Survivors of the "troubled teen industry" speak out and fight back | 60 Minutes Australia

It's no secret that

teen

agers are sometimes

troubled

, sometimes problematic, but one has to wonder if what you're about to see is the answer to helping them: a thriving $50 billion

industry

of so-called therapeutic boarding schools and military-style training camps where tough love is the medicine used to cure the problems of young people, these often secret institutions are largely unregulated and far from helping, they have actually caused serious and lasting harm. Now,

survivors

led by celebrity Paris Hilton and including a brave Australian have had enough and are demanding that parents stop outsourcing parenting. Children are sometimes locked in isolation rooms in some of these places, tied with zip ties, and put in dog cages.

It's the side of Paris Hilton we've never seen before as she reveals the horror of herself. Kept a secret for decades during my stay in these places I was strangled, beaten every time I showered or used the bathroom, there were male and female staff watching, held against their will and abused, nothing could protect this millionaire heiress from the worst from an

industry

that promised to care for

troubled

teen

agers at just 16 years old Paris became a prisoner in a total confinement center I didn't see sunlight or breathe fresh air for 11 months all my human rights were taken away they had to stay awake for hours and lack of sleep and they were just trying to tear us down all the time it was scary to be around because Paris Hilton was known as The It Girl her parents considered her a wild child who desperately needed help I wasn't a bad girl like me I didn't deserve my parents They were so strict.

I wasn't allowed to go on a date. I couldn't go to the school dance. I couldn't wear makeup. They were very, very strict and then I moved to New York City and they invited me to everything. these parties and clubs and you know it's a whole new world for me, so I started sneaking out at night and I was getting bad grades, confused by their definitions and fearful for their well-being. Paris's parents decided their only option for their wayward daughter was to send her to therapeutic residential care in the U.S. is a burgeoning multi-billion dollar industry that promises a life-saving solution in remote desert camps and so-called boarding schools far from home. house, in reality for many it has an incalculable cost.

Did your parents talk to you about it, did you have any warning that this was what they were planning when I was getting bad grades, they said we're going to send you to boarding school but they had no idea what kind of boarding school? These places use such deceptive marketing that it really blows my mind and breaks my heart just knowing what goes on behind closed doors. Psychological, physical and sexual abuse comes as thousands of children are taken to these facilities every year and not only from the United States. United States, but around the world I will always have it in the

back

of my mind.

Am I the problem? Am I still a bad girl? Am I inherently evil now? 25 Emily lived in Sydney and she was only 15 when she was sent to the other side of the world. She was an unhappy daughter of a bitter divorce, and when her grades also began to slip, her mother sought help for the next two years. Emily would be separated from everything she knew and loved, so what were you doing to be considered a troubled teenager in your mother's eyes? I snuck my phone into my room late at night. I dated a guy who was 17 when I was 15.

And I think he just had a general attitude from the tumultuous childhood he'd had abroad: discovering the journey to residential therapy. Healthcare in the US begins in the most brutal way and often in the middle of the night, around three in the morning, two burly strangers turn on my bedside lamp. That's when I was presented with the options, the easy way or the hard way, and I asked. what was the easy way and she said, you know, we walked out the door and got on the plane together. These two men came into my room at 4:30 in the morning holding handcuffs and said do you want to go the easy way or the hard way? and I had no idea who they were.

I thought they were kidnapping me. It is a horror story repeated almost word for word by many young people who were forcibly expelled by their parents. Describe to me what I imagine the terror of waking up would be. with strangers in your room at 4:30 in the morning, the safest place, you know, your bed, your room, your house with your family inside, I had no idea what they were going to do to me, I didn't know if they were going to kill me, I didn't know if they were going to do it. something else I was like this has to be a nightmare this can't be real and I had no idea where they were taking me it was scary and traumatic I can't imagine you left quietly I wasn't screaming because I wanted someone to come help me because I had no idea of what was going on for both Paris and Emily screaming, it was their parents who had signed the paperwork allowing them to be transported in the night and what that moment was like when you saw the paperwork. it's just the feeling of dread knowing there's no way out, the only way out of the house is with them and this was in Sydney, you're in Sydney, yes Emily's transport agents told her her mother was acting out of tough love , but Never violent or criminal in her behavior and not addicted to alcohol or drugs, Emily couldn't understand the extremes her mother had taken nor did she know where she would end up and I kept thinking and why am I here, which is a question.

I still wonder to this day why I at that moment you were thinking not just why me but where the hell is it going to happen to me of course so I was terrified and even on the plane it still didn't feel real um and I remember being in the bathroom looking at myself in the mirror and just saying "everything will be okay, everything will be okay, you'll be okay." Emily was first taken to a Wilderness facility in Utah for 10 weeks and then moved to her final destination, a school called Monarch in deep, remote Montana, she says it was here that she quickly discovered a kind of hell on Earth with no one To save her, if you even looked at someone the wrong way, you were forced to dig up tree stumps, your food was taken away, and you weren't allowed to talk to a single person for months at a time.

Even more disturbing aggressive group counseling widely known as attack therapy. yelling at another kid and more kids would join in. It was torture for me to have a group of 15 15 of your peers yelling at you and what would make things worse is that this irritating gang mentality would go beyond the walls of that room. and this was encouraged by them this was encouraged in the group there were children with a wide variety of problems some were deeply disturbed others like Emily suffered anxiety and depression hard labor deprivation and shame seem to be the answer no matter the problem do you believe that ?

Isolation, deprivation, shame is the appropriate treatment for children suffering from anxiety and depression. I would say that's not what happens and if you had, you know if you've done the programs and you know the programs like I do, that's not what happens, but if People who have been through the program say this. If we don't believe them. If we don't believe that's exactly what happened to them. OK. Can we call a timeout for one minute? This is not how the interview was supposed to go. It's strange. I think you know this was over 20 years ago and it still greatly affects me every day every day you still think about this.

