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| Founded | 1993 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Utah, United States |
| Location | |
| Services | Wilderness therapy |
Executive Director | Steven DeMille |
RedCliff Ascent is a wilderness therapy program based in Enterprise, Utah, United States. [1] The program takes place in the Escalante Desert. [2]
RedCliff Ascent was founded in 1993 as one of the early adopters of wilderness therapy programs.
The program was featured in the reality TV series Brat Camp which filmed in 2003 and aired on channel 4 in 2004, which showcased its therapeutic methods. [3]
RedCliff Ascent courses take place on 560 square miles of BLM land. Participants are provided with minimal gear, including a tarp, wool blanket, parachute cord, seat-belt webbing, and basic supplies like a cup, rice, lentils, raisins, oats, a sleeping bag, and a sleeping pad. They travel in groups of 12 or fewer, cook meals over a campfire, and sleep beneath tarps. [4]
A New York Times article states that the majority of attendees are referred by the Utah Department of Youth Corrections, while the remaining participants, described as private students, are enrolled in the program by their parents. [5]
Camping is a form of outdoor recreation or outdoor education involving overnight stays with a basic temporary shelter such as a tent. Camping can also include a recreational vehicle, sheltered cabins, a permanent tent, a shelter such as a bivy or tarp, or no shelter at all. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors, in pursuit of activities providing them enjoyment or in a form of educational experience. Spending the night away from home distinguishes camping from day-tripping, picnicking, and other outdoor activities.
The World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools was an organization based in Utah, in the United States. WWASPS was founded by Robert Lichfield and was incorporated in 1998. WWASPS stated that it was an umbrella organization of independent institutions for education and treatment of troubled teenagers. Many outside observers believe, however, that the WWASPS-affiliated institutions were actually owned through limited partnerships, many of which have used the same street address by WWASPS or its principal officials or their close relatives. WWASPS is connected to several affiliated for-profit companies. These include Teen Help LLC, the marketing arm of WWASPS and the entity that processes admissions paperwork; Teen Escort Service, a teen escort company that transports teenagers to WWASPS facilities; R&B Billing, which does tuition billing and payment processing; and Premier Educational Systems, LLC, which conducts orientation and training workshops for parents whose children are in WWASPS facilities. WWASPS claims to have "helped" over 10,000 students with issues related to personal behavior. Some participants and parents give positive reports of their experiences, but others say that WWASPS programs were abusive. WWASPS has faced widespread allegations of physical and psychological abuse of the teenagers sent into its programs, resulting in a lawsuit filed against the organization in 2006. WWASPS officials report that the organization is no longer in business, and the facilities originally under it no longer associate with the name, but because of ongoing litigation, it has not been dissolved.
The Colorado Plateau is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. This plateau covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness is a 112,500 acres (455 km2) wilderness area located in northern Arizona and southern Utah, United States, within the arid Colorado Plateau region. The wilderness is composed of broad plateaus, tall escarpments, and deep canyons.
Brat Camp is a reality television show.
A bivouac shelter or bivvy is any of a variety of improvised camp site or shelter that is usually of a temporary nature, used especially by soldiers or people engaged in backpacking, bikepacking, scouting or mountain climbing. It may often refer to sleeping in the open with a bivouac sack, but it may also refer to a shelter constructed of natural materials like a structure of branches to form a frame, which is then covered with leaves, ferns and similar material for waterproofing and duff for insulation. Modern bivouacs often involve the use of one- or two-person tents but may also be without tents or full cover. In modern mountaineering the nature of the bivouac shelter will depend on the level of preparedness, in particular whether existing camping and outdoor gear may be incorporated into the shelter.
Outdoor education is organized learning that takes place in the outdoors, such as during school camping trips. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey wilderness-based experiences which engage participants in a variety of adventurous challenges and outdoor activities such as hiking, climbing, canoeing, ropes courses and group games. Outdoor education draws upon the philosophy, theory, and practices of experiential education and environmental education.
