It has recently come to our attention that a school calling itself “Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School” has recently been opened in a South Carolina property formerly occupied by WWASP program Carolina Springs Academy. It’s natural to wonder if this is a WWASP program. We cannot answer that question, but we can offer some insights.

Location

On its Facebook page, Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School lists its address as “226 green acres ln [sic] Donalds, SC 29638”. This is the same address used by Carolina Springs Academy, then by Magnolia Christian School, and more recently, Seneca Ranch. While location isn’t everything, WWASP programs have a history of shutting down and then reopening in the same location under the same name with the same staff. It’s impossible to know if that is the case here, but it is suggestive.

Ownership

Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School does not list the names of any staff or owners on its website (link to Internet Archive in case page becomes unavailable). However, an IP whois search reveals the owner of the domain to be Narvin Lichfield, the past owner of Carolina Springs. He was also involved with Dundee Ranch, which was also reopened as Pillars of Hope. Again, this is not definitive, but it does fit with the pattern that WWASP programs generally and Narvin personally have followed in the past. Additionally, the website says that staff “at Palmetto has many years of experience working with mental behavioral health services with troubled youth. highly qualified in mental health services and truly care about the students under their care. They are real mentors and youth role models [sic, all typos appear in original]”. This seems to imply the staff has had past associations with other teen programs. One is led to wonder which programs these are and why they are not listed on the website.
 

Narvin Lichfield



 

Costa Rica Connection

When it was open, Carolina Springs had a sister school with which Narvin Lichfield was also associated, originally called Dundee Ranch. It was shut down by Costa Rican authorities and reopened as Pillars of Hope, and then shut down again. Seneca Ranch (link to Internet Archive in case page becomes unavailable) also advertised itself as having a

“Spanish Language Immersion, American Culture and History–December, January, February Christmas Mission Trip in Costa Rica: An incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience to participate in our mission service program while involved in our Spanish language immersion program. This is held at our Pillars of Hope Language Institute, at Teen Discovery Costa Rica.”


(It should be noted Teen Discovery Costa Rica appears to be another school with alleged WWASP ties.) Likewise, Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School offers the same exact “opportunity”, in almost the same words:

“Spanish Language Immersion, American Culture and History–December, January, February Christmas Mission Trip in Costa Rica: An incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience to participate in our mission service program while involved in our Spanish language immersion program. This is held at our Pillars of Hope Language Institute, at Teen Discovery Costa Rica.[sic]”


One wonders why the mention of Pillars of Hope was omitted. Interestingly, Palmetto’s site even displays a picture of Dundee Ranch.

Academics

Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School appears to offer a distance learning school program on site. This is how most WWASP programs ran their academic programs.

Conclusions

So is Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School a WWASP program? One point to note is that, from a legal standpoint, WWASP has ceased to exist as a formal corporation or organization. In this regard, Palmetto cannot technically be said to be a WWASP member. However, there are certainly troubling similarities. Not being a formal member of WWASP does not prevent some schools run by past WWASP programs owners and associates from employing a very WWASP-like scheme in their own programs. Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School does appear to have some alarming hallmarks of this copycatting.
Additionally, there are other red flags about the program in general. It’s hard to understand why parents would be willing to fork over almost $5,000 a month to send their teens to a “school” whose website is replete with obvious typos. (As a side note, on its website, Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School appears to employ a bizarre capitalization scheme in which the first letters of non-proper nouns are capitalized for emphasis. This scheme appears identical to one used in WWASP literature that was common enough to be remarked as a actual phenomenon by WWASP survivors and parents.) One wonders at the ability of a school to teach children when its administration apparently have a fairly feeble grasp of the rules of proper English usage. Is this truly money well spent?
Ultimately, the question of how WWASP-like Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School is cannot be answered without first-hand reports of students, given once these students are free of any potential coercion. It’s hard to say when these might arrive. Until then, we caution parents to carefully research this or any other program they are considering, check our list of red flags, and consider the opinions of mental health and medical professionals such as those at A START.