Inside the Troubled Teen Industry w/ Caroline Cole

just aspect or aspects. Welcome to Go ask Alli. I'm Ali Wentworth. In this season, I'm digging into everything I can get my hands on, just peeling back the layers and getting dirty. Okay, this episode is a little bit dark. Today. I'm talking about what is called the troubled teen industry,

which I have been obsessed with for some time. There are hundreds of teen rehab facilities and wilderness camps and residential treatment centers all over the country that had been riddled with reports of physical, emotional and sexual abuse for decades, and they are absolutely not regulated by our government. So you might have heard that Paris Hilton, who was abused herself in one of these facilities in Utah, went before the state Congress in February last year calling for legislation

to reform the troubled teen industry. Utah's Bill sp one passed in April last year. In October, she and other survivors, including our guest, went to Washington to begin the work for legislation at the federal level. And I'm honored to have my guest, Caroline call here today to talk about her personal experience in one of these places when she was a teenager, as well as her current advocacy work to bring major changes to the way the industry is conducted.

Caroline Cole is an entrepreneur, activist, and trauma focused women's transformation coach. She's the director of government relations for a nonprofit, Breaking Code Silence. Breaking Code Silence is a network of institutional abuse survivors who are or were incarcerated in the US troubled team industry. Caroline is a co host of the new podcast executive produced by Paris Hilton, called Trapped

and Treatment. Please be aware that there is some discussion of assault and abuse which might be triggering for some people. Caroline Cole, I'm so happy to have you on this podcast today. I have a lot of questions. Thank you so much for having me, and I hope to answer some of those today. Well, I won't let you off until you have so it might be a five hour podcast. So let me start by saying that I have a few friends who have teenagers that were and are exhibiting

acute anxiety. Um. I have friends whose children have had addiction issues, and everybody circles around this idea of sending their team to they call it boarding school. Unfortunately, the people I know whose kids went there, it was not a successful situation. And I've read, of course about what Paris Hilton dealt with, and I've read so many other reports, even in the Salt Lake City Tribune, about how these camps i'll call them, are not monitored, are for profit,

and are riddled with reports of abuse. So before we get into all that, and just so my listeners know, Caroline is nodding knowingly, do you mind telling me about

your own experience? Can we start from your personal journey? Absolutely? Um, So I also went to a facility like the ones that we're hearing about today, and uh, the one that I went to was actually in Upstate New York and it was called the Academy at Ivy Ridge and it was owned by a parent company that was based out of Utah called WASP and that stood for the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs. And so, you know, at the time I was fourteen, I was going through a lot

of the things that fourteen year olds go through. You're figuring out your place in the world, your hormonal you've got you know, friend drama, and you're approaching this time in your life where you're expected to be independent and have your life figured out, and there's a lot of you know, anxiety, and so you know, at that time, I admittedly had been struggling with some depression, anxiety, um not getting along with my family, and also trying to keep up with school and it just felt like a

lot of pressure. So at the time, my mom, like a lot of parents now, got onto Google and she started searching helped for my daughter struggling teen teen resources and was looking for anything that she could find. And so she had found this website called teen help dot com mom, and it looked like outwardly, it looked like a like a referral service almost right, like they were just like a resource center that could help you find,

you know, adequate services for for your children. So she got on the phone with them, and you know, they and as they do, sold her this story that, Wow, no, your daughter is headed down the wrong path. If you do not take immediate action, she is going to die. She is going to end up in jail. So were you, I mean, it doesn't sound like you were exhibiting anything that wasn't sort of normal teenage stuff. Why would your mother even google this to begin with? Why would she

think to send you away? Were you shoplifting? Were you? I mean, were you acting out in such a big way that she felt she needed to look for help that way. So at that point I had developed a lot of resentment towards my mom, and you know, she was carrying on her own relationships and dating someone. And you know, at that time too, I was very much, like I said, kind of trying to find my place in the world. And so I was super into music.

I was into punk rock. I wanted a mohawk more than anybody, and I was obsessed with like late seventies, you know, I thought I was going to be a music journalist, and so I was like wearing fish nets and my mom was like, no, you're fourteen, you can't wear fish nets, Like what are you doing? And I was putting on thick, dark eyeliner and a lot of that scared her, right, And so that was a good majority of it. I did not use drugs. I didn't

sneak out. I wasn't running away, you know, things like that. Um. And not to justify I do want to mention, though not to not to justify that even those things would be okay to send your child away. I think really what we need to focus on is community based resources and and finding assistance within the home setting. So I just wanted to make that clear. So yeah, you know, she looked at these people as knowing what they were doing, and they sold her this idea and she'll tell you this, Um.

