By Julianne: 2004-2006 When I was 14 years old I was sent, against my will, to a residential treatment center in Utah. It was a Mormon-run, working cattle ranch. I had no history of drugs, violence, alcohol abuse, sex addiction, shopping addiction, any kind of addiction at all. I was sent to this program because [...]

By Beetle: 2017-2019 On October 27th, 2017, I was woken up at 2:07 am to two strangers coming into my room, dragging me out of bed, telling me I could go the easy way or the hard way and that I didn’t deserve to be with my family anymore. During my time being transported I was [...]

By Sacheen: 2019-2020 I sent my 15-year-old daughter to Kansas City Girls Academy in September of 2019 thinking it was my last hope and an answer to a desperate prayer. I later came to realize that this is how these programs prey on parents and ultimately make us unwitting partners in their victimization of our [...]

By Giovanna: 2019-2020 Basically, I was sent to this program a month before my fifteenth birthday due to extreme relationship dysfunction between men and my mother. Upon arrival, staff immediately told my mother to leave, and I was not allowed to say goodbye. I was strip searched by a woman I obviously hadn’t known a [...]

By Melissa: 2017-2019 On September 26, 2017, I was admitted to Columbus Girls Academy, an all-girls Teen Challenge program located right on the Georgia border in Seale, Alabama. I stayed there until I completed on February 11, 2019. I was freshly 17 when I was admitted and nearly 19 when I left. The program was [...]

By Sarah: 2017-2018 Wow, I have so much. My therapist, Alice, was super sensitive. I hurt her feelings a few times or she’d get sad by our conversations in therapy and she’d cry. Once she was offended because I told her I couldn’t continue discussing a triggering topic and I was crying and hyperventilating and [...]

By Bailey: 2018-2021 I was 13 when I emerged from the woods after a long and grueling 3 months at wilderness. I was 13 when they took me to Maple Lake Academy; I was a child. I still had hope at that point. When my parents wrote a letter to me during my stay at [...]

By Anonymous: 2021 I was sent to North Star in 2021 for feeling suicidal and depressed. I came into treatment asking for help, instead I received the opposite. Throughout my time there, I was in countless predicaments no child should have to witness, let alone go through themselves. Every patient was prescribed meds by their [...]

By Anonymous: 2007-2008 My parents were told that HHF could help me with my Bipolar and behavioral issues. There was a lawsuit a few years back regarding the school nurse. The school psychiatrist had left her a signed blank prescription pad, and the nurse would illegally prescribe medication to students. I was put on tranquilizers [...]

By Anonymous: 2016 My experience at the Deveraux Glenholme School in Washington, CT was nothing short of traumatic. I still remember the day on February 1st, 2016, I was only 12 years old. Now, almost 19 I still have nightmares every night. I’m not gonna make this too formal because there’s just so much to [...]