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

it's no secret teenagers are sometimes troubled sometimes Troublesome but you have to wonder if what you're about to see is the answer to help them a thriving 50 billion dollar industry of so-called therapeutic boarding schools and military style boot camps where tough love is the medicine used to cure young people's problems these often secretive institutions are largely unregulated and far from assisting have actually caused serious and Lasting harm now those survivors led by celebrity Paris Hilton and including a brave Australian have had enough and are demanding that parents stop Outsourcing parenting [Music] sometimes they would lock children up in solitary confinement room at some of these places they will tie children up with zip ties and they will put children into dog cages it's the side of Paris Hilton we've never seen before as she reveals the horror she has kept secret for decades during my time at these places I was strangled hit every time I would take a shower or use the bathroom there'd be male and female staff watching held against her will and abused nothing could protect this millionaire heiress from the worst of an industry promising to care for troubled teens at just 16 Paris became a prisoner in a full lockdown facility I didn't see sunlight or breathe fresh air for 11 months they took away all my human rights they would have us stay up for hours and do sleep deprivation and they were just trying to break us down the entire time it was terrifying to be around for Paris Hilton was known as The It Girl her parents considered her a wild child who desperately needed help I wasn't a bad kid like I did not deserve that my parents were so strict I wasn't allowed to go on a date I couldn't go to school dance I couldn't wear makeup like they were very very strict and then moving to New York City and getting invited to all these parties and clubs and you know it's just this whole new world to me so I started sneaking out at night and I was getting bad grades confounded by her defines and fearful for her 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 it's a flourishing multi-billion dollar industry that promises a life-saving fix in remote Wilderness camps and so-called boarding schools far away from home in reality for many it comes at an incalculable cost did your parents talk to you about it at all did you have any forewarning that this was what they were planning when I was getting bad grades they would say we're going to send you to boarding school but they had no idea what type of boarding school this was these places use such deceptive marketing it's really just blows my mind and breaks my heart just to know what happens behind closed doors psychological physical and sexual abuse arrive as each year thousands of kids are bundled off to these facilities and not just from the United States but from around the world I will always have in the back of my mind am I the problem am I still a bad kid am I inherently evil now 25 Emily was living in Sydney and just 15 when she was sent halfway across the world she was an unhappy child of a bitter divorce and when her grades also started to slip her mother sought help for the next two years Emily would be separated from all she knew and loved so what were you doing to be deemed a troubled teen in your mum's eyes I snuck my phone to my room late at night I dated a boy who was 17 when I was 15. and I think I just had a bit of an attitude in general from the tumultuous childhood I had had foreign was to discover the journey to residential therapeutic care in the U.S begins in the most brutal way and often in the middle of the night around three in the morning are two Burly strangers switched on my bedside lamp that's when I was presented with the options the easy way or the hard way and I asked what the easy way was and she said you know we walk out the door and get on the plane together these two men came into my room at 4 30 in the morning holding up 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 I was being kidnapped it's a Horror Story echoed almost word for word by many young people who were forcibly sent Away by their parents describe to me what I would imagine would be the terror of waking up to strangers in your bedroom at 4 30 in the morning the safest place you know your bed your room your house with your family in it I had no idea what they were going to do to me I didn't know if they were going to kill me if they were gonna do something else I was like this has to be a nightmare this cannot be real and I had no idea where they were taking me it was terrifying and traumatic I can't imagine that you went quietly no I was screaming because I wanted someone to come and help me because I had no idea what was happening for both Paris and Emily screaming was their parents who had signed the paperwork allowing them to be transported off into the night and what was that moment like when you saw the paperwork it's just the sinking feeling of dread knowing there's no way out the only the only way out of the house is with them and this was in Sydney you're in Sydney yes Emily's transport agents did tell her her mother was acting out of tough love but never violent or criminal in her behavior and with no alcohol or drug addictions Emily couldn't fathom the extreme lengths her mother had taken nor did she know where she would end up and I kept thinking to myself and why am I here which is a question I still wonder to this day why why me in that moment were you thinking not just why me but where the hell am I 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 standing in the bathroom looking in the mirror and just saying it it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay you'll be okay Emily was taken first to a Wilderness facility in Utah for 10 weeks and then moved to her final destination a school called Monarch in deep and remote Montana she says it was here 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 food was taken away and you weren't allowed to talk to a single other person for months at a time even more disturbing aggressive group counseling widely known as attack therapy pitting child Against Child and reenacting the traumas of their peers including sexual abuse it was a snowball effect so one kid would start yelling at another kid and more kids would join in these were torture for me to have a group of 15 15 of your peers yelling at you and what would make matters worse is this rile-up gang mentality would go farther than the walls of that room and this was encouraged by them this was encouraged in the group there were kids with a wide variety of issues some were deeply Disturbed others like Emily suffered anxiety and depression hard labor deprivation and shaming seem to be the answer no matter the problem do you believe that isolation deprivation shaming is the appropriate treatment for children who are suffering anxiety and depression I would say that's not what occurs and if you had done you know if you had met with the programs and know the programs like I do that's not what occurs but if the people who've gone through the program say this should we not believe them should we not believe that that's exactly what happened to them okay can we call time out for a minute this is not how the interview I thought was supposed to go it's strange to think you know this is over 20 years ago and it's it's still majorly affects me every single day every day you think about this still I have nightmares almost every single night that's hot that's hot that's