They sold her this idea of family reunification, right, and that's saying true to her. She was like, yeah, my family is fractured. This is not my daughter. We don't have the relationship that we used to have. I want a unified family. And that was the package that they sold her. Yeah, any parent that here's family reunification is going to go sign me up of course exactly, So how did you agree to go? So I actually didn't know that I was going, and you'll hear this a

lot through other survivors who tell their stories. Um, at the time, I actually thought that I was going to summer camp, and I was really excited. I had like my Douffel bag packed. I had my little canteen in there with my initials on it, and I'm thinking, I'm going to summer camp and this is gonna be fun. And it was the summer right before I started high school, so I had all of that on my mind too, about you know, starting high school and being with my friends.

So did your mother tell you you were going to summer camp? She did? She did. And oftentimes I will say that's usually encouraged by the program off and tell parents and say, oh, see that you guys are going on a family trip or you guys are you know, doing something else. And so I think it was around four or five o'clock mid afternoon, and my door flew open. I see this man and a woman standing there, and they're dressed all in black. Never seen these people in

my life. Jesus cursed. They come in, gun's blazing, They're like, you're under our custody now, don't make any sudden movements. And I had never been through anything like that before, so I didn't know what to do or and I

didn't plan on fighting or doing anything. Um, But I cooperated with them and they ended up staying in a hotel with me that night in downtown San Diego, and then the next day we flew all the way to New York, where they then handed me off to two other transporters who then drove me, I believe, about six and a half hours to upstate New York. And what are you thinking the whole time? You knew you weren't

going to play archery and make ceramics? Did It's right at this point, you know, it's actually kind of horrible because I was that naive. I thought, I really thought, because they told me once we were in the car that I was going to boarding school. So I was kind of like, hell, yeah, get me out of here. This might be awesome and this is going to feel like college, is what I was thinking. Um, But it

was very apparent that it was an institution. All of the doors were magnetized, they were long, white cinder block hallways. I mean this was not a glamorous place. Yeah, this was This sounds more girl interrupted than like woo who summer camp. It got very real, very fast. Okay, yeah, so, uh were you abused? Like did that happen? Were you? Were you starving? Like these are some of the things I've read. So at this facility, we were not allowed to talk ever. Ever, I was not allowed to look

at you and make eye contact. I could not move without permission. So and by move I mean literally turned my head, I mean to stand up, to move at all. They would consider that to be like an attempt at running away or you know, look even looking out windows. We weren't allowed to look out windows. Um. That was

considered you know, making plans to run away. And so if you were to receive a like demerit um or what they called a correction, If you received a correction like that, you would lose all of your points and all of your levels, which essentially meant that you would have to start over. That would add many months to your program. There for very very very minor things. Did you have a roommate. We had what they called bunk buddies, and so you would be in a room there would

be four people to a room. What was allowed in the room was very very little. You were allowed to blanket, you were allowed a couple of uniforms. No shoes were allowed, and so you wouldn't try to run away. Um. All of the windows had bars on them with motions and there's on the outside. And we were never allowed to turn off our lights or shut the door. So this is prison. I mean this sounds like a state prison

to me. Absolutely. So it was always, um a lurking threat that if you were to be obstinate in any way, and by obstinate, I mean telling the dorm parents I'm not doing that, or stepping out of line, or making it obvious that you were being defiant, UM, you would be physically restrained. What is physically restrained? Me, I'm happy that you're asking that, because I think a lot of people just assume what it means. UM, So what would

happen is, let's say I stepped out of line. We were all expected to stand in a line in line

structure military style. So if I were to step out of line and talk back to a dorm parents say I'm not doing this anymore, I'm done with this, she would have a walkie talkie and she would say backup, staff and um, about four or five male staff members would come running from wherever they were and essentially they would tackle you and they would shove your face into the ground, they would twist your arms behind your back, they would sit on your legs, and they would pile

on top of you until you surrendered. And even if you're not having that happened to you, it's a very traumatic to witness to hear, because these are your friends, these are people you care about, of course, and and that was the game. That's how they got us to comply. If you still didn't want to comply, after that, they would send you to intervention, which, in so many words,

it's essentially solitary confinement. You're stuck in a tiny room, no windows, center block walls, by yourself, and you're there until you say, okay, I'll get with the program, will do what you want me to do. Did you try to reach your mother and to get me the hell

out of here? So it was explained to us upon entering this facility that if we tried to communicate that to our parents, that that was manipulation and that we were lying, and our parents were already primed and told that, like, look, your your child's going to say that they hate it here. They're going to say that all this bad stuff is happening to them, they're manipulating you. Don't fall for it.

