Sue Scheff Truth

Whitmore Academy, A school that Sue Scheff referred kids to (and continues to defend) has settled a lawsuit against it out of court for $450,000.  As the Deseret News reports:

The complaint alleges that some students enrolled at the Whitmore Academy were physically bound with plastic handcuffs for several hours, others were forced to spend periods of time outside without any clothing on, and some were forced to sleep in a space referred to as the “shelf room.”

The shelf room was a small, enclosed area where students could neither sit up, fully stretch out, and was located 10 feet off the ground, according to the complaint. The Sudweeks were also accused of recruiting students and encouraging the students to use violence against other youths to enforce the rules.

…

In September of 2006, Cheryl Sudweeks pleaded no contest to four class C misdemeanor counts of hazing and agreed to meet all court-ordered requirements and pay a fee.

In April, Gregory Kutz, the Government Accountability Office’s managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, used several examples of problems at the Whitmore Academy and other behavior modification schools to show that boot camp therapy companies use deceptive practices enrolling troubled teens in programs where they can end up abused and neglected.

Full article here.

Readers of this blog might find irony in the fact that Sue Scheff is praising (archive) the GAO’s investigation of abuse in programs considering that, in their report, they detail abuse that occurred in a prominent program she referred to, Whitmore Academy, run by Mark and Cheryl Sudweeks.  Although the facility and it’s owners are not named, specifically in the report itself, Greg Kurtz, of the GAO, revealed during a congressional hearing’s Q&A session that Case 7 of abuse was, indeed, Whitmore Academy.

• Victim was verbally abused and punched,

  kicked, and slapped by other students, under

  direction of one of the school’s owners 

• Victim was hit and pushed down stairs by the

  same school owner   

• On multiple occasions throughout his stay in

  the school, victim was locked in a bathroom

  and a closet and forced to sleep on a shelf as

  punishment   

As if referring to Whitmore when parents had already informed her of abuse and a criminal investigation wasn’t bad enough, Sue Scheff continues to defend (archive) Whitmore Academy.  Instead of taking responsibility for her actions, however, Sue Scheff resorted to defaming the very parent who tried to warn her of the abuse, a pattern of behavior that seems to be systemic against her critics, with targets including this very blogger.

Recently, the server hosting fornits.com, sueschefftruth.com and careybock.com have been under a sustained DDoS attack coming from a botnet.  While fornits.com is too large to host on this temporary hosting, sueschefftruth.com is back up for the time being.  Further illegal attacks against this site will be reported to the FBI.For those of you looking for quick information on why, perhaps, somebody might want to take this site down, please click here. 

Harbor Oaks Boarding School - North Carolina

Harbor Oaks is a Christian boarding school located in Mars Hill, North Carolina. The owners are James and Patricia Jones. The facility uses the Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E.) workbook curriculum provided by School of Tomorrow.

School of Tomorrow requries that just one person in an entire school be “certified” to use the curriculum. However, this certification is NOT from any state agency. It is issued by School of Tomorrow.

This enables schools to use the curriculum without having any certified teachers.The status of the “teachers” at Harbor Oaks is still in question.

ISAC has received complaints against Harbor Oaks alleging inadequate education, false advertising, unqualified staff, lack of supervision, and physical abuse.

Sue Scheff, owner of Parents Universal Resource Experts (PURE), reportedly receives payment in exchange for referring families to Harbor Oaks.

ISAC has learned that Scheff’s daughter, Ashlyn Jockell, is employed by the facility.

The Madison County Department of Social Services has substaniated a report for neglect at Harbor Oaks.

The findings include: lack of medical care, lack of mental health care, and improper supervision.

Anyone with information about Harbor Oaks is asked to contact ISAC immediately.

Updated September 30, 2007

Letter about Harbor Oaks

Official Finding of Neglect

Source: http://www.isaccorp.org/documentsam.asp#harboroaks

Since the last entry on this blog, Sue Scheff has attacked this site two times. First, Sue Scheff sent a letter to the data center our hosting service uses. Second, she sent a letter to Google AdWords, claiming incorrectly that her name was trademarked. Not surprisingly, her first recent letter, including attachments, was nearly identical to the first letter she sent GoDaddy. I will include it here in full: Read the rest of this entry »

How a ‘child advocate’ gamed the media

Republished From Reason Magazine with Permission of the author. Original here. Maia’s Huffington Post comment on this article here.

Maia Szalavitz | August 24, 2007

Sue Scheff has some serious chutzpah. Portrayed by ABC News, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes as a beleaguered mom running a small business to help parents find treatment for troubled teens, Scheff’s been telling reporters about a service called Reputation Defender, which she says allowed her to triumph over a bunch of rage-filled Internet cranks. Scheff says these vengeance-seeking wackos nearly destroyed her, an innocent businesswoman, with a series of libelous comments posted on online discussion boards. They had called her a “fraud” and “con artist,” she says, and claimed that she was referring teens to tough love programs that then abused them.

What none of this media coverage mentions is that a few years back, Scheff was sued for the same types of comments now directed at her—highlighting the abuses of a “tough love” rehab center (in this case, one of Scheff’s rivals). At the time, she framed the suit against her as an attempt to squelch her free speech.

Read the rest of this entry »

Although with the recent publicity and rumors surrounding Sue Scheff have apparantly provoked Isabelle Zehnder of CAICA to distance herself, the relationship between the two in the past has been well documented, including in the words of Zehnder and Scheff themselves.

Like Sue Scheff, on the surface, Isabelle Zenhder appears to be a legitimate advocate. Her website includes comprehensive information about the dangers of programs. What most people don’t realize is most of that comprehensive information is copied verbatim from other sources without their permission. This, by itself, wouldn’t be much of a concern. What does concern many, however, is that Isabelle Zehnder refers kids to programs through Sue Scheff.

Read the rest of this entry »

On August 14th, On one of her many cross-linked spam blogs, Sue Scheff wrote the following, denying that there is a lawsuit against her and Focal Point Academy:

“I have read claims, Blogs, and horrific postings about my
organization and myself being served a lawsuit - this is not
true. Neither myself nor the other defendants listed on
what they are posting have received any such lawsuit. If
there is a lawsuit, we certainly don’t know about it and you
would think the defendants should have it?

This is a further campaign to discredit me which has
recently escalated since I will be on 20/20 i-Caught this
evening” [hyperlinks added]

Read the rest of this entry »

And who are they, anyway?

By Ginger McNulty

Most of the content on this site has to do with Sue Scheff as an individual. I’d like to provide some background information about the industry in which she has become such a notable player and, in so doing, try to convey to our readers why the general public should concern themselves with any of these crack pots. In a word, we all should be very concerned because these particular crack pots hold serious influence in politics and, evidently, our media.

Read the rest of this entry »

Once again, Sue Scheff has done it by complaining about fornits.com and this site. Read all about it here

Note: This site may be down for a day or so while we change hosting services (again).

To those who would accuse me of defamation, see the PDF attached to this post.

PDF