Issue Overview
The Troubled Teen Industry, which claims to “fix” struggling youth, warehouses an estimated 120,000 – 200,000 young people annually. Non-evidence-based approaches, including solitary confinement, physical restraint, sexual violence, and conversion therapy, are routinely used to control youth in these facilities.
Every year, youth at TTI facilities “age out” by turning 18 and leaving the program. However, poor relationships between youth and their families often leave many homeless and without resources.
Furthermore, the long-term physical, mental, financial, and other consequences often faced as a result of having been institutionally abused and neglected can make it hard for survivors to support themselves later in life.
Project Impact
Providing Independence Packs to struggling survivors will allow us to empower them with essential tools, information, and guidance on issues they may be naïve to due to their time in a facility. Together, these resources can help survivors re-integrate into society, stabilize, and begin on their healing journeys.
These packs will contain a backpack, a laptop preloaded with extensive resources, hygiene products, a book about the TTI, gift cards, and more to help survivors navigate life outside of the program.
Theory of Change
By providing resources to survivors who otherwise would have had no support, we can empower them to achieve their best potential and begin their paths to trauma recovery.
Empowering new survivors may help change their lives by giving them a sense of belonging to a community that can better connect them to resources essential to a healthy and equitable future.