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Foster care was a life of mind-numbing medications, head-spinning moves and, ultimately, heart-wrenching loneliness — until one adult finally listened and helped him realize there might be a better path
Story by KAREN DE SÁ
Photographs and video by DAI SUGANO
Design by QIN CHEN
OAKLAND — Whisked away from his drug-addicted mother, then rejected by his adoptive mom, D'Anthony Dandy spent his childhood wondering where he fit in. Often, the trauma made him depressed. Sometimes it made him defiant.
At school, he called his teacher "bald-head," hurled pencils and got suspended twice in the ninth grade.
So California's foster care system did what it often does with a complicated kid — it moved him.
Twenty-nine times.
And, in a futile attempt to control his behavior and dull his pain, it medicated him for years with a risky regimen of mind-altering drugs — lithium, Depakote, even an adult dose of the powerful antipsychotic Risperdal.
D'Anthony's story, revealed through dozens of interviews over 10 months and an exhaustive review of his juvenile dependency court records, illustrates a disturbing pattern detailed in "Drugging Our Kids," this newspaper's yearlong investigation: When it comes to managing challenging childhoods, the nation's largest child welfare system relies on expedient choices that often don't work and resists tough ones that do.
It took an extraordinary adult who finally listened to help D'Anthony realize there might be a better path, but his frequent moves and a haze of medication made it difficult for him to settle down.
Until then, "nobody actually told me like, 'What's goin' on?' " said D'Anthony, now 19. " 'What's goin' on in the inside? I know you can be a good kid.' "
An epic journey begins
D'Anthony was just a kid, no taller than a rocking horse, when a foster parent adopted him along with his younger brother, Derion. Dressed in a button-up shirt and purple polka-dot tie, D'Anthony beamed next to his brother in a photo taken after the adoption ceremony. A banner behind them read: "Welcome Forever Families."
Forever lasted only a few years. Aging and in poor health, his adoptive mother decided she could no longer care for both young boys: D'Anthony was causing too much trouble and would have to go. In one outburst he even kicked her in the leg.
The chilling sense of being alone in the world set in the night she dropped him at an Oakland residential facility for children. "I looked around," said D'Anthony, recalling a solid night of crying, "and I thought: What could I do at 10 years old to be in a group home?"
Separated from his brother, D'Anthony was suddenly one of the thousands of California kids who land in group homes. Many have worn out their welcome with a foster family or relative and are difficult to place. Instead of nurturing parents tucking children into bed, most group homes have minimum-wage shift workers enforcing lights-out — and the many other rules posted on the walls.
Kids who break those rules quickly learn the consequences: When foster parents or group homes have had enough, they can issue an incontestable "Seven-Day Notice," the foster care system's version of an eviction.
With so little stability, questions kept nagging D'Anthony about who he was and where he belonged. He tried to make the best of it. In dependency court records he shared with a reporter, D'Anthony is described by his court-appointed advocate as "creative, caring, artistic, sweet, pleasant, helpful, talented and energetic." One court report noted that D'Anthony loved sushi when he tried it for the first time, "although he was a little saddened that caviar never grow up to be adult fish."
Yet the longer he stayed in foster care, the more difficult he became to manage. Slight but powerful, D'Anthony gave fits to a succession of caregivers, his records show, displaying behaviors that were "verbally abusive, aggressive, extremely defiant and threatening."
Again and again, social workers carted D'Anthony from place to place — an astounding migration that came to include 14 schools, 11 group homes, nine foster homes, three inpatient units and two stays in a shelter. The path took him from Stockton to Ceres to Salinas to San Jose.
"Each and every move when a kid has to start over, they start over feeling that they are no one," said attorney and former foster youth Phil Ladew, legal director of the California Court Appointed Special Advocates association. "It very much reinforces that there is something wrong with you, and you are all alone."