This is the same behavior that they've had it home, right, So then you have a parent we're like, yeah, maybe maybe their kids were lying to them, maybe they were sneaking out. And so they hear this and they're like, oh no, that's what they did at home. I can't fall into that. I have to be strong and give them this tough love. So there was that, and then I want to explain just one other part of this program.

So you had to earn a phone call home. So I actually didn't have a phone call with my mom for about a year, so twelve months a year, which is a very long time when you're fourteen. It was your was your mother freaking out? I mean, didn't she want to hear from you? Was? Oh, of course, didn't she think that was concerning And she did good. But at the time, again you're being told by these people who are supposedly professionals that this is part of the program.

I know it's hard right now, but stay strong. Mom and dad stay strong. Um, this is gonna be for their own best interest, right, They've got to break away from you, and they've got to find themselves, and it's

all a part of this treatment plan. But at the same time, even if we tried to write some of these things home, I mean many times this happened to me, they would actually redact the letters with black sharpie, or they would not send them at all, and you would be brought in for a meeting asking why you're manipulating. And so you have no access to telephones, to internet, to even TV. We had no idea what was going on in the world during that time, no news, no

like you're cut off. So in that same no, I will explain just one more thing is that if you, let's say, tried to run away, because you're thinking, I'm going to go find a phone and as soon as I get a phone, I'm going to tell my family what's happening. You know, we were told on the daily that if someone tried to run, we were to chase them down and we were to break their legs and stop them by any means possible. So you knew that if you try to run, it's not only staff members

chasing you, it's your friends, it's everybody. You've got forty people hunting you, doing anything to stop you. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. Even listening to this, I can't imagine. So, how long were you in the facility? I was there for two and a half years, Caroline. That's a long time. It's a very long time. Two and a half years. What did you do for two and a half years? Did you just become a shell of yourself? I mean,

did they break you down? So when I first got there, the first thing that I noticed, and it's just it's giving me goose bumps right now even remembering this. But first night that I got there, I slept out in the hallway and when I woke up, there were girls all around me and they were lining up and they had their uniform and their toilet trees in their hands, and they were lying end up, standing by the bathroom ready to go in and get ready for the day.

And uh, I remember looking at how strangely hollow they were, and you could see it in their eyes, in their face, and so you know, we're social creatures. And going for two years of not talking, not being able to reach out in hug someone or say I love you, or you just excuse me or thank you. We're having that connection, you turn inside yourself. It's the only way to keep your mind connected um to reality, to what you're doing.

And of course you're somewhere where you don't want to be, and so the whole time you're playing movies in your mind, trying to keep yourself hopeful, trying to keep yourself thinking about when you get out. Um, okay, so what was the worst thing that happened of all the atrocities for you personally, That probably ways over and over in your mind. For me, it was a lot of what I witnessed. So I never while I was there, had experienced physical restraint,

mostly because I complied to a fault. I was quiet, I kept to myself. I minded whatever anyone told me to do, which is a weird also kind of trauma, because you start to um, you feel broken in the sense that you complied so much to the people that were abusing you, and so that isn't just a trauma in and of itself. Being in that environment alone is traumatizing.

