CLICK HERE FOR IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THOSE POPULATING HEAL'S WATCH-LIST

HEAL is doing our best with limited resources to add all the reportedly fraudulent, suspect, and/or abusive programs, facilities, cults, camps, and retreats to our watch-list and we appreciate your patience.  We will continue to update the site as warranted.  We really hope our examples already provided give you a great idea on how to exercise due diligence when considering goods or services while we do our best to keep the site up-to-date and ask you understand the volume of requests and expectations or demands of our time and resources to add all programs and research everything immediately for you or anyone else is a bit much when you could do what we do based on examples we've provided if you care to exercise due diligence and respect that we have other priorities and our own scheduling for updates where none have been provided by an independent source.  Below is an article explaining why HEAL opposes segregated congregate care.  Additional links and resources included so you can be an informed consumer.

THE TRUTH:

All segregated congregate care providers, including those on our watch-list, are welcome to contact us to correct any information or provide additional data that may assist with delivering the whole truth to the public.  We've found in many cases where this offer has been abused or resulted in revealing additional basis for our concerns. For some examples see: http://www.heal-online.org/tcfl.htm,  http://www.heal-online.org/bolthouse.htm and http://www.heal-online.org/abundant2.htm.  Now, we are willing to look at the facts and may have questions or require documentation backing up any claims.  We do verify licensing, academic backgrounds, and other qualifications when investigating and researching programs on our watch-list to assist consumers seeking additional information on such programs or victims requiring assistance with getting corroborating evidence of their claims.  We do that in order to make sure the information we provide is accurate and verified and cite our sources.  In the event any information we've posted is in error, we're happy to make a correction.  And, for information on how such requests are handled and have been resolved historically, see: http://www.heal-online.org/requests.htm. 

HEAL does not support segregated congregate care for many reasons which include that many such facilities are abusive, exploitative, fraudulent, and lack effective oversight often as a result of fraudulent misrepresentation coupled with the ignorance of those seeking to enroll loved ones in such facilities, programs, schools, or centers without a valid court order and involuntarily.  In the United States such involuntary placements done without a court order are apparently illegal as they either violate the Americans with Disabilities Act community integration requirement or due process rights of those involuntarily placed.  Now, in regards to parents, in the United States parents have the right to waive their own rights, but, not the rights of their minor children.  See http://www.heal-online.org/legalarguments.htm for more information.  Now, most facilities on our watch list include waivers, indemnity clauses, and sworn statements parents must sign assuring the program that the parents have the right to make the placement involuntarily and without due process in a segregated congregate care environment, however, California and federal prosecutors as well as settled law appears to suggest that is not the case.  In fact, in the David Taylor case found at http://www.heal-online.org/provocases.htm, Taylor sued Provo Canyon School and his mother as co-defendants.  His mother was found liable for 75% of the damages awarded to Taylor as a result of multiple complaints including false imprisonment, while the program was found only 25% liable because the mother owed a duty of due diligence to investigate anyone to which she would entrust care of her child and she failed to do so. 

Now, HEAL opposes segregated congregate care and we find most placements are happening illegally in the USA which if the youth understood their rights would result in unfortunate outcomes for the parents, particularly when they don't exercise good judgment and support the fraud and abuse rather than their own children when they need remedy and justice.  And, HEAL supports all victims of fraud and abuse in seeking remedies at law for any crimes or torts committed against them.  And, that's true whether or not the program or victims are in the USA. 

HEAL has a 5 point argument against segregated congregate care we'd like you to consider:

a.  Segregated care is unconstitutional and a civil rights violation.  It is only permissible if a person is unable to survive independent of an institutional environment.  For more on this, watch the HEAL Report at  https://youtu.be/C4NzhZc4P0A.  Or, see:   http://www.ada.gov/olmstead/  which includes in part:    "United States v. Florida – 1:12-cv-60460 – (S.D. Fla.) – On April 7, 2016, the United States filed an Opposition to the State of Florida’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment.  In the Motion, the State had asked the Court to rule, on a variety of grounds, that the United States could not recover damages for unnecessarily institutionalized children to whom the State had been deliberately indifferent."

b.  Institutionalization is always dehumanizing and coercive.  Institutionalization always harms the institutionalized and deprives them of protected civil rights.  Dr. David Straker, Psychiatry Professor at Columbia University's School of Medicine (Ivy League) explains this in detail at http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sociology/articles/institutionalization.htm.  "Many institutions, from prisons to monasteries to asylums, deliberately want to control and manage their inmates such that they conform and do not cause problems. Even in less harsh environments, many of the institutionalization methods may be found, albeit in more moderated form (although the psychological effect can be equally devastating)."  (See website linked in this paragraph for more info.)

