Anonymous’ Youth Care Treatment Center Testimony

I’ve been scared to write a review for years, but I can no longer just sit here and not say anything…. I want anonymity because I am scared of YouthCare Utah. I simply cannot stay quiet about this place. I have been a discharged patient for several years and at first I used to say I was lucky to have my experience because it helped me “get better”. I can now look back years later and say this place traumatized me far more than I ever before. I believe this center breaks down children who are already suffering to the point of no return and then blames it on them. They have definitely fashioned their “therapeutic facility” after a prison or jail, and I realized this after taking a college sociology course and learning about different enclosed environments.

I was conditioned in a militant like fashion by staff to behave like a perfect human being without any emotions. I felt the way of this center was to let you know you and only you were at fault for what happened to you, how you reacted, and what you thought and felt, although they market themselves as a “rehab” and a RTC which would mean they would be able to assist us with those emotional distressed skills, not punish us for not being able to use them. The way of treating “mental health” here was truly militant. Whenever any student acted out, got over emotional, or displayed any behavioral problems hence is why we were all there, the staff would display aggressive behaviors and instead of being helpful to the students (myself included) would often punish us which would further escalate a lot of students and get them sent to the locked room. I had seen students get further pushed and pushed by staff verbally until the point of physical restraint. Physical restraint broke several children’s wrists and witnessed several others with ice on their wrists for days. This “calm down isolation” room was really scary. It was dirty and had carvings all over it which made it more disturbing. I feel like the use of physical restraint was used wayy too much at this place by men often 5x the strength of every single person there.

I get why they need protocols like this, and it did prevent dangerous situations sometimes, but other times I truly had no clue why people were getting restrained. Often for just having an outburst that was nonviolent and “disrupted others too much”. I was often terrified to do literally anything there because staff would write notes on us and drop our level points up or down depending on what they felt like and couldn’t tell us why until our “therapists got a hold of the information” It was more anxiety provoking than helpful. I felt like I was just going to mess up no matter what I did. Often I never even found out what I did “wrong”. When you got to a higher level you had “more responsibility” aka you were a perfect example to all the other students and if you struggled like you were supposed to at a mental health facility they would tell you you’re being a bad example to the community and not using your coping skills. Some of the punishments for the whole community would include being put on 24 hour silence, being put to face a wall for 72 hours and do paper work depending on the severity of your actions and write all your secrets on a paper to give to the staff to decide your fate, AKA refocus. You could go outside for 10 minutes every 2 hours, and you could not talk to a soul the whole refocus.

They could take your activities away for getting too many “papers” which were composition long pages of what you did wrong anything from lending a pencil to someone to giving someone a high five, which was an actual freezeable offense or maybe even a level loss. I was so scared to accidentally touch anyone here even for the fear I would loose all of my little privileges I worked so hard to earn if i was put on a freeze, and even worse a level loss loosing more privileges, these privileges also included time going outside, using certain items in our room, and even socializing and getting certain foods, and loosing the ability to go on level activities. If you want to be gaslight into thinking you feel something or have done something to deserve some sort of awful fate, this place will validate all of that. I left here thinking that any emotions that weren’t happy or calm were being bothersome, hurtful to others, or attention seeking. This lead to years of suppressing emotions after leaving. I still struggle every day with feeling like I am showing too much emotion or saying too much and have developed avoidant behaviors. I won’t be speaking on the therapists because I actually appreciated my therapist and I got lucky. There were maybe 2 supervisors I trusted and less than a handful of staff I trusted in the whole facility. You would think the staff would want to be there to help you and want to talk to you but they were often “too busy” or would pick certain kids they liked to talk to. It seemed like there were a lot of students that were scapegoats amongst students and sometimes even the staff.

So much fighting, I could barely even stand living there. The staff were often students in college which blows my mind now looking back as a college student, I couldn’t imagine being in charge of 15-20 students who have severe mental health conditions without any sort of professional degree. There is a reason there is little to to improvement seen at this facility. They encourage and push students to talk to and give parents of students numbers of desperate mothers and fathers who want to get help for their children and coached us on what to say. Nothing about anything here, ever. Everything positive. I feel so guilty. The houses smelled awful, were cleaned by the students, and were dirty. The staff often left more of a mess for us to clean.

It was really hard to sleep, and there were even night staff who would purposely harass us at night by walking up to us with the flashlight and putting it in our face every 15 minutes when they were supposed to peek in at the door when they checked in as to not well, wake us up. The food was honestly like prison food unless some generous staff cooked their own style of food that wasn’t on the menu but that was rare. It also felt like living in a prison with a little more walking room. We barely had outside time every day and we were forced to stay inside all winter and walk around a white gym. No personal time whatsoever. If we fraternized with the opposite gender it was likely the staff would sexualize it and we would all get in trouble as a community or the male and female being friends would be banned from talking to or scout each other also known as a block. I was almost blocked from my only friend from being “too close” to them, and I was punished severely for saying goodbye to a friend who discharged by giving them a small hug.

We were Stripped of pretty much any individuality. I hate to assume this but I would also say religion had to play into a lot of the dress code and rule book. A lot of the staff would secretly read us Book of Mormon quotes even though pushing religion towards anyone was against their rule book. People from all over the country came to the center and some had clothes that were considered “unfit and immodest” because they had holes in the legs , even band tee shirts were banned. Dresses were banned because they could “distract” the males and cause them to act out. Mind you, we’re all 11-17 at that center. We had to wear leggings under dresses that went to our knees. This was particularly strange to me because again, we were children, and I can’t hope but feel they were pushing modest doctrine onto us. Another reason I felt uneasy about this doctrine being pushed is because we oblivious had an intruder policy on campus, and once a random missionary came onto campus during our 15 minute outside time. He probably didn’t know where he was but the staff was supposed to escort him out instantly. Their is a HIPAA law, he could be an imposter, there are children with PTSD there, etc. but the staff decided to let him stay and chat during the recess.

This wouldn’t be an issue if we weren’t literally supposed to be a level 14 treatment facility which is maximum security. We couldn’t even go in and out of doors without asking, so why was a random person allowed to come into our “home” at the time for as long as the staff allowed? I was terrified at all times that the rules could be switched depending on what the staff felt. The activities were the only time we had but it was still controlled. We couldn’t tell our family any of what was going on because that was “treatment bashing”, of course we could get in big trouble, freeze or level loss if we did it several times ! They would simply hang up the phone.

Every day I think of this place and what may be true or false in my head from what I was trapped under there. We were all called ungrateful if we said anything. Now i know this was another gaslighting tactic to get us to be quiet and for them to save themselves. Clearly, we wanted help not to be harmed more, and made to feel i safer than ever before. The feeling of YouthCare stays for years. There is a survivor subreddit with so many stories telling similar, or even worse tales. This is not a safe place for anyone who needs to get better. I’ve been scared for YEARS. They have constantly deleted my review on Google and Rehab reviews as well as I know these programs have a way of filtering out reviews that could hurt them, and I have been unable to speak out and believe this center deserves to be shut down for good. I need everyone to know the truth about YouthCare Utah and what they do to children and families who need help.