122. Ending Institutionalized Child Abuse feat. Breaking Code Silence - THE TROUBLED TEEN INDUSTRY
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Today's guest is Bobby Cook, who is on the Breaking Code Silence team. Breaking Code Silence is a nonprofit organization that works to support and uplift survivors of the troubled teen industry (TTI) while promoting evidence-based alternatives to the TTI for present and future generations and their parents. In this episode, we discuss what exactly the TTI is and our difficult experiences with it, major red flags that families should avoid when seeking treatment programs for teens, struggles faced by teens after they leave these programs and barriers they face in seeking justice, and how people can get involved to help shut down these programs for good.
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About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)
After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.
a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!
[00:00:00] Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.
[00:00:19] You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.
[00:00:37] So let's dive in this week on She persisted.
[00:00:42] Bobby: you're having young women, young men. Children cuz we are seeing programs that take children that are younger than the teenage level, that are forcibly removed from their home.
[00:00:53] They don't know where they're going, they don't know what plane they're getting on. There is no information. Generally, they're gonna be handcuffed or zip tied. Mm-hmm. . And these programs promote, we'll transport them. If they resist us and we know there's gonna be an issue at the airport, we'll transport them until they give in and then we'll jump on an airplane.
[00:01:11] Sadie: Quick disclaimer. All statements in this episode are opinions. The purpose of this episode is not to target or attack certain organizations and individuals, but rather ask the question, How can we ensure ethical evidence-based compassionate mental health treatment for all teenagers?
[00:01:26] With that, let's dive in.
[00:01:27] Hello, hello and welcome back to She Persisted. I'm so excited you're here today we are talking about something that is very important, very near and dear to my heart, which is breaking code silence and the work they're doing to increase regulation and the trouble teen industry.
[00:01:41] I've done a handful of episodes on this in the past, and I'll make sure to link them in the show notes. So that if this sparks your interest. You can kind of do a deep dive into these different episodes, hear different people's stories, hear my experience, et cetera. And if you're also like, what is the trouble Dean Industry, I will also explain that in this introduction.
[00:01:57] So don't worry. But today's guest is Bobby Cook. He is on the breaking code Silence team. He gives a great explanation of. What he does, what breaking code silence does, their mission and also his background in the trouble team industry, which was really just amazing to hear and to have him share his story and why he's so passionate about this.
[00:02:16] His conversation is so educational and enlightening. Since my experience at a therapeutic boarding school and kind of being somewhat involved in this world and being aware of what bringing co silence is doing and all of the work that still needs to be done to increase regulation of these programs.
[00:02:31] I've wanted to have someone from breaking code silence on she persisted because they are at the forefront of this work. They are so educated and insightful, so I emailed, They said, Yes. I am so excited that we got to do this interview and have this conversation
[00:02:45] so we talked about the history of the trouble team industry. We talked about NAS app, we talked about breaking code, silence, next steps, anything and everything relating to that. And I also wanted to add here that a great place to start with kind of learning about this is the Paris Hilton documentary it's called, This is Paris.
[00:03:00] And in the documentary she talks a lot about her personal experiences in the trouble teen industry. She talks about some programs that she went to and you see her journey to work with survivors to get her program shut down. Unfortunately, still open, but steps are being made. And they just did an amazing job illustrating what these programs are like, how they can impact and affect so many teens.
[00:03:23] And I think that's just a great place to start if you are going into this blind. So I'll link that in the show notes, but to give you some stats and information about the troubled teen industry and breaking code silence before we start.
[00:03:36] So the trouble teen industry, specifically in the US is a network of privately owned programs. They're often wilderness based residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools, group homes, boot camps, and faith-based academies that are marketing behavioral change, and.
[00:03:55] Mental health treatments to parents. And the difference between these programs in the trouble team industry and programs like three East at McLean Hospital, which is where I went to residential and I speak so highly of is the lack of regulation and the lack of evidence-based treatment and the lack of communication, and also the very much so illegal and unethical things that happen here at these programs, which we will dive into in this conversation.
[00:04:20] I do wanna add at the beginning of this episode that mental health treatment and mental health care works. It changed my life. It saved my life. I am so eternally grateful to three East and McLean Hospital, and the wonderful collection of doctors and therapists and team members there for using evidence based dialectical behavioral treatment for working collaboratively, for involving my family.
[00:04:45] And forgetting me, the help and support that I needed when I was truly at my lowest point. Therapy works. Mental health treatment works. It's an amazing resource, and that's why it's so important to regulate these programs because the last thing you want is when you finally get the strength and the courage to ask for help, and then you start to pursue that help when you are met with unethical, ineffective, and sometimes more traumatizing treatments.
[00:05:11] You just go in the opposite direction, and it's so heartbreaking to know that people are at their lowest point. They're just looking for support and help, and they're met with the. And another caveat that I wanna add here is that what's so again heartbreaking about this is a lot of the times parents don't realize until after the fact these programs are expert marketers.
[00:05:32] They're saying exactly what parents want to hear, which is that we can help your child, we can fix your child. They will stop suffering. They will stop being in pain . And that's all a parent wants to hear because it's their worst nightmare to see their child struggling in such a big way.
[00:05:46] And so after they're like, Yes, please help me. This is amazing. Your child is then put into these trouble teen programs. And one of the signs of these is a huge lack of communication between the parents and the child.
[00:05:59] So that line of communication isn't upheld and then it becomes very difficult for. The teen to be able to say something isn't right so those caveats, which is one that mental health treatment is so important and effective and amazing, which is why there should be a high standard of care for all of these programs so that when you pursue mental health, Care pursue support.
[00:06:19] You get support and you get evidence-based care, which is what you should be getting in the first place. And second, this conversation is not directed at parents who are just doing their best in trying to get their child support. Again, this is about increasing regulation, education around trouble, team industry programs.
[00:06:36] So numbers on the trouble team industry, which again we talked about is therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness programs, faith-based academies, behavioral change programs, et cetera. There are over 6,000 under-regulated congregate care facilities just in the United States.
[00:06:51] There's over 23 billion of public funding spent on troubled families. There is over 200,000 children and teens placed in congregate care annually, not all time annually, and there's zero federal legislation overseeing these trouble team industry programs. Those are some really shocking statistics to hear because it doesn't seem right that youth are put into 6,000 programs that are funded with 23 billion and there's zero federal legislation. But that is the facts. That is the statistics here.
[00:07:22] So to kind of clarify what makes a trouble team industry program harmful, there's a very extensive list on the breaking code silence website, which I'll link in the show notes, but to give you a couple of ideas and red flags to be aware of. And if you yourself have been in treatment and you're like, Oh my gosh, all of those were at my program, kind of recognizing and if maybe you're a parent looking at programs, just things to be aware of .
[00:07:45] So the program recommends involuntary admits, which means that the teen is put into this program without consent, without permission. They are signed up without any autonomy in the process. And as I've shared many times, a huge part of my journey was when I got to three East at McLean Hospital and they asked me, Do you wanna be here?
[00:08:04] They made it very clear. Three East was a voluntary program and that it only works if you are an active participant and you want to be there and you're motivated to get better and improve and you trust your care providers. You want to be involved in the process. And I pinpoint that as the moment that everything shifted for me because I went from.
[00:08:23] Going through the motions of being in therapy and outpatient programs, but not believing that change was truly possible and not trusting people to help me, to deciding that I wanted to get better, trusting others and then allowing the process to happen. And again, that was a lot of difficult, tough work that went in there.
