By JODI WESTRICK
Observer staff
Oct. 11, 2007

Members of a house committee said Wednesday they were “boggled” and angered, after family members and a government official testified that special treatment programs for troubled youths abused participants physically, emotionally and mentally – sometimes resulting in death.

The House Committee on Education and Labor investigative hearing came as a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office spanning 17 years found “thousands of allegations of abuse” at youth boot camps, wilderness therapy programs and boarding schools claiming to help teenagers suffering from depression, drug abuse or other developmental problems.

“Today’s testimony reveals disturbing facts about the world of residential treatment programs,” said Greg Kutz, managing director of GAO’s forensic audits and special investigations. “You might have assumed that I was talking about human rights violations in a third world country. Unfortunately, these human rights violations occurred right here in the United States of America.”

Three family members of teenagers killed while attending therapeutic programs testified in support of the accountability office’s findings and called for a better way to punish residential treatment programs for wrongful death.

Paul Lewis, whose son Ryan committed suicide while under the supervision of a wilderness therapeutic program in 2001, testified that he was assured multiple times that his son would be safe.

The same people that assured him his son would be safe were “the people who decided Ryan’s desperate cries for help were manipulations to get out of the program,” a tearful Lewis said. “Consequentially, on a cold, rainy night – desperate, alone and abused, Ryan took his life.”

Lewis later discovered that experts the program touted were not actually experts or therapists as he was told. Instead, they had backgrounds in unrelated professions, and little experience dealing with adolescents with serious depression.

“I just don’t want another family to suffer a loss of a child in this fraudulent industry,” Lewis said.

Kutz testified that one of the main concerns with residential treatment programs, such as the one Lewis sent his son to, were false claims and glamorous marketing.

“These programs take advantage of desperate parents,” Kutz said.

For Cynthia Clark-Harvey, it was the lack of concern for the children being sent to the program that was most upsetting. Her 15-year-old daughter Erica died from heat exhaustion and dehydration while at the Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy Program in 2002.

“They told us we could trust our most precious, first-born daughter Erica with them,” Clark-Harvey said. “When she was born, we saw the universe in her eyes. Today we’re only left with memories.”

Bob Bacon thought sending his 16-year-old son Aaron to North Star Expeditions would help him “find God in the wilderness.” He said the program stood out because it encouraged participants to write down their thoughts in a journal – and since his son was a writer, he thought it would help him work through his problems.

“After his death, we found that his journal contained no poetry, but rather tales of torture, abuse and neglect,” Bacon said.

Many of these residential therapy programs, including the three mentioned, received recognition from the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. While the association does not actually accredit any of the programs, it serves as a resource and is often used by parents to determine the legitimacy of a program.

According to executive director Jan Moss, the association strengthened its requirements for recognition in May, and now requires programs and schools to receive accreditation from outside sources. Programs and schools already recognized they have until January 2009 to be accredited.

Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., noted that there was a need for a greater sense of urgency in solving the problem.

“I am sure that there are programs staffed by caring, professional, competent staff members who do help to improve children’s lives,” he said. “Yet there are clearly a number of programs staffed by untrained, unlicensed, poorly paid staff members who simply cannot be entrusted with children’s welfare.”

When asked what they would say to parents considering therapeutic or boot camp programs to help their troubled children, the three parents seemed to agree that they would have done things differently.

“In hindsight, I wouldn’t let my child out of my sight,” Lewis said. “But that’s the beauty of hindsight.”