memoir, Jesus Land, a protest at the Marion facility, publicity over Kate Logan's forthcoming expose, Kidnapped for Christ, etc., the program changed ownership. 

Escuela Caribe is now Caribbean Mountain Academy, operated by Crosswinds Youth Organization, a division of Lifeline.  At least seven former staff are employed.  Many alumni doubt that their tactics have changed.

Incidentally, in 1979 Wooden also delivered testimony detailing abuse at Provo Canyon, a facility where Mitt Romney's Utah finance co-chair, Robin Lichfield, was employed at the time of the hearing.  Lichfield went on to found the infamous World Wide Association of Specialty Programs, which is known for abusive practices, including locking teens in cages.