Mike,

I wanted to take a moment to thank you, not only what you do to help and support our daughter and our family, but also all the other kids and their familes as well.

With gratitude and appreciation,

D. R.

Dear Jeff,

Please allow us to tell you how much the Family Foundation School means to us in helping us get our son back.  For two years we looked into sending our son to a therapeutic boarding school for various bad behaviors and choices.  He had drug issues, respect issues, he was stealing and lying without remorse and he did not believe in God.  The Family Foundation School came highly recommended to us and every time we got a new brochure from other schools, we always came back to The Family Foundation School because your school seemed to have everything he needed.

Our has been came to your in 2009 and the change in him has been remarkable.  He has been taught to respect, he has been taught to be accountable for his actions and he has learned to believe in God again, as well as learning from his academic classes as well.  He is back to being the boy we once knew just a few short years ago and we love what we see every time we come to visit him, and we love what we hear when we speak to him on the phone.  We have only the staff at The Family Foundation School and the way the school is run to thank for this change in our son.

Sincerely,

B. and K. O.

Dear FFS:

Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for the work that you all do at FFS.

My son’s behavior was so out-of-control that he had become a danger to himself.  We felt that he would either die young or end up in jail.  After numerous attempts to get help for him without any success, we enrolled him at the FFS approximately 15 months ago.

The progress he has shown is nothing short of amazing.  FFS is helping him take a good look at himself and arming him with the tools he will need to live a fulfilling life.

When I think of my son’s stay at FFS throughout the past 15 months, one incident has left a big impression on me.  My son ran away back in late October, 2009.  My initial reaction was “how could they let this happen”.  However, I soon learned how efficient and honest the staff was in dealing with the whole situation.  Shortly thereafter, we had a family group and I was thunderstruck at how much the staff cared about my son.  It became very clear to me that this was not just a job for the staff, they truly care about the students.

We enrolled our son at FFS because he had a problem, but you have given us the opportunity to realize that as parents, we also need to work on our parenting skills.  The workshops and family groups which have been offered throughout our son’s enrollment have had a tremendous impact on us and have provided us with the tools to improve our parental skills.

I will forever be grateful for the gift that has been bestowed upon my family and I, and for lack of better words – Thank you from deep within my heart.

Sincerely,

L. E.

Dear Jeff,

I hope this letter finds you and yours well.  I want to take this opportunity to update you on my sons progress and my gratitude. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since he was there!

R. is in his third semester at university.  He continues to go to AA meetings and plans on staying in VA when he graduates. He loves it down there. He continues to enjoy his friendships with other graduates from the Family Foundation School. These friendships along with his sobriety almost didn’t happen, had he not attended the FFS.

As you may recall he was in deep trouble when he came to you. His father was dying and he was numbing himself with more and more narcotics and alcohol.  As my husband’s caretaker I had little time to contribute to finding the ” right” program for him. But it happened. Less then a week after learning of such a great school he was admitted. During that time he matured beyond expectations.  He was 16 at the time.  He told me early on that ” If not for this school I would most likely be dead”. And I believe that to be true.

The staff had patience and insight that bewildered me. I don’t know how they do it.  My son once said, ” Mom, I don’t know who created the program at the FFS but it really works somehow”. I will never forget these words.

The FFS gave my son the necessary skills to become and remain a productive  and sober member of the community.

Words can not adequately quantify the level of my gratitude to the FFS for being their to save my son and help him to be the wonderful person he is today.

Thank You,

B. B.

Dear Jeff:

I am writing this testimonial letter of our experience at the Family School, where we enrolled our daughter for the last two years of her high school in 2001.

Our story is very similar to many other families where a teenage child goes out of control and engages in dangerous situations.  Our daughter was failing school, engaged in a very disrespectful behavior at home that ended in a domestic violence situation and juvenile hall.  She became a methamphetamine user, got fired from her job and was failing school.  We had tried many other avenues, including outpatient programs, two emergency inpatient intervention, psychologists, etc.  Nothing seemed to help.  The details of our life at that period can be easily imagined by anyone who has been in similar situation.

