I was a student at the Spectrum College Transition (spectrumcollegetransition.org) summer program for exactly 1.5 days. Why this short, you may ask? Because after simply a day there I realized that this place was not only completely unfulfilling and a waste of my time, but even an unsafe, dulling and sketchy environment. I kept my mother constantly updated on observations, discrepencies and, even the upsides of the program, but by the end of my first day, the totality of my texts painted an immensly unsatisfactory picture. To put it frankly, we were lied to. I have always been a very cooperative part of my own therapeudic process, choosing to go to a wilderness program called SUWS of the Carolinas, which, although very difficult to overcome, yielded outcomes that have positively effected my ability to grow, change and interact with others. So it was much to my dismay that I went from SUWS to this god awful program which is lacking in all important therapeudic and social aspects. Yes, the house is nice, the food is good and the activities are fun, but it doesnt make up for the fact that no socializing, therapy or development actually occurred. There were few striking differences between boys who had been there for a month and boys who had been there for a day. All of the boys would simply do the activities passively, and then they would go home to recede into one hovel or another to game on their computers or handheld devices to their hearts content, with little to no positive intervention by the staff of any kind. The only thing that was worse than the actually quality of the program was the fact that I found myself becoming more and more unsafe throughout my time there. What is said about the director is all true, in fact, I think it is put rather kindly. She is a vindictive, evil, greedy, unkind, uncaring and unempathetic person at heart who is simply out for business and has no care or concern for the safety, well being or growth of any of the kids. When I complained to my mom, she ordered my phone to be taken away by the staff which is not only a violation of their policies which allow contact with parents at any time but most likely in accordance with several laws. I was being censored, and only because of lies was I able to relay enough information to my mother to help clear a path of truth through the many lies that Robin and her staff. They truly did lie about many things such as denying that they ever took my phone or told me not to contact my mom or basic complaints of staff negligance such as not engaging with kids or having kids engage, cursing and spending long hours at their computers or their office not even paying attention to the kids. What they did not completely bullface lie about, they exhaggerated wildly. To them, socializing = students exchanging one to two dispassionate sentences every couple of hours, A meal together = two students in a room eating, and a good idea for spending time = sitting in a large rec room alone practicing pool, drums or working out to your hearts content. By the end of my second day, my mom had demanded I be allowed to contact her uninterupted, arranged for a cab to pick me up and bought me a plane ticket home as soon as possible due to a true disgust after a mere two days at the program. In closing: I would recommend this program for only the lowest functioning kids on the Autism Spectrum, and even then I would encourage all parents to do a thorough amount of thought, research and consideration before choosing to put their children in the hands of this heartless and incompetent director and her staff. Similar testimonies can be found here: complaintsboard/complaints/spectrum-college-transition-program-not-what-it-appears-to-be-misrepresented-huge-disappointment-c631495.html
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 06:41:35 +0000
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