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 Schools and Programs (NATSAP) is a member-based organization of residential treatment centers (RTCs), wilderness programs, therapeutic boarding schools, and educational consultants. It was founded in 1999 by Jan Moss, John Redden, Len Buccellato, and Jon Santa. Initially, there were only six member programs which were:

All but one of these initial member programs have been shuttered with allegations of abuse and child torture.

NATSAP grew to include hundreds of member programs and individual contributors (Educational Consultants) – including such notable historic abusive members such as Academy at Swift River, Elan School, Cascade School, Family Foundation School, and many more.

Why we won’t ever work with NATSAP

NATSAP is a member-based trade group. Almost all of NATSAP’s board and executive team works within the confines of the Troubled Teen Industry. Their business model – and how they sustain themselves – is to gain more member programs. Why would they ever do anything to truly harm or hurt their industry if they need member programs to stay in business or for their executives/board to continue to sustain their own programs?

Time and time over the years, NATSAP has stepped up to prevent true regulation and oversight:

NATSAP continues to allow almost any program to join their ranks as long as they get basic “accreditiation” from places such as Joint Commission – which is a low low bar – to look as if they are adhering to some “quality standard.” However, ASTART for Teens already called out how low of a bar these private accreditation standards are.  NATSAP also continues to turn a blind eye to members as long as they continue to pay their membership dues. Case in point: Diamond Ranch Academy – which has had a history of at least 3 children dying at its program – continues to be a proud active NATSAP member.

How do we fight NATSAP?

  • We continue to track abuses and programs by putting everything into our public program archive. We have thousands of news stories, reports, survivor stories, DHHS records, police records, etc for current and historical NATSAP programs for anyone to access
  • Supporting state legislation – Recently, our CEO Meg Appelgate went to Montana and testified at a Senate committee to pass HB 218 – going toe-to-toe with pro-NATSAP senators
  • Working on advocacy cases against NATSAP programs. Note: A lot of these advocacy cases aren’t always publicly shared though to protect the children involved
  • Project SPEAK is in full swing including meeting with key decision makers to stop the pipeline to the TTI using public funds – IEPs, foster care, juvenile justice, etc. These are funds that many NATSAP programs depend on in order to survive
  • Unsilenced recently spoke at Mass Torts Made Perfect and continued grow our network of attorneys to help support survivors
  • Supporting other survivors and groups for positive self-advocacy in any way we can

We support any community and activist efforts to protest NATSAP’s attempts to “reform” their image – especially when their active members continue to have children dying and being abused at their programs. NATSAP isn’t there for true reform – as we have seen in their previous strategic documents that they accidentally shared on the internet.