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I first became interested in what I\u2019ve learned is called the \u201ctroubled teen industry<\/a>\u201d more than 20 years ago, when my parents sent me away to a program they thought would help me finish high school. At that point I was skipping a lot of school and running away. Simply put, I was seeking emancipation, community and safety \u2013 albeit in a headstrong way.<\/p>\n The troubled teen industry is a mostly unregulated collection of for-profit programs that claim to rehabilitate out-of-control youth. Between\u00a050,000 and 100,000<\/a>\u00a0adolescents currently spend at least part of the year in these facilities. Their enrollment \u2013 or confinement, depending on the arrangement or their perspective \u2013 can prevent these relatively privileged kids from joining the 48,000 youth caught in the\u00a0U.S. juvenile justice system<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m now completing a\u00a0doctoral degree<\/a>\u00a0in sociology, for which I\u2019m researching\u00a0the impact the troubled teen industry<\/a>\u00a0has on people like me who experience it firsthand.<\/p>\n My junior year of high school, my parents, unsure of what else to do,\u00a0hired so-called \u201cescorts\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to suddenly take me away. Following an all-night drive, they left me at a\u00a0therapeutic boarding school<\/a>\u00a0for youth who have real or perceived emotional, psychological, behavioral and academic challenges.<\/p>\n I feel that this East Coast program, which I can\u2019t name due to\u00a0confidentiality guidelines<\/a>, helped me complete high school in a way that ultimately led to a college degree. Even so, my road was still rocky. Within a month after graduation at 17, I moved out of my parents\u2019 house with nothing and dropped out of the college I was accepted to.<\/p>\n Within a year a fellow graduate committed suicide. Every few years since, I\u2019ve lost other friends I made there, mostly through drug overdoses and suicide.<\/p>\n There is no official data indicating the prevalence of self-harm following time spent at a troubled teen facility, and many\u00a0teens<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0people in their 20s<\/a>\u00a0also take their own lives. Even so, I believe that my research exposes the uneven results for the troubled teens whose families enrolled them in these programs to get them on a better path.<\/p>\n This industry includes a variety of accredited and nonaccredited programs.<\/p>\n Some are\u00a0boot camps<\/a>. Others are\u00a0religious reform programs<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cemotional growth\u201d or therapeutic schools<\/a>, or ranches, as well as\u00a0wilderness therapy programs<\/a>. It also includes some\u00a0military-style academies<\/a>\u00a0that focus on sparse surroundings, lots of physical activities and punishments, as well as a variety of\u00a0residential treatment programs<\/a>\u00a0that aim to\u00a0change deviant behaviors<\/a>\u00a0like poor school performance, self-harming, drug abuse, insubordination and more.<\/p>\n Students spend from a few weeks to a few years, depending on the program. Most wilderness programs, drug treatment and mental health centers require shorter stays of\u00a0up to eight weeks<\/a>. Most residential treatment programs require stays of at least a year or more.<\/p>\n Insurance and the government rarely cover the costs, which currently average\u00a0US$6,316<\/a>\u00a0per month. As a result, most teenagers enrolled in these institutions are wealthy.<\/p>\n To see what the long-term impact of spending time in those places might be, I interviewed and surveyed adults who attended a therapeutic boarding school I\u2019m calling \u201cYouth Academy Services\u201d but has another name.<\/p>\n I conducted 14 in-depth interviews with former students, now adults between the ages of 22 and 35 who had spent an average of 14 months in the program. All but two completed the program, and all but one, who later earned a GED high school equivalency certificate, graduated from high school. Five of them had already earned college degrees, three were in college when interviewed and three more had dropped out of college.<\/p>\n I also surveyed a separate group of former students online, finding that 26 of these 34 respondents had graduated from a four-year college or a trade school. Three also earned a master\u2019s degree. Twenty of those 34 people felt Youth Academy Services helped them get into college, and all of the people I interviewed got jobs shortly after the program. Only two said they were temporarily out of work.