Lots of other things that happened, I did not mention. Like the physical abuse I suffered.
To update y'all (no, I didn't really coin terrible "English" from this sorry excuse for a treatment centre...), I am now attending more than full-time studies at a very prestigious Canadian academic institution (Harvard of the North*). I have decided to complete a 4 year degree in 2 years. I am studying a Bachelor of Science in Life Sciences with a Subject Specialization in Neurology and a Minor in Psychology. In the future, I hope to attend an internationally leading school in the UK for joint studies at the Ph.D/M.D level and I hope to continue to pursue neurology as a life long career.
If I had stayed in this program, I would have experienced more abuse, more neglect, and ultimately probably have died from my illness. Now I know that I am an intelligent human being, and I can fight the system. My life will be filled with wonderful, joyous achievements and I am so glad I was able to escape from such an awful situation. I hope that you, who is reading this, makes a good choice for you, for your daughter, for your family member. This is probably not worth it, but that's just my opinion.
Tuesday 20 November 2012
Sunday 8 July 2012
Attending "treatment" at Fulshear Ranch Academy was quite honestly one of the worst experiences of my life. I am a 20 year old from Ontario, Canada. I started my process of seeking treatment in the United States in October of 2011. I was directed to the Government of Ontario's prior-funding approval website. Due to the nature of my disorder (BPD), I had no other choices in terms of treatment in another country other than Fulshear Ranch Academy. My family was urged to hire a lawyer for the process of attaining full-funding from OHIP. We declined to go this route and in February of 2012, we were approved. I would just like to note what OHIP says on their website regarding prior-approval...
In March of 2012, I traveled to Texas to start treatment at Fulshear Ranch Academy. The first thing I noticed was the facility was not as it was presented to be on their website. The bathroom that was assigned to be mine did not look like it had been cleaned in recent memory, despite the fact the girls were said to have cleaned it every week. There was mold growing all over the shower curtain and it was all just completely unsanitary. Another thing that I found to be appalling was the quality of the food. I am a vegetarian and most nights, meat was on the menu. We were told we were only allowed to eat what was on the menu. Fortunately, we could also make salads for ourselves. However, having a salad is not a balanced meal. I would consistently bring up the fact that for vegetarians, the meal choices were nutritionally lacking and I was met with, "well, you can have a salad". My stomach started to hurt constantly from being deprived of protein, despite my best efforts to include it in my diet while adhering to my beliefs.
Fulshear Ranch Academy claims on their website that, "[their] professionals are selected for their clinical sophistication and talent with this population; they undergo continuous training in the most effective educational, therapeutic, and transitional approaches available for young women". This couldn't be further from the truth. Most of the daily staff likely had no post-secondary education and at the most had an undergraduate degree. One staff member, specifically, told me she was studying for a Master's degree in psychology and was using the same texts as Queen's University uses for second year, undergraduate courses. Some staff were employees at juvenile detention centres and would use tactics taught for that setting with the population at Fulshear, which was usually inappropriate. The clinical staff were no better. I found the therapists (mostly male, strangely), who are licensed (supposedly), would make sexual comments towards the young women in treatment and stare at our breasts. The recreational therapist loved to have us swim in the little pool during his time with us. He loved to see 20 girls all in their bikinis. I didn't find it the most appropriate, but it didn't seem to bother anyone else.
The daily programming is not how it is portrayed on Fulshear Ranch Academy's website. Having Borderline Personality Disorder, I expected the treatment, dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT), to be twice a week (as per the sample schedule on their website). DBT was once a week, but most weeks it was cancelled due to the therapist who was supposed to be running it not showing up (which was another commonality). I am an avid swimmer and was happy to learn that swimming at the YMCA was every morning and some evenings. I was told I was not allowed to swim during the mornings because it was not designated as a Christian swim time and it was inappropriate for me to be swimming during mainstream swim time. I don't happen to be Christian, so I found it strange, and a little offensive for me to be using their swim time for myself. Needless to say, I never went swimming my entire stay. Another aspect of the schedule that I was looking forward to was the academic time. This, quite simply, never happened. I started to take a course prior to going to Texas under the impression I could continue with it while I was down there. One day was allotted to me to work on my course but I wasn't able to access people with any knowledge of my course material for help, making it difficult. Although, I will admit, some of the girls who had not completed their high school diplomas were taken off of the treatment facility's campus to attend GED courses and some people in the other phases of the program were urged to attend classes at Wharton County Junior College. I have a high school diploma and I wouldn't have wanted to take classes at a college (especially not in the USA, especially not in Texas) but I was not offered such an opportunity.
