The Truth Behind the Family Foundation School HORRORS and explanation of how the School works.

The Family Foundation School is a Therapeutic Boarding School located in upstate New York.  The Family School openly states that they are a school and not a treatment facility.  Most of the 'troubled youth' that are sent by their family to the school have drug issues, alcohol issues, do not respect authority figures, have behavior problems, etc.

The Family School was started in the 1980's by founders Betty and Tony Argiros, who opened the campus to drug addicts and alcoholics.  Since then, The Family School has become an actual school for troubled youth.  The school prides itself on living an honest, unselfish, and pure life.  Students at the school are forced to participate in the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, whether or not they are an actual alcoholic.  To graduate the school or 'complete the program" there, students must admit they are addicts, alcoholics, sex addicts, powerless over their behavior, etc.

The Family Foundation School administration uses meal times to confront students about negative behavior or issues the student is having.  Many times students are verbally attacked by staff, along with students who are encouraged by the administration to give peer accountability by belittling the student who is being confronted.  These confrontations, or as FFS calls them 'interventions', are called Table Topics.

Common Table Topics are for a student who was being 'impure' or who masturbated.  The administration at the school consider masturbation a bad thing and often times force students to admit to their peers, both male and female, that they masturbated and were "impure".  Although studies have proven that masturbation is a normal and healthy development (Click here), FFS looks down and often times mocks students who masturbate.

Students are also subject to peer accountability for things such as why they are not admitting their an addict or alcoholic, when some of these students have only experimented with drugs like marijuana a few times.  Putting aside the fact that drugs are illegal in the United States, often times teenagers do end up experimenting with drugs and alcohol and honestly believe they are not addicts.

The Family School administration does not allow students open access to the telephone, citing students may call drug dealers or old friends.  Despite this, FFS does not give open access to telephone the police or Child Protective Services, making it virtually impossible for students to report abuse or maltreatment.  The Family School requires parents to attend Families Anonymous meetings, which is a support group for families of addicts and alcoholics.  Many parents are also required to attend the Family Schools groups at the school, run by staff.  Parents are taught by FFS administrators that their children are going to attempt to manipulate them to get taken out of the school.  This in turn makes it virtually impossible for a student to report abuse to their own parent.  Many alumni state that they told their parents of the abuse and maltreatment that goes on at the school, but their parents did not believe them and thought the abuse reports were a ploy and manipulation.

Administration use punishments, or in FFS terms "sanctions", to force students to comply with the rules and do what they say.  Some common sanctions are as follows:

      Work Sanction:  Where a student is pulled from daily schooling and forced to participate in maual labor, without compensation.  From alumni testimony we have received, common forms of this labor includes lugging buckets of rocks from the top of a hill to the bottom, for 8+ hours a day, 7 days a week.  The administration stated to people who work closely with this campaign that they only require 'productive labor' while on work sanction, and no longer require labor intensive work.

      Food Santion:  Where the administration limits or takes away completely a students food.  Alternative food is known to students when the staff only allow a student to eat a bowl of maypo (which is lighter than oatmeal) for breakfast, and a dry soy burger on an english muffin for lunch and dinner.  Staff has also been reported to completely remove a student's food intake until a certain task is complete (i.e. admit something the staff believes the student took part in, regardless if its fact or not) or for an undesignated time.  Staff have also been known to threaten students who are allergic, prohibited by the student's religion, or dislike the taste of a food that until they eat the food in question, no other food will be fed to them, and if necessary, the student will be brought to the hospital to be fed through an IV.  The administration stated to people who work closely with this campaign that they no longer limit or remove food from student, and make special meals for those whose religious beliefs prohibit them from eating a certain food.

       Miscellaneous sanctions:  Students who are considered runaway threats have their sneakers taken away and are required to wear sandals or have their shoe laces removed (as they do in jails).  Students can often be found sitting in a corner, facing the wall, and are required to eat, study, and do school work on their laps; the student must raise their hand and ask permission to look out of the corner.

       Isolation rooms:  Many students report that FFS used isolation rooms, which were rooms no larger than 7 feet by 7 feet, had a steel door with three deadbolt locks that could not be opened from the inside, and no seat or bed.  FFS staff would place students in the isolation room after a student was restrained by staff.  Many students report that staff would restrain non-violent students, sometimes just because the staff were angry at the student.  Students would spend days and nights in the tiny room, with no privacy as the room had a small window and a surveillance camera, with no bed or pillow.

Today, we have reports that FFS now still uses the isolation rooms but the room now can be opened from the inside after an alarm sounds and that there is a larger window on the steel doors.

       Restraints:  Although FFS does not use mechanical restraints, they do have a restraint process called Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) and staff is trained on a regular basis how to restrain a violent student.  FFS alumni have reported seeing non-violent students being restrained and staff over stepping their right to use restraints.  Alumni also report that staff have been overly aggressive during a physical restraint.

The Family Foundation School forces religion on students.  Students are required to attend a chapel service every morning, with a different religious group hosting the service each day.  Students have no free thought when it comes to religion and belief in a higher being.

The Family School had opened a middle school, where they accept middle school-aged students into the FFS program.  FFS has working and living on campus an admitted sex addict who has been in the center of informal allegations of sexual abuse, and who is cited in various testimony from alumni as a verbal and mental abuser.  Their middle school did not last too long, and was only in operation for a little over a year but they were planning the middle school for much longer.  The middle school has since closed, we believe because what parent is going to send their middle school-aged child to a facility that will call their child an addict or alcoholic.  We find it absolutely ridiculous that The Family School Administration has no problem calling a middle school student an addict.

Many parents of students send their child to the Family School to treat their drug and/or alcohol problem, among other issues.  The Family Foundation School's students meet with a psychologist upon arriving to the school.  This doctor signs a piece of paper stating that the student is "not in need of drug/alcohol treatment".  This paper is rarely seen by parents and part of the manipulative marketing tactics that this campaign wants FFS to stop.

Upon arrival at the Family School, students are strip searched by a staff member of the same sex, and two other students of the same sex.  FFS searches students and makes them 'squat and cough' to search for contraband, which includes cigarettes, drugs, and electronics.  According to the Supreme Court, strip searches of a student is unconstitutional.  They ruled in a case of a student being strip searched to look for drugs that "The content of suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion" particularly given "the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs" at issue.  The drugs at issue were prescription-strength ibuprofen.  (Click here to read further on this case).  Clearly the Family School is violating students rights at their School, not treatment center.