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July 6, 2003
Utah-Based School Owner
Banned
By Toby Hayes
South Carolina's Department
of Social Services has banned a Utah-based behavior-modification
school owner from the premises of his campus there.
In a letter sent to Carolina
Springs Academy recently, state officials say the ban stems from
allegations of abuse at another school owned by Narvin Lichfield,
the Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica, which was closed following
investigations of mental and physical abuse. The letter also states
corrective action needs to be taken before Oct. 30 to renew the
school's license. The state cites nine breaches of state
regulations, including the use of "buildings that are not approved
by DSS." The school must also train its staff on how to report
child-abuse cases, which has not been done recently, the letter
states.
Dundee and Carolina Springs
are both part of World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and
Schools Inc. in St. George, a referral service for behavior
modification schools. But the only facilities they refer clients to
are ones owned by the corporation's founders and trustees and their
relatives. An investigation by the Deseret Morning News reveals that
state and federal investigations are not new to the company.
A closer look shows that
five of its schools have been shut down in seven years. A school
near Cancun, Mexico, called Sunrise Beach, was the first. It was
shut down in 1996 after allegations of abuse, two years before the
umbrella corporation was actually formed by Lichfield's brother,
Robert, and SkyWest Airlines founder J. Ralph Atkin. Three other
facilities were shut down in 1998, one of which was Morava Academy
in the Czech Republic. The Atkin-owned facility closed just six
months after opening.
He operated the Czech school
in an old hotel, said John Grimes who, along with his wife, Theresa,
were hired by Atkin. Upon arrival, the couple realized they were the
only teachers.
"We worked seven days a week
at 16 hours a day and ended up teaching all the classes," John
Grimes said. "Think of something you took in high school and we
taught it. It was a little much."
Weeks before Morava was
closed, U.S. State Department investigators were sent to another
corporation facility called Paradise Cove in Samoa. According to
federal documents, investigators wrote that alleged abuses in Samoa
included "solitary confinement of youths, withholding of rations,
etc." They also noted that "many of the locally hired counselors and
employees at Paradise Cove are not certified or qualified to do the
jobs they are doing."
Ken Kay said he spoke with
State Department representatives and that information is false.
"That is absolutely not what
he told me," Kay said. "Were their rations monitored? Absolutely.
But they weren't starving."
By the end of 1998, Paradise
Cove was closed.
But most teens made their
way to Samoa and the still operating Tranquility Bay in Jamaica by
being routed through a St. George facility operated by Kay and
Robert Lichfield.
Brightway Adolescent
Hospital was a teen alcohol and treatment facility until it was
voluntarily closed following a state investigation. Debra Wynkoop-Green,
the licensing director for the Utah Department of Health, discovered
Brightway staff was diagnosing most patients with behavioral
problems that needed to be corrected at one of the corporation's
other facilities. Of the teens who entered Brightway, 94 percent
were shipped to either Jamaica or Samoa, Wynkoop-Green said.
The investigation also
netted at least one patient who had been sent to Samoa without
parental knowledge. The hospital was closed, Kay said, after
insurance companies refused to pay for the behavior schools, which
charge up to $3,000 a month.
According to the Utah
Department of Commerce, seven companies share the same St. George
address of 1240 E. 100 South No. 9, the office next door to Atkin's.
Three other youth-related businesses are headquartered at Atkin's
office, suite No. 10. Atkin denies being more than the corporation's
lawyer. Kay was baffled as to why so many companies, such as Teen
Help, Robert Browning Lichfield Family L.P. and Dixie Contract
Services all share the same address.
"Whatever it is," he said,
"it has nothing to do with me or WWASPS."
Clinical psychologist
Roderick Hall has spoken with five former students of the
corporation's facilities and says these programs do more harm than
good.
"The people I have talked to
have post traumatic stress disorder and there's no question about
it," he said. This is often referred to as shell-shock. "I have one
kid who e-mails me who is in college and still has nightmares."
Kay said that without the
programs his corporation offers "children are going to commit
suicide."
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