I was five the year that Escuela Caribe, then known as Caribe Vista, was cited in U.S Senate Hearing on the Abuse and Neglect of Children in Institutions (1979). Children’s advocate Kenneth Wooden, wanted to know why the State Department had done nothing to shut down Gordon Blossom’s “boarding school,” which he’d visited in 1974, noting abuses that included beating children with sticks, shaving them bald, and forced solitary confinement.
Nothing changed except the school’s name. Caribe Vista became Escuela Caribe.
In 2011, after the publication of Julia Scheeres’ New York Times best-selling memoir Jesus Land, and dozens of testimonials documenting abuse over the forty years of the facility’s existence (beatings, forced exercise, solitary confinement, physical, sexual, spiritual and emotional abuse, rapes, etc.), New Horizons Youth Ministries and its D.R. branch Escuela Caribe closed shop. They were taken over by Lifeline Youth and Family Services. We alumni rejoiced. “Ding dong the witch is dead!” I emailed my peers.
We celebrated too soon. Because nothing changed. Many of the same staff remained employed. Escuela Caribe became Caribbean Mountain Academy.
Understand, I do not write this flippantly. I want to believe that people are good. That when people make promises they will fulfill them. That when an organization says they have changed they aren’t lying. Maybe that desire to believe in people’s best nature helped me survive Escuela Caribe– I’m not sure.
However, I can no longer ignore Caribbean Mountain Academy’s warning signs (this links to a comprehensive list of warning signs of potentially abusive programs). It’s a suspicion that has been building, but I’d planned to hold off publicizing until I visited myself. In October, Crosswinds sent personal letters inviting Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres, Kidnapped for Christ director Kate Logan, and me.
But then my favorite aunt died and I realized life is too short for me to waste it visiting Caribbean Mountain Academy on my own dime. Because it will end in the same place as it did in 2006 when I visited Escuela Caribe, me sitting in my hotel room writing “I want to believe” in my notebook but being unable to discount the facts- that at its inception, Caribbean Mountain Academy retained at least six Escuela Caribe staff members,* ensuring that the old methods of abusing kids would be remembered. Besides that- it bears too many hallmarks of an abusive program– it’s located outside the jurisdiction of the United States, it restricts communication between its students and the rest of the world, it staffs its facility with former students, its staff is not required to have much experience working with children**, it has a level system, it does not allow students to follow a religion of their own choice, it is anti-gay. And all this is just me observing from the outside- I can’t imagine what I would see if I went into the hive. And now I guess I will never know.
Instead, I’d rather encourage any parent who has their kid at Caribbean Mountain Academy or any long-term residential treatment program to withdraw, because you don’t know what is happening, you can’t, no matter what the staff tells you, and if you don’t listen me now, years later most likely you end up like my father, thirty-five years after Wooden’s warning, regretting ever sending your child away in the first place.
*These individuals were employed by an organization that professed that children must be broken in order to be fixed. They worked during a time when students, teenagers, were given swats and being sent to the Quiet Room (often for days) for minor violations, when students were being “slammed” against the wall for minor infractions. (Sugiuchi, Unreformed blog, 8/24/12).
**New hires are required to have a strong personal relationship with Christ, but only need a high school diploma or GED. The annual pay is only $12,500, which leads one to assume that CMA’s $5000 monthly tuition is not being used to provide high quality staff. Unfortunately underpaid and untrained staff in an isolated environment will guarantee abuse…see the Stanford Prison Experiment if you need a case study. (Sugiuchi, Unreformed blog, 11/25/12).
***Doug Martin has extensively researched New Horizons Youth Ministries, Lifeline, and their political connections. You can read his latest report here.
My mind has been restless for years since leaving escuela caribe for years. I,ve been a diff person ever since and my family torn apart. Still have nightmares that I’m there even at the age of 31. If you ever make a time to go down there to visit this new school mountian view I would love to accompany you. I feel I need this to let go of the pure rage and hatred I have for this place and to see if the kids here are safe and not left to casitas mud pits and swats.
