Menu
Login
Met this group, while they were on tour to our church. we were impressed wtih their evening performance, and felt that this place would be a place where our daughter could find rest, and comfort and a place to get away from it all after a severe accident left her with some serious physical complications...
it was not what we had expected, nor was it what we were promised.We were told of mending broken relationships, academically getting on track and counseling...
punishment started right away, for things that were not understood, red shirt, punishment, left my daughter with many physical problems, untreated medical condition, UTI that was untreated, afer I spoke about her needing to get medical attention, they said they would, and did nothing.
blood in her urine, blood in her bowels, hives all over her body.
Our letters were kept from her, her letters to us were never sent, she was not allowed to speak to us freely on the phone, but every word was to be judged, and she was expected to speak to us in monotone, so as not to communicate anything other than what was allowed. She was on punishment, and red shirt discipline throughout her stay, and has foot, knee, hip inflamation from the constant standing on the wall with her hands behind her back, both feet flat on the floor.
she wakes up nightly with nightmares, of being taken back to New beginnings Girls academy.
Bill macnamera has a very bad temper, in which he did lose all self control with me, while I was asking him questions about educational neglect for my daughter. We were told that she would start counseling, up to two days a week, right away...after two months, she recieved one processing counseling interview...when I asked about the counseling and the lack of education, Bill Macnamers became angry with my questioning his authority, telling me that he did not have to listen to this, and slammed the phone down...a man with a lack of control, exploding on the phone in a temper tantrum fashion, is also in charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and 30 little girls who needed a safe place to be, and protection...very concerning...
we called to ask our daughter if she were ready to come home, a nd she had already been in Bill Macnamera's office earlier, and agreed under duress, to stay 6 more months...at which time she told me on the phone she could not come ahome, and it was not perfect at New Beginnings, but she could not come home...now she wanted to stay another 6 months...during my conversation, she was told she had 3 minutes to get off the phone for a counseling session...so they could than tell her why she needed to stay there...
The world is sin, your family is in the world, if you leave NBGH you will going back into the world, your family is in the world, the world is in sin...
They are not allowed to know the day of the week or the date of the month, and must learn to tell time backwards...no speaking of family you miss, or anything that is reminders of home, family, affection, caring loving people in your life outside of New Beginnings.
You get punished for making eye contact with any other girl, no matter what..no speaking at any time..you must raise your hand and be silent until you are called, if you are called.
Bathroom is punishment: with 5 sheets of toilet paper, or 7 depending on your need...open stalls for shower and bathroom...strip search, solitary confinement writing sentences for up to 4 hrs. a time..
When I went to rescue my daughter from this place, I was met by the counselor who told me to come into the office, we needed to talk...told me to sit down, I refused, he than got himself a chair, so we could sit and talk before I could see my daughter...he than told me that it was a dangerous idea to take my daughter home, It was not safe, she did not want to go home, and she made it very clear, told them many times she did not want to come home, she wanted to stay,
She was severely punished after I was hung up on with more discipline...she would than say anything that would make them happy hoping they would lighten up on the severe punishment...it didnt help...
she was severely distraught, terrified, freightened, full of shame, fear, intimidation, and terror...the look inher eyes the moment I saw her was one that I had never seen in her eyes before...it was the same look I have seen on a dog, lost on the side of a highway, trying to avoid traffic, sticks and stones, wet dripping with freezing rain, terrified for its very life, shivering, full of fear, begging for help...it shocked me and paralyzed me to see my daughter sickly pale, ghostly white, bug eyed, trembling, shivering, fulll of fear in her eyes...fear and intimidation not knowing why she was now in the Office...she looked at me, and said, Mom is that you...she than began crying saying, O God, O my God, Mom, is that really you, O my God mom you came...I ran to her, picked up her trembling body, and she melted in my arms, so I picked up her weak body, and felt how weak her hug on me was...she was trembling in my arms, and I whispered...do you want to go to Braums with me...will you go to lunch with me...I knew if I could remind her of a happy childhood memory, she would answer me freely before she remembered what she was supposed to say...she said, food, o God yes...she was in shock, and was trembling as we turned to walk out...she was than ordered to take off her red shirt and return it...big red T shirt to degrade as punishment, humiliate, and abuse mentally and emotionally...she had nothing else on with the T-shirt in Missouri snow storm, boots, thin black summer skirt...when I got there, they had her hurriedly put on a purple sweatshirt...she was confused, but never knew anything about me traveling to get her...she was in total shock and surprise...she was convinced that whe was not allowed to ever coem home again, she was not loved, not wanted, and at the same time, /Bill Macnamera told my husband to just let her go, give her away...let her go...they got tiered of all of our phone calls asking questions...
