When “Therapeutic” Group Homes Become Pipelines to Trafficking: What’s Happening in Queen Creek, Arizona

By Meg Appelgate, Founder & CEO, Unsilenced Project, Inc. March 15th, 2026

I’ve spent the better part of the last 5 years listening to survivors describe the moment their “treatment” program stopped feeling like help and started feeling like a trap. The geography changes — Montana, Utah, Florida, Arizona — but the architecture of harm is disturbingly consistent: isolated youth, inadequate oversight, high staff turnover, and a revolving door that too often leads somewhere far worse than wherever the child started.

So when FOX 10 Phoenix published its recent investigation into Canyon State Academy and Desert Lily Academy in Queen Creek, Arizona, I wasn’t shocked. But I was alarmed. And I think everyone who cares about child safety should be, too.

Here’s what the reporting tells us, and what I believe it means.

What the Investigation Found

FOX 10 Phoenix reports that since the Queen Creek Police Department began operations in 2022, officers have responded to more than 2,000 calls for service at Canyon State Academy and Desert Lily Academy — two group home facilities operated by Nevada-based Rite of Passage. That’s not a footnote. That is a staggering number.

They also found that between January 2024 and December 2025 alone, police received 208 missing persons reports for boys at Canyon State and 119 for girls at Desert Lily. That is a combined average of one child going missing every two days over that two-year span.

And where are some of these children ending up? FOX 10 Phoenix reports that Queen Creek Police Chief Randy Brice has warned that some of these runaway cases have evolved into sex trafficking investigations, including at least one case in 2022 in which a trafficker was intercepted just before moving three minors out of state, which is a case that resulted in a 20-year prison sentence.

Some of the youth from these facilities have been found on what Phoenix residents know as “The Blade”, which is a stretch near 27th Avenue and Indian School Road in west Phoenix with a long history of prostitution and exploitation. Children who are supposed to be receiving care in a structured residential program are instead being allegedly commercially sexually exploited on the streets of Phoenix.

When Chief Brice was asked whether he anticipated dealing with sex trafficking and minors being found in Phoenix when he took the job, he was direct: “So, when this particular location that we deal with on a constant basis, when we are in those kinds of situations, it’s alarming to me as the chief.”

If it’s alarming to the police chief, it should be alarming to all of us.

This Isn’t New — And That’s the Problem

Canyon State Academy has a documented history that predates this investigation. In January 2020, a 17-year-old boy named Jonathan Quiroz died at Canyon State Academy after being found unresponsive. Staff assault allegations have been the subject of prior FOX 10 investigations as well.

Then, in September 2025, a Desert Lily Academy staff member, Christopher Lamont Allen, 48, a “coach counselor” whose duties included overnight supervision of minor residents, was arrested after a 17-year-old girl disclosed that he had sexually assaulted her twice in a closet during the early morning hours while she was placed “on watch” for being a runaway and self-harm risk. Video footage confirmed the incidents. The victim, who had a prior history of sexual victimization, was in this facility precisely because she was among the most vulnerable.

KTAR reports that Queen Creek Police Chief Brice called Allen’s case “deeply concerning” because it involved an adult employee and a vulnerable minor.

This is a pattern. Not an anomaly.

Rite of Passage’s Response, and Why It Falls Short

FOX 10 Phoenix reports that Rite of Passage defended its programs, stating they “specialize in serving vulnerable and trafficked youth by providing trauma-responsive care.” The Arizona Department of Child Safety echoed a similar line, attributing the high runaway rates to the “intensive needs” of the youth placed there, and noting that missing youth reports have declined approximately 40% since late 2024.

I want to be clear: a 40% reduction in missing youth reports is not a success story when the baseline involves a child going missing every two days. It means the problem has improved from catastrophic to severe. And “we serve the kids with the most intensive needs” cannot function as a permanent shield against scrutiny. Serving high-need youth means you bear a higher duty of care — not a lower standard of accountability.

The children placed in these facilities didn’t choose to be there. Many were placed by state child welfare systems that are supposed to protect them. When those placements become pathways to trafficking, the entire premise of congregate care as a child safety intervention collapses.

What This Means for the Troubled Teen Industry as a whole

I want to zoom out for a moment, because this story is not just about two facilities in Queen Creek.

What we’re witnessing here reflects a structural failure that plays out across the Troubled Teen Industry nationwide. Residential programs, whether marketed as therapeutic boarding schools, group homes, residential treatment centers, or academies, frequently operate with insufficient oversight, minimal licensing requirements, and deeply inadequate staff screening and training. Children in these settings are, by definition, among the most vulnerable in our society. They carry histories of trauma, abuse, neglect, family instability, and many have special needs. They are, in most cases, legally unable to leave. And in too many cases, the programs that vow to stabilize them instead destabilize them further, or worse, expose them to new forms of exploitation.

The trafficking conduit is not incidental. Traffickers are sophisticated. They know that youth who run from residential programs are often disoriented, without money, without phones, without trusted adults, and without any safe place to go. They are, in the cruelest possible way, ideal targets. When a facility has a chronic runaway problem and traffickers are waiting nearby, you don’t just have a safety gap. You have a pipeline.

It appears that is what Queen Creek has become. And it is happening in communities across this country.

What Unsilenced Is Doing

We are not standing on the sidelines watching.

Unsilenced has filed public records requests under the Arizona Public Records Law seeking the underlying documentation that the public deserves to see in connection with these facilities. This includes 911 call records from law enforcement dispatches to Canyon State Academy and Desert Lily Academy, DHHS inspection and licensing reports, incident and abuse investigation reports, and state child welfare oversight records related to both campuses.

Transparency is not optional. The families of children placed in these facilities, the taxpayers funding state contracts with private operators, and the survivors themselves are all entitled to know what these records show. We intend to make sure that information reaches the public.

Our work in building the Program Archive, which now encompasses more than 100,000 documents on over 3,500 facilities, reflects our long-standing commitment to exactly this kind of documentation and accountability. This situation in Queen Creek is going into that record.

What Needs to Happen

Accountability here requires action at multiple levels:

The Arizona Department of Child Safety must explain, in specific, documented terms, what oversight it has conducted of these facilities and what corrective actions it has taken or required. Vague statements about “trauma-responsive care” are not sufficient.

Rite of Passage must be transparent about staff screening practices, incident reporting protocols, and what concrete steps it has taken in response to years of documented harm.

Arizona lawmakers need to revisit the licensing and oversight framework governing residential youth programs in the state. Two thousand police calls at two facilities over three years is a policy failure, not just an operational one.

And at the federal level, we need meaningful enforcement of existing trafficking laws when children in state care are being exploited. The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) exists precisely to create accountability for cross-state placements. It needs to function as intended.

A Final Word

Every child who went missing from Canyon State or Desert Lily had a name. Had a family who once hoped this placement would help them. Had a future that deserved to unfold without exploitation.

The Troubled Teen Industry has spent decades hiding behind therapeutic language while children suffered. The situation in Queen Creek is a reminder that this is not a historical problem; it is happening right now, in facilities receiving public and government funding, under the watch of state child welfare agencies.

Unsilenced will continue to pursue records, support survivors, connect survivors to access to justice, and ensure that the people making decisions about these programs cannot claim they didn’t know.

Because now, they do.

If you have any information you’d like to submit to us regarding this investigation, you can do so here.

Meg Appelgate is the Founder and CEO of Unsilenced Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to ending institutional child abuse in the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI). She is an Amazon bestselling author and has served as an expert witness in TTI-related civil litigation.