Diagnosis, then drugs
The foster care system has few solutions for kids who continually act out. Moving them to new homes is hardly ideal. But increasingly the system's other alternative is to medicate them — often with little thought about whether the drugs are doing more harm than good.
And when a child moves frequently, like D'Anthony, the doctors, drugs and diagnoses can pile up. At least 14 psychiatrists throughout Northern and Central California examined D'Anthony, diagnosing him variously with post-traumatic stress, reactive attachment, major depression, bipolar disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity. They prescribed an ever-changing "cocktail" of medications, including two antipsychotics at once, that experts called dangerous and ineffective after reviewing his case at this newspaper's request. One even called it "disgusting."
Lithium, for example, is not approved by the FDA for children younger than 12, and to date, studies on the drug's effectiveness have only been conducted on adults. But D'Anthony was prescribed the powerful mood stabilizer at age 10 or 11 — his available records are unclear on the precise month. He took three doses a day between 2006 and 2008.
At age 12, D'Anthony began an escalating course of the stimulant Concerta to counter his hyperactive behavior. That same year, prescribers added the antipsychotics Seroquel and Risperdal, and later another mood stabilizer, Depakote. Combining three or more psychotropic medications, particularly over an extended period of years, is strongly discouraged and would trigger a secondary review in states such as Illinois and Connecticut that have strict protocols for prescribing to foster children.
D'Anthony's treatment "sounds like what typically happens," said Sunnyvale child psychiatrist Stuart Bair, one of several prominent clinicians who responded to a reporter's description of the youth's drug regimen while in foster care.
"Somebody writes down a diagnosis," Bair said. "A little bit of medicine didn't work, so he got more, which didn't work, so he got more, which didn't work, so he got more, and nobody had enough sense to step back and say: 'Is it working?' "
D'Anthony's court records show at least one psychiatrist did finally step back to question why the then-13-year-old boy was receiving an adult dosage of Risperdal: 4 milligrams twice a day. Since D'Anthony weighed only 80 pounds, Dr. Raymond Hearey cut the dose in half.
The antipsychotic "was so far beyond what I believed was a reasonable dose for a kid his size that I was concerned about his safety and long-term health effects," Hearey said in a recent interview. "It seemed the best thing was to try to reduce the dose substantially."
Remarkably similar stories
The medication treatment D'Anthony received is echoed in interviews with more than 30 other young people throughout California who shared similar childhood experiences about the foster care system's dependence on pharmaceuticals.
The newspaper found almost one out of every four adolescents in California foster care was prescribed psychiatric drugs over the last decade — 3½ times the rate psych meds are prescribed to all adolescents nationwide. Sixty percent of those medicated foster kids were prescribed antipsychotics, the class of psych meds that can cause the most severe and immediate side effects, including rapid-onset obesity, diabetes and uncontrollable tremors.
D'Anthony said the combination of drugs left him so dopey he'd often conk out at 3 p.m., and then wake up before dawn. To his deep embarrassment, he wet his bed into his early teens, which can be a side effect of the medications. D'Anthony said he always thought he just got scared at night. "Everybody in the group home knew that I used to wet the bed," he said. "Ain't no hidin' it. You wake up pissy and you stink."
Often sleep-deprived, irritable and unable to think clearly, D'Anthony slogged through his days in foster care. He spent much of the time in his middle and high school years with his head slumped over his desk. "My teacher would say, 'D'Anthony, wake up!' And then I'd go right back to sleep," he recalled. "They were giving me too much. It was hella medicine."
Treatment focuses on drugs
For foster children in the East Bay such as D'Anthony, drug regimens are reinforced by a care model that institutionalizes psych meds: the "medication clinic."
Pathways to Wellness treated more than 150 foster children last year in medication-only visits under a contract with Alameda County. The contract provides no guarantee that the children will receive other types of therapies.
"Essentially, youth go in the door, whoever is there with them fills out all the paperwork, then they're quickly shuffled into a session with a psychiatrist, and then they're quickly shuffled out," said Anna Johnson, a health policy analyst employed by Alameda County to review its medication practices in the foster care and probation systems.