later on she was able to open up, telling me that she never would have went home with me if Bill macnamera was in town there..He was on vacation with his daughter and son-in-law who are his assistant directors...family run business...he would have let her know what the right response was...she would have done exactly what he told her to do...she was fulll of fear, intimidation, she was terrified of what would happen to her if she said the wrong thing...shw would have told me she was not going home.
I must confess that I am not one with free time on my hands to write openly, but this trauma is not half described due to time restraints...I am a mother of great love devotion, and concern for my daughter, and other daughters across America...Mothers who think thye are doing the right thing, finding out after it is too late, that we made the worst possible mistake of our lives...allowing total strangers, to have dominant control over the lives of a child that we have invested so many years, to a person that we knw so very little about.
I am reaching out to Moms everywhere, no matter how desperate you are to find help for your daughters, do not give up, do not give in, and do not send them to a place with your eyes closed, and imagine it is a good thing...if your heart is aching and grievingf, and warning you...listen to those cautions, it is real life screams in the dark...she was very exhausted and walked painfully...when I stoped for the night she was barely able to walk with terrible muscle cramps, and joint pain from the constant standing ont he wall, 7 days a week, *8- hrs. a day, and 500 jumping jacks each evening you are on punishment...she was in terrible pain, and groaned each time I held her, she was having muscle spasms throughout the night, with nightmares of being taken back to NBGH.
She now has anxiety attacks throughout the day, gag reflex from being force fed large amounts of food, and punished if you dont eat it all, or throw it up...punish is by demerits, and the girls who have grown up in the system and arrived at the age of 18, than become the new guards, to give punishment demerits without question...
the prisoner becomes the guard, so the abuse of the bully system continues, and the fear factor of this is evident in the lives of the girls that are full of fear to look anyone in the eye again...
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
![National Write Your Congressman [NWYC] Reviews](/images/business/48-48/116023/national-write-your-congressman.jpg)
That would defeat our whole purpose! WE WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO US
We did create a website :)
Admin please. This place ruined several peoples lives, we will never get that time back and never heal from this hurt.
ICU2.. If they are pathetic, why are you here?
^ i agree fully
KRISTINA DAHLBERG! I can't believe you right now. We were like best friends in the home. We experienced the SAME things! AND we hung out AFTER the home and you were definitely not some "changed girl". Maybe you got married and everything is fine and dandy with your life now, but seriously you are the one giving the Macs credit for that. WHAT THE HELL DUDE! You might have not experienced everything all the other girls did but you SAW it with your own eyes. I know for a fact you would never send your daughter there! You don't have to be all against NBGA like we all are. Just stay out of it if you don't want to help. I'm sorry the macs treated you "better" than the did us. If you don't want to hear about it anymore then don't be snooping around reading about it. We are NOT going to stop until this place is closed. That is OUR choice.
I know they are true. I don't really comment on these things much, but every once in a while we need to speak out an tell others so hopefully not as many girls have to go through this, regardless of their problems. I don't care if their "problems" are being too fat, too skinny, angry, depressed, etc.. who cares?! Most teens just need to feel like they are loved, not dropped off where they think they will never come home again... as for you.. how do you know who I am? Where you there with me?
The things you say are true but their neglect of REAL problems was apparent. The Macs have caised many of us depression issues. I had abandonment issues before the home and being dropped off in Missouri deffinently didnt help. As for you i'm pretty sure i know who you are. We all watched eachother suffer...in silence not allowed to speak to eachother. Just watch and hurt
I was there for a couple years. The Macs try to get into your head, as well as your parents. After a while you just start to believe their lies. I didn't realize 99% of what they told me was lies until a couple years out of the home. Over the past few months everything that I pushed back to the back of my memory is starting to come out. I went to a doctor to be treated for depression and told her a few things that had been going on since I went to the home and things I have continued to deal with after. I was picked on, preached at, humiliated both at the home and at churches for my sexuality. As for what Dalhburg said, I call total ###. I was there with you for a while and I know what you saw. As for the girl ya'll were talking about, she had a skin issue..exema I think. She also had sensitive skin. It was a problem before the home, but the home didnt help out at all by not gettin her the proper treatment for her condition. As far as weight, the girl (for her privacy I will not name names) was picked on about her weight. I am not sure if that was what triggered her eating disorder.
