How Utah created the wilderness therapy industry for ‘troubled teens’ - and why it’s in trouble now
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- The wilderness therapy industry is struggling in a way it hasn’t since the early 2000s, when national scrutiny followed the deaths of a number of young people in outdoor youth programs.
Wilderness therapy programs, part of the larger industry of programs aimed at "troubled teens," got their start in Utah, thanks in part to a student at BYU and an enterprising, and troubled, businessman.
The Salt Lake Tribune's Jessica Miller explains why the industry is so strong in Utah and why its future is uncertain.
Video by Trevor Christensen of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Thank you for continuing to publish these exposes. The state of Utah needs to erase the sin of allowing this institutional abuse in the first place from their state's history by banning these 'wilderness therapy' and 'therapeutic boarding schools' from the state altogether.
You're downplaying the severity of the accusations. The kidnapping, starving and dehydration were the very tip of the iceberg. Just 2 weeks ago a 12yo child was bound in a sleeping bag to prevent his escape where he died of asphyxiation. R-pe was so common in my program that we were coached on what to say to investigators. Even threatened into silence saying we'd be next or we'd be sent to "higher lvl programs" some out of the country where we'd be tortured. Non-verbal autistic children were being raped and when I went to the police after my release, they said my word alone wasn't good enough for them to get a warrant to investigate. Somehow these non-verbal kids were expected to report this themselves... I was sent for truancy and they threatened to send my mom to prison if she didn't sign me over. Some kids were even forced there by their parents for being gay or trans as a means of conversion therapy. I dropped from 130lbs to 90lbs (6ft tall). My teeth were falling out. I was regarded as a star resident, never had a write up, told I'd only be there for 2 months. Then 3 months passed. 4 months. 6 months. They held me for a year. Cost the state $120k just for the stay. They abuse the fostercare system's funding and health insurance to fund their programs. They use that money to pay ed consultants, counselors, therapists, judges, etc. large sums of money in kickbacks to threaten parents into sending their kids. Threatening immigrant parents with deportation, Poor single parents with jail, whatever it takes to make a sale.
2 women got pregnant around my stay from r-ping these kids. Only one got busted because she was so bold she got a teaching job at a public school where one of the kids was going to be after his release to continue abusing them.
The bill for two decades of abuse has come due.
Human beings are very resilient. The amount of abuse that needed to occur for that many deaths in unfathomable.
Ooh so sad and again why??. These were children..😢😢😢