Seeing it happen to your friend and knowing that it could be you next, you know, you stand there with your eyes forward, head down, heart pounding, knees shaking in panic. And so for me, there's a memory. Um, so there was one student there and she had decided that it was enough and she needed to do anything possible to make it to a hospital to be able to reach her parents, and so she actually threw herself over the second story floor of a stair rail. And UM, those

sounds will for every day in my mind. You could hear gasps and people go, and then you hear a noise, and then something hit the ground and you hear people saying, oh my god, she jumped, and and again we're not allowed to talk, so you were just hearing staff members reacting to this. And um, there were a lot of instances like that. I mean, that's one. That's one I have to tell you. Listening to this, so it sounds

like you're pitching me a plot for a horror film. Seriously, let's take a short break, all right, let's get back to it. And how did you eventually get out? Why were you released after two and a half years on good behavior. So it was a very long time. By the time I left, I had been there out of

the entire facility. I had been there for the second longest, and so the only other person who had been there longer was my dear friend to this day, Monica, and she had gotten there two weeks before me, and so we left at the same time. And we actually got to leave because we had completed the program, which means that we had climbed up through all of the levels

and all of the ranks that we were required. There were six levels in total, but yeah, we completed the program, and at that point, you know, it was a huge honor to have graduated. We attended our brainwashy final seminar with our parents and then after that we were allowed to go home, and you know, it seemed unreal at that time. Did you tell your parents everything that happened

at the time, I didn't, hm. And really why that was is because it had been thrilled into us that if we complained about the program, that we were not working the program, and that meant that we were what they would call playing the victim. And so if we were playing the victim, that means that we were not ready to go home, right, So it's this whole psychological thing of if you complain that means you're not ready.

So you learn to just be quiet because you want to be ready to go home and you don't want to be sent back. So that was also the fear that if I look like I'm not going with the program, then I might get sent back. So tell me about these seminars. Even though they're going to make me want to pull my hair up. They're very atrocious. Um there, they sound like they're probably really CULTI right, they're incredibly culty. So if you think of this, like what's come out

about Nexium. Are you familiar with the story. Yeah, so, um, very very very similar self help style. Um, brainwashing and UM. This kind of ideology came from a cult that started in the late fifties called sinnol On and they participated in something called attack therapy, And it was this idea that if you be rated and belittled someone and like got inside their mind and their trauma and broke them down,

that you could somehow build them back up. And so in our facility and in these WASP programs and a lot of programs like it, they really preach this idea of accountability, which on on surface level, sounds good, right, and the worst thing in the world was to be a victim. Right, You do not want to be a victim. If you are a victim, you're not working the program,

you're not ready to go home. As I explained, So essentially what seminars would look like is you would share your deepest, darkest traumas and then you would be torn apart in front of a room of about a hundred people.

And some people would share stories of sexual assault or abuse at the hands of a family member, and then we would be made to tell that person that they were a victim, that they were a slot, that they asked for it, that they needed to be accountable for the trauma that had happened to them, and it was applauded if you could make that person break down. Um. And so you know, there's a lot of trauma for us too about the things that we've done to other people.

Oh yeah, Um, you know, we were put in positions where we were forced to be the abuser in a lot of cases, and that's really heavy to deal with. Oh god, I'm sure. So did you know anybody that was sexually abused? Because I know that that's something that is rampant and threw a lot of these institutions I did, and with several people. Actually, So there was a woman at our facility who was the girl's side supervisor, and she is particularly bitter, gruff, mean woman, and she can

make your life. Help um. So again back to points and levels. You know, the more points you have, the higher levels you have, the closer you are to going home. And she had no problem just snapping her fingers and ripping that away from you. And so people were very motivated to comply with whatever she would say or do. And everybody knew that this person had favorites. She actually then carried on relationships with these women and I was

witnessed to some of that. I do know that, uh, the people that she did this too are actively dealing with this trauma and it's incredibly hard for them. I'm sure she was a predator and they just sort of did what they had to do to survive this place. Yeah, did your mother ever apologize to you? She has, Yeah, she has very recently. In the situation of where there's private placement, where a parent is placing a child in a facility like this, parents are being victimized, They're being conned.

If you look at these websites. Oh, they're the most gorgeous websites. You log on. You see kids singing Kumbaya around a campfire. They're smiling, they look like squeaky clean, like I love you mom and dad. Uh. They look like everything that a parent with a struggling teenager would want. And these programs tout things like leadership development and character

building and like even college prep style quality. And it's just not it is a sham, but it's just a perfect recipe because you have parents that are just over their head, and as a parent, I can understand falling into that trap. So then they get you. They victimize you in a way so that you can't retaliate, and you're left with years of trauma and they've just made a shipload of money. And by the way, you know, we can't say this is every facility like this. Again,

this is not all schools. But I have read that in Utah itself, the industry pulled in three hundred and twenty eight million dollars in revenue in twenty alone, just in that year and accounted for sixty hundred jobs. And I also read, and you can attest to this, that a lot of these therapists aren't even licensed. So this is a racket that seems to be incredibly profitable and nobody's really doing the checks and balances with them. Yeah.