Medication was an issue all on its own... There were three times dedicated to medication- Morning, afternoon, and evening. I usually would not wake up on time for the morning medication time and was not given an opportunity to take my medication until the afternoon. As many people know, psychotropic medication is not something to be messed with. Taking it at the wrong times, even though it was my fault, did not prove to be a good thing. Medication was usually doled out by the supervisor on the shift (yes, the same ones with little to no education, yes, those ones). You had to be very careful that you were, in fact, receiving your medication at the right dose because they would constantly give you someone elses or an incorrect dose, neither of which I found to be very professional. They claimed to have had some training on the subject but it was certainly not enough. In Ontario, the handling of medication in a health care environment is not done by anyone without sufficient training, so something like this would never fly here.
Because I am from Ontario, I got three months worth of my medication from the pharmacy here, prior to going to Texas. Some medication is marketed under different names in the US to Canada and the staff were very confused on this issue. It was left up to me to know both the Canadian name (which was the name on the bottles of pills I was taking), and the American name (which was on the list of medications I was taking and therefore what the staff referred to it by). This is where some of the confusion and misuse of medication came from.
When I left Fulshear Ranch Academy, they neglected to give me all of my medications that I had brought with me. I have a feeling they were giving it to other girls in the program, despite the bottle clearly having my first and last name on and is illegal. We contacted them after realizing their mistake and they never returned the unused medication or replied to our emails on the subject.
Fulshear Ranch Academy has some strange practices, albeit likely common in the world residential treatment facilities. A practice that they uphold is that no client shall call their family until two weeks into treatment and only for a half-an-hour on Sundays after that time. I don't know about you, but when I'm going through stuff, I kinda want to talk to my family. When you are allowed to talk to them, your phone calls are monitored (not super closely, though) and you always feel like you could lose your privileges if you say the wrong things. I honestly feel like not allowing clients to talk on the phone is due to the slew of malpractices. Most parents, if you are lucky enough to tell them how bad it really is, will bring it up in a phone family session. If your therapist gets word you have been saying bad things about the program, they will do their best to assure your family it is due to your child's manipulative nature and to absolutely not give into it. My parents, like many, did believe my therapist. Which was fine with me, I was 20, I checked in voluntarily, I would check out. Or, so I thought... Trying to get out without my parents approval was hell. Another one of Fulshear's strange practices is they take all of your money, most of your possessions, and your passport/other identification and lock it up. I thought that because I was an adult and in the program voluntarily, getting my things and leaving would be no problem. Boy was I wrong! At first they refused to entertain the idea of me leaving and told me I could not book a plane ticket, because I would be using their computers. I had my own, but it was locked up and according to them, it was my parents possession and that was their reasoning for not allowing me to have it. Fine, that was fine. I can live without a computer, but what I can't live without, and what there is no disputing was mine, was my passport and other forms of identification. Well, I was pretty much SOL when it came to obtaining those things, too. So I asked to seek legal council. The director of the program, Gayle Jensen-Savoie (awful, awful woman, by the way), sought legal council for herself and told me that according to her lawyer, it was within her right to keep me there because I was "unsafe". Well that was the biggest load of bullshit I had ever heard... So I thought I was going to have to call the Canadian Consulate, but not before I got my hands on a telephone and called the police. I called them, they came, and told me if I wanted my things back, I would have to take Fulshear Ranch Academy to civil court. So, in short, they were not very helpful. I was adamant I was going to leave, so eventually, they did entertain the idea. I looked up flight information on their computers and proceeded to call my family to let them know what time to expect me home. They were not thrilled with this idea, so they decided they would give into me, and drive down from Ontario to Texas. On the day that they arrived, I was so excited to show them all of the shit I had to put up with that month. We met with my therapist as he made one last ditch effort to keep me there. Fortunately my parents sided with me and told me that they had known me for twenty years and this man had known me for two minutes. What he was doing was manipulating them into keeping me there, not the other way around and thankfully they saw that. And thankfully I was not persuaded into staying with the promise of them getting me a dog (yeah, I'm serious...).
As something I have not yet mentioned, some of the other girls at the treatment facility were not the best company. While I was there, one girl freaked out and was sent to jail because she injured two others. One girl was exposing herself to the other girls in treatment. Some girls would go off campus for meetings and in spite of the fact it was a smoke-free facility, cigarettes routinely made it onto campus and drugs were also common.
I would think twice about sending my child to any of InnerChange's programs, but especially Fulshear Ranch Academy. I wanted to put this information where it could be accessible because I don't want anyone to have to go through what I had to. When I searched for reviews of Fulshear Ranch Academy, I didn't get very far when it came to negatives, but I assure you, this is the popular opinion even on the campus of FRA. If you are considering it, go to visit it first and talk to the girls, they will give you an accurate picture of what this place is really like, and I think you'll find it's not how Fulshear Ranch Academy portrays themselves.