You should visit. I have. You can come with a mission team through Lifeline. Mission teams are welcomed year round, and there’s almost no break in mission teams in the summer months. This means that every year hundreds of American adults and youth from outside Lifeline come through the camp and stay as guests. You get to interact with the students, having game nights and eating dinner in the pavilion. The students spend half the day at school and then a couple hours doing community work. The mission team can work along with the students on their project, and then do a lot of work without the students. I was told this is because they don’t want to overwork the students so they are limited to an hour and a half 2-3 days a week of service in the community. They were helping a poor family build a house. The mission team did a lot of work on the house, roofing and flooring, and the students mixed some cement and helped plaster the walls. The staff is friendly and open, and although some house staff only have a GED or are interns from college, the therapists and teachers are licensed. The teacher told me he makes sure the students are meeting requirements for a high school diploma from Indiana, and if they are from another state he looks up those requirements and makes sure they are meeting those as well. Therapists see students individually for an hour a week, and then the students skype with parents for an hour and a half session. They also get phone calls and emails with parents. Students were showing me pictures and emails their parents sent them. Parents openly visit for extended weekends. One student was talking about going home for a parent visit before Christmas to see family. He said he was nervous because he didn’t want to fall into his old bad habits with friends – smoking and drinking and drugs. If this visit goes well he is going to feel more confident about returning home in a couple months and continuing his healthy habits. I was very impressed, especially given the bad PR for the school. I did ask about the staff that was kept on from escuela caribe. I was introduced to some of them. They are local Dominicans who hardly know English – mostly just Spanish, and they are the drivers. They drive to the mission sites or bring back groceries from the store. They are friendly and I got to practice Spanish with them. The students happily chatted with them and teased them, and were practicing Spanish with them as well. If you don’t come, I hope this can bring you some peace knowing that these students here are not enduring the atrocities that past students unfortunately endured.
As a former student of Caribbean Moutian I can honestly say you have no idea what your talking about. The mission teams have a crumb of the students time, and parent calls and visits are only dont by some parents-many just leave their kids and don’t contact at all, and all the phone called are monitored from another line. So if you say anything out of pocket they will end your phone call -which is also timed-
Natalie, thanks for sharing your perspective as a survivor, not a visitor. Visitors only see what staff want them to see. Students know. Your account is very similar to what I experienced at EC in the 1990s. I am glad you are out and are able to focus on healing. Take care, D
Thank you for sharing. I was there from 2006-2010. I hiked Pico Duarte 3 times. I went to MWA and Marion as well. I went through a lot there. I even tried overdosing when I was on level 4, and they told me that night that I better pray I wake up the next day. Then they dropped me to zero level and made me resume my day. I ran 3 casitas everyday for years. Since leaving, my body is worn out. More than it should be for someone that’s 31. I’m drained. I feel lost. But I’m trying to figure out my life.
<3
It is very hard for someone to judge a system based on past experiences. I went to Caribbean mountain academy as a student. I graduated that program in November of 2018. It was the best experience of my life and in no way was abusive or anywhere close to the accusations of the previous school. I was sent there January of 2018 I am the oldest of 5 kids in my family and my father is a pastor. Since graduating Caribbean Mountain academy, every single thing in my life has improved. Academically while I was there I got through a year in a half of school in 8 months with a 3.4 GPA while my previous GPA was a 1.9.I got to work in the Dominican on houses and help people who were very poor. I have over 350 community service hours just from working in the Dominican for 8 months. I had to have two knee surgeries leaving for 2 months from April to June then coming back to the school because of how good it was and how much it helped me improve as a person. My faith increased dramatically. It gave me the fresh start I needed. I still talk to my mentor along with a lot of the staff members from the DR. I am still in contact with some of the students I lived with while down there. I can assure you as a student who went through the program it is nothing like the old school. This school saved my life and made my relationships with family and friends better than I could of ever imagined they would be. All addictions I had were no longer a want in fact I look at all the stuff I used to do addiction wise and childish and in mature with no want or drive to do those things anymore. This school I guarantee is the best school for troubled teenagers you are ever going to find. If you have any questions or would like to contact me my phone number is XXXXXXXXX
I’m glad to hear that your experience at CMA was positive. Hopefully they have made real changes from EC. However I cannot assume that your experience speaks for everyone.
