Turning Winds

[lorrispickelmire]

Anyone know anything about this particular program?

[Anonymous]

Fornits Wiki page

They had to relocate after beating a student a couple of years ago. The charge was dropped in order to spare the teenager from testifying face to face with his molesters.

[Ursus]

I know this has been brought up earlier here, at least a couple of times, probably on TTI.  Doing an advanced Google of the Fornits website -- using these peoples' names -- might locate it... If I recall correctly, these people evolved out of CEDU "training," but they are very small.

============================

BONNER COUNTY DAILY BEE
School operators file civil rights lawsuit
Posted: Sunday, Mar 11, 2007 - 03:11:24 pm PDT
By KEITH KINNAIRD
News editor

SANDPOINT -- The operators of a former Cocolalla boarding school for troubled teens have filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Bonner County Sheriff's Office claiming they were wrongly accused of assaulting a runaway student and maliciously prosecuted. Family Solutions Network's principals contend the investigation and ensuing prosecution damaged their business and marred their reputations.

John William Baisden Sr., John William Baisden Jr., Carl Spencer Baisden and their spouses filed the suit in 1st District Court on Monday. Sheriff Elaine Savage and former Deputy John Lunde are named as defendants in the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.

The suit comes about four months after the Baisdens filed a tort claim against sheriff's officials. The claim sought up to $8 million in damages. The county never responded to the claim, according to the suit.

The suit stems from a March 17, 2005 incident involving a 16-year-old student who fled Family Solutions Networks' Turning Winds school on Lake Cocolalla.

The student, according to police reports, made it to U.S. Highway 95 and hitched a ride from John Baisden Sr., whom the teen did not recognize as a school official.

The elder Baisden rendezvoused with his sons at the Westmond Store. Accounts of what ensued differ, police reports indicate.

The teen claimed he was dragged from the vehicle, handcuffed and beaten by the three men. The Baisdens denied battering the teen and said he attacked them before being subdued.

The Baisdens were charged with misdemeanor injury to a child, but the state later moved to dismiss their cases due to concern that forcing the teen to testify would undermine progress he had made since the incident, court documents show.

The Basidens' counsel, Coeur d'Alene attorney Susan Weeks, alleges the charges against her clients were dropped after Deputy Prosecutor Sarah Hallock-Jayne learned of Lunde's history of falsifying reports and manipulating evidence.

Weeks claims in the suit that Lunde intimidated witnesses into making false statements, failed to disclose exculpatory information and slandered the Baisdens with the intent of harming their businesses relationships and standing with the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare, which regulates schools such as Turning Winds.

Lunde was fired last April and is in the process of suing Savage, alleging he was forced off the job for blowing the whistle on corruption in her department. Lunde's Boise attorney, Joe Filicetti, insists his client was an upstanding law officer and a victim of workplace harassment.

The Baisdens contend their constitutional rights were violated and accuses the defendants of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation.

Family Solutions Network has since relocated Turning Winds to Troy, Mont.

[Covergaard]

They got off easy because the court decided to protect the child. That should not be cause for a suit against the authorities.

[Ursus]

Turning Point Academy seems to be run by the Baisden family. It is accredited by  NPSAA  http://www.npsag.com/ (What exactly is this?  It seems more like a database than an accrediting organization).  John Baisden used to be linked to Larry Bauer; the two ran Glacier Mountain, Inc. and Glacier Mountain-whatevers, perhaps with one or two others.  Both Baisden and Bauer used to work at CEDU in the early-mid 1990's, if I am not mistaken.  Sue Scheff used to refer to Glacier Mountain, Inc. (later Academy) at some point, perhaps still does.

At some point between late 1999 and January 2000, Baisden and Bauer parted company.  Baisden continued running what was then called Glacier Mountain Educational Services, and Bauer ran Glacier Mountain Academy.  There are a number of posts from user hawaiianguy3 which detail life at GMA after this split (I believe he attended in 2003), but he is the only one who set the record straight re. when this split occurred.  HG3 also reveals some interesting insights into how Lon Woodbury and Sue Scheff do business.

I'm not sure how long John Baisden's Glacier Mountain Educational Services existed, but at some point it ended and Turning Wind Academy was begun, with John Baisden enlisting other of his own family members to help run that show (possibly with GMES as well).  The incident involving the runaway student who was hitchhiking, and who was subsequently and most unfortunately picked up by John Baisden, Sr., occurred in early 2005.