Johnson said kids at Pathways — which also treats adults and children who aren't in foster care — see a constantly changing group of contract psychiatrists who often prescribe in haste with little, if any, information on patients' health histories, a problem experts acknowledge is widespread throughout the foster care system.
"There's no emphasis on doing things that aren't billable," Johnson said. "If you need to take some time to teach a kid about a diagnosis, or the medication they're taking — the timer goes off."
Alex Briscoe, director of health care services for Alameda County, said that when the county refers a foster child to Pathways, there is no expectation they will be medicated — only evaluated for the need. But the vast majority do receive medication, he acknowledged.
Critics say there's a financial incentive to prescribe: The foster kids Pathways treats with medication return for follow-up care at rates of up to $285 an hour.
Pathways Medical Director Hiawatha Harris disputes criticism that his clinics are solely interested in prescribing meds. In Alameda County, he said, they are limited by their contract, which covers only medication services. He said his psychiatrists are "huge champions of non-medication services," noting that the county provides those types of therapies elsewhere.
"There is no financial incentive for Pathways' physicians to do anything other than exercise their best professional judgment when treating these children," Harris said in an email.
Briscoe concedes he is "unsatisfied" with the "medication management model" Pathways provides, but said the contract is necessary to save his cash-strapped department from having to hire child psychiatrists who are already in high demand.
Group home model adds to woes
No place in California's foster care system depends on psych meds more than its residential group homes, where maintaining order can overshadow carefully managing a fragile child's mental health. The newspaper's investigation found that more than half of the kids in California's group homes are authorized by the juvenile court to receive psychotropic drugs.
But staff and directors of group homes say the overprescribing of psych meds is a problem they inherit when the foster care system's most challenged kids arrive at their doors.
"Invariably, they are kids who have been through five, 10, 15, 25, 30 placements, and so lots of people have been trying to figure out how to meet these kids' needs over time," said Carroll Schroeder, whose Alliance of Child and Family Services represents 47 accredited group home programs. "It is really common for those kids to come into residential care on a cocktail of medicine."
Yet despite being typical landing spots for kids like D'Anthony, group homes are often incapable of providing the kind of attention such troubled children need.
For years, California simply required that a group home's front-line staff be at least 18 — this October it changes to 21. No high school diploma is required, let alone experience working with traumatized children on potent mental health drugs. The state of California guarantees group home workers nothing above the current $9-an-hour minimum wage.
The state also asks little of group home facilities — programs that range from private mom-and-pop businesses to large-scale nonprofit agencies. There are no specific requirements for therapeutic programming and no standard performance, quality or outcome measures. Health and safety inspections are conducted at least once every five years, or following complaints.
In two of the group homes where D'Anthony lived, state inspectors found serious violations, including kids being denied "appropriate therapy." One home was cited for "mishandling medication." Another received complaints about a staff member who "mocks, instigates or makes inappropriate comments to clients in their time of need."
As simple as it sounds, D'Anthony said he needed someone to acknowledge that he "was just a kid, like a normal kid with a family, that needs help. I just need love — that's the only thing."
The medications that were supposed to mellow him weren't serving that need, so life in the group homes turned into a series of blowups. He punched holes in the walls, slammed a refrigerator door on a staff member and racked up numerous "incident reports." D'Anthony mimicked the behaviors of other troubled youth in group homes — or, fearful of retaliation, struck first.
At one facility in Salinas, a caseworker noted D'Anthony kept showing up for visits with a black eye. As one of the youngest boys in his group home at the time, notes in his files show, "D'Anthony will often try to impress his older peers by acting out."
But as aggressive as he was, he also felt terrified in the group homes, where someone was always in trouble. He would often run away, only to be moved to yet another group home.
To D'Anthony, a group home is far from the definition of a home.
"In my eyes, a home is a house through anything," he said. "They going to work with you through anything. Not just send you to the next placement if you get into a fight.