His experience does not speak for everyone. I was a student there from June 2019- March 2020 and whereas there was no direct physical abuse, there was still abuse. For example, I read in a comment above from someone who was apparently there on a mission team that we only were required to participate in service projects for an hour and a half. That information is false. It’s an all day, 7-8 hour thing with only bathroom breaks and a lunch break in the sun, sometimes carrying wheelbarrows full of wet cement uphill, or carrying multiple cinder blocks for long distances. I don’t know if that’s okay or not really, but if that isn’t then these next things aren’t. Shortly after I got to CMA, I came down with some illness that prevented me from retaining food and water causing me to pass out. They did not address my medical needs for several days of this. Later during my stay, I developed some infection on my back I believe from getting injured on a service project. They ignored that as well until it got really bad. They took me to the hospital in the sketchy town CMA is located in and they prescribed me medication. I had an allergic reaction to the medication causing me to lose circulation in my body which made my entire body hurt and swell up like a balloon. The staff kept requiring me to take this medication even though I was having that reaction. After all my poor medical experiences, the staff proceeded to call me a hypochondriac and degrade me verbally.
Once you reach level 3, you’re allowed to wear makeup and jewelry and one specific staff member said that I looked like a clown. Really, makeup was one of my only escapes from my reality and I wasn’t even bad at applying it at all and I stand by that. That same staff member also told me he hated me.
I lived in the girls house and as you can imagine, living in a house full of girls especially fellow girls who’s families literally sent them to another country all by themselves cannot be easy. There was constant drama and whereas that is to be expected, it’s the ways that the staff handled it that’s the issue. The house staff were basically teenagers like us. Being in their early twenties. They were not well trained nor were they equipped or mature enough to be working at CMA. The staff would pick favorites among the students and they literally shunned me for months and months and months. When I would be having a rough time, they would turn their backs and ignore me. When other girl students would verbally attack me or try to get in a physical fight with me they would just let it happen because they saw the girls that were doing it as their buddies.
When we would get in trouble, rather than sending us to any quiet room, they had different levels of punishment. Such as dropping us a level, taking away basic privileges, and CBM6. CBM6 punishment involved the staff taking away all of our possessions. All of our pictures, clothes, toiletries, and even our blankets and bed sheets. I was on CBM6 once for about 2 weeks as well as dropped from level 5 to level 2. For something so minor I literally cannot even remember. You can imagine my devastation when I was dropped to level 2 after almost becoming level 6 (which is the final level that we are allowed to finally go home on).
I have so many other horrible stories but truthfully most of them are hard to talk about so I apologize.
With all of this said, I’m very thankful that CMA today is not quite as horrible as Escuela Caribe was. And I’m so heartbroken for all the people that were sent there.
Really, the guy that commented that^^ was extremely lucky to have been blessed with a positive experience at CMA. Personally it has left me with so many more things I have to work on healing from during my lifetime. Therapeutic boarding schools and other programs in the troubled teen industry should not be a thing.
“whereas there was no direct physical abuse, there was still abuse.”
100% friend! Keep speaking your truth! It will set you free. Best of luck! ≤3, D
Cap I went 2020 we work full 7 hour days of service project 2 days of school. The food is the same over and over again the only upside was weekend activities ex. Waterfall. But if you were bad u didn’t go. And working 7 hours in 85 degrees is exhausting carting cinderblick after sunder block up and down the hill to build a house. We moved boulders. We mixed countless pounds of concrete and the staff had favorites and would spoil them infront of everyone else. You get a 10 min phone call a WEEK. And had a 30 min councling appointment with parents a week so total 40 mins a week in contact with the ouside world. And they record the phone calls so if you ask ur parents to take u home you get punished. The level system was horrible it took at least 6 and a half months to graduate that’s the fastest to do it. You have to be perfect to get levels. Most people faked the whole program. If a staff had a problem with you when u applied for a new level they would make up a bull excuse like we have had a problem with him talking back he needs to apologize and show growth like dude it was so bad. I was there for 8 months. There was mental abuse and verbal abuse. So it closed this September. I’m glad it’s closed it was corrupt.
I’m so glad to hear that the Dominican Republic school closed. No child should be sent overseas for therapy. Glad you are out and are moving on!
