A feature-length film aims to tell the story of American teenagers sent to an evangelical Christian boarding school, Escuala Caribe, in the Dominican Republic. According to its website, the school is “therapeutic,” with a mission to help the parents of underachieving kids “train their child in the way he or she should go.”
Several past students allege “physical and emotional abuse” at the “boot camp,” however. Among those featured in the upcoming documentary Kidnapped for Christ are a teenager who says he was, essentially, abducted during the night to be taken from his US home to Escuala Caribe:
One morning I woke up. Two guys were at my house. … Both my parents were standing there, saying: “We love you, David. We love you.” … [The men] tied a belt around my waist, dragged me with the belt to their car. … I got sent down here because I am gay, and my parents, they just weren’t okay with that.
Watch the trailer below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR77tWVxKc
Escuala Caribe is run by New Horizon[s] Youth Ministry, which, according to its website, has recently been taken over by Lifeline Youth and Family Services, Inc.
Here’s a very telling paragraph from the school’s website:
Culture shock is a form of psychological disorientation produced by a sudden and complete change in one’s cultural environment. … [It tends] to make adolescents remarkably more dependent upon our Christian staff for direction and emotional support, while also rendering them more malleable and capable of new perspectives. Culture shock in a highly structured setting greatly enhances meaningful communication, offering young people extraordinary occasions for making enriching discoveries that inspire personal growth.
Hat-tip: Towleroad
Any parent who would subject their kids to such terror, so drastic and disgusting that it has to be done offshore to avoid US jurisdiction, really should be charged with abuse and child endangerment — at the very least. And yes, Alan, this is part of your legacy — own it.
Brainwashing 101.
Lifeline and New Horizons don’t appear to be affiliated with Exodus or other ex-gay ministries, and they don’t seem to market specifically for gay or questioning youth. So I asked the YouTube poster of the trailer (director/producer Kate Logan?) if they met other GLBT students at the school. The reply:
“There were at least a few students down there while we were filming who were sent primarily because they were gay, however teenagers were sent to this school for a variety of reasons ranging from drug abuse, mental illness, to just not getting along with their parents.”
It’s bad enough parents think their gay or questioning kid would be ‘straightened out’ by spending the summer at a wilderness adventure camp or enrolling for a year at a remote Christian boarding school that offers computer labs and community service projects, if all parents know about these programs is what they read on Lifeline/New Horizons websites.
But the administrators of these programs know what behavioral modification techniques the residents are actually subjected to (e.g. military-style discipline, corporal punishment, humiliation, hard labor, physical abuse, isolation from family and friends, communications silence, cultural disorientation).
Why would educators – like Dr. Charles Redwine of Wesley Seminary (Marion IN), who was program director of New Horizons Ministries for 25 years and until recently its COO – or Lifeline CEO Mark Terrell or VP of Residential Services Tony Fingerle think that their kind of ‘scared straight’ youth prison (for this is the best analogy) would be appropriate for any kid, much less one whose only ‘maladjustment’ is that they’re gay?
It’s time evangelicals stopped treating their gay children like criminals or mental patients. Will Lifeline Youth and Family Services disavow this activity and promise not to enroll youth to their programs simply because of their real or perceived sexual orientation?
When I was young and raising my children I came across a few parents that were “overly” strict with their children. I always thought that the “cover” of obedience and strictness was simply a cover of an adult craving power and control over their child.
The worst offending parent, who outwardly showed an extreme Catholicism facade was the WORST. That mother had a ton of rules and if her daughter failed boy did she get punished. One time when our daughter was in High School before they could drive a few friends got together to carve pumpkins. That was a nice Sunday afternoon activity for a group of young people. I volunteered to drive 2 of the girls home but arrived 15 minutes past when I said I would be there.
This one girl was in a panic that she was now going to be grounded for a week for arriving home late (it was like 5:30pm)I told her that there was no way her mother could punish her since it was not her fault that her driver was a few minutes late. Imagine my surprise when Monday evening my daughter told me that her friend indeed was grounded for the week for coming home late on Sunday.
I could give you more examples, the mother threatened to remove her from her school in her Senior year and send her to a Catholic HS. Thankfully the girl turned 18 before this could be accomplished and went to live with her father and was allowed to finish her High School years at her regular school. She was a brilliant student but failed at college, I helped her get back in on probation. I really liked this girl, she was a nice girl and her mother was simply a witch. That emotional abuse, that need to “control” that her mother applied very effectively caught up with the girl and she took her father’s gun and shot herself in the head. 20 years later this still hurts me, thinking of that poor girl.
Long story short, I am always skeptical about the parents when they claim to not be able to control their child and they send them off to these types of places. I am always skeptical of people who home school their children for the same reason, it seems to me to be less about love and caring and more about the need for absolute control and domination over their child.
Owing to a mix of ethical, legal, and professional treatment considerations, it seems quite likely that Escuela Caribe is skating on thin ice, indeed.
Teen addiction residential treatment programs often enact high structure plus high accountability practices in their work.
