Blog
Our Healing Journey After Residential Treatment
Our Healing Journey After Residential Treatment by Valerie Wood-Lewis If I had known then what I know now: that wilderness and residential treatment centers - more often than not - cause trauma to the adolescents they are set up to serve; I would not have made [...]
10 Things You Should Know About the Troubled Teen Industry
10 Things You Should Know About the Troubled Teen Industry "We were forced to endure verified brainwashing and abusive methods. For typically two days at a time, we were deprived of sleep and water." - Anonymous Survivor "Our letters were censored, read, and occasionally fully [...]
Hidden Lake Academy: Unveiling the Dark Reality of Institutional Abuse
Hidden Lake Academy: Unveiling the Dark Reality of Institutional Abuse If you’ve been watching the news cycle lately, you might have seen a flurry of stories published about Clarence Thomas. One of the more significant stories published was an investigative piece by Propublica that [...]
Project SPEAK: Tennessee Unsilenced!
Project SPEAK: Tennessee Unsilenced Our volunteers were recently given the opportunity to set up a booth at Nashville State Community College's Spring Fair. During the two-day event, we were able to speak with students, faculty, and staff to educate and raise awareness of the Troubled Teen Industry. [...]
NATSAP and the TTI
NATSAP and the TTI NATSAP appears to be trying to reform its image to appear to be “advocating for safe care” for children – including attempting to publicly “support” into regulatory bills over the last three years. What is NATSAP? The National Association of Therapeutic [...]
Unsilenced CEO Meg Appelgate fights for HB 218 in Montana
Unsilenced CEO Meg Appelgate fights for HB 218 in Montana In March, Unsilenced CEO Meg Appelgate traveled to Montana to speak at a hearing for the Montana Senate about HB 218. While there were dissenting opinions about the bill in the hearing, Meg passionately pleaded the case [...]
Unsilenced visits the Mass Torts Made Perfect Seminar
Unsilenced visits the Mass Torts Made Perfect Seminar In early April, Unsilenced was invited to speak and exhibit at the Mass Torts Made Perfect Seminar in Las Vegas, which is put on by Levin Papantonio Rafferty and The National Trial Lawyers Top 100. [...]
How My Childhood Was Stolen From Me: Speaking Up About the Troubled Teen Industry and a Call for Change
How My Childhood Was Stolen From Me: Speaking Up About the Troubled Teen Industry and a Call for Change Originally shared via Linkedin by Meg Appelgate “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” one of my abductors towering over my bedside remarked. As [...]
Introducing Project SPEAK
Donate Unsilenced is a survivor-led non-profit organization that serves young people and adults who experienced institutional child abuse. If you’re looking for a way to make a difference, consider donating to Unsilenced. Your contribution will help us continue our work advocating for survivors and youth. Every donation [...]
Therapy after the Troubled Teen Industry
Therapy after the TTI When someone experiences trauma in their life, they often find themselves using tools like therapy to help them process and heal. Therapy can be a wonderful, healthy, and healing outlet for many people. However, a program survivor’s relationship with therapy [...]
Lifetime’s ‘Cruel Instruction” – Based on the Troubled Teen Industry
Cruel Instruction Review By Meg Appelgate Summary Cruel Instruction tells the story of 16-year-old Kayla Adams whose mother, Karen, is advised by the school’s counselor to send Kayla to get treatment at a youth residential treatment center after she gets expelled from school. Kayla arrives at [...]
Untangling the digital ties of Family Care
Untangling the digital ties of Family Care In early October 2021, Paris Hilton wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for greater oversight and regulation for congregate care facilities in the United States. A couple of weeks after her post, Katharine Weymouth, a former publisher and [...]
Tips for Talking with Others About Your Experience
Tips for Talking with Others About Your Experience By Beth Matenear, LPC Look, we all want validation. We are human and it is important. However, If you are going into this conversation with family or friends about your experience looking for them to be the only ones [...]
America’s controversial ‘troubled teen’ wilderness therapy camps
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 [...]