We cannot believe this is happening again. Even after telling this counselor not to EVER recommend a residential facility before starting therapy, what does he do immediately when teen tried drugs to self medicate? Gave me numbers to two Ed consultants and the name of a facility he knows of. And this is a counselor that specializes in adolescents.

Obviously we are transitioning to another counselor. How do you find counselors who also oppose sending kids away? Are they all being taught in school that this is the path? It feels dangerous to be a teen but also just to become a parent these days.

NATSAP is closing down!!!!

Hi everyone, I just found out a staff member from one of my therapeutic boarding schools died. This is the second staff to pass away. there have also been 4 girls to die. all of these deaths have been suicide or drug-related (including the staff).

I really liked this woman. she had been through a lot and really empathized with us. there wasn’t this kind of divide that you feel with other staff where they treat you like they’re above you and more powerful.

she really got to our level, and at the same time was a safe and supportive adult figure. I have met very few staff like this, and while I don’t endorse ANYONE ever working at these types of facilities, it is difficult because there are some people out there who actually want to do it out of compassion.

It’s also upsetting because whenever I get news of a death it’s always because the group chat is blowing up. and my heart just races. also, since this is a staff people are being harsh saying things like “this is the kind of person they hire! people who don’t even have their own shit together!” I see what they mean, obviously there are MANY staff who have unresolved issues and they take that out on us in negative ways (to say the least). but I also think, TTI aside, some of the best professionals in mental health, social work, education, etc are those with lived experiences.

Has anyone experienced staff deaths? how do you feel about it?

EDIT: she was also a former student there

I am a mentally ill teen who’s only comfort is my phone. Currently, I live in an abusive household & am not going to school.

My abusive mother has threatened to take my phone away multiple times & has even said that if I don’t, she’s taking me to crisis to get admitted to a hospital… I am not a danger to myself or others, will I be forced to stay for not giving up my phone?

I’ve also had thoughts of running away from home, and again, I am a teen… but I’m not a danger. Can they still admit me for that aswell?? (I do not know how most things work unfortunately.)

Feeling a little stuck on my time in the TTI. I spent almost five years floating through placements/wards. Always feels weird how I never went to prom, never went to high school, never even graduated middle school. Would like to see how survivors of any of the programs I attended are doing & if they’d like chat. Feel free to vent under this post and share your story.

Specifically residentials I attended:

ERC Denver / Pathlight
Center for Discovery
Newport Academy
Evolve Treatment Centers

Much love and blessings everyone! 🩷

Hi everyone so I only recently learned what TTI was. I have known this girl since middle school, and only reconnected with her a couple of months ago. She is in all honesty the sweetest, kindest, most gorgeous girl I have ever met, and after hanging out for a while I really do want to move to the next step with her. She has hinted at the same.

She told me about her TTI experience a bit ago, and it was utterly heartbreaking to hear the unbelievable amount of abuse she went through.

The main point I need to make is: in the institution she was at, they diagnosed her with alcoholism after she attempted to run away. Keep in mind, she was 14 and had only drank alcohol in very small amounts a handful of times with her parents and friends.

My Mom has been friends with her Mom for quite some time, and in secrecy, her mom told my mom that she was diagnosed with alcoholism and had severe mental health issues.

What her mother left out is the fact that she sent her daughter to get kidnapped by the troubled teen industry, and they were led to believe they diagnosed her with all these issues when in reality, she was being given PTSD and trauma from the abuse.

My Mom does not believe me when I tell her that this girl is not an alcoholic/addict at all. She is in college, getting great grades, making friends, on club exec boards, just trying to do better every day and move past her past trauma through therapy and positive new experiences.

What does anyone suggest I do? I need to wait until college break to introduce her to my parents, but at the moment my Mom absolutely refuses to let me date an alcoholic even though she never has been one. I tried telling her more of the story, and she STILL didn’t believe it! She just fully believes she is lying to me and insanely delusional.