So for a number of years, whenever I would tell my story to people, their very first reaction would all I mean, it was so predictable. Their first reaction would be, oh, so you were a bad kid. Hawk you were? You were a troublemaker, weren't you? You went to one of those facilities. And so that was our ideology as a culture, is that these are bad kids and they can't function in school and there's no other choice, and we have

to send them away because that's the only option. And so, you know, I think we've kind of embraced this idea of like, yeah, you get what you deserve, you make bad choices, this is what happens. And you know, it shows such a callousness that we have towards young people and mental health. These are mental health issues. I've not met one person who has not experienced trauma before they

were sent to a facility like this. So it's the issue actually bad kids, or is it the fact that we don't want to recognize that young people have mental health needs that we are not fulfilling, and we're not fulfilling in the right way. I mean, even when I hear you talk about this, I think about like alcoholics and how alcoholics anonymous. The reason that it works is because there's a sense of community and it's nurturing, and that's the opposite of what these are doing. I mean,

these are just horror houses. Really, it's it's the opposite of everything that you need, especially as a teenager. I mean, how much was this a year? Uh So, I believe my mom paid, and I will tell you this was about seventeen years ago. My mom was paying about five

thousand dollars a month. Now that price has gone up substantially, and oftentimes caregivers, parents and even states now because they're now taking children from child welfare, children from juvenile justice special education, they're paying like sixteen thousand dollars a month. I mean, they're expensive. This is a lot of money. So if we want to dig in just for a second, because I know you were asking about, like, how is

this industry possible? I'll explain some of the logistics because I think it's actually rather fascinating to understand how we got to this place, and um, it was a journey I went on when I started facing this trauma and then trying to understand, like how is this legal? How

is that legal? For some? So here's the real kicker is that the facility I went to was not licensed, It was not accredited, and so I couldn't transfer any of my academic credits, which meant that I ultimately left school with a tenth grade education and that created years of repercussions for me that I'm still dealing with to this day. It was essentially a guy from Utah who bought a building in New York, made a website he said,

some mer kids. I think he was like an electrician before he had no absolutely no knowledge of child development psychology like anything. We didn't have any nurses there. There were no psychiatrists, like it was just some some guy. How is that possible? I know, it's a really good question. So when these facilities first came about in the like late fifties, sixties and seventies, is really when this industry

took off. They would spring up in little towns, you know, mid America, UM specifically Utah, and at the time people had issues with it, like it's actually incredible that we started this conversation way back then and little to no progress has been made. But people would question. Let's use pro Volcanian School for an example, which is the topic of our podcast, Trapping Treatment. So when pro Volcanian School popped up, the community immediately said, wait a second, they're

keeping kids in shackles. How is this a school. This is not a school. And so then they said, but it's also not really a detention center, and it's also not a mental health facility. And so these facilities have always existed in this void of no one really knowing

what they are or how they identify. So when we look at regulation of an industry, a lot of that depends on the license of the business or school or detention center, right, and so once we know what category it falls in, then we know what regulations apply to it. But because these facilities always said nope, no, nope, we're not a school, we're not a detention facility, we're not a mental health provider like, it's been virtually untouchable from

any kind of regulatory body. So government has been very hesitant to want to intervene because for a lot of years these facilities were all private pay private dollars, so they saw it as private industry, we can't really regulate, we can't interfere, And so that's actually really changed in

the past twenty years. And now we're seeing a large number over a hundred thousand young people every year through public placements, child welfare, juvenile justice, special education, who are entering these facilities, So that dynamic has changed a little bit, but still the oversight is horrendously lacking. And and does insurance now play a parton this? Does Medicaid cover any of this when they send their kids to these places? So private insurance largely will not pay. Medicaid does pay

for some facility. So here's kind of the real kicker is that from state to state licensure and licensure requirements varies drastically. But let me ask you this. If I started one of these places, Okay, I'm going to buy a building and I'm I'm going to just say, oh, I've started a treatment center for teens, and let's say that you know it doesn't comply in any way that you know kids have gotten hurt. They could shut me down, but I could reopen another place down the street if