*Also, just to note, the other two treatment facilities operated by InnerChange are located in Utah, which, for a reason I have not been able to answer, is filled with corrupt treatment facilities. If you would like more information on residential treatment facilities, particularly for adolescents, I recommend you read Teens In Crisis: How the Industry Serving Struggling Teens Helps and Hurts Our Kids.
The MOHLTC does not endorse, warrant, guarantee or otherwise certify the quality or standards of residential treatment or other services provided by preferred providers. These considerations should be reviewed by the patient in consultation with his or her attending physician(s). Hospital scorecards are one tool that may be of assistance to patients and physicians seeking further information about appropriateness, quality and safety.This is the absolute truth! Two-weeks into my stay at Fulshear Ranch Academy, we were visited by InnerChange's CEO, Dustin Tibbitts. He explained to me that he went to all of the governments in Canada, asking for them to fund treatment at this facility. Ontario, stupidly, was, to my knowlege, the only province to accept. I feel like you don't just start funding three residential treatment facilities for no reason (the Ontario government funds all three of InnerChange's residential treatment facilities for young women). I cannot confirm that money was exchanged, but I don't believe that Ontario started to fund this facility solely based on the stellar record that I'm sure Mr. Tibbitts presented.
In March of 2012, I traveled to Texas to start treatment at Fulshear Ranch Academy. The first thing I noticed was the facility was not as it was presented to be on their website. The bathroom that was assigned to be mine did not look like it had been cleaned in recent memory, despite the fact the girls were said to have cleaned it every week. There was mold growing all over the shower curtain and it was all just completely unsanitary. Another thing that I found to be appalling was the quality of the food. I am a vegetarian and most nights, meat was on the menu. We were told we were only allowed to eat what was on the menu. Fortunately, we could also make salads for ourselves. However, having a salad is not a balanced meal. I would consistently bring up the fact that for vegetarians, the meal choices were nutritionally lacking and I was met with, "well, you can have a salad". My stomach started to hurt constantly from being deprived of protein, despite my best efforts to include it in my diet while adhering to my beliefs.
Fulshear Ranch Academy claims on their website that, "[their] professionals are selected for their clinical sophistication and talent with this population; they undergo continuous training in the most effective educational, therapeutic, and transitional approaches available for young women". This couldn't be further from the truth. Most of the daily staff likely had no post-secondary education and at the most had an undergraduate degree. One staff member, specifically, told me she was studying for a Master's degree in psychology and was using the same texts as Queen's University uses for second year, undergraduate courses. Some staff were employees at juvenile detention centres and would use tactics taught for that setting with the population at Fulshear, which was usually inappropriate. The clinical staff were no better. I found the therapists (mostly male, strangely), who are licensed (supposedly), would make sexual comments towards the young women in treatment and stare at our breasts. The recreational therapist loved to have us swim in the little pool during his time with us. He loved to see 20 girls all in their bikinis. I didn't find it the most appropriate, but it didn't seem to bother anyone else.
The daily programming is not how it is portrayed on Fulshear Ranch Academy's website. Having Borderline Personality Disorder, I expected the treatment, dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT), to be twice a week (as per the sample schedule on their website). DBT was once a week, but most weeks it was cancelled due to the therapist who was supposed to be running it not showing up (which was another commonality). I am an avid swimmer and was happy to learn that swimming at the YMCA was every morning and some evenings. I was told I was not allowed to swim during the mornings because it was not designated as a Christian swim time and it was inappropriate for me to be swimming during mainstream swim time. I don't happen to be Christian, so I found it strange, and a little offensive for me to be using their swim time for myself. Needless to say, I never went swimming my entire stay. Another aspect of the schedule that I was looking forward to was the academic time. This, quite simply, never happened. I started to take a course prior to going to Texas under the impression I could continue with it while I was down there. One day was allotted to me to work on my course but I wasn't able to access people with any knowledge of my course material for help, making it difficult. Although, I will admit, some of the girls who had not completed their high school diplomas were taken off of the treatment facility's campus to attend GED courses and some people in the other phases of the program were urged to attend classes at Wharton County Junior College. I have a high school diploma and I wouldn't have wanted to take classes at a college (especially not in the USA, especially not in Texas) but I was not offered such an opportunity.
Medication was an issue all on its own... There were three times dedicated to medication- Morning, afternoon, and evening. I usually would not wake up on time for the morning medication time and was not given an opportunity to take my medication until the afternoon. As many people know, psychotropic medication is not something to be messed with. Taking it at the wrong times, even though it was my fault, did not prove to be a good thing. Medication was usually doled out by the supervisor on the shift (yes, the same ones with little to no education, yes, those ones). You had to be very careful that you were, in fact, receiving your medication at the right dose because they would constantly give you someone elses or an incorrect dose, neither of which I found to be very professional. They claimed to have had some training on the subject but it was certainly not enough. In Ontario, the handling of medication in a health care environment is not done by anyone without sufficient training, so something like this would never fly here.