"That just ruins the mind."
Finding a true advocate
Like most foster kids, D'Anthony had no idea he had a right to refuse medications, and his complaints were often ignored. An April 2010 court report shows that at 14 he had objected to his twice-daily doses of Risperdal, with a notation that "he does not feel as though his medication is helping him" and "wants the dosage modified."
When no one seemed to listen, D'Anthony took to stealth measures and hid the pills under his tongue during med-call inspections.
"It gets hella nasty because it would start getting all soggy," he recalled. "They'd be like, 'Are you taking it?' And I'd just open my mouth and say 'aaahhhhh,' and when I went to the bathroom, I'd spit it out."
Then, finally, someone decided to intervene. Tara Beckman served as D'Anthony's court-appointed advocate, one of the volunteers assigned to befriend foster children and make recommendations to the juvenile court on everything from schooling and family visitation to therapy needs. (Beckman spoke to the newspaper with D'Anthony's permission when he was 18.)
Most of these volunteers remain in a child's life a year or two. Beckman has stayed at D'Anthony's side for seven years.
Few foster children get someone as committed as Beckman, and only 1 in 5 gets an advocate at all due to the limitations of the nonprofit ventures that match kids with the volunteers.
Beckman had known the kid she still calls "D" for years before she reached the conclusion that psych meds may not be the answer.
The two first met in December 2007, when D'Anthony was 12 and taking three psychotropic medications a day. Beckman, 38, grew up in foster care herself after her mother died in a car crash. So she was all too familiar with his loneliness and desperation.
They were an unlikely pair — a young white woman from a small factory town in the Midwest and an African-American boy from inner-city Oakland.
Trust took some time to build. Beckman was 10 minutes late the day she first met D'Anthony, poised near the steps of the Burt Children's Center group home in San Francisco. "He looked like, 'Get me out of here!' " Beckman recalled.
A better way to heal
As their relationship grew, Beckman came to appreciate D'Anthony in a way few others had. "How could two moms give me away?" he once asked her.
"The acting out was all about his trauma," said Beckman, who is now training to be a therapist, "but all these people were treating it with meds."
In reports she would write to the court, Beckman helped D'Anthony express his growing discontent over how he felt on the medications. She repeatedly asked the court for "a second opinion." She even dug up a diagnosis of severe lead poisoning from when he was 5, suggesting it could have contributed to his behavioral problems.
Beckman knew it was controversial to challenge D'Anthony's prescribers, and a little intimidating because she wasn't a doctor, social worker, attorney or judge, who in California must authorize psych meds for foster youth. One psychiatrist would never return her calls. To Beckman, the perception was clear: She was simply a volunteer. Who was she to question a psychiatrist? Who was she to question a judge?
Over time, Beckman became convinced there was a better way for D'Anthony to heal from his trauma, but he'd seen too many therapists in his many moves and had become weary of telling his story over and over. Being in foster care is stressful enough, but piling on the 29 different moves?
"That's a lot of difficult emotions," she said. "Is medication going to take that pain away? No, it's only going to mask it."
Beckman decided to deal directly with the source of D'Anthony's trauma. "With D," she concluded, "he was hurting people and being physically aggressive because he wanted to see his family."
D'Anthony's court records show his mother neglected him as a toddler, but at age 15, he still longed for her. His mother's absence was an aching hole in his life. So, Beckman set out to find his birth mother, Renee Evans. A paternal grandmother connected them in two days, and a reunion was set for January 2011.
D'Anthony had a bouquet of flowers ready at the social services office where the two would meet. Beckman arranged for lunch, sodas and a fruitcake. There were balloons. And when his mother stepped off the elevator, she shouted out: "Oh, you're so beautiful!"
"I wanted to collapse," D'Anthony recalled. "So this is where I came from this whole time."