[00:08:40] So that's kind of the difference between an involuntary admit where your parents sign somewhere on a dotted line and you don't have any role in the process, versus being very involved and having your autonomy over yourself and your healthcare. The second one to mention is that the program recommends forceful transportation or escort services.
[00:09:01] This was referred to during my time in the troubled teen industry as Gooning, and I've never been gooned, thank goodness. I can't even imagine how traumatizing of an experience this is. But basically, your parents or your guardians hire a transport service and you're woken up in the middle of the night to kind of catch you off guard and.
[00:09:19] You're physically transported from your home to the program and if anyone's woken up in the middle of the night by strangers in your room, many of these teens are like, I'm being kidnapped, I'm being taken, and you're screaming and crying for help. And most of these transport programs legally require a parent to watch.
[00:09:37] So you're watching your parents watch you get kidnapped and being taken across the country or to a different state without knowing where you're going. And again, having no autonomy or control over this process. A third thing is that the program is not State licensed accredited for at least three components, which is educational, mental and behavioral health, and residential.
[00:09:55] A really great example of this and at the end of the central, I'll kind of give a really brief overview of my experience with the tribal and teen industry, is basic educational things. At the therapeutic boarding school I went to, one of the reasons why it was so attractive to my parents and me as well is that I could continue my education.
[00:10:12] Pursuing mental health treatment comes at a huge cost, especially if you are a teen and you're supposed to be in high school or college. And so to be able to go to school while also getting mental health care was a great idea. But because this school really wasn't adequately accredited, my science teacher in my sophomore year of high school didn't have a teaching license.
[00:10:31] His only experience was he was a pre-med student in college before he dropped out and joined the forestry service. And so if there's a red flag there in the educational sector , it's only an indicator of how unaccredited and unlicensed other areas within the program can be.
[00:10:46] the fourth one is that the program uses a contract with terms that ask the parent to sign over their custodial rights or agree to not report child abuse. So what that means is that when you enter these programs, your parents give up their custody of you. And this was something that happened to me when I went to the therapeutic boarding school in Montana when I started my 14 months there, my parents had to sign a document. Enter the program without doing this, where they signed over 51% of my custody. So my parents weren't responsible for me. This corporate organization was actually, I think the person that legally had responsibility for me was the tech guy on campus.
[00:11:24] And so like I just. My experience at McLean Hospital was amazing and they never required my parents to sign over 51% of custody. I had much more intensive and extensive mental health care at McLean, and that was never something that was required. That is not a standard of care for medical care, for mental health care, to give up custody and give it to a program.
[00:11:47] The reason that they do this is that they can make all decisions on your behalf. You don't have to give consent for things. They can give consent. And so that is a huge red flag. No program should be requiring that because it's not a standard of care and it's not necessary. The next one is that the program employs mostly uneducated or undertrained staff to handle the majority of the day-to-day care of the children.
[00:12:08] While there might be one or two therapists on staff, your child or you are probably only seeing that therapist, what, a couple hours a week? My experience was. 10, 12 hours a day, the entire weekend, overnight, I was with high school educated staff members with no experience in the mental health.
[00:12:26] And so when we were in a crisis, when we were really struggling, when there were really real behavioral challenges occurring in these teens, the people that were handling it were undereducated and under trained staff members. And that, again, is a huge difference at McLean, people that are teaching skills and that are the day to day people that you are interacting with.
[00:12:47] Most of these. Adults were pursuing a degree in psychology, potentially. They had other experience in the mental health industry. They were extensively trained. They knew D B T like the back of their hands so that they were trained and equipped to handle a crisis mode.
[00:13:03] There was always therapists on staff. The therapists were there 10 to 12 hours a day, meeting with other patients, doing other things, really a huge 180 from the therapeutic boarding school.
[00:13:12] The second to last thing that I'll mention, and again, there's like 15, 20, maybe even 30 of these that you can look in depth on the breaking code silence website. . But the second to last one is that the program only allows monitored or limited telephone communication with parents. When I was at this therapeutic boarding school, you were not able to have phone calls with your parents until you reached the third level.
[00:13:33] And for most people, that was like three to six months of being at this program. And when you did earn that privilege, the privilege that you were earning was a five minute supervised call once a week. This is hugely abnormal for mental healthcare.
[00:13:47] Whenever I was in a psychiatric ward, whenever I was at McLean, there was open access to phones. Of course, there are certain limitations sometimes, like when I was at McLean, we created an approved list and I was involved in that process. It was like these are friends that are really healthy and supportive and that I will call, that I know will be effective in my treatment.
[00:14:06] And these are family members and this is my parents' number and I could call them as many times a day as I wanted. And of course they were like, Sadie, we're not gonna answer if you call us 12 times a day. Normal parents, I don't blame you. But that was an option. I was allowed to call them. In the adolescent psych units in California, at least the one I went to there was open phone access. Anytime you wanted to call someone, you just went to the phone. You dialed. Having extremely limited, We're talking five minutes a week, once a week supervised, or maybe an hour once a week with a therapist present doing family therapy.
[00:14:35] That is not normal and that is not a standard of care, especially for teens when family dynamics and family relationships are of the utmost importance. The last one that I'll mention is that the duration of the internment at the program is really ambiguous. There's an indefinite detainment. I remember at three East the guidelines were very set forth.
[00:14:56] There was a minimum stay, which I think was 28 days. There was a standard length of stay, which was four to six weeks, and I remember even when I was there, I think they adjusted it because they were like, You know what we're. Patients are having more effective outcomes from saying six to eight weeks rather than four to six.
[00:15:11] And so they adjusted that based on what they were seeing in Montana, this length of stay was literally all over the place. I remember there were girls that were there for 11 months. There were girls that were there for three years, there were girls that were getting pulled left and right, and were there for only a couple weeks or a couple of months. There really was not a standard of care.
[00:15:31] And I remember that when I went into the Montana program, we were like, maybe best case scenario, it would be possible for me to go home and do my spring of sophomore year at home. And then it was like, okay. We knew, that was getting our hopes up. So end of sophomore year, a hundred percent, I won't be at home.
[00:15:48] And then it ended up being like, I barely got home for junior year. They didn't want me to leave. My parents were like, We're done. We're, we're leaving. This is the end of this experience. She is good. She is fine. She's coming home. So that extreme flexibility of people's lengths of stay being like six months, eight months to three years is not a standard of care.
[00:16:08] And you guys have heard me say this before, but whenever I'm like, Is mental health stigma coming into play here? I always check these things against standards of care for physical health, or I check how I would think about a physical health problem versus a mental health problem
[00:16:21] if you were going to do physical therapy for a broken leg, they would give you an estimate of time that you would be doing the physical therapy program for. Yes, maybe it would adjust based on how you were performing or how you were healing. But there would be an estimated length of stay, not maybe eight months, maybe through years.
[00:16:37] Right. And there are certain markers you're meeting, you know what you have to do to leave. That was not the case at the therapeutic boarding school that I was at. So again, so many red flags in these programs, and you can look at the full list, but just some basic ones to be aware of and to kind of, again, clarify what these programs are like. So the last thing that I wanna mention here, now that we kind of have an understanding of what exactly. Vaguely. The trouble team industry is some stats, what to look for.
[00:17:05] What makes these programs part of the trouble team industry. We've emphasized that this is not a reflection of parents. This is a reflection of the industry. We've emphasized that mental healthcare works, it's so important and that's why getting these programs accredited and overseeing is so crucial.