Because I am from Ontario, I got three months worth of my medication from the pharmacy here, prior to going to Texas. Some medication is marketed under different names in the US to Canada and the staff were very confused on this issue. It was left up to me to know both the Canadian name (which was the name on the bottles of pills I was taking), and the American name (which was on the list of medications I was taking and therefore what the staff referred to it by). This is where some of the confusion and misuse of medication came from.
When I left Fulshear Ranch Academy, they neglected to give me all of my medications that I had brought with me. I have a feeling they were giving it to other girls in the program, despite the bottle clearly having my first and last name on and is illegal. We contacted them after realizing their mistake and they never returned the unused medication or replied to our emails on the subject.
Fulshear Ranch Academy has some strange practices, albeit likely common in the world residential treatment facilities. A practice that they uphold is that no client shall call their family until two weeks into treatment and only for a half-an-hour on Sundays after that time. I don't know about you, but when I'm going through stuff, I kinda want to talk to my family. When you are allowed to talk to them, your phone calls are monitored (not super closely, though) and you always feel like you could lose your privileges if you say the wrong things. I honestly feel like not allowing clients to talk on the phone is due to the slew of malpractices. Most parents, if you are lucky enough to tell them how bad it really is, will bring it up in a phone family session. If your therapist gets word you have been saying bad things about the program, they will do their best to assure your family it is due to your child's manipulative nature and to absolutely not give into it. My parents, like many, did believe my therapist. Which was fine with me, I was 20, I checked in voluntarily, I would check out. Or, so I thought... Trying to get out without my parents approval was hell. Another one of Fulshear's strange practices is they take all of your money, most of your possessions, and your passport/other identification and lock it up. I thought that because I was an adult and in the program voluntarily, getting my things and leaving would be no problem. Boy was I wrong! At first they refused to entertain the idea of me leaving and told me I could not book a plane ticket, because I would be using their computers. I had my own, but it was locked up and according to them, it was my parents possession and that was their reasoning for not allowing me to have it. Fine, that was fine. I can live without a computer, but what I can't live without, and what there is no disputing was mine, was my passport and other forms of identification. Well, I was pretty much SOL when it came to obtaining those things, too. So I asked to seek legal council. The director of the program, Gayle Jensen-Savoie (awful, awful woman, by the way), sought legal council for herself and told me that according to her lawyer, it was within her right to keep me there because I was "unsafe". Well that was the biggest load of bullshit I had ever heard... So I thought I was going to have to call the Canadian Consulate, but not before I got my hands on a telephone and called the police. I called them, they came, and told me if I wanted my things back, I would have to take Fulshear Ranch Academy to civil court. So, in short, they were not very helpful. I was adamant I was going to leave, so eventually, they did entertain the idea. I looked up flight information on their computers and proceeded to call my family to let them know what time to expect me home. They were not thrilled with this idea, so they decided they would give into me, and drive down from Ontario to Texas. On the day that they arrived, I was so excited to show them all of the shit I had to put up with that month. We met with my therapist as he made one last ditch effort to keep me there. Fortunately my parents sided with me and told me that they had known me for twenty years and this man had known me for two minutes. What he was doing was manipulating them into keeping me there, not the other way around and thankfully they saw that. And thankfully I was not persuaded into staying with the promise of them getting me a dog (yeah, I'm serious...).
As something I have not yet mentioned, some of the other girls at the treatment facility were not the best company. While I was there, one girl freaked out and was sent to jail because she injured two others. One girl was exposing herself to the other girls in treatment. Some girls would go off campus for meetings and in spite of the fact it was a smoke-free facility, cigarettes routinely made it onto campus and drugs were also common.
I would think twice about sending my child to any of InnerChange's programs, but especially Fulshear Ranch Academy. I wanted to put this information where it could be accessible because I don't want anyone to have to go through what I had to. When I searched for reviews of Fulshear Ranch Academy, I didn't get very far when it came to negatives, but I assure you, this is the popular opinion even on the campus of FRA. If you are considering it, go to visit it first and talk to the girls, they will give you an accurate picture of what this place is really like, and I think you'll find it's not how Fulshear Ranch Academy portrays themselves.
*Also, just to note, the other two treatment facilities operated by InnerChange are located in Utah, which, for a reason I have not been able to answer, is filled with corrupt treatment facilities. If you would like more information on residential treatment facilities, particularly for adolescents, I recommend you read Teens In Crisis: How the Industry Serving Struggling Teens Helps and Hurts Our Kids.
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