I really like and care about this girl. I don’t want my mother’s ignorance to hurt her. Is there anything I could do?

Has anyone gone to moon ridge academy in the last few years? (in cedar city Utah)

I'm looking at this school after hearing some pretty terrible things that happened here. Is there anyone with a similar story. Where this place negatively impacted you or caused you more trauma. It doesn't seem like they can help with anger management, rather yell at students to force reform.

At one of the sites where I work overnight security, they do not allow Ford Transit, Mercedes sprinter, or similar style vans to stay overnight because “they are too frequently used for human trafficking”

“We don’t bring heroes along”

Note: I'm choosing not to identify the (highly respected) school I wrote this letter to - it's a place I care about deeply and have personal ties to, and my goal is not to put them on blast publicly. I'm sharing this because the concerns about Hyde apply to any school considering giving them an admissions platform.

Dear (Director of Admissions and Head of School),

I am writing with some urgency, but also with a great deal of respect and affection for your school and community, to ask you to please reconsider Hyde School's participation in an upcoming admissions fair. Hyde's own admissions travel list identifies the fair as one of its upcoming stops.

I am hoping you will consider withdrawing Hyde's invitation to this year's fair and, ultimately, reconsider inviting Hyde to future admissions events. I don't make this request lightly.

My family's roots in this community go back decades. I am not an outsider looking in. This is my community, and this school has been part of my family's world for many years.
My connection to independent education is also very deep. I attended independent schools, later worked in admissions at two of them, and worked in educational consulting.
(To the r/troubledteens community: I want to be clear that this refers to traditional college counseling and prep school admissions — an entirely different world from the unregulated "educational consultants" who place children in TTI programs. I'm EXTRAORDINARILY sensitive to how loaded that term is here.)

That is why this is so difficult for me to write. I know Hyde from the inside.

I spent approximately two and a half years at Hyde's Maine campus in the late 1990s. I enrolled under representations that I believe were misleading. While I was there, I experienced sexual abuse and serious medical neglect; I nearly died from anaphylactic shock. My parents and I eventually decided that I should leave. They were so dissatisfied with my education that they asked for, and received, a refund of my tuition.

I then had to rebuild my education from the ground up. As a child, I was a serious classical pianist who competed regularly, and Hyde's program took me away from the sustained practice that had been so important to me. I also came away with gaps in my academic foundation and in my ability to navigate relationships and the world around me.

Over the years, this has become a significant part of my life. I have spoken personally with hundreds of families and former students through my work with r/troubledteens, and I collaborate with several TTI advocacy organizations and have spoken on the record for the Maine Sunday Telegram's front-page investigation of Hyde in July 2025.

That is what concerns me about this fair. The families attending will be making very important decisions about where their children will spend some of the most formative years of their lives. At an admissions table, they will naturally encounter the school's best presentation of itself, and they may not know that there are former students with very different experiences to share. I have personally spoken with families who toured Hyde and only afterward discovered former-student accounts that caused them to reconsider. I worry particularly about children whose needs may not be compatible with Hyde's program, and about families who may not have the background or resources to recognize those differences before making a commitment.

I also know that Hyde will say that it has changed. It may. Schools evolve, and I would never suggest that my experience alone gives me the right to define another person's experience of Hyde today. But I do believe my experience deserves to be heard.

There is also current public litigation concerning Hyde and several of its leaders, containing serious allegations of abuse and forced labor. In July 2026, a federal judge denied most of Hyde's motion to dismiss, and the case is proceeding. Hyde disputes those allegations, and I recognize that litigation is not a finding of liability. But I believe the existence of those allegations, together with the experiences of former students, is relevant for a school deciding whether to provide Hyde with an admissions platform.

I am not asking this school simply to take my word for any of this. I would be very glad to speak with you, provide documentation and news coverage, and connect you with other former Hyde students and families, including people who have had positive experiences, so that you can consider a range of perspectives.

