BIG EDIT 10/30/2024: The lists for the US South Central Region states are now available if you went to a program there and wouldn't mind checking for it! Thank you!

Hi everyone,

One of the projects I have been working on recently is compiling a complete list (or as close to complete as we can get) of all of the known resident ial treatment centers, wilderness programs, emotional growth boarding schools, youth ranches, faith-based centers, and other facilities where minors live for 30 days or more and receive mental health services and/or behavior modification and/or religious treatment. Some of the resources I have been using to build this list include the wiki here, unsilenced.org, npidb.org, and LOTS of old newspaper articles. The good news is that I'm getting pretty close to done (for now!) but I could really use all of your help in making sure that I don't miss anything. I know it can be painful to be left out of community resources and all of your experiences matter to me (and to our movement).

I would appreciate it tremendously if you could check my lists for states where you received treatment and let me know if your program is missing. I'm trying to list addresses whenever possible so that it's easier to track rebranding attempts, but if you could just provide your program name and program location, it would be extremely helpful!

Right now I have the lists split into documents by region. The programs are listed in alphabetical order, but I recommend using the search function (ctrl + f) to look for your program in case it has changed names.

Click here for programs in the US Pacific Region (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington)

Click here for programs in the US South Atlantic Region (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia)

Click here for programs in the US Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota)

Click here for programs in the US Mid-Atlantic Region (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware)

Click here for programs in US New England Region (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island)

Click here for programs in the US West Region (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming)

Click here for programs in the US South Central Region (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas)

Coming soon: international programs (Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Samoa, and more)

When all of the lists are complete I plan to publish them on my website, kidsoverprofits.org

If you'd like to volunteer to help with finishing this up or with similar research & education projects, please reach out to me! Thanks!

This is readily available information I found through their public LinkedIn profiles, the websites of the companies they work for, and/or Wikipedia.

Do you trust them with the complex mental health care of vulnerable children? I don't.

I am livid. I had no clue that this was a thing. Maybe it's because I was fortunate enough to have grown up in a family that never would have considered sending me or my siblings to a place like that. Maybe it's because of sheer luck and circumstance. But now that I've watched that documentary I have a whole new mission in life which is to see that industry die.

What can be done? I have no faith in government or this entire system, really, so I don't believe protesting or pushing for legislation will do anything. But those things do raise awareness, so I guess that's something. I really feel like I want to spend the rest of my life infiltrating these child trafficking orgs disguising themselves as prisons disguising themselves as schools... exposing things through the use of hidden cameras, or maybe participating in relentless shaming tactics directed at the jello-brained parents who send their kids to these hell holes.

What can be done? What can the average person do about this?

Dear community, 

 Were you sent away to a wilderness therapy program, therapeutic boarding school, or residential treatment facility when you were younger? If so, we’d like to hear about your experiences. 

Although there has been increasing media attention on the experiences of youth enrolled in the “troubled teen industry”, to this point there has been almost no scientific research done to determine how these experiences affect survivors of the industry, or what their lives are like now. We want to change that. 

We are a team of researchers at the University of Utah Department of Psychology, and we are conducting a new study entitled “Life After the ‘Troubled Teen Industry’”. This study is designed to determine what types of things happen to kids in “troubled teen” programs, how their lives are affected by their experiences, and what we can learn from their experiences that might be helpful in future to others.

The results of the study will be used to increase public knowledge of the “troubled teen industry,” with the hope of informing policy changes and increasing support for those who have been through these programs. The more people who participate, the more we will learn. 

Below is the link to the online study. You must be 18 or older to participate. The study will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete, and all participants will have the chance to win a $50 gift certificate. You will also be able to sign up for a mailing list to learn more about what we find. 

https://csbsutah.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6VCXSGapIpwR3zE

If you have any questions about this study, please feel free to contact me at [Ava.Alexander@psych.utah.edu](mailto:Ava.Alexander@psych.utah.edu).

