Zack Bonnie's Blog: TTI Book CEDU DIJ - Posts Tagged "cedu"
CEDU/Synanon books
INTRODUCTION:
For the reader unfamiliar with CEDU Educational Services, and the schools it has influenced CEDU’s name, pronounced "see-doo," suggests the educational method that ostensibly guided the
for-profit schools.
Although the schools explained the acronym as “See yourself as you are and do something about it,” history indicates the initials first stood for Charles E. Dederich University, in honor of the founder of Synanon, who strongly influenced CEDU’s founder: Mel Wasserman was a California businessman.
The CEDU organization was founded in 1967 as CEDU Educational Services, Inc., and was acquired in 1998 by Brown
Schools, Inc., under the name CEDU Education - Brown Schools, Inc. CEDU and Brown Schools closed and declared bankruptcy in 2005, thereby managing to sidestep final financial settlements in a number of lawsuits claiming student mistreatment, employee sexual abuse, and deceptive practices.
Universal health Services
subsequently re-opened some of these schools, as “behavioral health centers.”
The CEDU schools are generally credited with establishing a new kind of boarding school for "troubled teens" drawing on Synanon’s “encounter group” techniques and using interrogation practices, counselors applied what became known as “tough love” to force change on their teenaged charges.
The two and a half year program included some academic subjects, and many labor assignments at the school’s farm, woodlot, and buildings and grounds. The schools featured extended “raps” - highly confrontational groups derived from Synanon’s “The Game” - and “propheets” - overnight sessions of extreme stress, reputedly based on the
teachings of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet.
Rocky Mountain Academy (“RMA”) opened in 1982 in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, more than ten years after its sister school named CEDU, opened in Running Springs, California. Mel Wasserman founded them
both. In later years, more CEDU schools were added, including CEDU middle School, Boulder Creek Acade-
my, Northwest Academy, Ascent Wilderness Program, Daytop Village and Milestones.
School of Urban and Wilderness Survival (“SUWS”) was founded in southern Idaho in 1981 as a therapeutic wilderness program for youth aged 14 to 18. A north Carolina program began in 2000. The
SUWS programs became part of Aspen Education Group’s portfolio of private teen facilities. Now owned by
Bain Capital, Aspen has divested many of their schools and programs, including SUWS Idaho, citing reduced
demand.
Synanon was founded in Santa monica, California in 1958 by Charles E. Dederich, Jr., as a behavior modification facility for addicts. Mel Wasserman was an early member of the organization. He left Synanon, he founded CEDU. Initially, Synanon was a two-year treatment program, but over time its leaders changed the organization’s mission, declaring that members could never leave the program, as addiction could never be completely cured or reversed. Forced to close in the United States 1989 after problems with the IRS, the organization still exists in Germany.
Additional for-profit schools and programs claiming to provide therapeutic interventions continue to draw in families concerned about their teenagers.
For links to more information, consult the Resources page on the website: www.DeadInsaneOrInJail.com
-zb
For the reader unfamiliar with CEDU Educational Services, and the schools it has influenced CEDU’s name, pronounced "see-doo," suggests the educational method that ostensibly guided the
for-profit schools.
Although the schools explained the acronym as “See yourself as you are and do something about it,” history indicates the initials first stood for Charles E. Dederich University, in honor of the founder of Synanon, who strongly influenced CEDU’s founder: Mel Wasserman was a California businessman.
The CEDU organization was founded in 1967 as CEDU Educational Services, Inc., and was acquired in 1998 by Brown
Schools, Inc., under the name CEDU Education - Brown Schools, Inc. CEDU and Brown Schools closed and declared bankruptcy in 2005, thereby managing to sidestep final financial settlements in a number of lawsuits claiming student mistreatment, employee sexual abuse, and deceptive practices.
Universal health Services
subsequently re-opened some of these schools, as “behavioral health centers.”