I am still struggling with Google's search abilities.  It seems to be getting worse and worse.  Here are the few references that I have been able to scrounge up, thus far just Baisden's earlier history:

i have seen these documents and since then larry bauer and john baisden have split apart and larry bauer now owns the school known as glacier mountain academy, (which was glacier mountain inc.) i could only find one thing on him from the idaho state attorney generals office and he has owned up to it. ( he was advertising services and facilities that he did not provide and refused to refund tuition when children were removed from the school,he has since paid them back plus a fine from the state and has changed his advertising policy.) anyway, what i am looking for is anybody that went there or had some kind of contact with him in a cedu school, see what he and his school are really all about, I DO NOT TRUST SUE!!! she lied to me and told me that her daughter went there and she did great also it was only for a few months, after she rescued her daughter from carolina springs academy.she tried everything to try to get me to send my kid to glacier mountain , but i dont like being pushed and after the second phone call with her, i started to really look deep. by the way, glacier mtn academy is for boys only and she told me her daughter went there and that larry took 10 boys and 10 girls.HELLO???SUE!ARE YOU IN THERE?? YOU OUGHT TO KEEP YOUR STORY STRAIGHT!!people might get suspicious. anyway, i am looking for info on that particular school, because i havent seen anything on it like the other schools. thanks!!
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?p=87121#87121

Parents across the nation spend thousands of dollars to send their misbehaving teenagers to private behavioral schools in North Idaho. Ironically, some of those programs seem to have a hard time following the rules...

And now, county and state officials are investigating Glacier Mountain Inc., a group home north of Sandpoint that may be violating the terms of its group home license and county code...

One little school under scrutiny is Glacier Mountain Inc.

Like the directors of many local teenage residential facilities, Glacier Mountain's directors got their start at another behavioral school in the region...

Glacier Mountain markets to ADD support groups, according to Woodbury.
"Since when does a delinquent teenager qualify as handicapped?" wonders Marty Taylor, Bonner County's planner. "I'd be interested in seeing more review of that."

In Glacier's case, both Larry Bauer and John Baisden used to work at CEDU Family of Services, which operates Rocky Mountain Academy, Northwest Academy, Ascent and Boulder Creek Academy in Boundary County...

Baisden was CEDU's director of admissions from November 1994 until July 1995. Now he and Bauer operate a group home in the Colburn area on Oliver Road.

Baisden was reluctant to discuss the business, which is under investigation by the state licensing arm of Family and Community Services and by Bonner County Planning and Zoning. Baisden said the home takes up to eight kids, but had no students as of the last week of August.

"We don't have any plans of being an Elk Mountain or a Rocky Mountain Academy," he said. Baisden would not say how many people Glacier Mountain employs. But according to an inspection on Aug. 10 by Jean Hughes, an environmental health specialist at Panhandle Health District, the home had 12 teenage residents. She reported that the unfinished basement was being used as a classroom.

According to Glacier's state license, it can have only eight residents. And because it lacks a conditional use permit as a school, it cannot teach students there.

"We did do instruction," Baisden said. "We're not going to do that anymore. We don't think that's the real world. When they go home, they go to real schools."

Glacier Mountain has provided inconsistent information to the county about the facility, according to a letter from Taylor that was in Health District records.

Bauer has told Taylor that the students attend classes at the group home, but another letter about a week later said they would attend public school. In the first letter, he stated an intention to obtain a conditional use permit to become a children's treatment facility, which allows for 13 or more residents.

The Health District also is looking into the home's water and sewer systems. Hughes said the district could not approve either in a letter to Jim Puett, a state licensing specialist...
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=86361#86361

glacier mountain academy does exist and does have its own website. http://www.aboutglaciermtn.com It is run by a man named larry bauer who used to work at a cedu school. i havent found much out about him or the school itself. they had a problem with an advertising practice that was corrected and a fine was paid to the state attorney generals office. this started when a parent pulled their child out of the school and he wouldnt refund the tuition costs that had already been paid for future months. sue recommended this school to me and whitmore. i have not sent my child anywhere. sue told me that her daughter was abused at a wwasp school and then she turned to larry bauer to help her daughter, she said her daughter was only there a few months and he worked wonders with her. The only problem is is that glacier mountain academy is an all boys school!?!HELLO!?!
PARENTS! if you think that your child is all that bad, maybe you should take a long hard look at how they were raised, (I AM A PARENT MYSELF) There are many books on child rearing, i screwed up with alot of things, and i am not a total screw up, but i found a psychologist/author and have read many of his books and have also seen him on pbs recently. his name is john rosemond and if you take the time to read his books, listen to his tapes and watch his shows, he makes it all make sense. Give it a shot, you may just realize that your child is as normal as anybody else's. alot of our problems with teenagers today stem from the fact that we try so hard to control them, when guidance is what they really need. they have to fall on there faces and pick themselves up again, they have to gain they're independance. think back to when you were growing up, what was that like, how did your parents react?I personally do not know Dr. rosemond, and this is not a plea for selling his books, ect. give it a try. what have you got to lose? but your relasionship with your child or your childs life for that matter!maybe there will not be a need for people like sue and pure. wwasp schools and all the same!
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=88618#88618