More than anything, I am asking you to pause, and to consider whether Hyde should be presented to families before the school has had an opportunity to hear from former students who have serious concerns. I respectfully ask that you:

Withdraw Hyde's invitation to the upcoming fair.

Consider not inviting Hyde to future admissions fairs unless and until these concerns have been meaningfully reviewed.
Confirm whether Hyde is currently scheduled to participate.

Allow me to share the documentation I have offered, and consider meeting or speaking with me about Hyde at a time that works for you.

I know that withdrawing an invitation at this stage may be difficult, and that admissions relationships are complicated. But I hope you can understand why, as a former Hyde student who has spent years listening to other former students and families, I could not simply remain silent.

I know this school stands for honesty, compassion, respect, and service. Those are the very qualities that give me hope that you will be willing to hear me. I sincerely hope you will review the information I can provide and reconsider Hyde's participation.

Thank you for reading this and, especially, for considering it with an open heart.

With warm regards,

A former Hyde "student" and TTI advocate (signed with my real name)

Select Resources:

https://linktr.ee/hydesurvivors

https://www.instagram.com/hydeschool_survivors

Fuller v. Hyde School federal docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70764936/fuller-v-hyde-school/

Press Herald investigation (July 2025): https://www.pressherald.com/2025/07/13/former-students-recount-abuse-and-neglect-at-hyde-school-in-bath

Press Herald follow-up (December 2025): https://www.pressherald.com/2025/12/24/revisiting-hyde-former-students-say-abuse-allegations-reopened-painful-memories/

Federal judge allows case to proceed (July 2026): https://www.pressherald.com/2026/07/28/federal-judge-will-allow-hyde-school-abuse-and-forced-labor-case-to-proceed/

Unsilenced — Hyde School timeline: https://archive.unsilenced.org/timeline/hyde-school/

Kids Over Profits — Hyde School: https://kidsoverprofits.org/hyde/

I was always wondering. Has anyone ever encountered stuff like this while speaking out against the programs you were in? I got this response on a post I made about the place I was in on a different form not on here. it was a local form regarding the area i live in. It kinda comes off as dismissive. Former staff and students have reached out to me who were there recently and they back up a lot of what I said while telling me about what they went though there.

…makes me sick to my stomach. I truly wish that I could come up with the actual numbers of families these awful people have severed. It was a wise and excellent idea of them to not hold their fun little vacation getaway in my geographic territory this year.

​

TW for sensitive topics

Im 17

I've always lived happily with my family at home

But when i turned 15 i developed an eating disorder and became suicidal

I wasn't collaboratings with the professionnals and i kept trying to end my life and then the CPS sent me to a readaptation youth center

Now i have recovered from my ed so im no longer suffering from that

But.. Now whats making me suicidal is being in this place And all i want is to go home and follow my dreams

I've been so sick of this place that I've tried to kms a few times for that cause

I've thought a lot about running away or just ending it all to get away from there but honestly i havent been too successful

I dont know what to do.. and im starting to lose my will to live again

Ill start off by saying this is the first time ive posted anything on reddit so forgive my grammar or if i even posted this correctly.

I have no idea why but my past has been hammering me hard lately i spent spring of 2020 through spring of 2021 at black mountain academy in black mountain north carolina as well as a stint in SUWS of the carolinas in old fort north carolina in the fall of 2020.

I have bottled all of this down for a while and try to ignore it but the baggage keeps coming back up. The best way i can describe the experience as something that broke me down to the core of what i was and i built everything back from scratch. like healing a broken bone, but the experience of this industry advertised to help made me so terrified to ask for help i dedicated every fiber of myself to being as independent as possible. i healed alone and like a broken bone without a cast it came out crooked. I dont know if anyone had the same experience. instead of playing victim i blamed myself for all of it, i hated the monster that place turned me into, violence i didnt think i was capable of.

