June 4, 2024 • 44 mins
The pain of sending your child away cannot be underestimated. Our host Caroline Cole speaks with her own mother about what led to her being sent away and the lingering repercussions on their relationship. Academy at Ivy Ridge in upstate New York is highlighted.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following episode contains disturbing and graphic accounts of survivor experiences.
It may not be suitable for younger audiences. Please listen
with care. Hey, it's Caroline. As many of our listeners know,
I'm a survivor myself. I was sent to the Academy
(00:23):
at Ivy Ridge when I was fourteen years old and
didn't leave until I was almost seventeen. The Academy at
ivy Ridge was a WASP affiliated facility located in upstate
New York. Way upstate, like on the Canadian border. You
could actually see Canada from the campus. It's this same
(00:46):
school that was featured on the recent Netflix Stock You
series the program. My time at ivy Ridge was a
very difficult few years for my mom and me. It
drove us apart instead of bringing us together like they
had promised, something that we're still healing from to this day.
In episode one, I told you this story was personal,
(01:10):
and in this episode you'll find out why.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
From iHeartRadio London audio and executive producer Paris Hilton, this
is Trapped in Treatment. We're your hosts. I'm Rebecca Mellinger Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And I'm Caroline Cole. We have one mission to make
sure that no child has to experience the hell that
is the trouble teen industry. This season is all about WASP,
the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs in Schools, one of
the largest networks of treatment facilities in the industry, masterminded
(01:58):
by one man, Robert Litchfield. The stories you will hear
in today's episode are the personal allegations and accounts of myself,
my mother, and two former staff who worked at the
school I attended. All experiences, views, and opinions are our own.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Over the past five weeks, we've broken down the origins
of the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs in Schools, or
WASP for short, and its creator, Robert Litchfield. Lichfield had
his foot in the troubled teen industry door before establishing
his programs. After getting his start as a dorm parent
at Provocanian School, Robert Litchfield got an itch to open
(02:45):
up programs of his own. He first enlisted the help
of his brother in law, Dan Peart. Peerret opened Majestic
Ranch on his property. Then Robert Litchfield's brother Narvin took
over marketing for all things WASP. Plus the Internet was
peeking its way into everyday life. So Narvin Litchfield jumped
(03:05):
on this opportunity and helped his brother's programs become a
top search result. While still in his early years, Robert
attended a Life Spring seminar and ended up hiring two
of the program's facilitators to develop a series of seminars
for girls at his school in the Virkin, Utah. This
set Lichfield's facilities apart from the rest of his competitors
(03:28):
in the troubled team industry space and became the backbone
of wasp's identity. Then, Litchfield gained operational control of a
psychiatric hospital in Utah called Brightway, which funneled kids to
various WASP affiliated programs, and though he would eventually stop
directly running programs himself, allegations would continue to be generated
(03:52):
against programs affiliated with Lichfield's organization. It seems to us
that Robert Litchfield and his associates under stood the desperation
of American families, focusing on the pain points and reeling
families in one child at a time. We've taken you
through multiple allegations told by survivors of various WASP programs,
(04:14):
both in the United States and abroad. Some spoke about
dog cages. Another claims she was used as a human doormat.
It has been one dehumanizing and demeaning claim after the next.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
As we've taken you through the stories of numerous survivors
from various WASP programs, one thing remains apparent. There has
been a huge lack of justice for the people who
endured months or even years at these facilities. The extent
of justice has been their ability to share their stories
with you. As we dig into the world of WASP,
(04:51):
we will continue to investigate why it was so challenging
for survivors to hold WASP accountable.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Last week, we heard the stories of Chelsea and Marina,
two young women who were first sent to Kossa by
the Sea and then to High Impact, two facilities in
northern Mexico that were seemingly attached to WASP, though senior
leadership denied being connected to High Impact at the time.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
They didn't even make you like They didn't make you
feel like a human, but they also didn't make you
feel like an animal.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
It was so demoralizing.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
High Impact had a reputation for and history of allegations
of abuse, but its cross border location specifically made it
difficult for American officials to investigate the claims that abounded
at the time. As we also know from some of
the claims brought up in other episodes, horrifying conditions weren't
exclusive to international waters.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
To US.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
It seems like Robert Litchfield and his associates found a
way to capitalize on the pain of families and crisis.