I went to Glacier Mountain Academy for a little less than a year before my mother took me out because neither of us thought that it was helping me. My mother talked to Sue Scheff about this school so she thought it was pretty good.
Here are some of my experiences and things that I saw while I was there:
Larry Bauer is the head of the program and says that he councels us one on one every week or so. We all got counceled I think twice the entire time that I was there.
Ramona and Matt Slover were the house parents while I was there and I saw with my own eyes Matt hold one boy against the wall by his neck and yell at him because he ate the applesauce with sugar when he wasn't supposed to have sugar. I heard of other things from the kids but that's all I saw.
Robert was our martial arts "instructor" and eventually they let him take us fishing and on other excursions. On more than one occasion, he smoked marijuana in front of us and shared it with myself and the other kids. Matt later confessed to me that he knew that Robert smoked weed and suspected that he might be doing it with us.
Jack is the "teacher" at Glacier Mountain Academy and is good friends with Larry Bauer. Every day we did actual lessons for about 30 to 40 minutes, even though we were at school for 5 or 6 hours every day. The rest of the time was spent playing Nintendo and watching movies while Jack did paperwork or talked on the phone in the other room.
There were 3 bedrooms for the kids in the house that we stayed in. There were 12 people living in the house at the same time. 9 of them were kids (including myself) two were Matt and Ramona, and the last was their son, David, who lived in the basement.

There is more if you want you can email me at http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=162865#162865

While I was there, she actually visited once and Larry and the houseparents were scrambling to make the place look ok before she came. She gave a week advance notice. They did the same thing whenever one of our parents came also. Actually, I shouldn't say that they were scrambling. They made us do all the cleaning work. Cleaning the house, making new activities so they could say that we did them.
I don't think that it's all Sue Scheff's fault because what she saw was ok, but she should check more thoroughly.
None of the kids ever said anything to anyone. Not out of fear, I don't think. Maybe it was because they thought it was ok, or they just brushed it off. Once you leave thew program, you don't really want to remember it anymore anyway. I want people to know what it's really like because I don't think anyone else will go to the trouble of finding a site like this and tell people what happens. I actually tried this once before. I sent an email to the editor of the site http://www.strugglingteens.com about the exact same things, and they sent an email back saying that they wouldn't post the info and that this is something that should be dealt with by the authorities. So I appreciate getting this out there on this web site.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=163171#163171

Larry's GMA program is totally different than what it was when you were there. I don't even know if it's the same as when I was there anymore. To make it clear, everything I have posted is in regards to Glacier Mountain Academy NOT Glacier Mountain Educational Services OR Glacier Mountain Expeditions. Here is an article from http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... een01.html
to reduce the confusion:

GLACIER MOUNTAIN SEPARATES
(June 8, 2000) Larry Bauer, Director of Glacier Mountain Academy (GMA), Sandpoint, Idaho, announced that as of January 1, 2000, GMA became a totally separate entity from Glacier Mountain Educational Services (formerly known as Glacier Mountain Expeditions), which is headed by John Baisden. Bauer and Baisden had formed a partnership a few years ago, which has now been dissolved as a result of this action. Ramona and Matt Slover are managers and house parents of the GMA program, with Jack Evensizer, the accredited teacher.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=190700#190700

[Ursus]

Some discussion on the threads from April of this year:

'Ultimate Irony: Program Sues for Civil Rights Violation'

http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21323[/list]

'Can anyone give some insight?'

http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=16367[/list]

Apparently John Baisden was still doing business under the banner of Glacier Mountain Educational Services in Cocolalla, Idaho in early 2002 when he ran into some problems with local officials for "operating without a conditional use permit," not to mention having his foster care license revoked, as well as facing charges of false advertising and failure to report a crime. Similar complaints were filed around the same time against his former cohort Larry Bauer and Glacier Mountain Academy, namely that of "operating a school without a conditional use permit."

In December of 2003, John Baisden's enterprise was called Turning Winds/Family Solutions Network, Inc. and he was now based in Hayden, Idaho. He or another member of his family "purchased all of the Ryan Kohler's EMS sites under the name of Family Help 411, Inc.."

