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SURVIVOR ACCOUNT #1

By Anonymous

Do NOT send your child to Elan. Read this before you decide.

Elan is a terrible tormenting place. If a child needs help Elan or places similar should never be considered. It should not even be allowed to be on a list of options. A child may need some time to find a positive path but just because Elan separates that child from the outside world for an extended period of time(two-three years unless you're lucky enough to be taken out or runaway and not be captured)doesn't mean it helps. All of the exits are guarded at all times by students. Being screamed at by four different people at once and let's estimate about an average of three times a day for two years is not just not healthy but is clearly insane.

The first day I arrived at Elan I walked into a room where a "three house ring" and "general meeting" was being held. A boy's nose was the receiving end of a boxing glove and blood streaming down his face was the result from being in the "Ring". Then about one hundred and fifty students in rows of about five all "got their feelings off", which involves screaming and swearing in a persons face who is deemed to have done something "wrong" in the eyes of the so called "Directors" of the school that is a "General Meeting". The "Directors" keep the momentum of these unbelievable events going. I always wished my parents would make a surprise visit and stumble in on a "General Meeting". What would they think?
("General Meetings" could happen as often as two or more times a day. "Rings" happened occasionally, which consist of a circle of students surrounding the "offender" and the other student who are both wearing boxing gloves. The outside circle is taunting the offender while the two box. When the student gets tired another takes his or her place to be in the ring with the "offender")

The "Directors" are the ones who tightly control each of the students lives. Reading students mail, having phone calls listened to so that nothing could breach their operation of making $50,000 a head a year per student.

At night a student stays awake to guard the dorms of his or her gender. Every ten minutes for eight hours a night a "bed check" is conducted. Each student has their sheets lifted up and a flashlight is shone on the students body to make sure they don't have any hidden clothing to take with them in the event that they try to run away. Could you imagine having your sheets pulled up every ten minutes for eight hours every night for years? Can you imagine that students are expected, who are in positions of responsibility, to stay up all night and be a "night guard"? And if you fall asleep you will be punished and be made to scrub the floors for a couple of days and have your shoe laces taken away.

"The Corner", which is really a term dubbed for being put into isolation, is used to take a child who is not conforming with Elan out of the population. Another student is then placed with them as a "support person". This support person could be subject to the other student acting out, which could involve attempts at self mutilation, being spat on, sworn at, screamed at, exposed to the students genitals, exposed to them masturbating for shock effect but Elan has a no kick out policy. The "support person" may be expected to physically restrain the acting out student. Sometimes the support person had to hold them down on the floor and have plastic restraints put on the student so his or her hands are behind his or her back. Sometimes this student who is acting out could be in the corner for over a month. Spending his or her days facing the corner of a wall and sleeping on a dingy mattress on the floor. This student could spend a month acting crazy like this and then stop and come out of "the corner" only to be put right back in because he or she starts acting out again. Usually there was at least one student in "the corner" for the two year period I was there. Also if the "support person" may take their eyes off this other student in "the corner" and he or she decides to self mutilate and succeeds then the "support person" will be stripped of his or her position of responsibility and made to scrub floors for a time of maybe two to three days. Can you believe that this is allowed to go on? A fifteen year old child being forced into this responsibility if he or she wants to succeed in Elan? Also that child who is"acting out" does so because he or she is standing up for themselves albeit it is in a damaging fashion but that is how a person may cope when being forced to stay in a place like Elan.

The school curriculum, is fabulous for an unmotivated child, with no test, exams, or projects it couldn't be better. When parents receive news that their child, who was once possibly failing in school, is now getting great marks they could only think that Elan is doing something right. That is one of the tactics Elan uses to decept parents and school boards but ultimately rob that child of a real education.

Could you imagine not being allowed to go outside when you want? When I was in Elan you pretty much got outside once a week for a gym class. If you were lucky you got to go out for special outings maybe once every month or two but that only happens after about six months, which I would say is about the average length of time it takes for the "brainwashing effect" to be fully active in a student. After that constant fear and guilt consumes a student and everything from brushing up against the opposite sex to taking a minute longer in the shower than is allowed is written down on a piece of paper(referred to in Elan as "copping to your guilt") and given to the powers at be so they know your every move. So basically everything that Elan deems as "wrong" is instilled through feeling immense guilt and usually eventually you fess up. When I was in Elan for about a month I spat in a staff member's coffee but nobody knew except me. A year later I told on myself. By the way Elan is co-ed but no physical or flirty behaviour is allowed. Can you imagine a house full of hormonal teens being watched over so severely that you're scared to look someone of the opposite sex in the eye for too long? I received a " general meeting" for being flirty. I had people scream and swear in my face for ten minutes because I am human. This is where the ultimate control happens and the "Directors" or staff were ruthless. They would scream and swear in your face and make you feel absolutely hopeless. They controlled the level of fear among the students.

Can being around all of these things and many other detrimental things for years be conducive to grow up healthy? Because you really are growing up in Elan. Two or sometimes three years during your teens is crucial and Elan tears those pages right out of your life. THEY CAN NEVER BE REPLACED.

For parents and kids:  Summary: How does a parent deal with a child who has behavior, alcohol or drug problems?  Boot camp-style programs have tried to deal with these issues through participant isolation, hard labor, restraints, name-calling, humiliation, sleep and food deprivation and hiking into the wilderness or desert.  These programs often hire kids off the street to be counselors working for minimum wage.  Some workers, she discovered, had criminal records or little training, education and experience with troubled children.  She says it was rare if there was even a psychologist on the grounds.  Among the programs she tackles are Synanon, Tough Love, The Seed, Straight Incorporated, the Challenger Camp, Elan School, KIDS and World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP).  Public officials including Nancy Reagan promoted these programs in the 1980s as the solution to drug abuse.  Talk shows used them to teach ungrateful rich kids how to behave, and other media outlets publicized boot camps as a miraculous cure.  Some children were sent because they admitted to being gay. Parents thought the camps could "straighten their children out" and make them heterosexual.  Szalavitz examines these programs through the eyes of the children who endured them.  She also speaks to parents of children who died horrific deaths in these programs. There were about 30 kids who died, many of them because counselors had little training to deal with desert conditions and lack of water.  Szalavitz investigates the lack of education provided to these kids during camp.  She also looks at the way panic-stricken parents are manipulated into sending their children.  For complete story, click here.

POLAND, Maine -- A school for troubled teens in the town of Poland is closing.

In a letter to News 8 Wednesday afternoon, Executive Director Sharon Terry said declining enrollment and resulting financial difficulties is the reason for the school's closing.  For complete story with lies from the program included, click here.

[Complete article included above.  Hyperlinked title to original article source online.]

"Author Maura Curley updates her 1991 book with new information and a dramatic epilogue, presenting a provocative portrait of Ricci as a drug addicted psychopath who terrorized adolescents at Elan and his employees at his racetrack.

This is the story of Joe Ricci, racetrack owner, and founder of Elan, a for profit treatment center for troubled adolescents attended by children from around the world, including Kennedy cousin, convicted killer Michael Skakel.

Elan operated for nearly forty years in rural Maine until it closed in 2011 because former residents - now adults - waged a campaign to tell their experiences of abuse via social media and anti-Elan websites. They are still seeking justice and considering class action.

Yet Ricci ran for governor of Maine posing as David facing Goliath, duped the the iconic news show 60 Minutes into broadcasting a favorable portrait of him, and convinced a jury to award him $15 million in a lawsuit he filed for violation of his civil rights."
 

Source and Link to Purchase:  Duck in a Raincoat by Maura Curley