The CEDU schools are generally credited with establishing a new kind of boarding school for "troubled teens" drawing on Synanon’s “encounter group” techniques and using interrogation practices, counselors applied what became known as “tough love” to force change on their teenaged charges.
The two and a half year program included some academic subjects, and many labor assignments at the school’s farm, woodlot, and buildings and grounds. The schools featured extended “raps” - highly confrontational groups derived from Synanon’s “The Game” - and “propheets” - overnight sessions of extreme stress, reputedly based on the
teachings of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet.
Rocky Mountain Academy (“RMA”) opened in 1982 in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, more than ten years after its sister school named CEDU, opened in Running Springs, California. Mel Wasserman founded them
both. In later years, more CEDU schools were added, including CEDU middle School, Boulder Creek Acade-
my, Northwest Academy, Ascent Wilderness Program, Daytop Village and Milestones.
School of Urban and Wilderness Survival (“SUWS”) was founded in southern Idaho in 1981 as a therapeutic wilderness program for youth aged 14 to 18. A north Carolina program began in 2000. The
SUWS programs became part of Aspen Education Group’s portfolio of private teen facilities. Now owned by
Bain Capital, Aspen has divested many of their schools and programs, including SUWS Idaho, citing reduced
demand.
Synanon was founded in Santa monica, California in 1958 by Charles E. Dederich, Jr., as a behavior modification facility for addicts. Mel Wasserman was an early member of the organization. He left Synanon, he founded CEDU. Initially, Synanon was a two-year treatment program, but over time its leaders changed the organization’s mission, declaring that members could never leave the program, as addiction could never be completely cured or reversed. Forced to close in the United States 1989 after problems with the IRS, the organization still exists in Germany.
Additional for-profit schools and programs claiming to provide therapeutic interventions continue to draw in families concerned about their teenagers.
For links to more information, consult the Resources page on the website: www.DeadInsaneOrInJail.com
-zb
CEDU/Synanon books
In upcoming months I will be reading with great interest several books applicable to my field of experience. I will catalog my thoughts here as time allows.
Check back after my book is launched for my first thoughts about Paul Morantz's books about Synanon and "Institutionalized Persuasion" by Marcus Chatfield.
Please do send along pertinent information such as links, books, articles, and documented experiences about the aptly named "Troubled Teen Industry."
-zb
Check back after my book is launched for my first thoughts about Paul Morantz's books about Synanon and "Institutionalized Persuasion" by Marcus Chatfield.
Please do send along pertinent information such as links, books, articles, and documented experiences about the aptly named "Troubled Teen Industry."
-zb
DIJ#2
http://igg.me/at/dij2
This is for the March Indiegogo campaign for my sequel to DIJ: A CEDU Memoir!
I intend to give away copies of the first E-book in the DIJ series to virtually anyone from Goodreads that emails me. It might make some people uncomfortable, it took a ton of hard work to make institutionalized persuasion accessible to you readers, but this is the way it was.
Wording it, editing it, publishing it, promoting it, and continuing it, takes everything I have. And I have the best team! See www.deadinsaneorinjail.com for more. Thanks. -zb
This is for the March Indiegogo campaign for my sequel to DIJ: A CEDU Memoir!
I intend to give away copies of the first E-book in the DIJ series to virtually anyone from Goodreads that emails me. It might make some people uncomfortable, it took a ton of hard work to make institutionalized persuasion accessible to you readers, but this is the way it was.
Wording it, editing it, publishing it, promoting it, and continuing it, takes everything I have. And I have the best team! See www.deadinsaneorinjail.com for more. Thanks. -zb
TTI Book CEDU DIJ
I will blog here at Goodreads.com about the history of the Troubled Teen Industry, and my plans for the book project.
The history, the politics, the economic and financial underpinnings of corporati ...more
The history, the politics, the economic and financial underpinnings of corporati ...more
- Zack Bonnie's profile
- 169 followers
