Speaking Up for Those Who Can’t NECC faculty helped Sean Morrison rediscover his love of learning after a traumatic experience – now the topic of a hit Netflix documentary.
When Sean Morrison ’16 walked into Northern Essex in 2010 to meet with enrollment counselors, he didn’t know what to expect. He knew he was smart. He knew he was ready to start a new chapter of his life. And he knew his high school diploma wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. The realization that he hadn’t finished high school was the crescendo of a tumultuous and traumatic time in Morrison’s life, which he’s laid bare in the Netflix docuseries “The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping.” It chronicles the experiences of filmmaker Katherine Kubler and several classmates, including Morrison, at The Academy at Ivy Ridge in Ogdensburg, New York. Morrison was born and raised in Haverhill and describes his childhood as fairly ordinary.
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“I was an only child with a lot of friends. I was super sociable but quick to be a bit naïve,” he says. He was a talented athlete and straight-A student who excelled at gymnastics and soccer and became a member of the junior honor society. But he says his mental health started to decline when puberty hit just as he was transitioning to high school. “All I wanted to do was skateboard and cause a ruckus.” Soon, Morrison was skipping school and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. His parents filed a Child Requiring Assistance court case (then known as CHINS) which asks juvenile court to help supervise youth. Exasperated after an incident on vacation in 2004 when Morrison was 15, his parents then decided to try a different approach and enrolled him at The Academy at Ivy Ridge.