[00:17:20] I'm gonna talk very vaguely about my experience to give a little bit of a foundation, and also explain why I'm so passionate about this. So I went to a therapeutic boarding school after my 14 weeks at McLean. I was there for 14 months, and like I mentioned, there was a many things that were not up to standard of what things should be like at a mental health facility.
[00:17:37] The vast majority of staff members that we were interacting with only required a high school education and no mental health experience. Staff were all trained on site, which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, I believe McClain also trained their team members on site. But there's a difference between training on site at the number one mental hospital in the world that's a Harvard accredited med school and has like a hundred years of experience and evidence-based practices that you're using and training on site with people whose only experiences at that program have no further education. And again, no other experience within the mental health field. So you can kind of see the difference between training on site there. But, the vast majority of people we are interacting with were undereducated and undertrained during my time. There was no psychologist on staff.
[00:18:23] There was a psychiatrist who would come every month, maybe every three months to check in with patients, but there wasn't a psychiatrist on staff. It was more like he came and visited patients. Again, very different from a claim where I think there was like three or four psychiatrists on staff that you were meeting with on almost a weekly basis.
[00:18:38] To my knowledge now, there are no psychologists on staff. They have people that are doing therapy with a Master's of education and, no degree in psychology. They were not sticking to an evidence-based therapy modality. Again, at McLean, they used dialectical behavioral therapy, which is dozens of studies supporting that. There was no therapeutic modality being used. You kind of just showed up for a session. You talked about things, and hopefully things shifted.
[00:19:04] The contact with parents and teens was another huge red flag. The therapeutic boarding school I went to, again, at the beginning there was no contact. You then could fax letters twice a week to your parents. You had supervised family therapy calls with a therapist once a week.
[00:19:21] Not all teens there had that, but most of them did. And then once you were there for about three to six months, you earned the privilege of a supervised phone call once a week. It wasn't until you were probably in your last month of the program that you earned the privilege of having your own. . again, the academics were really under-regulated.
[00:19:37] I remember part of the credits that I received in high school were me literally teaching myself on a computer, Spanish and history and all of these things. and so if that's what the academic standards are, and this is a therapeutic boarding school, imagine what the standards were for therapy and mental health care.
[00:19:53] Needless to say that experience was not the greatest for me. And I want to emphasize that it was one of the better programs in the industry. My parents looked at so many therapeutic boarding schools to try and figure out what my next step would be from ala.
[00:20:07] And that was the best one that they found. And to know that the best one that was out there was still not. Held to the standard of care that all programs should be. Just breaks my heart to think about what other teens are going through and what I know they were going through because it's so many teens at this therapeutic boarding school, came straight from wilderness therapy and we've done episodes on that in the past, which I'll link in the show notes, but I really wanna emphasize there that this is one of the good programs.
[00:20:32] So that speaks volumes to what these other programs have occurring, and Bobby talks about this a lot in this episodes. There many children, many teens have died in these programs. There have been many long term health issues. There are people that are being physically restrained, put in isolation, starved.
[00:20:50] These programs are really, really terrible and. Across the board. We need better regulation. And I'm grateful that my experience was one that was emotionally a little bit difficult to navigate, but my physical health was okay and I made it to the other side, So with that kind of foundation established, I hope you guys learn a lot from this episode. I hope you find it valuable and informative and educational and it's something that I'm really proud of and it's a cause that I am very passionate about. So with that, let's hear from Bobby about all things trouble team industry, and breaking code silence.
[00:21:27] Thank you so much for joining me today, Bobby. I'm so excited to have you on the show and just to be able to pick your brain about this super important topic and provide a lot of answers for listeners that I can only give so much advice on.
[00:21:39] Bobby: Thank you for having me. It's a honor to be able to speak out about something like this.
[00:21:44] Sadie: Yeah. So to start, can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you started working with breaking code? Silence.
[00:21:50] Bobby: Yeah, so in 2002 I was sent to a facility in Dahlonega, Georgia called Hidden Lake Academy. I was a standard teenager who had some. Family issues. And I had skipped a couple classes and the school that I was attending at the time had recommended that I get psychological evaluation and that turned into recommending an educational consultant which then turned into me being recommended to a program.
[00:22:17] And I was actually, I ended up at the program for 29 months. Wow. And so after I left that program, I spent a lot of years with people not believing me about my story and about the things that happened within those facilities, the traumas that we experienced, the abuse that we saw and experienced ourselves.
[00:22:37] And about two years ago, a close personal friend of mine who I was at the program with, introduced me to a group called Bricky Code Silence, and I joined that organization with the mission to protect children from ever having to experience. Anything that I experienced as a survivor of a program and to really make sure that there was legislation and laws passed that really promoted a youth bill of rights and protecting children from these atrocities.
[00:23:02] Yeah. And so that my role just grew with the organization and I'm now currently the COO and executive director with break and code Silence and trying to promote that mission and really protect those.
[00:23:13] Sadie: You guys are doing such important work, and whenever I get questions about this, my first direction is go to the website, look at what you guys are doing, because it's, again, such important work and so few people know about it, which is crazy and we'll kind of touch on the numbers there, but so many teens have been affected by these programs.
[00:23:29] So many teens have gone through them or have had a friend experience them. So it's a very widespread issue, and yet we're not having this conversation as much as we should. . I completely agree
[00:23:39] Bobby: with you.
[00:23:40] Sadie: Yeah. So you mentioned a couple of terms that I wanna clarify for listeners. The first one, very basically is the trouble teen industry for mm-hmm.
[00:23:48] listeners that aren't familiar with that and they know that mental health care programs are out there. What exactly is the trouble teen industry, how did it start and how do you kind of distinguish a teen program from other adolescent mental health?
[00:24:02] Bobby: So the trouble team industry is a collective of schools and programs across the country, across the world nowadays.
[00:24:09] Yeah. that promote mental health. Treatment for children and teens. They also promote behavior modification therapies that are supposed to help a family with a teen that is struggling different realms. It could be something such as mental health. It could be something in the realm of behavioral issues such as sexual proclivities, smoking weed, different realms where parents don't understand how to help their children correct those actions or get
[00:24:35] their children, the help that they're looking for. And really, this has been around a lot longer than people realize it has been. We're finding research that shows that there's been facilities like this since the 18 hundreds. Wow. But what we're really discovering was there was a group that came outta California in the 1960s and seventies called Syon, and It was supposed to be a take on aa, na, all those different drug rehabilitation offerings that were out there.
[00:25:02] And what they did was they created new kinds of therapy and that group really kind of exploded into what is now being called one of the most dangerous cults that has ever walked the face of North America. And a lot of the people took those ideals and they decided that, hey, these modules really.
[00:25:18] Benefit children and we saw programs like Straight Incorporated come out and these were really facilities where children were placed in them with no realm of contact to the outside and were heavily monitored and started to become abusive. Yeah, we were, were seeing isolation and restraint through the history of these programs.
[00:25:37] We're seeing a neglect of medical care and basic necessities. We're seeing families torn apart. We're seeing children verbally and physically attacking each other in therapy sessions to break each other down, to remold them into a certain fashion. And this industry, really took off with those base ideals of what Syon had.
[00:25:58] And there was a group called Cdu, C E D U, that spun off. They started opening up high schools and then a group came along called wasp the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs, and they started taking those ideals and reforming them into ways they saw appropriate. And this just kind of massively spread across the world.
[00:26:19] I mean, we're seeing facilities in Europe and Jamaica and Mexico
[00:26:24] Sadie: at a friend in Brazil, like South America. Yeah.