Kristina, your post is absolutely outrageous. I was in the NBGA home at the same time you were. I KNOW that you saw the same things that I saw. I even saw you be put in the JCMT Hold for your disruptive behavior. We both watch a girl stop eating and showering until her weight started disappearing and her skin started peeling of in huge sections. I was fed things that I'm allergic to. I was told that my acne was caused not because i was 17 but because i would rather go live wildly and be with multiple men then do anything for my own well being. I watched Brother Mac spin on top of a table on his stomach screaming while he was "preaching" watched him run across the top of church pews and get in my face and scream at me that my sins will catch up with me and that myself and everyone around me are all heathens. It really bothers me Kristina that you have the nerve to get on this site and lie the way you did. You hurt because of NBGA and so did everyone else. The truth about this place needs to be told and I AM NOT AFRAID TO TELL IT. I'm not stupid and I'm not weak. If i was weak i would lie the way you did.
lol @ Kristinas post... all I can say is that I spent a year and a half in the home, and have also spent a couple days in jail.. and if i had to go back in time and was giving the choice to go to either jail or nbga... I'd choose to go to jail 100% over that Home! :)
Kristina, I find it hard to believe that you didn't witness anything out of the ordinary when you were there, because I know MANY people who were there when you were who are saying different! Maybe the Macs blinded you and you didn't witness everything that went on, and that is great if you didn't, I wish I could have been so lucky! So this means we have about 2 out of 100 girls who are saying that that NBGA helped them! Wow what a great success rate! Take the sunglasses off sweetie and realize that this place is ABUSIVE and you probably were abused while you were there too, (maybe not physically, but mentally) sometimes it takes YEARS for people who went to these places to realize what happened to them was abuse and was wrong. You wanna tell me that human beings deserve to be forced to eat their own throw-up or deserve to be beaten with 2x4's and forced to do things that are just plain wrong and you know it is! How is right that they monitor the phone calls and letters and everything you do and say, and even if something is wrong with you and you want to talk to your parents about it, you can't. How about being the best-behaved girl in there, trying to do everything right to stay out of trouble because you feared their harsh discipline and STILL managed to get in trouble for doing absoultely nothing wrong, at 18 years old! You wanna tell me that this is the right way to deal with a "troubled-teen"? I know that NBGA hasn't changed and are probably worse, and I do expect this out of some people. I am not trying to be rude, it just bites when people who WENT there and saw for themselves what went on and had to go through all the motions of the rules wanna say that we should quit whining about it... that's what really gets me. There are hundreds of girls/women now, that went through there that have so many problems from it, its not even funny! NBGA is abusive, everyone knows it, and we will not stop spreading the word until they are SHUT DOWN FOR GOOD.
i went there and i got help. i feel bad for those who didnt turn their lives around. i never once had a problem like this, and the 2 years i was there, never saw anyone else with these problem. these girls who are so persistantly against this place need to get a life.seriously. for as much of ### kids as we who got sent there were, we wouldnt have recieved better treatment in jail or other places we most likely would have end up in. noone died there, boo who people...all the girls that went there deserved every bit of the discipline.plain and simple. nothing was unreasonable or harsh treatment. i discipline my dog worse than how i got disciplined. and trust me, i was on the wall standing for several months at a time sometimes. if i was the macs, i would loose my temper everyday. you guys have no idea what thoes girls can put them through.its rediculous. girls can be vicious, and they were! im just sick of hearing such bad things about nbga. if im the only one who got help, then im still thankful for nbga. it turned my life AROUND.
Kristina Dahlberg, now happily married so Kristina Gates
feel free to find me on fb
My name is patricia villa. I was there many years ago and I agree 100%! The girls that needed to stand against the wall was for a reason, they're lucky I didn't work there cuz I would have beat the hell out of them
The overstuffing of food, the strip/full body searches, and UTI 's and excessive physical demands as punishment are the same type stories coming in from the other IFB "reform schools"
I have never been in one of those homes. I grew up in an abusive family. I will keep all of you in my prayers. What these girls went through was torture and inhumane treatment. I know how these girls feel.