It feels like they took advantage of fractured relationships in
scared parents, and in doing so created a framework for
WASP to generate millions of dollars. For some families, it
would cost them everything. Families like mine. Though several WASP
(06:19):
affiliated facilities were located outside of the US, today we
will be focusing on one a little bit closer to
home in Upstate New York. Parenting a teenager isn't easy.
As a mother of a teen myself, I live and
(06:40):
breathe it every day. It's a time of rapid growth.
They're finding their independence, pushing boundaries, and preparing for adulthood
as they should. As difficult as this moment may be,
it's a natural part of growing up. It can be rocky,
and when our children start making questionable choices, it can
(07:03):
cause any parent to worry. A fearful parent will do
anything for their child, including my own mother, Meretith Sinclair,
who you'll hear throughout this episode. Our problems started when
I was still pretty young.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It starts slowly. It's not something that as all of
a sudden a big event. Usually, I think, not just
for us, but for other families, other kids.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You know, some things that seemed easy for other kids
just weren't for me. I was smart and would complete
school projects, and then I just wouldn't turn them in.
I found myself daydreaming in class, and I had a
hard time focusing. I would have rather been anywhere else.
I now realize that I probably had undiagnosed ADHD. On
(07:52):
top of that, when my relationship with my mom and
family started to fall apart, I started rebelling.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I'll say'm fifth grade. I started getting phone calls from
her school that were maybe once a month with a
problem that happened, not like she didn't turn in her
homework or something, but bigger problems. So maybe that was
once a month, and then it escalated to twice a month,
and then in sixth grade, it was got to be
(08:21):
say every week. Well, since it does start slowly, you know,
you're seeing things and so it's like, okay, well, I'll
implement the normal parent thing, which is okay, Well, because
this happened, you are grounded for two weeks a week
or what you know what I mean. You're just kind
of like seeing it in Like now I can look
(08:43):
back and see the whole movie. I can see the
whole picture. I can see what should have been done. Okay,
But at the time I had started just doing regular
things that we all do well. Then things got bigger
and the consequences got bigger, and things escalated.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
One day, when I was in the eighth grade, I
got into a fight at school. A girl had thrown
a basketball at me over a boy, and I felt
like I had to defend myself. I ended up getting suspended.
I admit it wasn't my shining moment, but this is
when things really began to take a downward turn. I
(09:20):
was angry at my mom. I felt resentful about dynamics
and our family, and I felt like I had no one.
On top of that, she didn't approve of my friends,
how I dressed, or the music I listened to, which
resulted in a lot of arguments and hurt feelings. But
what hurt the most is I felt like I was
(09:41):
losing my best friend, my mom. We couldn't see to eye.
I mean, I was a teenager, But what I didn't
understand at the time was that my mom didn't have
all the answers and was trying to figure out this
thing called life too. She was a single mom and
was only twenty too when she had me. As children,
(10:03):
we think our parents know everything, they are the ultimate authority.
But as a mother now myself, I realized that it's
not quite that simple.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So I had talked to many doctors. I had talked
to her a physician, you know her regular you kind
of start at like the primary care physician.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
And I had reached out to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And I was getting therapy on my own, you know,
for my own issues, and then also obviously involving my daughter.
That was a major component of things falling apart and
our family. So I had talked to anyone and everyone.
I'd made phone calls to doctors people I didn't even
(10:45):
know in person, just they were recommended. They might have
been clear across the country trying to get some help.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
In this moment, I realized that maybe it hadn't been
as easy as I thought for her to let me go.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Most parents, most people who have kids, you feel like
you're doing the right thing. So it starts out just like, Okay, well,
I mean, I'm quite sure she's going to learn from this,
because there was a punishment for it, you know, being
grounded or whatever. And then you can see that that's
(11:23):
not working. That didn't work. You know, Caroline would wait
out her two weeks of being grounded, which often entailed
no computer, no TV. I put all that in my
trunk so she couldn't access it, blah blah blah. And
then you know, you get to a point after talking
to so many people, there's really no help, effective help
(11:49):
from anyone, or helpful ideas. So really you get to
the point of despair. That's how I felt, anyways, which
is what me to sending her to this program. If
someone you know, at that point, she was in eighth grade,
So if I could have gone back, or thinking back,
(12:09):
if someone would have suggested sending her somewhere or even
in seventh grade or sixth grade, I would have thought, oh, gosh, no,
I would never do that, you know, my first reaction.