As the last resource, we engaged a qualified educational consultant who recommended a wilderness camp for two months, and the Family School as a long-term alternative.  Our daughter was in Family 7 from 2001 until her graduation in 2003.  She graduated with high scores, which helped her to obtain a scholarship at a private school in California where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in 2007 with honors.  After working as a research assistant for two years, she’s now enrolled in a Master’s in Public Health program.

Nothing of this would have been a reality today without the intervention of the Family School and the initial work done at Second Nature in Utah.  How did this happen?  It all came to place when my daughter was taught, not easily but lasting, that every action has a consequence, that she was not the center of the world and was not entitled to impose her unacceptable behavior on her family and society.  She was taught to be honest with herself, to analyze her actions and its consequences, to control her impulses, to ask for help, and was held to the high standards by which she leads her life today. It was not an easy process, and it was not without tears and struggle, but it was under the guidance of the family leader, Susan Runge, and with the spiritual help of Father Steven that our family was able to put the pieces together and move on to be in a better place today.  We will forever be grateful.

On the other hand, my daughter was not the only one who learned a lot in the process. When my daughter was away from us, we were able–under the guidance of the school, the 12-step program and the support of the staff and other families–to change the family dynamics and our individual behaviors and to rebuild a stronger family.

As I said before, it was not an easy process and we did not always agree with the school; but we were willing to be open to discuss the reasons for the decisions taken at the school and to accept that she needed more discipline that we were able to give.  We had been back at the school for visits 3-4 times after graduation, July last year was our last visit.

Let me express my eternal gratitude for the work done by The Family School, her family leader and the staff in Family 7, and Father Steven.

Fondly,

H. G.

We were brought to the FFS as a last desperation for our daughter who was labeled untreatable by her therapists, with emotional difficulties, socialization problems, and she had stopped attending High School.

In our area the School System was either unwilling or unable to cope with her problems. The two specialized schools which could deal with our daughter’s situation were not recommended by our child psychiatrist because of her knowledge of their shortcomings. We researched therapy programs and found that they were either in Utah or had other difficulties in their respective programs.

We were very fortunate to find the Family Foundation School just about when we were ready to give up. Our daughter has been at FFS for 11 months and has made tremendous progress.  We are very happy with the choice we made and have the utmost respect for all those on the staff that have made our daughters progress possible.

As described above there are very few options for some on like my daughter. Traditional methods of therapy that she was attending three time a week were not working, and this is a highly regarded program in our community.  This means we had to rely solely on a private therapy institution if we were to have any hope of getting her treatment.

I believe as do others in my family that know her that she needed to be taken out of her old environment and be confronted with responsibility, work and consequences. Our schools here and our home could no provide these challenges.

I hope this conveys how important the FFS program is to our family and how essential it has become to our lives and to our daughters eventual success and graduation.

W. B.

As the parent of a student currently enrolled in The Family Foundation School, I am writing to express my support for the school in light of the smear campaign waged against the school by a small segment of former students.  My daughter was enrolled at The Family Foundation School almost one year ago.  Our decision to take this drastic measure was not one that we took lightly or did in haste, and we are convinced that this action saved her life as she was rapidly spiraling downward into the abyss of drug addiction.

We made every attempt to utilize available community-based services, through our school system, the state social service agency, the court system, and local mental health agencies.    When it became clear that none of those interventions were effective, we did our research, looking at a number of programs and going so far as to visit one in Utah.  Our decision to choose The Family Foundation School was based in large part on our conversations with people who had direct knowledge about this program.  We interviewed a recent graduate of the school and his mother, to whom we were referred by someone we knew personally, not by The Family Foundation School.   We also had the opportunity during our tour of the school to speak in private with two current students, of whom we asked numerous questions about their experiences, including the quality of daily life, the rules and consequences, and the opportunities for personal growth.  In these conversations, as well as those we had with staff prior to making our decision on enrollment, we maintained as one of our priorities that our daughter be in a program where she would be treated humanely within a structure that would keep her safe.

To date, our experience with the school has been positive.   We have visited the school regularly, and have gotten to know a number of staff, all of whom have impressed us with their openness and their dedication to helping others.  During visits with our daughter, which have included weekends away from the school, she has not complained once about anything that even comes close to mistreatment or a violation of rights.  She has also made gains that give us hope once again for her as an individual and a member of our family.

