Three Springs, recently acquired by Sequel Youth and Family Services, is one of the venerable providers of the industry.  Our own interaction with Three Springs has been disappointing, however, with the exception of our interaction with Auldern Academy, which has been very good.  At this time we will not report all of our reasons for concern until the Sequel organization has a fair opportunity to address our concerns. 

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On or about June 19, 2009, we were contacted by a representative of Three Springs concerned about the lack of a positive review in this location.  Prior to our  correction of the article on June 22, we had asserted that Sharon Laney had been CEO of Three Springs.  This representative tells us that was an error.  We must assume that correction was accurate, but the fact remains that Ms. Laney had been the public face of Three Springs immediately prior to and during the time she served as president of NATSAP and it was widely believed among professional referral sources that she was the person in charge. 

Ms. Laney had, as of June 2009, returned to her earlier position of "Program Administrator" of Three Springs at Paint Rock Valley, the traditional flagship facility of Three Springs and continued to be the person who most of us in the professional referral business understand as the defining personality of the Three Springs organization, an image we believe has been cultivated intentionally by Three Springs.  Our reason for speaking of Ms. Laney by name is that for several years in anticipation of publishing our criticisms, we had attempted to meet with Ms. Laney in person to discuss our concerns, but were denied that opportunity.

We will state clearly that two of our issues, based upon some experiences some time ago are (1) lack of emphasis on quality relationships between staff and students, and (2) inadequate evidence of staff training. In addition, it was our perception that when Three Springs acquired the New Dominion programs, those programs progressively deteriorated in quality.  At the time of revising this article in response to the approach from the Three Springs organization and information that Ms. Laney is not and has never been CEO of Three Springs, we call on the Three Springs organization to do what most of its competitors do, and publish on its website the identity and background of its actual corporate leadership. 

To be absolutely fair, we acknowledge that much of our negative experience is based upon events of a number of years ago.  We  hope and believe we are serving 0ur clients better than we did then and we need to give Three Springs/Sequel  a chance to pass along what they have done to improve over the same period of time.  We are linking positive information about Three Springs from other sources. 

We continue to be concerned in 2010 about lack of transparency under Sequel's ownership.  We still find no identification of Sequel's leadership on the website.  Are key people at Sequel afraid to come out in the open? 

We plan to develop abbreviated reviews of Auldern Academy and Paint Rock Valley..  Those will be expanded and will give Three Springs fair attention when we receive questionnaire responses or at least have the opportunity to dialog with the individuals who defined the company.  Even without a completed questionnaire, we are willing to publish at this location a response to this article submitted by the Three Springs organization, correct any objective factual errors (as we have with the statement that Sharon Laney was the CEO), and enter into dialog with Ms. Laney and the actual executive leadership of the company.   We want our criticisms to be responsible.  We reassert our confidence in Auldern Academy. 

Official web site of Sequel TSI

Official Website of Sequel Youth and Family Services

Paint Rock Valley

Auldern Academy

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Visit report at Auldern Academy by Lon Woodbury

2003 visit report at Auldern Academy by Loi Eberle of Woodbury Reports

Visit report from Woodbury Reports for Paint Rock Valley in 1998 (sorry -- the most recent we could find). The general flavor of the place has not changed, but some details are very likely to be out of date..

Feedback is invited. We will publish feedback in good taste, consistent with our standards.  Email FamilyLightResponse@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: No  program review, no matter how positive, is a blanket endorsement. No criticism is a blanket condemnation.  When we express our level of confidence in a school or program, that is our subjective opinion with which others might reasonably disagree.  When we assert something as fact, we have done our best to be accurate, but we cannot guarantee that all of our information is accurate and up to date. When we address compliance with our guidelines, you need to remember that these are only OUR guidelines -- not guidelines from an official source.  We have also set the bar very high, and do not expect any school or program to be in total compliance.  It is not appropriate to draw a conclusion of impropriety (or even failure to live up to conventional wisdom) from our lack of confidence in a school or program or from less than perfect conformity to our guidelines.  Some will say we expect too much. Readers are responsible for verifying accuracy of information supplied here prior to acting upon it. We are not responsible for inaccuracies.

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Last updated  6-30-2010; minor revisions 6-4-2011 limited to clarifying identity of new owner.  Much information here is based on earlier date.