NBGA, Is just one of the many places that are out there only to gain financially and cause pain and tourment to your child! Parents this person is telling the truth! I know I have seen what these people do! They appear to be Loving, caring Christian's that have your childs best intrest at heart. That however is NOT The case! They will emotional, physically wear down your child and not educate them. They Brain wash them as to that is what is best for them so they can continue to gain from you with the monthly tuition, which is a joke as they don't educate children, just abuse them! I would say the only thing that is true to what they say is that you will get a worse child back if you remove them from the program, (not in all cases) as I am sure many people would be so thankful to be removed from the conditions they face there! But many do get worse as they are brainwashed into thinking that you dont' love, or care for them! And get into destructive life styles to hide the hurt that they suffer from these programs, I have seen this myself first hand ! Had I known the truth about the places like this my daughter would have NEVER went to one, but we are loving caring parents that wanted to help our children! We were scam by professional CONS, hanging out the Christian Shingle ! Parents please do research I did and still was scammed. Even a few months in programs like this cause GREAT harm! I am over 3 years past this experience and it is STILL overwhelming to me the stuff that my daughter is doing after being suject the the things she was while at the program. Still trying to pick up my shattered world from them!
I too was sent to NBGA, I am sorry your daughter had to go through this, and what is sad is that many other girls are still being held at this abusive facility, and others will be sent if something is not done to stop them! The Macs are nothing but money hungry sheeps in wolves clothing! The Physical, Mental, and verbal abuse I witnessed there is despicable! I will not stop telling my story, or speaking out until the Macs are stopped and this home is shut down! NO CHILD deserves to go through this type of experience!
Trust us, we've tried the CPS route. They've been investigated many times over. When they are successfully thoroughly investigated (which is VERY hard to make happen) they just pick up and move to another state with lax child protection laws which allow private faith-based child care facilities to operate without adequate oversight. That's how they wound up in Missouri. Thus far, the McNamaras have been in authority of hundreds of girls (and boys now - as they have expanded their operations since their last move) in the states of Texas, Florida, and Missouri. (Please see www.stopNBGA.blogspot.com for detailed history and insider information.) There's a movement (see proposed bill Bill HR911) working to stop this kind of abuse in these kinds of facilities. See the following links:
Most thorough, update survivor accounts and information, created by a survivor group on Facebook called NBGA: Proactive Survivors of New Beginnings Girls Academy: www.stopNBGA.blogspot.com
Survivor accounts on HEAL-online.org: http://www.heal-online.org/newbegrab.htm (NBGA is also listed as "confirmedly abusive" in their extensive database which catalogs abusive programs for minors. History and updated information, however, are incomplete. See Blogspot link - above - for complete history and info.)
Survivor interviews: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/974889 (see parts 1 and 2) and http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1001212
General info w/ more resources at the bottom: http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php?title=New_Beginnings_Girls_Academy
"Reviews" submitted by former detainees: http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/New.Beginnings.Girls.Academy.417-246-5200
http://cafety.org/
http://astart.fmhi.usf.edu/
Needless to say, there are people working around the clock to publicly expose New Beginnings and the McNamaras. It's a process. If anyone has a child who is STILL UNDER THE AGE OF 18, I encourage you to call local authorities (and/or Health and Welfare Department) in La Russell, Missouri. They are more apt to listen to you if your child is still a minor. The Home works to keep people until they already are 18 to thwart the girls' ability to report abuse.
Let it be known that we survivors will continue to band together until we see the doors closed forever and the McNamaras banned from working with children in ANY state.
i came in i think a day after april. the macnameras are def wolves in sheeps clothing. they are hypocrites. they will do and say anything to keep you under their mind control. it is def mental abuse. they also physically abuse anyone who doesnt do what they are told. in this review that this mom wrote everything she is saying is true. its even worse when you have to live it. i always have nightmares about that place, and now being a mother myself would never let this happen to my kids. its a horrible inviorment and like it says in the review your kid will not be able to tell you the truth about whats really happening. please, take it from all of us girls who was there, please dont send your girls here...there is something, anything better than this place...
i cant stop crying! i too had to go through the same thing with the Macs and they made my mom hate me more! they even accused me of messing with a male worker within the home...anything to make your parents not believe you or want you back so they can continue to control you! please help us and more girls that will have to go through this...we need someone! anyone...?!
www.stopNBGA.blogspot.com
We have a Blogspot and survivor group. I was there for four and a half years.