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jetbag513 t1_j6171ja wrote

These troubled teen programs should ALL be shut down. I don't think there's a single legit one. With all the bad press recently, I can't imagine why a parent would choose this path. And why they are allowed to exist.

These "centers" are making mega bucks to abuse, sexually abuse, and really mess up these kids' lives. Not to mention using them totally illegally as slave labor. Where are the legislators in these states?

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kottabaz t1_j61c381 wrote

> With all the bad press recently, I can't imagine why a parent would choose this path. And why they are allowed to exist.

Authoritarian parents need a more comprehensive institution of authoritarianism to fall back on when their methods inevitably fail. And there are enough adults out there with an authoritarian mindset that their votes result in the protection and advancement of stuff like this.

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Igoos99 t1_j61n7y9 wrote

It’s not just “authoritarian parents” sending their kids to these places. These are desperate parents who don’t know how to help their troubled kids.

The problem is, these places sweet talk them into being whatever the parents want to see. There’s hippy dippy ones too. They can be just as dangerous and damaging to the kids locked up in them.

These are money making ventures. They prey on vulnerable parents just as much as they prey on vulnerable kids. (And they prey on those parents’ insurance companies.)

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PlantPotStew t1_j626zlz wrote

Yep, they nearly got to my mother, I’m glad she was too bothered by the red flags but I could see other parents overlooking things.

She said she didn’t know if 3 months was enough to get me comfortable with the idea of living outside of home, they said “don’t worry, you don’t have to tell her, they’ll come and pick her up in the middle of the night and just take her” (as if that isn’t at all traumatizing) she asked more questions and one thing they ‘assured’ her with was that she won’t be able to contact me AT ALL for the first 6 or more months I’m there.

The school was located in the USA too (We’re Canadian) and she’d have to pay 10’s of thousands for it, so yeah. I wasn’t even a ‘troubled teen’ I personally asked for therapy myself and at most was just depressed/anxious and over stimulated in regular environments due to my autism. Honestly disturbing these people, who I confided in, recommended this behind my back…

I graduated college with honour rolls in every year, never went below an A. It’s amazing what decent support can do, and I shudder to think what that place would be like if what they told her was the acceptable stuff.

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ericmm76 t1_j63p88a wrote

It's frightening to imagine what this kind of environment from the Elan school would do to an already anxious/depressed teenager. I can't even imagine.

All cults are bad. But it's a uniquely bad cult that sells itself not to the people who join it but to someone else to sell their kid into.

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E_wrecked_99 t1_j66gil3 wrote

Yeah they got to my mom. This as in the early ‘90s when less was known about these places. She still hasn’t forgiven herself for sending me away to those places and it really fucks with her head. I mean, experiencing guilt is a reasonable reaction, but in many ways she was a victim of the troubled teen industry too. She has long ago taken responsibility for having sent me away, apologized (too many times) and has really done everything to make amends (including taking in homeless adult survivors of these places). I don’t think she’ll ever be over the guilt that she’s dealing with and it does break my heart sometimes. She thought she was doing the right thing at the time and had an unhealthy deference to people in positions of “authority”.

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jetbag513 t1_j61cwpy wrote

The kids would probably be safer in juvie or jail at this point.

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ninjascotsman OP t1_j6287hz wrote

there was program in soma called paradise cove run by company called wwasp based in st george, utah

this program was so brutal that the clients tried murder another client.

they knew they would get caught for murder obviously but that's fucking desperate they had become.

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jetbag513 t1_j629lcu wrote

Yeah, there are endless reports of these horrendous "programs". I read an entire series about them a good while ago. I think it was ProPublica or maybe Slate. It was a good source, regardless. The one was a ranch I think in Montana and they had PICTURES of young girls doing hard, heavy manual labor that was wrecking their bodies. I think someone smuggled in a camera because they weren't allowed phones.

I just remember being gobsmacked that these places aren't being shut down. I get that parents get desperate but for god's sake, in this day and age to be unaware of such a rampant problem and do no research before consigning your child to this hell is beyond me. I think the one place the local yokels were in on the grift and getting quite a cut of the deluge of $$ the place was making. LE, judges, state rep's - the whole nine yards.

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KulaanDoDinok t1_j61yeme wrote

Having worked in juvie: no. The system is overwhelmed with kids who are actual criminals, you don’t need to throw in the kids whole. Juvenile detention is for kids committing serious or violent offenses.

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theonlyepi t1_j61rac4 wrote

Well since you've been reading nothing but bad things about these places, let me shed light on my experience.

I was permanently kicked out of school in 8th grade for drug and alcohol issues, troubled teen stuff. Life at home wasn't good, obviously. I worked at 14 years old and was able to get into drugs and alcohol young after affording clothes and food.

I was enrolled in a school called "restart", with less than a dozen kids like me fresh out of rehab. Our principal had huge heavy rings in his ears that made his ears dangle to his shoulders. Face weathered, his voice was dry. Our teacher looked to be mid 20s, skinny cute blonde lady. She did the best she could with how intolerable and uninterested my classmates were. She had a really sweet older Hispanic assistant. Honestly I can't remember any of their names, but they all did have a great positive influence on my life at a time when it wouldn't have taken much to push me over the edge. Even my bus driver that drove me out there, 1.5 hours each way... She would pull over halfway and let me out to smoke a cigarette if we had time. She bought me a new coffee pot on my last day with her, I'll never forget that. The kindness and compassion I felt from those 4 adults in my experience in a troubled teen school saved me from being another dead junkie.

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jetbag513 t1_j61ul09 wrote

That's great. There is usually an exception and looks like you're one.

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theonlyepi t1_j61yc0l wrote

Maybe I was. I believe sad/shocking/disturbing news gets more clicks than stories like mine. People read a couple bad stories of places that are unethical, and just assume they're all like that and have the pitchforks ready. Be careful about how you create bias in your head with choice-fed bits of information!

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torpedoguy t1_j647td8 wrote

Glad you got to a good one, but yes, you can consider yourself exceptionally lucky.

The reason the bad ones get in the news in 'bursts' is they get shuffled; a bad one gets shut down after going too far - but only that. It starts up again and does as bad or worse, until it's caught again a few more times.

Eventually after years of this they finally touch someone they shouldn't or a big enough news station gets involved, and that is when the entire stack of complaints and related incidents gets on the news. So less a clickbait affair with these, more a "file cabinet of complaints" found in a basement under some dead kids we finally sift through.

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maralagosinkhole t1_j63ruc1 wrote

My dad went to one of these schools and later worked for the same school. When they work well they really work well. The problem with his school was that they couldn't afford to pay anything like a living wage so the only adults who ended up working there were deeply religious and saw it as their mission from god to go help the kids.

For my dad as a child it was a lifesaver. He was in juvie and the school was an alternative. An adult recognized his intelligence and connected him to an outside mentor (a local author) who paid for my dad's college and provided him guidance he was not getting at home.

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torpedoguy t1_j646kr3 wrote

Your dad got unbelievably lucky. Like "powerball jackpot twice" lucky.

There are some decent ones out there, but far too many of those 'schools' (and there are A LOT spread 'round the nation, sometimes we don't even know we have one in our own county) land somewhere between Epstein's island and Auschwitz.

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X-the-Komujin t1_j61tk42 wrote

I have an experience with them myself I shared in this thread. The simple answer is its conservative small town America having a shitty attitude towards children in general that ranges from "I know better than you, shut up!" to "Well if you went in there, clearly you deserved it!". Never mind the fact that frequently are autistic children and children with other mental disabilities are frequently classified as "troubled".

If you want to truly hate these schools, read the comment I linked above.

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