Troubled

Last week, the first volume of the report on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigation was released. Last year, the first Indigenous Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, created the initiative after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves of Indigenous children by Canada’s Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021. If YOU are a Survivor of Institutional Child Abuse (w/in the so-called "Troubled Teen Industry": Conversion Therapy, Wilderness Therapy, Bootcamps, Boarding Schools), or one of our allies, it is imperative to support the Indigenous Communities of Turtle Island through this review and reconciliation. Please center, elevate and amplify Indigenous Survivors and Advocates.

READ Indian Country Today's coverage for a summary and follow for more information.

The National Boarding School Healing Coalition is requesting people who attended a boarding school or are a descendent of a boarding school attendee to submit their written testimonies to the House of Natural Resources Committee by May 26. Email submissions to [email protected] and CC NABS at [email protected]. 

The National Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) has put together a suggested outline for written testimony for individuals to follow if needed:  

YOU can support the first targets of the US' Historic prevalence of mass, for-profit, legal, child abduction, detention, trafficking and torture schema by sharing this brief update episode and ALL of the links below to help make sure that ALL Survivors of the Residential Schools for the Indigenous are aware of their opportunity to submit testimony. We are disheartened that after centuries of Survivors speaking up, and a year of investigation, the US Government is allowing mere days for Survivors to step forward and share traumas they may have kept locked away for decades. STILL, raise awareness for this update in #everychildmatters and then do the following:

Podcast on this Friday!

Welcome back to Troubled, a podcast by/for Survivors of Institutional Youth Abuse. 

THANK YOU for being here for the third season of our Independent self archival project. Two seasons bootlegged together over a cell phone, recorded in an old Prius wasn't too much for you? Well, masochism may pay off here as we embark on our most personal missions yet and play the cards we've held closest throughout the collective crucible of advocacy in a time of Covid.

Super quick 31st birthday catch-up with Amanda Householder, who just filed a lawsuit against her parents, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, owners of Circle of Hope Girls Ranch AND their complicit and culpable cohorts - Agape Boarding School for Boys, Agape Baptist Church and Berean Baptist Church. We won't be getting into the nitty gritty of the details today, out of respect for Amanda, but we HIGHLY recommend you read the Kansas City Star Article "I was born into this." Daughter of Missouri reform school sues parents over abuse" by Judy Thomas and Laura Bauer, two rare gems of journalistic integrity. It is incredibly difficult to find ethical media allies of this caliber and we would just like to thank these women for how they have treated Survivors of Institutional Abuse throughout the last year of consistent coverage in Missouri. We wish they weren't an exception, but we are infinitely grateful they're both committed to exposing this crime against humanity as it plays out in their backyards. 

Forgive us our ADHD and self-defense, in this and every episode. We look forward to exploring the specific traumas of ourselves and our peers who were forever altered relationally by peer-on-peer attack therapy, but we'll also briefly address it in this update. 

We hope that Survivors will see other Survivors making moves and taking names as invitations or challenges to do so themselves. We hope that you will join us on the frontlines at every fork in the road. We also understand that for a historically invalidated community, and collectively gaslit community, that it can be triggering to see the mic passed to the next advocate. Often we can feel as if we are being spoken for, or over, or disregarded entirely. But every opportunity for a Survivor to speak, is an opportunity for Survivors to be heard. If we believe that we are stronger together, then we cannot continue to allow our community to reenact our trauma. MANY Survivors are neurodiverse, many of us experience RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) - especially since it's the most common symptom of ADHD. Even if we don't have RSD dialing up the perception of rejection, we HAVE been abandoned, excluded, silenced, and otherwise pariah-ed to the point where you don't even need 'confirmation bias' to perceive the world as wholly unsafe, as well as the people in it. I dig it. I'm living in this world with you. 

PLEASE let us be aware of how we deflect and project ourselves onto the world around us. We cannot move towards an exclusionary policy as we curate our collective movement.

Please join us in advocating for youth rights to liberate all kids in cages, from the border, through foster care, to the ToughLove so-called Troubled Teen Industry.

Until next time, #iseeyousurvivor and THANK YOU to all of our allies

It has officially been one year since the death of 16 year old foster child, Cornelius Frederick. 

Look back on Lakeside with Corn's Case Manager, and the Director of Case Management, Meghan Folkerson. 

Please join us in reigniting this campaign for justice. 

Read National Juvenile Justice Network's Shut Down Sequel: Progress Report HERE: https://www.njjn.org/our-work/shut-down-sequel-progress-report

More Info on our website HERE: https://talktroubled.org/justiceforcornelius/

#justiceforcornelius #shutdownsequel #sayhisname #blacklivesmatter

*Cover Art from NBC Tyler Kingkade on COH Here

Amanda Householder, Chanel Mare & Miranda Sullivan shoot the shit on Circle of Hope Girls Ranch, Agape Boarding School and the Troubled Teen Industry during the Texas Blackouts (let us know if you want the video).

To link up with Masters Ranch Mom, Shelva D Thomas, visit www.dearsdreams.com

Please Support our Survivor Sister Maggie Drew get an MRI so that she can finally get her insurance to cover her broken back, broken as a child doing forced manual labor at Circle of Hope HERE: https://www.gofundme.com/f/broken-circle-broken-back

The House Hearings are on our YouTube, the Senate Hearings are in a recent podcast episode as well. 

Greetings Allies,

Thursday is my birthday and the first anniversary of the murder of 16 year old foster child, Cornelius Frederick. Will you join us in reigniting the call for justice?

Please join us Thursday on social media via #justiceforcornelius and at the Community led Memorial and Gathering to remember the life of Corn as well as regain moment to end the death of children from the use of restraint, in his name, as his legacy.

The memorial is hosted by our phenomenal ally, PACCT Emergent Justice. We hope that you'll join us on my birthday this Thursday so that we can combine our efforts to honor the loss that binds us in an effort to liberate us all.

Our website is updated for #justiceforcornelius: https://talktroubled.org/justiceforcornelius/

Please register for Thursday's ZOOM:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuf-6trzksEtGb9MAx6E7RF31uYaqiYu8u

If you would like to contribute any audio to Thursday's podcast, feel free to email it to me here.

Best,

Miranda