hot Paris Hilton DJ celebrity socialite and party girl has become 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 like many other teenagers imprisoned within therapeutic residential care she suffered emotional physical and sexual abuse it's not my shame it's not anyone shame here it's the shame of the people who work at these places late at night sometimes they would come in and take us and do cervical exams like every couple weeks which as an adult now I'm realizing that they were actually sexually 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 post-traumatic stress disorder um it really affects just every part of you which maybe people don't assume because they see like this character that I play which is much easier because you know saying that's hot and smiling and it's all very whatever I think you have to put the entire story in perspective Paris Hilton is has been the largest voice in this and gotten the most attention because of her celebrity she came from a home where she was used to being you know spoiled and her parents tried to rein her in she was sent for some discipline she did not like the discipline the leaders at learning indicate that training the brain is Andy goldstrom is a parent who so strongly believes in the benefits of therapeutic Retreats he started a podcast and support group to guide parents through the process I just wonder if you can categorize post-traumatic stress disorder as just not liking discipline yeah I would say look at the track record of the of the thousands of kids who have been helped who have become successful independent kids characterizing what we went through as discipline is not only gaslighting but just grossly unfair now 25 Emily was 15 when on her mother's orders she was grabbed by security guards from her home in Sydney and taken to a therapeutic facility thousands of kilometers away in the U.S she describes the next two years there as the worst experience of her life the reason I wanted to do this interview and speak out is so people like me can tell their truth without being shamed and being painted as a spoiled rich kid but Andy goldstrom says the treatment of his own daughter Audrey at a residential Retreat convinced him the industry does more good than harm I'm grateful for the experience however and actually told my parents I was lucky to learn how to cope with my mental illnesses at such an early age at 17 Audrey's learning difficulties had led to anxiety and depression and bad choices giving Andy no choice he says but to send her away by escort in the middle of the night she did not know what was coming you know so making a decision to have your kid taken away from you in the middle of the night is a big deal right but we were at a very desperate point and we feared for her safety and Ours and it was done very professionally so this was not some kind of fly-by-night thing these were Experts of course that must have allayed your fears quite a lot quite understandably but for your daughter I mean the trauma happens in the moment doesn't it she doesn't know anything about that well if you talk to my daughter she was not traumatized Audrey didn't want to take part in this story and ultimately nor did Andy when testimonials of abuses at various facilities were put to him what bothers me is saying that the industry as a whole does not work just because of you know uh a few stories that have translated into the entire industry being bad and that's what I object to the programs are continuing to raise the bar I just wonder how far they're raising the bar when you've got testimonies so you know as recently as 2019 and this is from the very place you sent your daughter Pacific Quest so you have a 16 year old rape victim who says that amongst a whole heap of other deprivations she's thrown to the ground and hit she's touched insect in a sexual manner by male staff she's thrown into a dark shed she's drugged up with medications and this one did itself do you know the death to self ritual where children are placed in a grave eulogies that they've been forced to write themselves are read out to them I mean do you see that as proper treatment for anxiety and depression all right this is not the conversation I was expecting to have I'm just a parent who's trying to help my kids you know trying to help the industry I'm not in a modern Trail here do you believe the troubled teen industry has cleaned up its Act not at all I mean we have reports of horrific abuse still coming out of these facilities as of a week ago as of yesterday [Music] Caroline Cole runs the Survivor support group unsilenced and like Paris Hilton is pushing for greater regulation of the industry and a Bill of Rights for young people in care some whose worst crime has been to hit their teenage years I think we have got to de-pathologize being a teen agers are supposed to have an attitude they're supposed to be cranky they're supposed to argue with their parents they're supposed to push back and say no and if you have a kid who is sneaking out at night or experimenting with substances it's not always the end of the world and we have got to learn how to be able to bend as parents to keep our kids safe is there any argument that what these people were doing was their form of therapy they thought that they were trying to help troubled kids no one in their right mind would think this was any form of therapy if anything it's a form of torture it just makes me proud to know that on [Music] it just makes me proud to know that these kids know that someone is out there fighting for them because when I was in there no one was and no one knew anything about this the worst of my experience was the Headmaster of the school um telling me that my life would amount to nothing because at the core I was a wayward Youth and that I wasn't worth the college application fee of course Emily was worth the application fee and so much more making it to University to study law but on so many levels the psychological scars Run 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 that one and I probably will be for a long time family it's it's been hard to ever let their men or trust them again tonight now living in Brisbane Emily is still driven to show that she is not intrinsically bad and never was slur she has survived that others could not part of me were always mourn my childhood but there are so many kids who have died and so many friends I've lost I tried to live my life for them and I will always take great satisfaction in proving that lady wrong who told me I would never amount to anything that I wasn't worth a college application fee feel like you've done that proven her wrong I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to hello I'm Tara Brown thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia subscribe to our Channel now for brand new stories and exclusive Clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 Minutes on 9now.com and the nine Now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 592,723

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Tara Brown, 60Mins, #60Mins, paris hilton, paris hilton troubled teen industry, troubled teens, troubled teen industry, help for my troubled teen, troubled teens australia, provo canyon school, monarch school montana, andy goldstrom, andy goldstrom parents journey, caroline cole, caroline cole unsilenced, unsilenced, paris hilton protest, paris hilton school, sammi taylor producer, tracey hannaford producer, end the tti, breaking code silence

Id: cFLaEnQ2Dp0

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022