I would like to add at this point that in my own professional life I have worked for many years in human services, with a particular focus on services for children and for adults with disabilities.  This has included employment by public agencies responsible for investigation of reports of child abuse and neglect, as well as for regulatory oversight of residential treatment programs for children and for supportive services for adults with developmental disabilities.  I have also worked in the private sector of services for children, including residential treatment and foster care.  I include this information about myself to emphasize that I am knowledgeable about standards of care, attuned to signs of mistreatment, and would not hesitate to take action should I ever have concern that The Family Foundation School was not providing my daughter with a safe and therapeutic environment.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about our experience with The Family Foundation School.

Sincerely,

B. G.

My experience with the staff, administration and students has been very positive throughout the time from my first visit, through the admission process, the initiation and adjustment periods, and to the present work in progress phase.  During my initial visit and tour of the Family Foundation School,  I was totally impressed by the unfettered access  I was given to students and staff.  I was taken around campus by 2 unaccompanied students and was free to ask questions on any and all subjects.  The students were very candid in their responses, showed me all around the facilities including dorms, and introduced me to staff who also spoke candidly and freely about the programs at FFS.  When I mentioned to admissions staff that I knew certain students, they made them available to speak with me, with their consent, away from staff.  Indeed, it was the total openness and candor of the program, staff and students that distinguished FFS from any other school I have visited.

Those qualities have been pervasive throughout my experience with FFS.  The FFS policies, staff, and administration  consistently strive to keep parents abreast of their child’s progress as well as any crises, issues and target behavior areas. From the day of arrival, parents are given information sheets including names, phone #’s and e-mail addresses of  contact people for our children, including their counselors, sponsors, house leaders/contacts, medical personnel, administrators, etc.  We are also provided with contact information for consenting parents of students in our child’s house/ family.  Weekly contact  times with our child’s counselor are established within the first week of admission and we are encouraged to access an internal FFS parent support site which operates on a 24/7 basis.

Ongoing weekdays and weekends and additionally as needed, FFS provides parent/student/staff , (including consulting experts) meetings and workshops, special events weekends and outings.  Parents also receive a weekly e-mail newsletter and a monthly comprehensive student newspaper publication.  Any time my son was seen by an outside or consulting health care provider, I was sent an informative letter via e-mail.  It is too cumbersome to continue on with the nature and extent of FFS’s communication with the parents.  Suffice it to say that FFS implements an exceptional and extensive network of support on multiple levels for the parents/families of their students and thereby renders families an integral part of the FFS program and experience.

In summary, I am unwavering in my confidence and support for the dedicated staff at FFS.  I applaud FFS in their challenging mission to employ innovative techniques as a work in progress to rebuild families and to help a difficult population of teens mature into responsible young adults.

Respectfully,

B. B.

Dear Jeff,

As you know, my son has been at The Family Foundation School since 2009.  He watched his father die of lung cancer after an 18 month battle and coped with the loss by smoking marijuana and completely checking out of life.

Here is what he had to say in a recent letter to me:

“How do I think and feel now?  It’s a blessing now how I feel at times.  I felt happier here than I have in years.  I can say without any ill feeling towards the school or your decision to send me here.  I no longer look at life as the victim all the time.  I understand that I can simply make the decision to not be in self-pity, depression, anger, and that I can work my way through anything by talking about it.  Something great I’ve gained here is the way I feel about myself.  I now know what god’s gift to me was, and that was a large heart, a well of empathy for others.  I was always pretty isolative from the family and from friends, but now, you can say, I have become a social butterfly.  I can talk to anyone now with no fear; I can make friends easily and no longer worry about what others think of me.  I know and understand myself better than I ever have, and know that I have great potential if I just put my mind to it”.

When I made the decision to send my son to The Family School, it was because everything else that I had tried was not working.  I did not even believe the Family School could help him, I was so despondent.  Slowly but surely you convinced me that you understood his issues and that you “got him”.  The school has helped him and in the process has helped me become a better parent.  I feel that now my son has a chance at having a good life and he has learned coping skills that will be with him forever.  I have faith in the staff as they have always been professional, supportive and responsive.

L. B.