[00:26:29] Bobby: Yeah, and it just, it really took off with these weird ideations that these groups had about how you could change a child's behavior. Yeah, and it really led down to that, as I said, that ideal of breaking someone down to a point that you could rebuild them in a fashion that you felt appropriate.
[00:26:48] Parents are excluded from those conversations. A lot of the time parents don't understand the therapies that are used. Those tactics, as I said, such as isolation and restraints. And really this industry started profiting off of parents who were. Yeah. And parents who were so desperate to find help for their children that they would do anything at any cost.
[00:27:07] Yeah. And it just continued to grow and grow. And I mean, we're seeing, with the history of this, we're seeing programs opening monthly still across the country. Yeah. and they have a history of a program will shut down, but then it'll reopen under a different name. Yeah. The same leaders
[00:27:23] Sadie: will open another program, or the, the directors will move around to all these different locations.
[00:27:29] Bobby: We're, we're even seeing certain groups that had multiple facilities shut down. All of a sudden they're open under a different name and it's the same people who own them. They just founded a new healthcare. Yeah, to go that route or they bring in a different investor so they can put their names on something.
[00:27:45] Yeah. And then with the history of the tti, what we're seeing is really there are other groups behind the scenes that really promote and focus on these programs. The founder of my program actually founded one that is out there that certifies an accredited. These programs and their approval seal goes on every single website for every one of these programs.
[00:28:07] And you're seeing thousands of facilities with this one stamp of approval and it just grows and grows. And they have a whole industry of what we call educational consultants, which are people who are paid to recommend
[00:28:18] Sadie: schools like this. That's what I want my next question, Educational consultants. If you were going through this as a parent, would you get an educational consultant to find you a program?
[00:28:28] Bobby: No, I would. And this isn't just my, because of my history. Yeah. In general, I would not, because a lot of the times what we're seeing statistically is that educational consultants are told about these programs, but they're not doing the research that's involved. They're not going back and looking at the history of a program and seeing if there were lawsuits, if there were abuse cases that were going on.
[00:28:51] We're seeing educational consultants promote programs these days in which children are.
[00:28:57] Sadie: Yeah, and when they did visit, they visited our program on multiple occasions. We would be show ponies. They would pick three or four girls that had advanced very far through the program, had been there for months.
[00:29:08] We would eat in a separate dining hall, eat a separate meal, cooked by a different chef. We would talk to them about different things that were going on, and they weren't asking the questions about what the actual process was. I mean you can find great programs without an educational consultant. I went to a residential program at McLean Hospital before my time in the trouble teen industry.
[00:29:30] Saved my life. Changed my life. Evidence based, highly effective. My parents were very involved, Can't speak highly of it enough. No educational consultant helped them find that program. They did that research
[00:29:41] Bobby: themselves. No, and you know, to touch base on what you were saying about how they kind.
[00:29:46] Show pony children. Yeah. That's what these programs do with parents as well that are perspective for these programs. Yeah. You see these beautiful flyers and brochures. You see all these images online of children smiling, riding horses, swimming in a pool, playing at a lake, and the reality of the program is not what you're seeing in those photos because, They do exactly what you just described.
[00:30:08] They know that they're gonna have, say, five prospective parents on campus. Yeah. They will select those few children, or in the case of my program, they did what they called field days. All of a sudden there were inflatables, there was cotton candy machines, and oh no. The parents weren't taken down to that area, but all they could see from a distance was all these children running around a lakeside or a soccer field having fun.
[00:30:32] And then there would be three or four specific children who were chosen to guide them around that had a script almost that they were to follow. Yeah. And certain questions, we were told to direct them to other people. We were not allowed to answer specifics on what our therapy was like. We could only answer specifics on what's your daily schedule.
[00:30:49] I wake up at 6:00 AM. We clean our dorm rooms. We have breakfast, we go to school after school. There's activities. We have dinner, we have study hall, we go to bed on the weekends. Sometimes we watch a movie or we go down to the student center. Yeah. And that was our script. And they do that with the educational consultants as well as the parents just so there is no liability from them.
[00:31:10] From a future perspective, parent or educational consultant says, Hey, maybe something's wrong here.
[00:31:14] Sadie: Yeah.
[00:31:15] you guys know I am a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, which means that I am constantly studying and preparing for tests and doing readings and all of the things, and it takes a lot of focus and requires me to be as effective and productive as possible so I can also do the things I love, like the podcast and work and all of these other things that also take attention.
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[00:32:44] Again, that is magic mind.co/sheets resisted and get 40% off your subscription. 40%. That's insane. So use code. She persisted for 40% off for the next 10 days.
[00:32:58] So to put some numbers to this, how many teens are within this industry and it's very profitable, which I think a lot of people don't realize. So if you could kind of give some numbers to listeners about A, how many teens are either currently there or have gone through these programs, and then how much these programs are making as a whole from profiting off this very vulnerable popul.
[00:33:19] Bobby: So what we're seeing statistically is right now there's upwards of probably 2000 programs that are up and running right now. Student wise children within the programs, we're seeing anywhere from 150 to 200,000 children being affected at these moments. We cannot even begin to put a number on the amount of children that have been through something like this.
[00:33:39] Yeah. After 20 years of being outside of a program and being part of different survivor communities, some of these communities that are on social media have 7,000 members. Some of 'em have 30,000 members. The history of these programs, how long they've been running, we really can't put a number to how many have been through a situation like.
[00:33:59] But when you talk about the profiting that these programs are making, it depends on what realm you're talking about. The profit coming from. There's multiple avenues that these programs make money. They make 'em off of parents who have the money to pay cash. That is one way that they market this. They use healthcare insurance.
[00:34:17] And they have gone now as far as to using TRICARE in military Veterans health insurance to help pay for these programs. The federal government and the juvenile court systems have paid into these kind of systems because when you have a child in foster care that's struggling, that's sent to one of these programs, or a child that's court ordered, the government or the state ends up paying.
[00:34:37] And right now tuition. It drastically ranges, but I mean, we're looking, if you're talking about a residential treatment center, it could be upwards of $12,000 a month. It could be some, some programs charge something like $40,000 a month. Yeah. If you're looking at a wilderness program, which is a whole different realm of this industry of wilderness therapeutic treatment where children are gone for 70 or 80 days hiking out in the woods that could cost a parent upwards of a thousand dollars.
[00:35:05] Sadie: So talk to me about wilderness programs, because I feel like that is one of the most common first points of entry into this industry. What exactly is a wilderness program? And to your knowledge, is there any research supporting wilderness programs and positive outcomes for these diagnoses? ,
[00:35:24] Bobby: that's a great question. So when looking at wilderness programs, what the ideal is? The model we're finding really started in about the 1940s in Texas. Mm-hmm. . There were other models that really tried to prove how effective this was that came out of places like BYU in the sixties.
[00:35:40] Yeah, of course.
[00:35:41] Sadie: It's byu It's always byu. My school is run by
[00:35:44] Bobby: Mormons , The, the religious tie and especially the Roma, Utah. It's massive. Yeah. The model is supposed to be you strip a child of all conveniences. Mm-hmm. . They don't have access to email or television or cell phones, social media, showers. showers is a big one. Food's a massive one. Medical care is the other big one. But what they do is they really promote this ideal that we're gonna take your child out. We're gonna strip them of those conveniences, we're gonna teach them.
[00:36:11] How to take appreciation for those things that they no longer have, and we're gonna do therapy with them on a daily basis. Well, that therapy is consisting of hiking. All day long. I mean, you know, we're not, we're not just talking like a mile or two, we're talking 13, 14 miles. We're talking that they're carrying backpacks that have 70 or 80 pounds in 'em so that some of them,
[00:36:32] Sadie: they have to build their own backpacks with tarps and sticks.