I wanted not even down the street. You could do it in the same building. You could call yourself a different name, have same residents there, same roster of staff, and then call yourself a different name, And this happens a lot. Is the government starting to intervene more now? Yes? And no? Okay, So fundamentally there's some issues with the

government intervening. Because let's use Massachusetts for an example. Of Massachusetts does not require therapeutic boarding schools to be licensed in the state, so they're not even required to be licensed at all, which then means that they're not required to report anything. The state doesn't know how many people are in there. They also don't know if there's been any deaths, if there's been any physical restraints taking place. They have no idea, so their access to that information

is really lacking. I'll give you another example in Utah. Previous to the bill that we just passed, we were able to pass in a bill on which changed some of these requirements. But previous to that, facilities were only required to report incidents that required more than first aid once a month. Okay, So that kind of leaves a lot to the imagination. More than first aid. What does that mean is this hospitalization. Is this a death once

a month? So that can leave you to question that even when the state got those reports, they're not going to that facility to investigate something that happened a month ago. Um, they kept those reports. I'm, you know, making some broad assumptions here, but they kept those reports stacked on a desk somewhere, and and there was not actual advocacy or investigations taking place, which is again part of this issue of even if there is oversight, what are the actual

practices of the oversight? Are they meaningful? Jesus? I also read that at Provocani in school, they wouldn't even give you a name. They wouldn't call you Caroline, They'd call you three oh nine. You know, they just give you a number. I mean, that's how dehumanizing it was. And

that was the point um interesting story. So the man who owned the facility that I went to a family, A member of his reached out to us last year, and this family member said, look, I am deeply embarrassed about what my family has done to you and to the entire survivor community. I want to help. So I had an opportunity to meet with him in person, and like like finally, like I'm sure you can imagine, Like

I had so many questions and so um. The one thing that I asked, out of many things, but the one thing that I asked was was it ever about helping children? Was it ever about helping? Because I I felt like inside myself, I really wanted to believe that somewhere along the way things just got out of control. But I wanted to at least believe that the intention was to help. And what he said to me was he kind of laughed, and he said, it was never They knew what they were doing was it was never

about helping you guys. They looked at you as a commodity, as a number, as a dollar sign profit profit mm hmm. You know, it's it's amazing to me that most of these facilities didn't have a licensed nurse or any real health care because they were giving these kids injections of sedatives.

It's it's it's crazy, it's illegal. So interestingly enough, I suffered from migraines, and you know, at one point in time, I was having a migraine so horrific that I went to the hospital and they ended up giving me like a cocktail of bena drill and like another antihistamine. And so those sedatives that they use on these kids is usually Bena drill mixed with Howdall, which is like a very heavy ani psychotic. Jesus, and so I just got

the bena drill half of it right, not even the antipsychotic. Really, I was like, give me anything. And when I tell you that, for hours after that, I could not even willingly open my eyes. I was out. I was incapacitated, not in control of my body. And so what we're seeing coming out of these facilities is that they're using these sedatives so often that it's leaving children debilitated and

unable to advocate for themselves. If it takes you two days to recover and then a couple of days later you get another one, I mean you're always in this state of not being able to function well. And imagine the sexual abuse that happens there. I mean you're practically

being roofied in this facility. Yes, and there's actually a really horrific documented case of this, as there are several, but again going back to not everything is required to be reported, and some things just aren't found out until you know much later. But there was a Devereaux facility in Philadelphia eight year old little girl Jesus who had disability, and they had inoculate at her with that seditive and unfortunately she was horrifically assaulted. How why was an eight

year old in a facility like this? So some of these facilities take children as young as six who could just be autistic, right absolutely, who could just have some other issue that they're not saying, Yes, God, Caroline, it's so awful, it is really awful. And um there is currently a facility in Massachusetts and and the population that they served there is largely autistic individuals. And so they use a device called g E D and it is an electro shock device. And I'll admit I was a

little bit naive. I didn't really know. I didn't know about this style of intervention, and so I like wanted to believe, Like my rational mind was like, oh, maybe maybe it just feels like a little pinch, Maybe it's not that bad. And um, So Neuroclastic an organization called neuro Plastic. Please look them up. If you are a parent that has a child with disability or who is neurodiverse,