<\/p>\n In short, they\u2019re relatively affluent today for a formerly delinquent population. That reflects their upper middle-class upbringing and the role programs like this can play in\u00a0safeguarding privilege<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite those markers of a successful outcome, everyone said they had a little or a lot of trouble coping with mental health, substance use and personal relationships.<\/p>\n With little academic research about these private programs serving troubled teens, the conversation around them strikes me as either\u00a0overly positive<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0negative<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m skeptical about the positive research because most of it has been conducted and funded by the\u00a0schools themselves or the organizations representing them<\/a>. These studies also tend to look at limited time frames, such as two years or less after participants have left\u00a0a \u201ctroubled teens\u201d program<\/a>.<\/p>\n Much\u00a0of the more independently conducted research <\/a>\u00a0has found these programs to be ineffective or\u00a0unclear about successful outcomes<\/a>. Others have seen them as\u00a0detrimental and abusive<\/a>.<\/p>\n For example, the\u00a0Government Accountability Office<\/a>, an investigative agency that\u2019s part of the legislative branch, chronicled concerns in these programs. It drew attention to the industry\u2019s deceptive marketing, ineffective management, poorly trained staff and use of\u00a0seclusion and restraints<\/a>. There have even been\u00a0instances<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0abuse and deaths<\/a>.<\/p>\n On average,\u00a0six teens have died each year<\/a>\u00a0in these programs over the last few decades.<\/p>\n These reports led\u00a0former Rep. George Miller<\/a>, and later\u00a0Rep. Adam Schiff<\/a>, to\u00a0propose legislation<\/a>\u00a0designed to stop abuse in the troubled teen industry. While\u00a0Congress has never approved<\/a>\u00a0these bills,\u00a0California has enacted its own regulation<\/a>, which took effect in 2018. That measure mandates licensing by the California Department of Social Services, protects the privacy of participants in these programs and spells out their right to be free from physical, sexual, emotional and other kinds of abuse.<\/p>\n My study is unique because I asked former students to reflect on the long-term impact of attending one troubled teen program anywhere from four to 20 years ago. Five said they benefited, five\u00a0perceived no difference<\/a>\u00a0and four told me their stay had made their life worse.<\/p>\n Twenty-four of the 34 survey respondents wouldn\u2019t recommend the program to a friend or colleague for their child. What\u2019s more, 16 would never send their own child, or a close relative, to a therapeutic boarding school if they were behaving exactly like they did as a teenager.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, these programs have\u00a0high attrition rates<\/a>. It\u2019s not unusual for half of the teens who enroll to leave without completing them. Many Youth Academy Services students were removed by their parents,\u00a0sent elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0or turned 18 and left on their own.<\/p>\n One good reason why Youth Academy Services produced\u00a0varied results<\/a>\u00a0is the rather wide range of delinquent behaviors by the young people sent there.<\/p>\n Some people sent to Youth Academy Services had been stealing from relatives, doing drugs and skipping school. Others told me that it was for simply not conforming to upper-class norms. For example, they might have been affiliated with\u00a0fringe subcultures<\/a>, such as skateboarders or punk rockers. Others were spending too much time playing video games, while some said that merely expressing their\u00a0sexuality<\/a>\u00a0merited exodus.<\/p>\n A few told me that they still question to this day why they were sent there, and many commented they had peers whom they didn\u2019t think needed to be there.<\/p>\n Given the\u00a0disruptions these programs can cause<\/a>\u00a0in young people\u2019s lives, the expensive burden on their families and the mixed results I found in studying just one of these programs, I think parents should not rush to enroll their children in them.<\/p>\n Instead, parents should carefully review and consider local alternatives that will keep\u00a0their kids more connected to their families<\/a>,\u00a0communities and friends<\/a>\u00a0if at all possible.<\/p>\nMixed results<\/strong><\/h4>\n
An array of institutions<\/strong><\/h4>\n
In-depth interviews and online survey<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Rosy or negative<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Helping, harming or making no difference<\/strong><\/h4>\n
What parents should consider first<\/strong><\/h4>\n