[00:36:35] Bobby: Yes, there was one associated with my program that also shut down where they actually force the children how to learn how to make a raft. Out of their backpack so that they could safely cross a river. Okay. But what we're seeing is that when they're doing all this hiking, the children are malnourished, they're not getting the appropriate amount of water.
[00:36:56] The food is very basic. It could be something as simple as just a bowl of rice. It could be something towards the effect of military ready to eat meal. Yeah. It all depend. But we're seeing evidence now of programs where the children don't even have correct hiking boots.
[00:37:09] They're wandering around in rubber flip flops in the desert in the middle of the winter because their feet need to breathe after they have boots on, and they're being told that if they want to eat and they wanna have a hot meal, figure out how to cert her with sticks. Yeah. They've taken this back to a very primitive.
[00:37:26] But then in return, they are pad locking these children's tents at night and putting motion alarms on them. So these children aren't allowed to get up to go out to the bathroom. In the middle of the wilderness, they're basically handed a jug and said, You know, here's your bathroom. I know that you're in a tent with someone else.
[00:37:41] Privacy doesn't matter. They strip you of all basic rights as a human, but also as a. And they're really, really pushing this. And as I said, these programs are costing parents upwards of a thousand dollars a day. And they're promoting things nowadays such as technology addiction. We've found a program that is taking children as young as eight for sexual addiction.
[00:38:02] Wow. And then they promote, and this, this goes hand in hand with not only the residential treatment facilities, but also the wilderness facilities that we're seeing. They'll tell a parent, Your child, 90 days we'll have them fixed. At the end of 90 days, they're coming back and saying, You know what, There's still some issues.
[00:38:20] We need to keep them another 90 days. Well, all of a sudden, your child's there seven months instead of a month and a half when it comes to residential treatment facilities. We're seeing the same, the same conversation. Your child hasn't done the therapy like they're supposed to. They haven't moved up the levels they need to, so they need to stay here longer, and they will continue to keep a child as long as insurance is paying or the parents are willing to pay the cash.
[00:38:42] Yeah. But on the flip side of it, the parents don't realize. The expenses aren't only what they're paying for tuition programs are now coming and saying, Hey, there's this therapy. It wasn't included in tuition. We need you to pay for this. Oh, hey, by the way, a bottle of body wash that you know was a suave brand is gonna be $40 to you instead of the dollar 85 that it costs at Walmart.
[00:39:04] Yeah. And parents aren't seeing those costs associated until well after the.
[00:39:08] Sadie: What about children that are referred from wilderness programs to therapeutic boarding schools? Owned by the same company you get hooked for four weeks. You're like 90 days in the woods, but then they're like, No, 12 months at this school.
[00:39:22] Bobby: Oh, that, I mean, that's one of the, That's one of the most common practices that is out there in this industry. Yeah. Is every one of these schools has an association. Some sort of psychologist, some sort of consultant, and then they're tied somehow to one of these wilderness programs so that if the child is being too extreme within the residential treatment center, there's a wilderness program that they can go to, and then they,
[00:39:46] Sadie: multiple times at my school, it's, it's a real thing.
[00:39:48] Bobby: Yeah. I mean, well, at, at my program, at Hit Lake Academy, the wilderness program was, Less than half a mile on the same property. Oh my God. So if you were acting out too much, you were just sent down the road, across the bridge into the woods. Wow. To a program owned by the same school. Wow. And that's just such a common practice that we're seeing is this back and forth because all it does is it keeps money flowing back and forth into the system.
[00:40:15] And we're talking that this is an over a billion dollar industry. Yeah. They're really finding any aspect they can to make that money. So if they partner with a wilderness program, it's, Well, if we refer them, is there a cut that they're receiving? We don't know. We're not seeing those statistics cuz they're hiding those things from us.
[00:40:32] Yeah. We have our suspicions. Yeah.
[00:40:36] Sadie: You also don't see this in adult mental health care. Never would an adult be put in the woods without their consent because that. It's like agreeing to participate is so crucial in adult mental health care that's not there in teens. You don't have to consent. And also, like you mentioned, they're telling these very vulnerable parents exactly what they wanna hear, which is we can help you.
[00:41:02] We have this solution, we know your child is in pain and we can solve this problem for you. Which, What makes this so saddening is so many parents don't realize what's going on at these programs.
[00:41:13] Bobby: Well, no, and I mean, you know, the other realm that you don't see in adults or with adults necessarily is something else that's not as talked about within this industry.
[00:41:22] You don't see two gentlemen showing up at two o'clock in the morning dressed in all black. Yeah, ticking your door open and saying you're going somewhere against your will and then escorting you on a bus or a plane, or in a car or on a train, However, To get somewhere that you go against your will across state lines.
[00:41:38] Yeah. But with children, parents will hire these people because that's what the programs are recommending. Paid kidnapping.
[00:41:43] Sadie: Yeah. It,
[00:41:44] Bobby: it, it really is. I mean, and it's happening across state lines. It's almost, it's on the same level as human trafficking. Yeah,
[00:41:52] Sadie: and it's, it's so traumatic.
[00:41:54] Almost all of the girls that were at my boarding school, they called it Gooning, and they, Yes, they remembered vividly at 3:00 AM these people showing up in their home. And the parents legally have to watch so that the kids know, or quote unquote, know that they're not actually being kidnapped by a stranger.
[00:42:09] But then you're taken by these people physically, forcefully, to this program without your consent, without any knowledge beforehand, and it's extremely traumatic.
[00:42:19] Bobby: Well, and then you're, you're witnessing nowadays they have regulations that state if there are other children in the house, make sure that they're not around to witness this.
[00:42:27] Yeah. Yeah. You know, 20 years ago that wasn't the case. Mm-hmm. and even that was in the household. And now they're actually telling parents, Let us into the house while you all stand outside the house. Yeah. And you, you're having young women, young men. Children cuz we are seeing programs that take children that are younger than the teenage level, that are forcibly removed from their home.
[00:42:50] They don't know where they're going, they don't know what plane they're getting on. There is no information. Generally, they're gonna be handcuffed or zip tied. Mm-hmm. . And these programs promote, we'll transport them. If they resist us and we know there's gonna be an issue at the airport, we'll transport them until they give in and then we'll jump on an airplane.
[00:43:08] Yeah. We're so intimidating that a child will give in soon. Believe me, with the size that we are, this child will give in very shortly. We're seeing that constantly as a promotion for these programs and these programs utilize, I don't know, there's probably 30 of these transport companies out there that, that are all well known within the.
[00:43:27] Sadie: Yeah. And you just go on the website, you like book your $1,500 child transport, come tomorrow. It's the craziest thing. Yes. So for parents that are listening to this episode and are like my, my child needs help, we've tried everything, what should you look for? What are these red flags in programs? On websites?
[00:43:48] Talking to people to be aware of where you're like, something might not be right. I don't know if I should send my kid.
[00:43:55] Bobby: So there's numerous ones that we look for. When we see red flags. First and foremost, if you talk to a school and they tell you that there's gonna be limited communication with your child at the beginning of their program, that is one of the most major red flags.
[00:44:09] Communication is one of the highest. Levels of control that they have because they will monitor every word a child says to make sure that the child isn't quote unquote, not manipulating the parents into getting outta the program. Also, if something extreme has happened, like a child goes to the hospital, a child has died, they don't want that information getting back to the parents, so they will control what is said.