please look up Neuroclastic they're incredible. But they issued a report on this issue, and one of the things that this report cited is that that electro shock is actually ten times more powerful than a stun gun, ten times more powerful. And you know, it's claimed that this device is being used to intervene on self harming behavior. So if someone is smashing their head against a wall or doing something that could cause incredible damage. Um, But that's

actually not what's being reported from the facility. It's for things as simple as standing up without permission. Um. Very similar to the allowances of the facility that I went to. Oh my god, Caroline, and we'll be right back, and we're back. So a lot of these survivors there's got to be residual mental health issues with them. I have read a lot about PTSD with some of the people that happened later on. So tell me a little bit

about that. Well, there's a really high rate of suicide, and there's also a really high rate of addiction and also abusive relationships afterwards. So even myself, I'm a domestic violence survivor and I went into a relationship which you know,

in hindsight, it's wild. I was almost seventeen when I left the facility, and then I was in this relationship when I was nineteen, and so you know, if you look at just the dynamic of like how much I had to silence my own feelings in the facility of like this is abuse, this is wrong run you know. So then when I'm out and actually having relationships with people, UM, I had already silenced that part of me that would said,

don't tolerate this, get safe. And we see that, I mean, our survivors have just like an outstanding amount of chronic PTSD chronic illnesses. We also see a lot of that too in our population. And so we're actually in the middle of developing an academic study where we'll be able to look at kind of the life of the survivors.

So we're going to be asking them questions about what happened before, what happened while you were there, and then what was your life like afterwards, So we can start to establish um, these unique experiences as being a population in and of itself, so hopefully we can then start to develop treatment for it. So tell us where the fight is now, what's going on today? So I'm the co CEO of an organization called unsilenced, and we are a group of survivors with lived experience of this industry.

People who have gone to ranches, boot camps, wilderness programs, behavior modification facilities, psychiatric units, all of the above, people who have experienced institutional abuse. And we're doing several things. The biggest and probably most noteworthy right now is the Accountability for Congregate Care Act, which we have actually been able to partner with Paris Hilton to get exposure on

this issue. The Accountability for Congregate Care Act does several things, and I will say this is the first step of many. There's no miracle piece of legislation out there that's going to shut this industry down. It's just impossible. By now, this industry has actually infiltrated so much of the mental health system in psychiatric facilities that we have to do a little bit of some untangling, right what is true mental health treatment and what is this, you know, behavior modification,

and where are the lines? What is therapeutic and what's not? And so what this bill will do is it will create a very comprehensive bill of rights for young people in these facilities. So it's everything from the right to be free from physical restraint, the right to access education, the right to deny gynecological exams. UM. Forced pap smears are a thing that happens in these programs, not all of them, but some. And so we we outline, you know,

all all of the hallmarks of what we're seeing. And then what we do in this bill is we are asking states to come up with minimum licensure requirements that would support and uphold this bill of rights. So this needs to trickle down to the state level where we're making sure that these things are not happening. UM. On top of that, one of the rights that we have listed in this bill is the right to recourse, the right to be able to contact a protection and advocacy agency,

and the right to report the abuses that are happening. Right, so that has always been a big wall and being able to have these young people advocate for themsel else is even access to a telephone, access to say what's happening? Is happening. The other thing that this bill will do is it will create funding for protection and advocacy agencies. So every single state has something called a Protection and Advocacy Agency or pen A, and p and a s are allowed to go in any facility or anywhere where

disabled people exist. So they're largely known as like disability rights centers or disability law centers. Across the US, every single state has one, and they can enter any facility at any time. They can investigate, they can talk to the young people there in private, they can talk to staff in private, they can write reports, they can make recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services and also to the Department of Justice, and they can also litigate.

So they have a lot of power, and we feel that it's necessary at this point to have a third party be able to, you know, intervene and inspect and take action on behalf of these young people. So it's it's a little bit like the foster care system. You have an outside person that comes in on behalf of the children and interviews them and make sure that the place that they're dwelling in is safe. Similar. Yes, so,

and and that's actually a really interesting point. So we have child abuse response systems in our nation, like like you said, cps UM, but what's really strange is that they will only respond to child abuse that's happening in the home. If it's happening in a facility that's out of their jurisdiction, and so oftentimes when abuse is reported it falls onto law enforcement. Well, law enforcement is already stressed, overstrained, and usually they just looked for like was a law broken,