I have nightmares almost every night. The Unlikely Face of a Movement Against the Troubled Teen Industry I was abused at Provo Canyon School and now I'm taking action along with my fellow

survivors

. She says that, like many other teenagers incarcerated in a therapeutic residential care facility, she suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse. It's not my responsibility. It's a shame it's nobody, the shame here is the shame of the people who work in these places late at night, sometimes they came in and took us and did cervical exams every two weeks, which, as an adult, now bothers me.

I realize that they were actually sexual. abusing us because none of them were even trained doctors, it seems the facilities were determined to break the spirits of the teenagers in their care and it often worked. Did they break your spirit? I think in some ways I have PTSD, um, it really affects every part of you, which maybe people don't assume because they see this character that I play, which is a lot easier because you know, saying that is hot. and smiling and it's everything. I think you have to put the whole story in perspective. Paris Hilton has been the biggest voice in this and has received the most attention because of her celebrity.

She came from a home where she was used to being spoiled and her parents tried to control her. They sent her to receive some discipline that she did not receive. Like discipline, learning leaders say training the brain is Andy Goldstrom is a parent who believes so strongly in the benefits of therapeutic retreats that he started a podcast and support group to guide parents through the process. . I wonder if you can categorize post-traumatic stress disorder simply because you don't like discipline, yes, I would say look at the history of the thousands of children who have received help and who have become successful and independent children, characterize what What we passed as a discipline is not only a farce, but now it is tremendously unfair. 25 Emily was 15 years old when, on her mother's orders, security guards grabbed her from her Sydney home and took her to a therapeutic center thousands of miles away in the United States.

She describes the next two years there as the worst experience of her life, the reason she wanted to do this interview and

speak

out so that people like me can

speak

their truth without being shamed and painted as a spoiled rich kid, but Andy Goldstrom says that the treatment of his own daughter Audrey at a residential retreat convinced him that the industry does more good. More than harm, however, I am grateful for the experience and in fact told my parents that I was lucky to learn to deal with my mental illnesses at such a young age, at 17 years old.

Audrey's learning difficulties had led to anxiety and depression and poor decisions that left Andy no choice. he says, but sending her with an escort in the middle of the night she didn't know what was coming, you know, so making the decision to have your child taken away from you in the middle of the night is a big deal, right, but we were in a very desperate point and we feared for his safety and ours and it was done very professionally so this was not some kind of blip thing. These were experts, of course, who should have largely allayed her fears, quite understandably, but for your daughter, I mean, trauma happens in the moment, doesn't it?

She doesn't know anything about that. Well, if you talk to my daughter, she wasn't traumatized. Audrey didn't want to be involved in this story and ultimately neither did Andy when he was presented with testimonies of abuse at various facilities what bothers me is saying that the industry as a whole doesn't work just because you know uh some stories that have been translated in that the entire industry is bad and that's what I object to as the shows continue to raise the bar. I wonder how far they're raising the bar when you have testimonials, you know, in 2019 and this is from the same place you sent your daughter Pacific Quest, so you have a 16 year old daughter.

Rape victim who says, among a host of other hardships, she was thrown to the ground and beaten. The male staff touched her with an insect in a sexual manner. They threw her into a dark shed. They drugged her with medications and she was on her own. Do you know death? At the self-ritual in which children are placed in a tomb, they are read eulogies that they have been forced to write themselves. I mean, do you see that as a proper treatment for anxiety and depression? Okay, this isn't the conversation I was hoping to have. I'm just a father who's trying to help my kids, you know, trying to help the industry.

I am not on a modern path. Do you think the troubled teen industry has cleaned up its act? Not at all. I mean, we have reports of horrible things. The abuses continue to come out of these facilities from a week ago until yesterday. Caroline Cole unsilencedly runs the Survivor support group and, like Paris Hilton, she is pushing for greater regulation of the industry and a Bill of Rights for young people in care, some of whose worst crimes have occurred. They have reached adolescence. I think we have to depathologize being a teenager. Teenagers are supposed to have an attitude.

They're supposed to be in a bad mood. They are supposed to argue with their parents. They are supposed to reject and say. No, and if you have a child who sneaks out at night or experiments with substances, it's not always the end of the world and we have to learn to be able to bend as parents to keep our children safe.Is there any argument that what these people were doing was their form of therapy, they thought they were trying to help troubled children, no one in their right mind would think this was some form of therapy, if anything it is a form of torture, I'm just proud to know that.

It makes me proud to know that these kids know that someone is out there

fight

ing for them because when I was there no one was and no one knew anything about this. The worst thing about my experience was that the school principal told me that my life would mean nothing because deep down I was a wayward young man and not worth the college application fee, of course Emily was worth the application fee and much more, going to university to study law, but on many levels, the psychological scars are deep, now you talk about not being trusted. but what about the other way?

How do you trust adults? Your family. I'm still working on it and will probably be a family for a long time. It was hard to let his men trust them again tonight. I now live in Brisbane. Emily. She is still motivated to prove that she is not inherently evil and that it was never an insult. She has survived. That others couldn't. Part of me was always mourning my childhood. But there are so many children who have died and so many friends I have lost. I live my life for them and will always take great satisfaction in proving that lady that she was wrong and that she told me I would never amount to anything that wasn't worth the college application fee.

I'm sorry you've done that, which proved her wrong. I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to say hello. I'm Tara Brown, thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia. Subscribe to our channel now to get new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss our bonus minute segments and full 60 minute episodes on 9now.com and the nine Now app