[00:44:30] They will cut off communication or they will say, You can't call your. , you can only send them a letter and they read these letters back and forth. Yeah, I
[00:44:38] Sadie: remember. So when I was in a mental hospital, or when I was at McClain, I called my parents like three times a day. We would check in.
[00:44:45] Mm-hmm. , we would chat, we have therapy. I just wanted to say hi. I could call them. I could call friends if they were approved in healthy contents. Mm-hmm we had open access to a phone when I went to the school in Montana. Not only were you not allowed to, Call a parent until you were on the third level, which sometimes took kids six months to get to.
[00:45:03] Right. If you were granted a social call, say for a birthday, it was supervised. I remember just getting on these phone calls and sobbing. Mm-hmm. and refusing to ask to leave because I was told if you asked to leave, you haven't accepted the program. That's a red flag you'll get put back on an earlier level.
[00:45:18] But then once you did get on the third level, you got that social call. It was five minutes, monitored once a week and that
[00:45:24] Bobby: was all, within my program, I think I was three minutes of a phone call a week. That's crazy monitored. I was allowed to talk to, at the, at the beginning I was only allowed to communicate with my aunt and uncle who were my guardians who had sent me to the program.
[00:45:38] Yeah. About four months in, I was allowed to email on Monitored Communications to my mother and my grandparents. And then it was like 16 months in, I could have two approved friends that I could talk to 20 months in. I was allowed to see those friends when I went home for a visit. Which, you know, those are the other red flags you look for when they'd tell you that you're not allowed to see your child for months upon months upon.
[00:46:02] Red flag.
[00:46:03] Sadie: When was at ACC claim, my parents flew out every weekend. We spent the night together, we'd go and practice building our relationship. That was essential. Mm-hmm. In moving forward in this program, because that family relationship was so crucial and pivotal in
[00:46:16] Bobby: recovery.
[00:46:17] I think I was a year in the program before I was allowed to go outside of the city limits of where my program was with my parents. And my parents only lived 45 minutes to an hour down the. Yeah, and they still had no access because. Leading into one of the other big red flags. If a program asks you to sign over
[00:46:37] Sadie: 51% of custody
[00:46:40] Bobby: or give power of attorney over the child, massive red flag.
[00:46:45] That's
[00:46:46] Sadie: like if you went to get your appendix out and the hospital said, I'm sorry. Actually, this mirin person in accounting is gonna need to own you for the next 48 hours while we do this procedure. That would not happen, and yet this corporation owned me for
[00:46:59] Bobby: 14 months. Exactly, and, and what they do is they'll tell the parent, Oh, you have the right to remove your child, but if you do well, like all the tuition you paid and all these things that you paid, we can't refund anything.
[00:47:11] There's certain steps that we now have to go through because they really do request guardianship other red flags or if they actually promote any sort of isolation or restraint. Yeah, massive red flag. Another big one that we look. Is, look up the quality of the staff. We tell every parent that while we do not recommend placement in any program with our organization, if parents are hesitant and they still want more information, look up the qualifications of the staff that are at the school. I think we saw a medical director at a program who had a degree in Zoology.
[00:47:48] Sadie: No, that's insane. No, That one point there was someone with a Master's of Education fully doing therapy with girls at this school.
[00:47:56] There was no psychologists on staff. Our day-to-day staff that we spent the majority of our time with had a high school grad diploma with no history of. mental health experience, and they were trained on site with whatever the other staff members told them, and there was constant staff turnover.
[00:48:14] Bobby: We found a program where the highest level of education, someone who had, was a interior design degree, and they were actually the director of the entire program.
[00:48:24] Oh my God. When you look at these programs, you're seeing that generally the highest level that you're gonna see a therapist dealing with a. The highest level of degree they have is gonna be like a licensed social worker. Yeah. That doesn't mean that they're qualified and trained to understand. The therapeutic techniques that are valuable.
[00:48:44] Mm-hmm. lot of these people don't understand what trauma-based evidence is and how that affects therapies or models. A lot of them don't have an understanding of neuro divergency and what different therapies can help someone that is labeled ADHD or autistic. You wanna look at what are their qualifications?
[00:49:04] Are the schools religious based? Because if they are religious based generally what we're seeing, it's not every program, but generally what we're seeing is if your child goes to a religious based program and they have any conflicts with their sexual identity, conversion therapy will be used.
[00:49:18] Yeah. And we're seeing that as spread across the board, but we're just seeing unqualified staff. We're seeing teachers that aren't registered. We're seeing nurses. Well, oh my God. One of
[00:49:29] Sadie: my teachers, my science teacher was the boyfriend of another staff member. He happened to do a semester of medical school before he dropped out to work in the Forest Service.
[00:49:39] And for that reason, he was qualified to be our science teacher to teach all of the science classes. Yes. And when I brought this up and I was like, Where is your teaching degree? I actually accidentally made him cry because I was like, What qualifies you to teach me this? Like I'm now a, a student at the University of Pennsylvania.
[00:49:55] Like, my education was very important to me. I was like, this is a question that has to be asked.
[00:50:01] Bobby: Yeah, I mean at my school, our Spanish teacher was also the head of our. Of course, and he was the Spanish teacher because he had worked in kitchens and had learned how to speak the Spanish language.
[00:50:14] Tacos, , , you know, it's, They're claiming that they have nurses on staff. These people, these women, these men aren't qualified to be giving out medications.
[00:50:23] Sadie: Oh my God. Our tech guy would hand out medications. He accidentally gave ADHD meds to some random girl that was not prescribed them, and he was like, Oh, sorry.
[00:50:33] Bobby: Oops. Well, you know you see that just, it's mind boggling how many of these unqualified positions you see. I mean, I think when I look back to my time, 20 years our addictions counselor had lost his license to practice in 1992 for abusive medications at a rehab facility. He was the one abusing the medications.
[00:50:56] When he was hired by our school, they just told everyone they had a certified addictions counselor. Parents don't think to look into the certifications. Yeah. There are databases where you can legitimately go online and look and see if someone's registered as an RN or if they're registered as a social worker.
[00:51:12] And I think one of the greatest quotes that we've seen come out of anyone was Maya Salz, who's an author, who wrote a massive book on this industry. One of her direct quotes was, if they made sure that every staff that came in contact with a child had a master's level degree and was qualified, the industry would effectively shut down.
[00:51:32] Yep.
[00:51:32] Sadie: Cause that was exactly how it worked at McLean. That was not how it worked at Montana. It's it's night and day.
[00:51:39] Bobby: Well, they're all, I mean, they're also utilizing things. I know from my time, almost all of the, not not our therapists, but most of the day staff that worked at our school all had some sort of like social work degree from Canada that they got online
[00:51:53] They had never had, they had never actually had. Physical interaction in their job fields. They were brought from local colleges. Cuz we're seeing that more and more now as we're seeing like 18 year olds coming to these programs to work as a day staff. Then they become a mentor and they could grow with the program.
[00:52:09] And you're talking, you have an 18 year old male or female who's just out of a program themselves a lot of the time, or they're just outta high school and they're dealing with children. Who are very close to their age, and then the programs wanna know why there's sexual abuse happening. Yeah. You're putting children in harm's way with every decision they make with the underqualified, the unknowledgeable.
[00:52:32] And then when you look at the therapeutic programs, I mean, I think we saw a new therapy pop up. At a program in Maine where they call it neurological reset therapy. Oh boy. And it's supposed to be like hypnotism and bringing your body back to its natural homeostasis so you can relearn how to do things. , that's not an evidence based proven therapeutic tactic.