yes or no? Was someone injured? And even then it usually doesn't result in any kind of meaningful action. There was a guy who worked at Red Rock and he reported he said, look, these kids are not being fed properly, they're being threatened. And he got fired for it and saying, hey, listen, there's you know, there's abuse happening. So it I can't believe that this doesn't already exist, that these people aren't

watched all the time. These programs are especially litigious, and you know, when they've got a bank roll of millions upon millions of dollars every year, it's very easy for them to take people to court. And that's historically has just always been what's happened to whistleblowers. And I'm actually expecting to find something in my mail any day now saying that they're wanting to take me to quarter you know,

cease and desist or something like that. Yeah, if you're gonna if you're gonna make noise that's gonna probably upset them exactly. So you know, we'll see what happens over the course of this next year as we continue to push forward with the Accountability for Congregate Care Act. I am aware that these providers already know what we're doing, and they are preparing their counter argument, and so you know,

it'll be interesting next year. But I do hope that this bill gets past and and urge your lawmakers or urge your congress people to get involved with this issue. It is a bipartisan issue as well. I just want to emphasize that very important. It's affecting every community in every state, and is this the best way to support you? That the best thing we can do. So there's a lot of ways that you can get involved. I would say, immediately, go to our website Unsilenced dot org. You can email

me directly. I will give you all of my contact information. Go to our website. We have something right now called a street team, uh and we're a remote organization, so everything that we do is in the online space. This is our battleground. And so we might say to the street team, okay, everyone head over to Twitter. We need you to tag X, Y, z politician on this post. Let's get attention to make this go viral, and so we've been able to really apply a lot of pressure

and making movement that way. Uh So, like, get involved. If you have someone in your life who's been affected by this industry, please give them our information. Like I said, our website is on silenced dot org. You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok. We're also on Facebook and our handle is unsilenced underscore. Now is there any merit into creating a website for parents that basically tells you about these particular schools. Interestingly enough, we have a massive database.

If you go to our website and you click on I think it's Investigations, and you'll see something there that says facility archive and click on that and it's going to show you a map and you can hover over each state and it will highlight that state and you can click into it and then it will list all

of the facilities in that state. If you click into a facility, it's going to show you a long list of everything from DHS records, police records, um news articles, survivor stories, anything that we can document and get our hands on. We put into this database. Um our website also has a list of different red flags to watch out for. So if you are trying to find help for the young people in your life, you can find some recommendations there and we'd be more than happy to

find those resources for you as well. So if you're not finding it on our site, reach out to us. Yes, the irony that treatment leaves a community of survivors. So tell me about your podcast that that Paris Hilton produces. Yes, So, Trapped in Treatment is our podcast which exposes the troubled

team industry. And so we actually document the history of pro Vocanian School, which is the facility that Paris went to, and we take you inside the journey of showing up at the facility, living there for however long you're there, um, experiencing that type of discipline, and then we go into um, you know, what life is like after, you know. Ultimately we talked about the movement and and everything that we're doing. Now.

Oh God, I can't wait to listen. You know, you need a season at least to go through everything that you guys have gone through. I'm so sorry that you went through this, I really am. My heartbreaks for you and every survivor that had to deal with this, especially because their children, children, they their frontal lobe hasn't developed yet, and to be put through all of this should be illegal.

So thank you for sharing your story. Well, thank you, and I appreciate you, you know, sharing the platform, and it's been an honor. Thank you. Usually at the end of Go Ask Alli, I have my guest asked me a question, but I've been so fascinated by what Caroline has been talking about that I sort of blew through it because I wanted every last minute with her to talk about this, because it's it's unimaginable, I mean really unfathomable that these institutions still exist and are not regulated.

And I have to say I have great empathy, and I feel so honored to be able to talk to Caroline and and my hats off to the survivors that are going into Congress now and fighting to help people not only who are incarcerated now, but in the future. And my feeling is, if legislation is not passed correctly, we got to close these places down. Thank you for listening to Go Ask Ali. Check out our show notes

for a lot more information. Be sure to subscribe rate and review the podcast, and follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali Wentworth and on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth Now. If you'd like to ask me a question or suggest a guest or a topic to dig into, I would love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways to do it. You can call or text me at three to three four six three five six, or you can email a voice memo right now from your phone to Go Ask Gali podcast

at gmail dot com. If you leave a question, I just might hear it and go ask ally. Go Ask Gali is a production of Shonda land Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.