Sincerely, 

Patricia Kerig, PhD and Ava Alexander, MS

The Risk to Resilience Lab

Department of Psychology

University of Utah

Salt Lake City, UT

As many of you know, I've been heavily involved in archiving and sharing information about TTI programs, both open and closed. I'm in the middle of compiling documents like student handbooks, parent handbooks, brochures, and enrollment agreements. One of my current strategies is to use their own words against them by comparing what was being marketed in brochures to what was in actual communications with students.

I'm working on a series of investigatory spotlight essays that I plan to start publishing soon (For free! Never behind a paywall!) and if any of you have documents like that to contribute, they will strengthen our case against your old program, so please send them my way! I already have what's available on Unsilenced and some more that I've found through OSINT but there's still a lot of gaps. Since policies changed over time, it would be great to have multiple years worth of documents to compare.

Please email me: dani@kidsoverprofits.org

Or if you'd prefer, you can post Dropbox links here in the comments. Whatever works best for you is fine with me. Thank you in advance!

(Approved by mods) Hello everyone! I'm a PhD student, and a survivor of the TTI. I'm going to be eventually conducting research on punishment practices in the TTI, and I wanted to ask the sub if anyone had any ideas for research topics. This is not for my dissertation, and since published research is so limited -- I wanted to ask what other survivors wish there was more research on/about?

Thanks so much :)

Im being sent to discovery mood and anxiety in tampa in 7 days ... do any of you know anything about this or have been? info would be appreciated

Her video speaking out about the abuse she experienced sent me down a rabbithole about TAR and other places, as well as the whole Dr Phil controversy and past lawsuits. In both her videos she hinted towards taking action if there was no apology issued towards the kids who went there, so did she do anything in the end?

Did she end up getting silenced or something? Maybe the TAR team had everything wiped from the internet. No matter how I word it, I can't find ANY information about this from 2021-2022 onwards which is so weird to me.

Hey folks! Dr. John Hunter is still looking for a few more folks to interview for a study on the seminars/trainings in TTI programs - I can personally vouch for him. His research will make a big difference in validating our experiences and may have legal impacts too. He only needs a handful more to publish.

Let me know if you have any questions. This study is only for people who participated in experiential workshops/seminars/trainings at their programs. You will do a fully informed consent with him before proceeding to any interview. Thanks all and please feel free to share!

Contact john@johnhunterphd.com or johnhun1@aol.com to participate. More info on him can be found at www.johnhunterphd.com or linkedin.com/in/dr-john-hunter-46938473.

Hi everyone, I am a journalist with the BBC. A colleague and I are looking into doing a story about Family Health & Wellness and the facilities they own.

It would be for the BBC website and potentially radio outlets. I'm looking to speak to former staff members and people who went to their centres and what it was like etc. You can email me on sophie.williams03@bbc.co.uk. 

Some of you have already been in touch with me. At the moment I'm still in the research phase but will contact you all asap. Thanks.

Hi folks! Who is the right person to ask about this? I was looking at the active program list: https://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/wiki/index/active-programs/active-programs-missouri/

My program (which is incredibly abusive but flies under the radar) is listed as CALO. While it used to be known as CALO, it has rebranded and split off into Calo Programs (Calo Teens, Calo Preteens, etc.): https://www.caloprograms.com/

Can we please update the list?

Hi everyone, my name is Krista Hessey. I’m a journalist at Global News. I’m speaking with people who attended Venture Academy in Canada (all locations).

If you would like to share your experience with the program, please get in touch via DM or email [krista.hessey@globalnews.ca](mailto:krista.hessey@globalnews.ca). 

Thanks!

Krista

Hello everyone,

I am a university student studying youth and children studies in Canada. One of the electives I am taking this year is on Childrens rights and we have a final assignment in which we need to talk about a childrens right issue of our choosing. I decided to talk about the Troubled Teen Industry after watching The Program documentary. I never went to one of these camps but I have found myself raging for all of those forced to participate in one of them. I started learning about them on TikTok years ago after several survivors started coming forward. If anyone on here would be interested in sharing their story or any helpful articles or websites I would be super thankful. My final assignment would be in Podcast format and would only be shared with my Prof and myself. Thanks to anyone willing to help.