D'Anthony's mother showed him pictures of sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and cousins he never knew he had. As Beckman filmed the reunion, the teenager plunged into his mother's embrace, sobbing and clinging to her as she rocked him back and forth. "I dreamed this, and I prayed to God for a miracle, and he blessed me with a miracle," she said. "Your sisters love you, your brothers love you.
"It's gonna be all right, son, it's gonna be all right."
Fulfilling one more need
Eventually, things got complicated with his mother in Oakland after their initial joyful encounter. There were so many years of separation. The two tried living together several times, but it never worked.
"I love my kids. I loved them so much — I just didn't know how to be a mother at that time," Evans said. "Not a day goes by that I don't regret it, and I wish I could turn back the hands of time."
D'Anthony started to feel some ground under his feet once he reconnected with his family. He had some roots. And new incentives.
If D'Anthony had no more incident reports, Beckman pledged, she would step up visits with his brother Derion. The visits increased as D'Anthony kept it together. The three took trips to Pinnacles National Monument and Yosemite. They collected seashells at Ocean Beach. Beckman taught D'Anthony deep-breathing exercises.
In their car rides to visit Derion, Beckman introduced D'Anthony to 2Pac, Bob Marley, Al Green and Marvin Gaye. And before long, he was writing his own rap lyrics, including an ode to his mother that Beckman recorded on her cellphone.
Beckman was the first person in his life who stuck around, D'Anthony said, and it felt good. He was moving toward graduating from high school, against long odds.
To really begin finding himself, though, he needed one more thing: to get off the meds. D'Anthony had been sedated for more than five years, and he was ready to find out how he would manage his life drug-free.
Finally, he decides, no more meds
In his last move, from a Stockton foster home, D'Anthony finally said: "No more." This time, in addition to Beckman's support, his social worker and court-appointed attorney backed the decision, too.
"It's not the story that we usually see," said Sacramento lobbyist Chantel Johnson, a former foster youth and current foster mom who has worked as an advocate for kids in the system for 10 years. "What is more typical is youth who don't even know why they take the medication that they do and are so overly medicated that they wouldn't be able to make that decision for themselves. You're often so drugged and so emotionless that you can't."
It could be a coincidence, or his developing maturity — there's no way to know for sure. But from D'Anthony's perspective, when he stopped taking psych medications at age 16, he was able to think more clearly about why he acted out. He stopped assaulting people.
"When he got off the meds," Beckman said, "that's when he really started talking to me about his trauma and his past and his experiences and his hurt and his pain."
Now, every time D'Anthony gets in Beckman's car, he has a new song to play for her. She believes it's helping him heal.
By late last year, his court records show, D'Anthony was "setting boundaries" with his family and demonstrating "a lot of maturity." He had moved into his own place for the first time — a studio apartment in a transitional housing program for foster youth.
Homelessness, incarceration and unemployment plague youth aging out of the California foster care system. Just 45 percent complete high school. This year, D'Anthony became one of them, graduating from Hayward High. He took a job doing environmental work for a local conservation corps, bought a black 1996 Honda Civic — his first car — and wants to attend Merritt College in Oakland next year.
And in a recent report to the court, Beckman typed these words into D'Anthony's file:
"Tremendous strides."
Contact Karen de Sá at firstname.lastname@example.com or 408-920-5781.
Stories by Karen de Sá, investigative reporter. Photos and videos by Dai Sugano, photojournalist and producer. Design and animation by Qin Chen, multimedia designer. Timeline by Pai, graphics director.