[00:52:52] Sadie: No, I would love to hear you talked about accreditations and certifications for these programs. Nat Sapp is a huge thing that these programs. Boast.
[00:53:03] Bobby: So Nats app, Nats app was actually who I was referring to earlier. Yeah. The founder of my program actually helped finance and found Nats app.
[00:53:10] And that was in 99. So we're 23 years of a group like this out there. Mm-hmm. You know, they changed their stances on things a lot over the history of time about what they were looking for, how they, they don't necessarily accredit. Yeah. Is what we're learning. They are a membership based organization.
[00:53:27] These programs are paying them for the stamp of approval, from the knowledge that we're seeing. And, you know, we're tending to see that. We think that the membership gets them access to. Courses that teach 'em how to fundraise courses that teach 'em about the specific laws, different therapeutic techniques.
[00:53:43] When you actually go to their website and you see the conferences that they have yearly. You can look up course, by course, by course. Who's presenting what program they come from. I would, as I said, I wouldn't say they're accreditation. They're not accrediting, but they are sponsoring. Yeah. And they're giving their stamp of approval.
[00:53:57] Sadly, there's massive ones like the Joint Commission. The Joint Commission is tied to the US healthcare system. I mean, I don't, I don't think there's a hospital out there in the US that doesn't have some sort of tide of a joint commission. Yeah, but they're not seeing what's happening.
[00:54:12] They're not getting the reports. This
[00:54:14] Sadie: is like the state of Montana had not inspected my boarding school in 10 years. They apparently oversee these programs. They had not set foot on campus, and yet there was no quote unquote issue or problem with that in 10
[00:54:29] Bobby: years. And the State of Utah oversight is they actually go and count how many toilets there are per child.
[00:54:35] And that's how they determine whether are things, you know, we sadly have seen there was a death at a property in Utah in February. Yeah. The school's license had been revoked to operate. They appealed it. The state said we're gonna have a hearing this past Monday. There was no hearing. The state settled with them and said, Oh, we'll give you some governance.
[00:54:55] You could keep operating. Well, you've had a child die. You've had one that's been in news about massive neglect for medical care, and you know, the government doesn't see these things. They don't have enough proof coming out. Yeah. Because all of us children from these programs can say what happened to us, but our records aren't showing.
[00:55:13] That's even if we can get records. Cause most of us cannot get our records from the state. I can't even get my high school transcripts. My school was not certified legally by the state as an educational center. I no longer have high school transcripts. Wow. So here I am, 20 years later, if I hadn't gone to college at all, I would've be looking to have to take my G eed to get a.
[00:55:37] After I went through schooling the states don't see these things. Yeah. Legislators are starting to see these things. I know that there's two legislators from Oregon and Washington, two centers that have actually opened up recent investigations into four groups that own programs to get information like that.
[00:55:53] There's been since 2007 or something like that. There's been like foreign, natural level investigations. But the outcome doesn't change. Yeah. Cause there's not enough record and proof that's physical.
[00:56:04] Sadie: Mm-hmm. . And it's, it's teens. The people that would be sitting on a witness stand are kids.
[00:56:09] And again, you had no access. To technology. These records are being written, these patient notes are completely different from what you're experiencing. Like how do you even remember every little thing that happened during, like you said, 29 months of your life?
[00:56:25] Bobby: Well, and there's statute of limitations on when and what you can't do.
[00:56:28] And most of us, From just the overall community that I've met and I've been at, you know, I've had the privilege of getting to know and work with most of us walk away and it's like years down the road. Yeah. That something kind of snaps and goes, wait. Something wasn't right. There was a problem because when you're in these situations, you start blocking
[00:56:50] Sadie: things out and you're told it's okay.
[00:56:52] You're told that this is therapy, this is treatment. Everyone around you is doing the same thing.
[00:56:56] Bobby: And you see this abuse and you see things, but it becomes just general every day like. , you know, my parents being told, it's okay, I'm okay. You start to learn how to deal with it, cope with it. But a lot of us block out any recollection and then all of a sudden it's 12 years later, someone says something and something snaps and you're triggered.
[00:57:13] Yeah. And by that point, it's too late to get the justice you deserve.
[00:57:17] Sadie: And for me, I, a big fear, I got out of that program when I was 7, 16, 17, something like that. There's that fear of doing anything because even though my parents, they, they didn't realize this program was as bad, They would never knowingly do anything to put me in harm's way.
[00:57:33] You still, again, don't have full autonomy over yourself. Your custody could be signed over, you could go back to these programs until you've passed that birthday and you have autonomy over yourself.
[00:57:44] Bobby: Well, and that fear starts day one of the program. Yeah. You were constantly afraid of any consequence that could come from your actions from day one because every program's different.
[00:57:56] But as a, you know, it's not only isolation and restraint that's used, they'll neglect you food, they'll neglect you water. And my program, we had a section of it was called, Restrictions guys in one line, Girls in the other. We did upwards of an hour and a half to two hours of Army physical therapy exercises a day.
[00:58:14] We were building staircases and mountainsides. We were de weeding the campus. We were building rain diverts. They had one punishment where they would actually have the group lift up telephone poles, carry them across basically a football. Drop them and they say, Oh, we don't like where that looks.
[00:58:30] Pick up the telephone pole, move them back. We're, Oh my God, we're doing laundry. We're scrubbing things. We were hired. Child labor. Yeah, we're seeing a program in Missouri right now where the owner has actually specifically on his own personal Facebook page, reached out to the public and says, I will pay you to take children off my campus.
[00:58:50] From like 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Saturdays and Sundays, I will pay you $120 per child. And the people in the town or the people that he knows are responding, saying, Well, they do manual labor and he will say, they will do whatever you ask him to do or what your family's doing for that day. He is now literally prostituting children out so that he doesn't have to deal with them so that other people could benefit off child.
[00:59:11] Sadie: It's crazy because again, likely he is their guardian. Legally, he has
[00:59:16] Bobby: control over that. Legally he can do that. Yes. And that's where you begin to become afraid of every move, every thought you have, every decision you make, and then you leave the program and you're constantly looking over your shoulder, you're constantly questioning yourself.
[00:59:28] Was that the right choice? What's gonna be the negative consequence that follows? And that could follow, you know, We see people who were in their mid forties now that attended programs in the eighties and nineties that are seeing this part of how they were affected. Yeah, because it's nonstop.
[00:59:46] Sadie: Yeah. It is a traumatic experience, so, two questions. One is, what can listeners do if they want to help change the trouble team industry? They haven't experienced it themselves, but they wanna help work towards this increased legislation, support these programs being shut down. What are those steps?
[01:00:02] And then the second question will be, how do you support a survivor or someone that's currently in one of these
[01:00:07] Bobby: programs? So I think the first steps is, you know, obviously spread awareness, word of mouth. Yeah, that goes a long ways. Pertaining to something you had mentioned earlier, you know, if you see that your friend has been sent away, if your friend disappears in the middle of the night, you find out that they're at a program.
[01:00:24] Find out what the program is, Contact a group like breaking Code Silence, or at Kappa, find one of these anti trouble team, industry advocacy groups, reach out to them. Our group provides things that we call facility reports. We are happy to provide all research that we have that shows abuse cases, lawsuits, program history, staff supply that to the relevant people.
[01:00:46] If you wanna get involved, if you go to the break a code silence website, we have buttons where you can apply to become a volunteer. We have numerous things. We need researchers that go in and dive and find out the information on these programs. We have an active legislation team that is working on not only federal legislation, but state legislation.