But things had escalated so much that I was searching
and searching for help, not to get rid of her,
not to send her off, not as a punishment. I
(12:30):
thought it was true help.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Like so many other parents, my mom got online. The
internet was new, and she didn't know anything about keywords
or targeted ads like we do today.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Again, I had never heard of anyone else doing it, however,
and looking at the program online. I didn't go online
searching for a program. I didn't even know that they existed.
Was just searching for help, a book, an article, other parents,
(13:04):
a blog, vlog, whatever, to get some help. But then
you know, I came across this program, so yeah, you know,
I think I was looking up like videos, you know,
anything like or even just books I could buy to
read to help. Well, whatever keywords I put in, like teenager,
(13:28):
problems at home, problems at school, whatever, I mean, I
just you know, drug use, this that alcohol use or
you know, stealing things or you know all those key words.
Of course, well, what do you know, here's troubled Team
websites information. It wasn't really presented in a way at
(13:49):
the time. When I saw it like a splashy ad
with a splashy website, you know, it was more like
like supposed to be for another parent. Oh thank goodness,
I sent my child to I be rig or casted
by the sea, or whatever other ones there were at
the time in that group. So I felt like, oh,
(14:11):
wait a minute, what this is something that this person
had success with, you know, so I kind of think
that those were just I think those were not real.
As I found out.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Later, my mother had no support, no system in place
to guide her. She called the number on the website
and what she heard spoke to her worst fears.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I feel like they really capitalized on our pain and
sorrow and the problems we were going through. They they
capitalized on that. And yeah, so it was time as
of the essence, either they were filling up or really
(14:54):
looking back on it now, the guilt trips. Do you
want to be responsible? So if I say, your daughter's dad,
things like that, which at the time, I was so overwhelmed,
as parents are at that point at that stage, because
you've tried talking to everybody, you know, doing every single
(15:15):
thing you can to help your family. So you get
to that point, Yeah, of course you're as a parent,
you're thinking, well, no, no, of course I wouldn't want that.
Even if you don't answer it outwardly, like inside yourself,
it's a feeling of oh my gosh, that could I've
got to do something now, you know.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
I knew at the.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Time that my family really needed help. I was willing
to do anything to fix our family. Neither of us
were happy when the transporters arrived at my house to
take me to Ivy Ridge. My mom actually told me
that I was going to boarding school, and I was excited.
I thought that this was going to be a college
like experience. I was going to have a dorm room
(15:55):
and make friends. We'd paint each other's nails and stay
up late talking about boys, and I thought it was
going to be a chance for me to figure out
who I was outside of the pressure of my life
at home. But it wouldn't turn out like either of
us expected. I was sent away in June two thousand
(16:17):
and four to the Academy at Ivy Ridge, a facility
in Ogdensburg, New York. It's a tiny little town of
about ten thousand people, surrounded by farmland and the Saint
Lawrence River. Being this far away from home and the
places I knew made Ivy Ridge feel even more isolated.
(16:38):
Megan and her younger sister Andrea were both dorm parents
during my time there. They were a bit nervous for
the interview as it was the first time they have
ever spoken publicly about their experiences working there. During their employment,
they were about twenty one and nineteen years old, only
two or three years older than some of the girls
(16:59):
in their care including me. Here's Megan Oh.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I was looking for a job because I had just
moved to New York and.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
So our background we were raised Mormon, and my mom
was going to the LDS Church in Potsdam, and she
had found out or heard about the academy, because if
you're from Saint Mawrence County, you know the Academy at
Ivy Ridge. We didn't, however, so I was looking for
a job and they were hiring. At that time, I
(17:32):
was torn between working at a radio station or working
at the.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Academy at Ivy Ridge.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
And the radio station was going to pay me six
dollars an hour, and the academy was going to pay
me probably around that. However, we would get paid more
because we had like nights on and nights off, so
you'd get extra money because you were there for days
at a time.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
So as a twenty.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
One year old who was looking for a job, I
was like, of course, I'm going to choose the one
where I'm going to get more money.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
At twenty one years old, Megan was hired and would
become intricately involved in the lives of young, impressionable girls.