E. Paul Baca, web developer, contributed to web development.


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You can't buy an all-over Nascar t-shirt with a picture of Chief Keef talking into a fat stack of Benjamins like it's a cellphone, but you might see one on Sir Michael Rocks as he rolls through Kendall. The Chicago-bred rapper made the shirt himself, and he did actually sell a few through his appa ... More >>
Animal activists are claiming a victory today after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration hit the Miami Seaquarium with a pretty hefty fine for letting trainers work with Lolita the orca without proper safety precautions. In 2010, SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau died while she was swim ... More >>
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With the popularity of the documentary Blackfish, which focuses on captive orcas at SeaWorld, public debate over keeping the endangered species in captive has reignited. For years, activists have long tried to have Lolita, an orca held captive at the Miami Seaquarium, released. Today, federal offi ... More >>
The Magic Kingdom is about to get a little bit more magical. For the first time in the Disney park's 41-year history it will sell alcohol to its guests. Now, before you make plans to get blitzed and see how many times you can ride Space Mountain without ralphin', we should let you know that wine and ... More >>
Chris Brown may be Rihanna's bitch. But he's unloading three of his own. Evidently, the angry pop singer is a backyard breeder and wants you to buy his bitches. According to ABC News, Brown's selling some pit bull terriers via the Internet -- three males and three females -- at $1,000 each. The ... More >>
Does this orca have Constitutional rights?PETA, everyone's favorite group of totally rational animal activists, has launched a new legal attack against SeaWorld this morning, accusing parks in Orlando and California of mistreating five killer whales. Which, actually, OK! There are lots of reasona ... More >>
It's been a little over a year now since Tilikum the orca drowned his trainer in front of an audience during a show at Orlando's SeaWorld, and now the park is putting him back to work. He made his first performance this morning during the park's "Believe" show since the deadly incident. Tilikum h ... More >>
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via Gawker>Even in the animal kingdom, it seems that some ladies can't get enough of a bad boy. Tilikum, the orca who killed a veteran trainer during a performance in March, has impregnated two females at SeaWorld Orlando. Apparently, he's quite the sperm whale.Twenty-year-old whale, Taima will ... More >>
Charlie Crist and Anderson Cooper have so much in common. They both have signature white, neatly kept hair. They both seem to have experience with unnatural tanning. Crist, though a Repubican, says he tries to keep his governing balanced and beyond party politics. Cooper, as a journalist, keep his o ... More >>
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2014 CBC Schedule
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South Carolina
Feb 8th - Lake Murray
Mar 1st - Lake Wylie
Mar 29th - Lake Wateree
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SC Championship (Clarks Hill, Wildwood Park Sept 27th)
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Feb 15th - Lake Wylie
Mar 22nd - Lake Norman
Apr 12th - High Rock
May 17th - Lake Hickory
June 7th - Falls Lake
NC Championship (Kerr Lake, Nutbush Park Sept 20th)
2014 CBC Classic: Lake Norman TBA


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CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The Lee University baseball team keeps going back for more.
For the second time in three years last season, the Flames finished second in the NAIA World Series at Lewiston, Idaho. They were third the year in between.
They're making the program's fifth Lewiston trip in five years and sixth in seven seasons this week, and they're interested in nothing but first place. They made sure of a return by going 3-0 with a 32-4 scoring differential in the opening series Lee hosted.
"Honestly, last year I just wanted to get back to the World Series. This year I've made it a mission not only to get back to the championship game but to win it," senior right fielder Michael Brown, a former Baylor School standout, said Friday. "I'm not playing for second."
Jay Bolen, a senior pitcher completing a long career at Cleveland schools, said that "last year when we didn't win, we started working on this year with the mindset to get back. Now that that time is here, that just makes me want it all the more."
Bolen is 8-0 —and 15-1 in two seasons — as part of a strong staff headed by Shay Crawford (10-2) and Maxx Catapano (8-3), senior transfers from UAB and Bellevue. Those two have earned run averages of 1.26 and 2.01.
Junior transfer Curtis Camilli, the third starter in the NAIA opening series, is 7-2 with a 2.85 ERA. Including Kris Hall with eight saves and Joe Fabre with three, seven Lee pitchers have ERAs below 3.