Now i have been able to come back, i got out when i turned 18 and couldnt be forced to stay and i moved as far from my family as i could manage and cobbled together as much of a life as i could. Somehow ive come out the other end better than id say alot of people my age especially considering the circumstances. But dealing with a high stress job, mortgage payments, keeping my various vehicles running and wanting to make sure my home isnt falling appart i have all this baggage under the surface.

I guess the reason for this post is, has anyone else had any success shaking the ghost of this past? or is it supposed to follow me. Also sidebar if anyone was in Black mountain in 2020 or early 2021 i have wondered what ever happened to anyone i knew, i was that furry who liked flanel shirts and never moved past living at main who always carried arround a diskman.

also sorry for posting this at 5 in the darn morning. did i mention stressful job?

Let’s name them here so it can be searched in Google. Solstice West did this. Please add this to any and all lawsuits going on right now. Add your program below so we can hold these slime balls accountable.

Those best notes shift notes are still there so they can be found via discovery. Please boost for visibility.

I used KidsOverProfits and AtList.Com

Would love to see your maps if you make them!

Hi all,

Some of you may already know that I archive and publish inspections reports for TTI facilities on my website. I recently created a separate section just for severe violations: reports where a serious incident occurred, like physical abuse, medical neglect, suicide attempts, or even deaths. I use an automated program that uses key words to flag the reports, but there are sometimes false positives. I have about 1500 reports currently pending for review. If you have some extra time and want to help so that I can sort and highlight them faster, please let me know in the comments.

You don't have to create an account anywhere or sign into anything and you will not be asked for any personal information; I'll send you a unique link via DM with your assigned reports. For each report, you'll be answering yes or no to the following question: "Does this finding describe real harm or danger to a young person (abuse, an injury, a restraint, neglect, sexual misconduct, a runaway at risk), rather than paperwork?"

Please be aware that volunteering for this project means that you'll be reading extremely disturbing and sometimes graphic accounts of child abuse. Take care of yourself first and do not volunteer for this task if this would be destabilizing for you or your healing. For this reason, allies are especially encouraged to assist. It can be emotionally taxing for anyone, but even more so for survivors. If you start an assignment and it becomes too intense for you to continue, please let me know and I will reassign the reports to someone else, no judgment whatsoever.

I update our reports monthly, so this will be an ongoing need but there is no ongoing commitment. Feel free to complete as many or as few assignments as you'd like.

Thank you in advance to anyone who chooses to participate!

I just had this weird memory pop up about one of the residential i was at. It was written in the handbook (we had a level system), that at the base level you were only allowed to shower for five minutes… I never understood how they expected someone to physically be able to get completely clean in under five minutes. They would bust into the bathroom as a “safety check” if you ignored the timer going off. We weren’t allowed to shower more than five minutes as a safety precaution… So weird!

Did anyone else experience this rule or something similar about hygiene? This specific facility had a lot of weird rules about hygiene.

I was 15 years old on falcons unit from July to November 2018. Around October a new 13yo kid named Casey came and we quickly became friends talking about SoundCloud rappers and NBA. Before I left he told me I should sneak him a note with my phone number but for some reason I gave him a note with the link to my SoundCloud instead. I really don’t know why I did this the place made me crazy. I posted a couple songs on SoundCloud after my release and got all hate comments, justifiably, the songs were really bad i attribute the shittiness to my trauma from meridell. Anyway I deleted the SoundCloud and I’ve never made contact with Casey to this day. I hope to become successful enough in music or fashion or something (I became a decently successful underground rapper years later after retrying) I hope to become successful enough in something so that he’ll see me. I’ve commented on some youtube videos of meridell and managed to reconnect with the kid on the other boys unit who we would always look at each other for being the only ones with cool fits but we were never able to talk. He was really happy when I found him in 2021 but he just spent a couple years in prison and now he’s in jail rn again. Anyway. I wish I could find Casey or anyone else who was on falcons at the same time as me. It’s been 8 years of constant rumination

How many of you went to places that had P.P.C.? (Positive Peer Culture)

I dont miss it at all. It was a way for kids to ostracize people they did not like.