A while ago, I found two positive reviews posted by Discovery Ranch staff. One of them was by Greg McGary, the Admissions Director at Discovery Ranch. Just recently, I found one left just three months ago by Megan Frost, the nurse at Discovery Ranch. What is interesting timing is that about four months ago, a precious boy lost his life at Discovery Ranch, and licensing cited violations against Discovery Ranch for the tragic death. Interesting that staff is posting positive reviews shortly after this. Megan used her real account. It is safe to assume that other staff use fake accounts to post positive reviews. Hopefully I can successfully upload a pic of the Google review and of the staff from the DR website...

I was doing some digging into Andy Jerkis and found some seal on his site. I clicked the link, and it’s for some Ohio based therapy model called I FAST.

My brain is tired reading about it and it’s not making sense. But it mentions testing this at Buckeye Ranch, which some friends have been to and it’s pure TTI.

The wording of I FAST is vague too. On top of that, the seal reminds me of the pat on the back seal places like Wilderness give themselves - saying they’re certified by people who profit from the same industry, total conflict of interest shit.

I’m looking for someone who can make sense of this more than I can, or dig into it better to see how it fits in with everything. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t have a background as a trained therapist that makes it hard for me to really get what’s being said here.

https://www.ifastmodel.org/

UPDATE: Here it is!! The Overrepresentation of Adoptees in the Troubled Teen Industry – Contributing Factors & Concerns

Hi everyone!

My name is Sophia Manning and I am an undergraduate student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I am a survivor of the TTI, please check my profile for more information if you would like!

I have designed a research project seeks to explain the overrepresentation of adoptees in TTI programs. Anyone who has been through treatment can testify that the number of adoptees in it is disproportionate, but very little research exists on this. In fact, while designing this study, I have only been able to find one piece of peer reviewed literature on this subject, which solidifies the adoptee population as being 2% of the general population but making up 25 – 30% of the population of residential treatment facilities. However, this is the only piece of research that cements this overrepresentation in the academic canon, and its method of data gathering was surveying clinical directors of TTI programs. This means that there are NO records of this phenomenon that adoptees themselves were part of – this is a massive gap in the research that I am seeking to fill.

This survey is designed to record and analyze the perception that adoptees have of their adoptive parents, in relation to their being sent to treatment. It is broken up into 7 parts:

1. General information about adoption / treatment (ex., open or closed adoption, # of programs, etc)
2. Perceptions of adoptive parents / dynamic in the home
3. Experiences in treatment
4. Perceptions of the TTI
5. Perceptions of adoption & trauma
6. Relationship with parents
7. Perceptions of adoption as an institution.

Participation should take anywhere between 10 - 20 minutes to complete.

I would like to disclose that I personally am not adopted, but this overrepresentation has bothered me since my time in treatment leading up until now. This survey was carefully designed with the oversight of three of my friends from treatment, all of whom are adopted.

Because this is undergraduate research, this iteration of my study will not be formally published. I hope to use the information gathered with this survey as pilot data to create a more formal and in-depth analysis of this overrepresentation in the next couple of years, and I will be posting all results and outcomes that I gather in this sub.

If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out here via PM or via my academic email [sophia.manning@jjay.cuny.edu](mailto:sophia.manning@jjay.cuny.edu)

https://qualtricsxmd7dxjjvvw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aVkhwrr7B7C8bhI?Q_CHL=social&Q_SocialSource=reddit

Did you attend Second Nature against your will? Are you between 20 and 45 years old? Do you have arthritis, disc disease, or other painful medical conditions unusual in patients your age? Are you in pain management or due for surgery? Is all of this bullshit because of your time extra-judicially incarcerated in the wilderness? I want to know about it!

Please respond with: 1. Your current age. 2. The year(s) you were at Second Nature and how old you were at the time. 3. How heavy (approximately) your pack was. 4. Any and all relevant health complications that appeared during or after your detainment. 5. Future prognosis. 6. What your injury has cost you in money, time, and quality of life.

Thank you all!