Brown leads a strong lineup with a .376 batting average and team highs of 76 hits, 34 walks and 56 runs. His 52 RBIs are second to junior first baseman Roberto Reyes' 57, and Brown has stolen 12 bases in 14 attempts. He was the player of the year in the Eastern Division of the Southern States Athletic Conference,
All 11 Flames with at least 100 at-bats — seven of whom are first-year transfers — are hitting at least .274, and eight of those are at .305 or better. Junior third baseman Preston Scoggins, like Bolen a former Cleveland High star, is second to Brown with a .366 average — one point better than junior outfielder Chris Grayson.
Scoggins replaced 2010 senior stat machine Tanner Moore.
"Preston Scoggins — what a story," Flames coach Mark Brew said. "He got 20 at-bats last year, but he got a chance at third base and became one of the top hitters on our team."
Brown called the former high school quarterback a "small-ball specialist. I swear, half his hits are bunts. He's been putting on a showcase."
And "small ball" as a priority often has led to big innings, Brown pointed out.
The Flames are 47-12, seeded fifth in the Avista-NAIA World Series and open Friday at 3 p.m. EDT against LSU-Shreveport (45-13). The loser of that game plays the next morning, but the winner gets two days off. As Brew has told his team, only six teams will be left by then.
"Certainly we don't want to jump ahead of ourselves," Brew said. "But we've stayed in the moment and focused on the task at hand pretty well."
He acknowledged, however, that "from the coaching staff on down," the Flames didn't "handle it very well" when they ascended to No. 1 in the NAIA poll late in the season, but a jarring two-and-out performance as top seeds in the SSAC tournament got them back on track.
"I'd say so, the way we hit the ball when we came back for the [NAIA] opening series," Scoggins said, suggesting that the quick exit from the league tourney gave them time not only for reflection but for rest and healing.
Pitching is the strength of the team, he and Brown said, yet the Flames gave up 18 walks in the two SSAC tourney games. The pitchers have got some extra rest the last two weeks, and the return from injury of catcher Travis Anderson — a senior transfer from Oregon State — has helped them as well.
"I think the guys we have who came from somewhere else did not necessarily go deep in the postseason before," Bolen said, "and they've got some drive to get there. And I know those of us who've been [to Lewiston] before want to take that last step."
Said Scoggins: "We've just to stay focused on what we've got to do."


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Charlie Lyne has watched nearly 300 teen movies over the past two years. As the writer and producer of new documentary Beyond Clueless, he's had to immerse himself in the world of prom dates, geeks and jocks in order to explore the 'strange layers beneath the skin' of the iconic films from the '90s and early '00s.
Featuring clips from 220 movies, the documentary has the narrative of the classic teen film. A close analysis of the sometimes strange themes in the movies, producing it came with massive pros (a Facebook friend request from the director of Jawbreaker) as well as cons.
'When I would venture out into the wider world all my reference points had become entirely narrowed to this one field of 90s teen movies,' he says. 'We'd be talking about an incident in the news and all I could relate it to is 'it's exactly like that bit from Cruel Intentions 2' and this would go over everyone's head because most sensible people haven't seen it since 1994.'
We decided to rack his brains on the teen movies you should (or shouldn't) be re-watching - and the things you didn't know about your high school faves.
The best cameo from a pop star
'I'm going to go with Usher. Not Usher in She's All That, Usher in The Faculty. I'm not sure he even has any lines but he does this amazing background work. There'll just be a very serious horror scene and you'll just have Usher in the background doing some real emoting. He moves his lips and mimes word to sort of go 'Oh my god, it's so surprising!'.'
The most unlikely ending
'Something like She's All That - while it ends the way you think it's going to end - if you stop and think about it is really bizarre. The whole point of the film supposedly is that Zack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) learns that it's not all about the way you look from Laney, his girlfriend. But in the end she isn't allowed to go back to how she used to look. She's sat there watching him collect his graduation certificate in her red dress.'