Turning Winds/fsni was still located in Hayden, Idaho in January of 2005, but relocated to Troy, Montana in the wake of the hitchhiker incident (no specific address can be found on their website).

http://www.turningwinds.com/
http://www.fsni.org/

Turning Winds is under a small umbrella called Family Solutions Network. The two other projects that FSN has underway are "College Bound" (for 18-24 yos) and "Recreational Motion" (beats me, but it's coming soon).

I may be reading this wrong, but it would appear that -- according to their website -- escorts are required for transporting kids to Turning Winds.

[Ursus]

FWIW, it appears as though the Illinois coordinator for HEAL attended Turning Winds:

"HEAL is coordinated by survivors across the country. Our national/HQ/Seattle Coordinator is a survivor of Provo Canyon School (me, Angela). Our CA Coordinator is also a survivor of Provo Canyon School. Our NJ Coordinator is a survivor of Three Springs and SLS Health (a program for adults). Our IL Coordinator is a survivor of Turning Winds. Our NY Coordinator is a survivor of 2 Aspen Ed. Group Programs, and our MS Coordinator is a survivor of Bethel Boys Academy. We understand what the problem is and how to go about changing the laws and helping kids."
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?p=274971#274971[/list]

[lorrispickelmire]

I am the Idaho HEAL coordinator, and I was in a Roloff Home.

[lorrispickelmire]

Here is an even better example of their abuse.  Several of the women who were dorm mothers made you say "Thank You Mama" between swats.

[Ursus]

John Baisden of Turning Winds recently posted a comment on an essay by Lon Woodbury of StrugglingTeens.  The essay was essentially Lon's negative reaction to George Miller's GAO hearings on industry regulation this past October.  That is, Lon Woodbury does not think the industry needs to be regulated.

November 27, 2007

This is a great article! Thank you very much for always providing such great insight. This was a very informative article, and I hope everyone in listening. It is very apparent that now more than ever, today's children are in serious trouble and are in need of good effective treatment. Thank you for keeping us up to date.

Best Regards,

John Baisden
Senior Executive Vice President
Turning Winds Academic Institute
PO Box 768
Troy, MT 59935
800-845-1380
www.turningwinds.com

Link to ORIGINAL ARTICLE on StrugglingTeens (including comments section).
Link to THREAD ON FORNITS discussing same.

[Anonymous]

Excellent. They're circling the wagons, becoming increasingly more insulated and tribal.

[Anonymous]

I don't Know anything about this program but i did attend Glaicer mountain several years ago and it was the worset this that ever happened to me.. I still have nightmares..

[hawaiianguy3]

Ursus has misquoted me above. When I was in Glacier Mountain Academy, John Baisden had absolutely nothing to do with the program- it was all Larry Bauer. I stated this very clearly in my past posts, which I don't feel like looking for.

[Ursus]

Ursus has misquoted me above. When I was in Glacier Mountain Academy, John Baisden had absolutely nothing to do with the program- it was all Larry Bauer. I stated this very clearly in my past posts, which I don't feel like looking for.

It would not be possible for me to misquote you, nor would I have any reason to do so. Moreover, I provided links to the original post in any material that I quoted. Be careful of what you accuse people of, and kindly spell out your contention.

You just posted, "When I was in Glacier Mountain Academy, John Baisden had absolutely nothing to do with the program- it was all Larry Bauer," and you had also previously posted, "I believe it was February through August of 2003 that I was there"...

I believe that I also made it quite clear that Baisden had left Glacier Mountain Academy by the time you were there (color emphasis added, just scroll up on this here same page for the original):

At some point between late 1999 and January 2000, Baisden and Bauer parted company. Baisden continued running what was then called Glacier Mountain Educational Services, and Bauer ran Glacier Mountain Academy. There are a number of posts from user hawaiianguy3 which detail life at GMA after this split (I believe he attended in 2003)...

I guess I'm a bit perplexed as to what the problem with my posting that is. This is a thread about Turning Winds, and hence the Baisden family, yet John Baisden Sr. shares a history with Larry Bauer that I think is relevant. Your posts lend some insight to that history. Do you object to my quoting from them?

[hawaiianguy3]

Here are the few references that I have been able to scrounge up, thus far just Baisden's earlier history:

You then went on to quote 3 of my previous posts. I mistakenly used the term "misquote." What you did was take my quotes out of context, I suppose.

I apologize if you took offense, I was only trying to set the record straight.