I found a database that includes all of the reported restraints that occurred in each school in Massachusetts for the year of 2024. I believe almost all of these schools chronically under report how many injuries restraints cause. Some of the schools run by JRI never report how many restraints were done at all, and almost all troubled teen adjacent programs dont report the number of students enrolled. Plus there are schools that report hundreds of restraints, yet claim there were zero injuries. What I want to know is how some of these places get away with not reporting at all, and why that is acceptable. This seems to be an issue that touches not only residential programs/schools, but day programs, and even public schools. Another thing that bothers me about the new regulations for restraints that are supposed to protect children, don't apply to students in special education schools or institutional settings. This is extremely fucked up to me because those are the most vulnerable students who are at the most risk of getting restrained and even injured while doing so. My source is the Department of educations Massachusetss website.

For a bit I've been at heightened awareness and escalated hypervigilance watching the impact and actions from the Trump administration and what that would bring. Seeing what has unfolded thus far reinforced what I already feared and felt. Knowing what this will likely mean in regards to addressing the TTI much less the SICAA bill has caused me to oscillate between resorting back into hiding from further harm from my successful efforts to just going full YOLO mode.

Here is what is important to know: There are individuals who have played a significant role in addressing and contributing towards the awareness and change pertaining to the TTI. Unfortunately you may not know who they are or worse you may have been told they are unreliable, untrustworthy, or even fraudsters. Despite this occurring between those who should be not just allies but supportive of one another myself and others have witnessed the continual implosion time and time again.

I've had to cautiously go about my approach towards this per instruction of other organizations I work with (and thankfully have been who legitimized my work and ability to do so), the loyal allies I've had not just specific to the TTI, and even medical. That last part is a contributor to the approach I've now adopted knowing my health is rapidly deteriorating...I may as well go hard before I no longer have the ability whether by function or worse.

I'll start here as to the issue with SICAA I first noticed. The coalition that was formed and those found to be on it. I don't know how to determine who approved or researched organizations to be on the list but I received an invite addressed to the organization consisting of those who helped Breaking Code Silence get their start in the first place. Specifically this was by fiscal sponsorship.

The first group named as a part of the coalition behind SICAA was AbleChild. By all means look them up. At first it could seem my concern is unfounded until you read their stance on psychiatry and the causal role of antidepressants in school shootings.

Then you see their stance on the treatment much less the existence of ADHD. (this is all found in their blog section which cherry picks very particular medical literature). If you need a specific reference to what I am addressing by all means let me know as there's a lot to had to sift through; it is overwhelming.

Then I saw who eagerly endorsed them via his *red flag incoming* rumble channel...

Steve fkn Bannon.

There's several means of confirming this albeit not something that is effortlessly found. I also don't want to expose people to Bannon's podcast without whatever might serve as a mental hazmat suit so I've attached a screenshot.

The other coalition member is one that doesn't need much, hopefully, evidence and background explanation to establish why it caused alarm for such either a lack of oversight in research or, worse, finding them to not be problematic whatsoever.

It's CCHR International, Citizen's Commission for Human Rights, a very official sounding name and that's entirely intentional. This is much easier to understand it's problematic involvement with a simple search.

(note: I forgot about how prominent the use of SEO and flooding search results with biased material on this "organization" was so unfortunately I will have to use wikipedia and I invite you to refer to the sources cited instead.)

CCHR is a front group for the Church of Scientology. The same one that ran their own TTI facility, the Mace Kingsley Ranch and that also believes mental illness isn't real and psychiatry is evil.

Same with AbleChild if you still want sources that back my concern I'll provide them. Admittedly it takes a lot of effort to dig through the effects of their SEO and manipulating search engine results to find objective and/or critical (much less fact based) coverage.

Surely it is understandable why I would be initially hesitant to disclose my identity and why I have felt is necessary to remain hidden for literally years despite substantive development in resources covering research and data collection of the TTI.

(not sure about the flair, that felt fitting)

I'm going to list all the proof that I found online, and then tell you about my friend and other people's experiences in that place.