I was there at the same time as you. In fact, I knew you fairly well. You were an outlier out of the students that went there. I know this because I also keep in touch with many of the students that were there with us and nearly all of them are struggling solely from their time there. I do agree that it is a different place than escuela caribe but it is still far more damaging than it is helpful. The philosophy they hold of ‘breaking you down to fix you’ is such a psychological risk that should not be taken lightly. The amount of emotion that has to be buried just to present yourself as “fixed” takes a serious toll on your psyche. When I graduated CMA I genuinely had no idea who I was. I had become so accustomed to fabricating how I felt and doing things that didn’t align with who I was as a person. I showed up with a few problems that would have been resolved with time and I left with a bag of new problems far deeper than the previous ones. It’s been years since I left and I still deal with these psychological problems to this day. If you’re reading this Daniel just know I’m genuinely happy CMA helped you find your way but it’s done harm to others. I wouldn’t wish time at CMA on my worst enemy and I truly mean that.
Honestly I think we all went through conversion therapy. I wrote more about that here.
I hope you find healing. Sincerely, D
How are they still allowed to operate – regardless of what the past is this place should be closed down for good. I’m sorry to you and all the victims that went through such a horrifying experience. Somehow this place managed to sweep it under the rug. I’m praying things have changed but I highly doubt it.
The tactics are the same and are clear signs of a cult.
I can’t edit my previous message – I meant to say regardless of what they say about the past ****
what happened in the past is all the more reason to close this place down and throw them in jail for abuse. Sadistic people. They can’t undo their horrific roots and i highly doubt anything has changed. Poor children. Wish there was something we could do.
Hello l am interested in this school
Is this a boarding school in Dominican Republic
My son has a defiant behavior he is not violent or aggressive but his oppositional behavior is very bad
Please contact my e mail mercedesozoria@gmail.com
Children don’t come from a vacuum. Also, kids these days do not have it easy. I recommend that you read Kenneth Rosen’s Troubled. Our interview is here. https://electricliterature.com/kenneth-rosen-troubled-the-failed-promise-of-americas-behavioral-treatment-programs/
i attended and i can assure everyone it is the same. they changed the name but even the locals hate the place. one male staff sexually harassed us girls and never got fired. they hide abuse through making us work all day with 1 break. only the Dominican staff get paid. the punishments are unethical and degrading. i was manipulated and they told my parents i was psychotic. i wouldve never gotten out but after a email was sent to my parents by a staff calling me names and said im manipulative to everyone around me, my parents finally started to realize everything i told them was true. your child deserves real help.
I’m sorry for all you went through. I hate to hear it is the same. Good luck! D
I’m sorry to hear this. Glad you got out! D
My brother was a student at the old New Horizons campuses, Canada, Indiana and the Dominican. I’m launching my own investigation into the existing “non-affiliated” campus in the Dominican. I’d like to hear more about experiences, etc. from current and past students of the “new” campus. Please reach out.
What I have posted is what I know. I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Good luck with your journey.
In 2005 I was in my freshman year. I got home from a track meet and there was this awful counselor my parents had forced me to speak with was at our house. I came inside and once I was in I saw 2 police officers. I was confused when my parents told me to have a seat. I felt like having a seat was the last thing I should do, I had a seat anyway. If I had known what was in store for me for the next 4 months I would have RUN. I would have RUN and not looked back.
That night I was on a flight out of JFK with 2 police escorts to Jarabacoa, DR. The police left me when we got to the DR and I was picked up and put into a disgusting beat up van and driven for a bit through the mountains and was so car sick. My memory of this time is not great because I think I was beginning to go into shock about what was really happening. We arrived at a tall barbed wire fence.