However quality treatment also requires several other framework factors being provided: (1) strong, reliable or consistent social support – accessed via resident to staff and via resident to resident interactions,
(2) marked informational work that is accurate, usually in the domains of addiction career dynamics, pharmacology and brain chemistry of substances, and basic life skills,
(3) standard, accredited regular high school or early college academic classes so that residents can resume work that might have been sidelined by addiction, or so that residents can continue to finish their high school or early college plans without falling too far behind agemates,
(4) any adjunct medical-psychiatric care that may be involved for residents with various chronic or acute physical or psychiatric conditions,
(5) regular family education and counseling meetings, especially towards the later phases of residential treatment programs,
(6) regular, ongoing accountability to outside quality control standards, usually through the program being regularly accredited or certified by outside bodies like USA The Joint Council (formerly the Joint Commission on Accrediting of Healthcare Organizations, or JCAHO), the Council on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), plus likely USA state program accreditation or state licensure at the facility, site or overall incorporation levels.
(7) strong, documented, regular internal quality control reviews that monitor effective treatment planning, treatment implementation, and intended or unintended outcomes (both positive and negative, if active).
Escuela Caribe seems like a setting that has sadly confused a one size fits all frame for teen addiction treatment and family recovery with many other types of adolescent and family conflict issues. Certainly, a harsh Escuela Caribe strategy is unlikely to help heal teen mental health problems, whether moderate to severe anxiety, depression, orientation to cognitive reality, eating disorder, self-harm disorder, suicidality, or God forbid an acute decompensation or psychotic break. One suspects that the family counseling which is often needed to work through family tensions and family conflicts, falling short of a diagnosible teen psychiatric disorder, is most likely long delayed at Escuela Caribe, if not completely lacking.
Since being LGBT is not a real mental disorder, it cannot be legally, ethically, or professionally treated as such. Practitioners who do so have so far been trying to hide under religious freedom; however, malpractice, professional abuse, and professional negligence are quite likely to be a basis for a legal case, either criminal or civil or both. In USA Memphis Tennessee, for example, the 40 year old program called Love in Action had its newish teen program investigated by state mental health and child welfare care evaluation teams, once it became known that a teen named Zachary had been enrolled there because of threats and family pressure by his conservative religious parents. The fake program goal of turning gay teens straight, combined with a notable absence of licensed staff, further called into question by the setting’s reliance on a similar one size fits all addiction treatment model … eventually helped close down the program. Former director John Smid now admits that he is still a gay man, though he remains faithful to his wife in what he now calls a ‘mixed sexual orientation marriage.’ Smid also says now, that in 40 years of work, he has met very few if any program graduates who have changed in sexual orientation, regardless of temporary or long-term changes in particular behaviors.
If parents are going to insist on sending their gay child to these facilities, and if the programs themselves are going to insist on their fair right to exist as alternatives to being a healthy, productive gay teen … then at a hard minimum, we must act to hold the parents and programs to ethical, professional, quality, and legal standards for quality, care, and effectiveness. When lapses, omissions, shoddiness, and other quality problems are identified, at least sometimes a civil or criminal procedure may be warranted, whether that is a full legal case filed in court, or a formal complaint to a relevant licensing state department or accrediting organization.
@Steve
Steve:
I am the CEO of Lifeline Youth and Family Services and Crosswinds and wanted to respond to your comments that were made on February 6th. The questions and concerns that you raised are valid ones that should be addressed openly.
First of all Lifeline and Crosswinds are in no way affiliated with New Horizons or Escuela Caribe. We were initially approached about the possibility of merging our organizations together and decided that we should not be associated with them. New Horizons then decided that it could no longer continue to exist and decided to donate all of its assets to Lifeline.
Secondly, it never has been – nor will it ever be – our objective to change the sexual orientation of students who come to our programs. We have a history of accepting those of different faiths and sexual orientations and it is our responsibility to love each child we work with regardless of their beliefs or orientation.
Sincerely
Mark Terrell
@Mark
Thanks, Mr. Terrell, for replying. Your statement – that it’s not an objective of your programs to change the sexual orientation of your students, and that you feel a responsibility to love each child “regardless of their beliefs or orientation” – is welcome. But can you to be more specific?
As you may know, a great deal of harm is done to GLBT youth by the church and Christian leaders in the name of love, and exactly because adults have been ‘regard-less’ of the sexual orientation of youth in their care. Could you strengthen your position to one of respect and support for GLBT youth? Can you be intentional about ensuring a safe environment specifically for children whose real or perceived gender or sexual orientation put them at greater risk of bullying and marginalization? Could a young person’s sexual orientation be respected and appreciated, like their race, rather than ignored or merely tolerated? That, it seems to me, moves us closer to what ‘love’ should look like to GLBT youth from their families, their churches, and their educational programs. Do you agree?
Resources:
http://www.glsen.org
https://www.casswac.ca/newsletters/CASSWAC%20Newsletter%202005%20May.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/LGBTQ-Youth-Issues-Transgender-Questioning/dp/1587601389/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_9
https://ncfy.acf.hhs.gov/the-beat/lgbtq-youth