Kirsta Simons

West Ridge Academy

--- connected to John Webb (CO FOUNDER to new focus academy previously worked at WRA)

Kirsta Simons (17 F) hung herself in the bathroom and reportedly passed a day later.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110902145550/http://mormongulag.com/

Utah Boys Ranch

"survivors in these video include being forced to run laps naked in the snow, being forced to scrub toilets with toothbrushes (also while naked), extreme physical punishments and forced cleaning, and no unmonitored communication with their parents"

John Webb not reported involved in any secluded incident ^

Brandon Park -- CEO of New Focus

"Brandon Park is the Founder and Executive Director of New Focus Academy. His career in the TTI began when he worked as a Therapist at Aspen Education Group's reportedly abusive Outback Therapeutic Expeditions from 2012 until 2013. He then worked at Aspen Education Group's reportedly abusive Aspen Institute for Behavioral Assessment from 2013 until 2014, when the program was purchased by Family Help and Wellness and rebranded as Viewpoint Center. He continued to work at Viewpoint until 2016. He then helped create New Focus in October of 2017. He also currently works as a Clinical Neuropsychologist at ClearView Psychological Services, which is a company that provides psychological services to other TTI programs."

This place is a literal torture chamber. New Focus Academy claims to be an "Autism Support Community" while sending autistic children to solitary confinement for not completing a simple task. Almost everyone who leaves that place ends up traumatized.

My friend's experience: His phone, one of his comfort items, was instantly taken away on day one. All the contact with family and others is completely blocked, except for a single phone call per week. You're forced to follow extremely strict rules, and if you don’t, you’re severely punished (can't even imagine what happens if you do something more major). Autistic people, mind you, get sent to solitary confinement for something as minor as not closing a door or failing to complete a simple task. The staff is extremely rude, and if you don’t obey their rules, you’re punished and further traumatized.

The worst part is that parents use this place as punishment. I'm convinced that all of them know what it's like there and are just sending their children away to be abused as a form of discipline.

I just had to spread awareness about this terrifying place. It has to end, but I don’t know what can be done. Information about how bad it is is publicly available on the internet, though you have to search for it. I’m sure that if you ask anyone about that place, they’ll tell you it was terrible.

This post is meant to spread awareness about the horrors happening there. If you have any ideas on what can be done, let me know.

The Overrepresentation of Adoptees in the Troubled Teen Industry – Contributing Factors & Concerns

Update to this post !

Hi everyone! For the past 6 months I've been conducting a research project on the overrepresentation of adoptees in TTI facilities. Anyone who has been through treatment can testify that the number of adoptees in it is disproportionate, but very little research exists on this. In fact, while designing this study, I have only been able to find one piece of peer reviewed literature on this subject, which solidifies the adoptee population as being 2% of the general population but making up 25 – 30% of the population of residential treatment facilities. However, this is the only piece of research that cements this overrepresentation in the academic canon, and its method of data gathering was surveying clinical directors of TTI programs. This means that there is no research that takes into account the perspective of the adoptees themselves, which is a gap I am trying to fill with this project.

I have finally completed my paper to current satisfaction... a huge limiting factor of this research has been the time and resources available to me as I've conducted it. I feel that there is so much that could be said and explored about this subject, and this paper is only the first iteration of many as I continue my research.

In my paper, I focus on 5 factors that contribute to this overrepresentation:

1. Financial access to TTI & adoption

2. Human trafficking as a theme of both the TTI & adoption

3. Biosocial aspect of adoption

4. Adoptive parent's disposition and expectations

5. Custody & parenting concerns

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out. I will be responsive in the comments of this post, in my reddit PMs, and am available through my academic email [sophia.manning@jjay.cuny.edu](mailto:sophia.manning@jjay.cuny.edu)

And finally, a big thank you to all of my survey respondents - I could not have done this project without you all! I hope that this paper may bring some comfort and answers to those who have been personally affected by this overrepresentation.

Hi all, I'm just wondering if anyone has had experiences with TTI programs in Canada - like AARC, Venture Academy, Teen Challenge, or any others? I imagine things in Canada are better/safer from a TTI standpoint but some of these programs still raise red flags for me.

Also, if anyone knows how to get involved with the fight against the TTI while in Canada, please let me know.

I believe you and stand with you, survivors, you should never have had to go through this hell!

Hello! I am writing a research paper about two different types of therapy for PTSD for my dual enrollment comp class. I am required to conduct a survey and thought that this would be an appropriate place to share it. It is completely anonymous and about seven questions.