The best sequel
'I actually like Bring It On Again. It's a honest tale about rejecting certain cliches of that world. I find the first one weirdly disingenuous. It's the whole thing in the first one where they finally overcome the inner-city black cheerleading squad and you're really not sure whether you're meant to be cheering on these privileged, entitled, slightly awful cheerleaders. Maybe it's a genius work of satire but it's so subtle that I'm not getting it?'
'I also have affections for The Rage: Carrie 2 and also American Psycho 2: All American Girl with Mila Kunis. They've taken out all of the serious psychological aspects and replaced them with campy fun.'
[American Psycho 2]
And the worst sequel?
'Cruel Intentions 2: Manchester Prep is strange and interesting and kind of amazing because it has Amy Adams way before she was famous, but I think Cruel Intentions is a near perfect movie.'
'The sequel was made as a six-part TV show, but they canceled it before it had even aired. Their genius stroke was to edit the first three episodes into a film which is why if you watch it there's all these strands that just go nowhere. You're like 'oh, there's going to be some subplot about a missing briefcase' and it's never referenced again.'
[Cruel Intentions 2: Manchester Prep]
On on-screen relationships
'I've got a real place in my heart for Saved! I really loved Macauley Culkin and Eva Amurri Martino's relationship. I remember that being one of the first movie relationships I had a real attachment to.'
Why body-swap movies are unexpectedly hard hitting
'They deal with the most weighty, complicated, psychosexual issues you can possibly imagine but do it under the guise of 'ohh, it's just Lindsay Lohan swapping bodies with her mother' which is actually a fascinating, terrifying way of making those points. At the end of Freaky Friday, Lindsay Lohan realises that her mother (in her body) has made out with her boyfriend and this is just giggled off as if it wouldn't be one of the most scarring moments of self identity confusion you could possibly have.'
The film you didn't realise was British
'There's a film called It's A Boy Girl Thing. The weird thing about the film is it's actually a British film made with British money but obviously filmed in America and set in America so really no one's seen it outside of the UK. That's why it's got Sharon Osbourne in it.'
The best character introduction
'Josh Hartnett in The Virgin Suicides. A 60s hit starts up and this perfectly pitched montage starts. There's a classic corridor shot where all the girls turn with these wildly over-the-top flustered looks, then it cuts to him floating blissfully in a backyard pool, then a girl knocks on the door and hands him his completed homework and a batch of brownies. You know exactly who this guy is in the logic of this school.'
[The Virgin Suicides]
The stars you didn't realise were in teen movies
'There's almost no actors now aged around 30-40 who didn't start out in one of those movies. Matthew McConaughey starred in Dazed And Confused, Chris Evans' film debut was in Not Another Teen Movie - one of my favourite performances of his. Whatever It Takes stars James Franco and weird pre-famous Aaron Paul. When I see him on the poster for Need For Speed I'm like 'Woah - the third supporting actor from Whatever It Takes is now leading blockbusters'.
Read Charlie's movie swaps later in the week, but until then check out the 100 best teen movies of all time.


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BWSW would like to congratulate the following candidates who have recently qualified as a UKCC Level 2 Water Ski & Wakeboard Coach . . .
Is there someone in your club or region that makes a real difference within the sport? Does someone go out of their way to benefit and progress the sport in your area? Does that someone deserve to be recognised for their contribution?
Coachwise spoke with Sam Haslam, our Coaching and Training Programme Coordinator, to find out how we are successfully welcoming newcomers to the sport via our innovative Cutting Edge programme.
BWSW as the governing body overseeing the sport in the UK and promoting the safe and quiet enjoyment of the sport aims to promote a management plan for Salcombe.
Young athletes who meet certain criteria can now apply for The General Lascelles Memorial Trust grants 2014. Applications must be received by 5pm Monday 24th November. . . .
This years Tournament Ball will be held on Saturday 15th November 2014 . . .
The AGM of British Water Ski Federation Limited, to be held on Sunday 18th January 2015 in The Presidents Room, The Queens Club, Palliser Road, London W14 at 1.00 pm.


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