The next few months was a blur. I was abruptly taken off wellbutrin and had very bad withdrawal symptoms that were not addressed. We would work non stop out in the fields, mix concrete, tie rebar, lay brick, machete grass for long periods of time in hot sun. To drink we would have gross water with drops of bleach in it. One day I wad stung by Dominican hornets and my arm was so swollen it looked like my thigh, I could not bend my arm and it was throbbing in pain. Nothing was done about this. My best friend would write me letters. I would be given the letters but anything they deemed “inappropriate” would be blacked out with sharpie. So needless to say when 2 high school best friend girls are talking Escuela Caribe would think it was all inappropriate..so these letters from my best friend were totally blacked out except A few words.I was allowed One 20 minute conversation with my parents on my 15th birthday. I started crying so bad I was disconnected and was later forced to write my parents an email making excuses for my emotional outburst that did not involve the abuse I was suffering from the school. Thank God I was not afraid of spiders. Huge banana spiders literally on our beds! No privacy. House fathers and mothers were in their 20’s! I wish I could remember the names of my houseparents but I am now 34 and I was sent here when I was 14 so my memory is not the best. I believe the headmasters name was Mr. Webster?? His wife was kidnapped by her Haitian biological father when she was a toddler and the wife used to tell us the WORST horror stories of her past and how she was used in her Fathers voodoo rituals as a child. She told us they put metal hangers up her vagina. I would think about this often for years and would cry. I had many nightmares about the horrid things Mr. Webster’s wife shared with us.
I spent a lot of time on level 0 or 1 while at the house but on level 3 in the fields working. So for half the day I was treated somewhat human and could speak to the girls in my house and the other half I was treated like dirt. I spent a lot of time running “casitas”. Casitas were basically timed laps up the side of the mountain. Thankfully I was a track runner and actually broke the girls casita timed record. One girl in my house was mentally slow and very fat she was extremely verbally and physically abused when she had to run casitas because she would start to walk. One day I asked if I could run some of her casitas she had received as punishments. They allowed me to take on her “casita debt” and I was relieved to be able to do that and not continue to hear her be abused.
One day myself and another girl who were have a problem were forced to put one of our feet in a toilet together until we work out our issue. So degrading.
We climbed Pico Duarte mountain after I had been in Escuela Caribe for about 2 months. One kid had to climb in flip flops with his feet bleeding and blistered because he was on runaway watch.
I spent 3 days in the QR. My only solace was going outside to machete grass.
The most disgusting this is these fake Christians do this in the name of JESUS!.
After 4 months I was supposed to go home because sophomore year was starting. My parents promised me I would be back in time to start sophomore year. They knew how important track and field was to me. EC called by parents and said there is no way I am ready to return. My parents were going to leave me there for another 10 months! I began my suicide plan. I dont have time to write out my plan because it was very detailed due to the fact we are ALWAYS being watched and ALWAYS have to ask for permission to do anything. Even just to walk into a different room.
My dad showed up a week later and rescued me. I was shocked. I was pretty screwed up but SO grateful for him to be there. Very silent flight on the way back and for several months I was obsessed with thinking about the girls I left behind and how they were suffering. Its a never ending nightmare of abuse and BAD vibes.
Escuela Caribe is the OPPOSITE of Christianity. After leaving EC I wanted to be as far from religion as possible. EC had left the worst taste in my mouth. I ended up being a little hellian in high school and when I went to college started working at hooters but that didn’t last long when I realized I could make much more money being a stripper. I was a stripper for about a decade and ended up developing a bad heroin and then meth habit. I contracted Hep c and my health was starting to decline after about 6 or 7 years. I was rail thin and was extremely depressed. I had a toddler daughter that I knew I couldn’t take care of property so I left her with my parents. I was getting to the point where partying and trying to hide my issues wasn’t working anymore. I went to rehabs and had a lot of run-ins with the law.
My mom is a true ChristIan and was praying for me this entire time. When I finally got desperate enough in 2017 I hit my knees and pleaded with God to help me. I’m telling you the most amazing miracle has been worked in my life. God really changed my heart and my desires, helping overcome many years of guilt for the mother I had been and the awful things I had done. I am now married with 5 kids and God has restored the “years the locust have eaten”.
My heart goes out to fellow teens who had to live through these horrible fake christians with their fundamentalist money hungry “reform” school. Please know that the real God is not who these sickos in the DR or Canada or Marian Indiana portray Him to be.
Thank you for sharing. I am sorry you went through this. I believe you…and can only imagine how terrifying this entire experience has been. I am glad you are on the right track now. Sending you my best. Sincerely, D