[01:01:04] Anyone who's interested in that, we're more than willing to help them learn the process. We have. Research grants that we're working with. We have a publications division. If you're a writer and you've experienced a facility like this, or you have a friend and you wanna talk about that, we have a realm for you to voice that story.
[01:01:22] We're open to anything when it comes to just spreading the word and helping that get out there when it comes to helping survivors. While, we are not a support group. We cannot provide therapies, we cannot provide you know, legal recourses and things like that.
[01:01:37] Mm-hmm. , but we're there. Yeah. Most of us have this common shared experience. We're there to talk, we're there to listen, we're there to be a shoulder for someone when they need it. We're a group of the way the organization exists right now. I am on the phone with my. Daily and we will be business, business, business.
[01:01:58] And then something comes up and everything gets put to a stop so we can listen to someone because all of a sudden something happened. Yeah, something reconnected. They reconnected to something, they were triggered by something. We're there to listen and support. We're there to help point you towards resources.
[01:02:13] You know, while we cannot necessarily recommend therapists, we cannot recommend lawyers or anything like that. We do try to help you locate that right person. We try to teach about the different levels of the, what therapies are proven and evidence-based that do work.
[01:02:27] Sadie: It's, it's so important. And even if being a support system, like you mentioned, these programs are so isolated.
[01:02:34] Being one of those friends from home that I was able to talk to that you mentioned, being able to see, being able to connect with that person and be that one. Thing. Tying them back to this life outside this super isolated environment can be so helpful and so beneficial and was such a lifeline for me when I was navigating this and made that transition easier because it didn't feel like I was leaving this program and had no one that even knew what I'd gone
[01:02:59] Bobby: through.
[01:03:00] Well, and I think, I think that's the major key thing is, is that that time of leaving the program and readjusting to what actual normal society, Is, is one of the hardest things for any child that leaves a program no matter what age. I almost like to think of it as there's a two to five year gap where that transitional period happens.
[01:03:21] Yeah. Like it's not an immediate transition because you're starting to question things. You're letting teenagers who have, had no sense of freedom out into the world and you're dropping them off. You know, some of 'em, I think I was outta the program a month before I went to. It's crazy, and all of a sudden it's going, Oh, there's fraternity parties, there's drugs.
[01:03:39] What's this? What's that? I never had those experiences to tell me what was right and what was. and you have to learn, and it sometimes, as I said, it's two to five years, sometimes it's 30 years for people, and were really making that effort to try to find out how we can be a more support in that transitional period.
[01:03:56] How do we help people? Is it just to be there to listen? Is it to find out what the statute limitations is for them to get justice? Mm. You know, how do we, I
[01:04:05] Sadie: feel like little things like pop culture, if someone went into a program a year or two years ago, like trends, TikTok, the music people are listening to the shows that they're watching, the language they're using, these things, they've been completely isolated from, I was in an all girls program, your ability to date and have relationships.
[01:04:24] You would see a lot of different ways that girls reacted after coming out of the program. Education wise, I was at a huge deficit. What I had learned in Montana versus what was actually going on at a normal public high school. And I
[01:04:37] Bobby: struggled a lot. I think I failed. I was in college and I failed pre-college algebra three times cuz my algebra teacher had no clue what he was teaching me With
[01:04:45] Sadie: calculus.
[01:04:46] We watched snowboarding videos every single day. Like the tests were open note, like you. Nothing, but you get the great, it's like the craziest thing to adjust from, and it takes time. Yeah. I, just am so grateful for you for giving so much insight into this and so much valuable information on how parents can look for these programs and make sure that they're sending their kids to reputable.
[01:05:09] Based mental health care if that's what's needed. And for teens what to be aware of how to support people. And yeah. I'm just so grateful for you for opening up and having this conversation with me. No,
[01:05:20] Bobby: and I appreciate you having me on. And I think the one thing I can say is that for any parent that listens to this the one thing that we advocate for is keep the family together.
[01:05:29] Yeah. You're gonna see probably more issues of a child being sent away in disassociation from the family afterwards and stronger. Divisions between the family. Try to find those therapies that you all can do together as parents with your children. There's wraparound services, there's different things.
[01:05:46] If your child has diagnosises, you could take the same therapies your child does to learn about those diagnosis and how to better communicate. Yeah. Just do your best to keep the family together. But I appreciate you bringing awareness to this cause. There are realms where people talk about it. There's not very many realms like this where people actually get to have a discussion on a deeper level.
[01:06:04] So I appreciate everything you're doing to focus on this.
[01:06:07] Sadie: Yeah. The last question I wanna leave listeners with is, if there was one thing that you wish the general public knew about the troubled teen industry, what would that be?
[01:06:15] Bobby: That's a hard question. Yeah.
[01:06:17] You know, I think that I would leave the general public with the knowledge of that this isn't just surface level things. Yeah. This is 10 miles wide, 10 miles deep. It touches facets of life that people don't understand. It does. And it affects more people than you think it does. You probably come across more people in your life that have been affected by this industry than you ever realized.
[01:06:38] And just to start taking notice and to be aware That there are people out there harming children to make money.
[01:06:44] Sadie: Yeah, it's so true. and the more you're aware of it, the more you realize how much it is around you, because again, so many teens have experienced this, or no someone that has experienced this because the teen mental health crisis is rampant.
[01:06:57] Depression and anxiety rates are higher than they ever have been before. And I think because of that increase we saw during Covid will continue to mm-hmm. see an increase in these programs and and teens in them as a response to that, as parents try and get their teens help and, Ways they know how
[01:07:13] Bobby: covid definitely had an effect with how parents responded to their teenagers and started looking for.
[01:07:18] Sadie: Even like you talk about an absence of medical care or medical neglect with Covid, I think that just got so much worse because there's, it did, you were so isolated. There was no reason, no communication between patients and parents of this person has covid or they might have c.
[01:07:34] Also, these programs are a lot of the times in pretty conservative states, so vaccinations and masks and all these things that maybe you might have a choice about at home you might not necessarily have at your program. So it just brings up exactly another layer into this mess.
[01:07:49] Bobby: I completely agree with
[01:07:50] Sadie: you.
[01:07:51] Yeah. All right. Well, for listeners to continue to learn about breaking code, silence and learn about what you guys are doing, where can they. ,
[01:07:59] Bobby: You can find us at www.breakingcodesilence.org. And then on social media, we are gonna be breaking code, silence, or breaking code sci one. That's just breaking code.
[01:08:09] S i one. You can find us on all those different platforms. We do have Facebook pages, Instagrams there is a YouTube that we're revamping. Also if you just type in breaking code, silence on something as simplest TikTok, yeah, you were gonna be exposed to a whole new realm of personal stories and those that are out there.
[01:08:28] Sadie: Yeah. And if you remember one thing from this conversation, if you ever hear of a program you're ever considering, a program a friend is going, all you have to Google is the program name survivor stories or the program name breaking code, Silence, and you will very quickly. Realize if it's a trouble teen industry
[01:08:44] Bobby: program or not.
[01:08:45] And if you don't see anything popping up, we do have a place on our website where you can report a facility and it gives you all information. If you are a survivor of a program, if you're a parent who has concerns or a friend, we do have places for you to report. It also gives you all the direct links you need to report them to the state to report medical licensing, anything like that.
[01:09:06] So there are those resources available. With all the different advocacy organizations, all of us have those.
[01:09:11] Sadie: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Bobby. Again, I'm so glad we got to do this and I know this conversation is gonna help so many people.
[01:09:18] Bobby: Thank you for having me.
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