Wilderness therapy, also known as outdoor behavioral healthcare, is a treatment option for behavioral disorders, substance abuse, and mental health issues in adolescents. Patients spend time living outdoors with peers. Reports of abuse, deaths, and lack of research into efficacy have led to controversy, and there is no solid proof of its effectiveness in treating such behavioral disorders, substance abuse, and mental health issues in adolescents.
Worrying is the mental distress or agitation resulting from anxiety, usually coming from a place of anticipatory fear (terror) or fear coming from a present threat (horror). With more understanding of the situation, worry becomes concern, the recognition of a future outcome that could be troubling, without necessarily having fear in that outcome.
Boot camps are part of the correctional and penal system of some countries. Modeled after military recruit training camps, these programs are based on shock incarceration grounded on military techniques. The aggressive training used has resulted in deaths in a variety of circumstances. Boot camps are also criticized around the world for their lack of behavioral change and for the way extreme force can traumatize children and teenagers.
Hiking equipment is the equipment taken on outdoor walking trips. The duration, distance, planned activities, and environment impacts equipment selection. For example, a short day hike across flat farmland versus trekking in the Himalayas would call for different types of equipment.
In the United States, a teen escort company, also called a youth transport firm or secure transport company, is a business that specializes in transporting teenagers from their homes to various facilities in the troubled teen industry. Such businesses typically employ a form of legal kidnapping, abducting sleeping teenagers and forcing them into a vehicle. Teen escort companies in the United States are subject to little or no government regulation and commonly result in permanent trauma.
Aspen Education Group is an American company that provides controversial therapeutic interventions for adolescents and young adults, including wilderness therapy programs, residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools, and weight loss programs, which have been accused of torture and abuse. Since November 2006, Aspen Education Group, with corporate offices located in Cerritos, California has been a division of Bain Capital's CRC Health.
Aspen Achievement Academy was a wilderness therapy program for adolescents, based in Loa, Utah.
The Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS) is a wilderness skills and survival school that has been teaching courses in southern Utah since 1968. BOSS has been based in the small town of Boulder, Utah since 1977. BOSS courses are known for being extremely challenging and for traveling through some of the most remote wilderness in the United States.
Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids is a non-fiction book by Maia Szalavitz analyzing the controversy surrounding the troubled teen industry. The book was published February 16, 2006, by Riverhead Books. Szalavitz focuses on four programs: Straight, Incorporated, a copy of the Straight Inc. program called KIDS, North Star wilderness boot camp, and the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. She discusses the background, history and methodology of the troubled-teen industry, including techniques drawn from attack therapy and Synanon. She uses first-person accounts and court testimony in her research, and states that no evidence exists proving that these programs are effective. The book also includes advice for parents and an appendix with additional resources on how to get responsible help for teenagers.
CEDU Educational Services, Inc., known simply as CEDU, was a company founded in 1967 by Mel Wasserman and associated with the troubled teen industry. The company owned and operated several therapeutic boarding schools licensed as group homes, wilderness therapy programs, and behavior modification programs in California and Idaho. The company's schools have faced numerous allegations of abuse. CEDU went out of business in 2005, amid lawsuits and state regulatory crackdowns.
Anne Hamburger is an American theatre manager, producer and playwright. She founded En Garde Arts, was artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse and was also an executive at Walt Disney Creative Entertainment, producing musicals.
Silver Reef is a ghost town in Washington County, Utah, United States, about 15 miles (24 km) northeast of St. George and 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Leeds. John Kemple, a prospector from Nevada, discovered a vein of silver in a sandstone formation in 1866. Geologists were first unconvinced by the discovery because silver is not usually found in sandstone. In 1875, two bankers from Salt Lake City sent William Barbee to the site to stake mining claims. He staked 21 claims and an influx of miners came to work Barbee's claims and to stake their own. To accommodate the miners, Barbee established a town called Bonanza City. Property values there were high, so several miners settled on a ridge to the north of it and named their settlement Rockpile. The town was renamed Silver Reef after silver mines in nearby Pioche closed and businessmen relocated.
The troubled teen industry is a broad range of youth residential programs aimed at struggling teenagers. The term encompasses various facilities and programs, including youth residential treatment centers, wilderness programs, boot camps, and therapeutic boarding schools.
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