America’s controversial ‘troubled teen’ wilderness therapy camps
Kyra Frankowski was 14 years old when her parents decided they didn’t know what to do with her.
Four days after entering the new year in 2014, she was ripped from her home in Ohio and dropped off at a camp in rural Utah which promised to disrupt years of “behaviour problems”.
Upon arrival, she was stripped of her belongings, clothes, piercings – anything that showed signs of personality.
In the four months that followed, she spent every second of every day in the wild, hiking until her feet bled, eating dehydrated foods that left her constipated for weeks, bathing with a bucket and sponge, and sleeping wrapped in a plastic tarp.
This was Ms Frankowski’s experience with “wilderness therapy”, a treatment that purports to help teens overcome behavioural and mental health issues through exposure to nature.