c.  Institutionalization is not in the best interest of children.  Institutions are not ever better for a child than living with a loving family.  Source:   http://www.unicef.org/cambodia/12681_23295.html       

d.  Reform schools, residential treatment programs, and other segregated congregate care settings have been shown to be ineffective and harmful.  Best source on this currently is:     https://www.acgov.org/probation/documents/EndoftheReformSchoolbyVinny.doc

e. Boarding Schools, even the "good ones", result in a form of social death, isolation, and cause both anxiety and depression.  Therefore, it is clearly not in the best interest of the youth subjected to those environments.  Sources: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/08/boarding-school-syndrome-joy-schaverien-review and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/11662001/The-truth-about-boarding-school-syndrome.html

Beyond the above arguments against segregated congregate care, we have reports from the NIH, Surgeon General, Yale University Studies, and much more showing the methodologies of behavior modification are damaging, harmful, and ineffective.  You can request these documents via e-mail.  In addition, for such programs offering academic services or claiming to offer diplomas, certifications, or the like, it is important to check to see if it is a diploma mill with no accredited academic services.  Please see article: "Avoiding Scams: What You Need To Know"  for important information on how to avoid education/training scams.

If you'd like to see what HEAL suggests rather than segregated congregate care (i.e. committing a crime or tort against your child if done against their will without a court order), please see articles: "Fix Your Family, Help Your Teen" and "How Would You Handle My Out of Control Teen?".

If you have a complaint against any facility, please file a complaint with the appropriate law enforcement agency or your home state's attorney general.  For reporting resources see: http://www.heal-online.org/report.htm. 

SPECIAL NOTE: HEAL cares.  We recommend victims report crimes and violations to the proper authorities in a timely fashion within the statutes of limitations to get justice regardless of nature of offense.  HEAL can't take anonymous reports to the authorities and demand action.  Even when we get reports that are requested to be kept confidential yet reported to the proper authorities, that doesn't achieve anything.  The authorities consider any reports HEAL makes for third-parties to be hearsay which doesn't work for probable cause for an investigation by the proper authorities.  Now, if you just want to submit a complaint and treat HEAL like a complaint board, it has to be under penalty of perjury with the understanding we may have to use it if the program you are complaining about decides to challenge the veracity of our content.  We believe you.  We know what goes on at these places.  And, the above article explains why it is not in the best interest of children and youth to be segregated like criminals from the rest of society unless indeed criminals, and, even then it's not good for the criminals, just arguably for society.  HEAL is prioritizing constitutional freedoms and individual liberty which includes respecting the rights of others to make decisions that don't adversely effect you in a manner legally actionable.  You may also find the following article helpful if you need help figuring out the way to start exercising due diligence and thinking totally for yourself rather than responding to emotional cues or stimulation to make you feel momentarily happy with a purchase until you have a house full of junk and don't know why your kids never leave the house even when their 50.  Some people over-compensate in segregated congregate care for what they see as slothfulness in their wards by forcing them into labor trafficking.  And, a little teaching of responsibility or respectfully addressing that while acknowledging one's own failures in that regard prior to the teen years, might resolve a lot of family differences.  Here's the article: "How HEAL Identifies and Defines Cults".

ADDITIONAL NOTE: HEAL does our best to protect our sources.  But, with journalism or investigative reporting we have to independently verify claims made against facilities/programs/cults/etc on our watch-list.  We do this in a few ways.  We see if others who were enrolled at the same time can confirm an incident.  We check to see if there are any reports to the proper authorities about claims made that we receive.  We consider lawsuits or other evidence of sworn testimony ample verification for reporting purposes.  Where we are unable to verify any individual complaint for any reason beyond the word of the party reporting to us, we ask that said be made in the federal declaration/under penalty of perjury format.  But, that does not mean that additional evidence doesn't exist, just that we're not privy to it.  So, in the event you'd like to share your experience and don't wish to make a public record with the proper authorities, you may not wish to submit a statement to HEAL for publication if concerned it could potentially become part of a public record where we weren't able to independently verify your claims.  But, you should consider creating your own website, blog, Youtube video(s), write a book, or find some independent way to share your experiences.  And, send us the link to any of that and we'll either share it on Twitter or if a program currently on the watch-list, add the link to the staff/info page.  We appreciate your understanding and support of the #FirstAmendmentRevolution.