But it wasn't just about the money for her. There
was another reason she felt drawn to the school for girls.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
What we thought we were getting into wasn't what we
were doing.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
So it was about a job, but at the same time,
it was also about working with women or girls who
we were told that had behavioral issues. And we have
our own backgrounds and probably could have ended up there too,
you know, honestly. So my biggest thing growing up was
like helping girls not have to go through some of
(18:40):
the shit that we went through.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
So in my mind, that's what I thought we were
going to do.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Andrea, her sister, felt the same, like.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
A mentorship program almost like be a mentor for these
girls to and and this is probably what we created
in our own minds because it's the most part of
this thing from the reality of what actually happened when
we started working there.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Once hired, they were assigned a group of girls.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
But I do remember going and being interviewed by like
the head guy. I don't think that I trained for
very long underneath somebody, though I really think it was.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
In my mind. It was just a few days before
I had my own family.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Andrea felt whatever training they did receive was inadequate.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
We were not qualified, Like I can't say bad enough.
We were not I had a CNA certification, certified nurses
Aid and that's what I did for a couple of
months prior to working there, But I didn't have a
college degree. I didn't even go to college until after
I left working at Academy. I was just thrown into it, like,
(19:53):
here's your group of girls. These are the rules. They're
supposed to follow. This as their schedule. So like seen
twenty one, no experience, just here you go, now be
in charge of these girls.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
What they say they were taught was how to dole
out punishment. Here's Andrea again explaining her perspective of what
she recalls while working there.
Speaker 7 (20:19):
You demoted the girls for everything that they did, and
I mean everything, and as a staff, you would like
get in trouble if you did not give out like
demerits and if you're it was impossible for your family
to have a perfect day without demerits. If that was
(20:40):
the case, you as a staff were not doing your job,
and so then it would come down on you. So
it was like you were forced to find reasons to
punish these girls and take their points away so that
they couldn't rank up. And so that was something that
was really hard because you formed bonds of these They
(21:01):
were kids, Like I was nineteen, and some of them
were like a year if not the same age as
I was, but some of them were as young as
like twelve years old. And it's like, when you don't
feel good, you just want to be comforted, but as
a staff, you're not allowed to comfort them because you
would get in trouble because then they're just basically playing
(21:25):
on your emotions and taking advantage of you and like
manipulating you. That was a big thing that you were
always being manipulated by these girls, so you would you
would have to go out of the way to find
things that they did wrong, even if they didn't necessarily
do anything wrong. Or if maybe they did do something
(21:49):
wrong but it was like insignificant. But to them, it
wasn't like if they dropped their pen on the floor,
then they were not being considerate of their family and
being disruptive. You would have to give them a demera.
And it's like was like this, it's like psychological warfare.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
There's that term again, psychological warfare. Day to day life
in the program was soul crushing. No matter how hard
you tried, there was a consequence waiting just around the corner,
and the tiniest mistake could set you back.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I can't imagine living as a child in that punitive
of an environment, one that masquerades is helping kids and
reunifying families.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Ivy Ridge admitted on their then website that the base
program was not therapeutic, and that therapy could be made
available at an additional cost. Their program was based in
behavior modification. It had all the trappings of a classic
WASP program, the same levels, worksheets, observational placement, strict structure,
(22:57):
and silence we've heard from in various programs already discussed
in this season. One piece of the WASP model we
haven't fully touched on yet is that we were not
allowed to talk at all for any reason. We were
required to be an absolute silence. This means that we
(23:17):
couldn't even say thank you, or if you're walking past
someone to say excuse me. It was complete silence at
all times. They actually had a talk list that you
could sign up on if you wanted to talk to someone,
and so there were certain parts of the day throughout
the week they would go down this list and you
were allowed to talk for five minutes to someone of
(23:39):
your choice. What that really turned out to look like
is you were only allowed to talk freely for about
five minutes, maybe maybe every two weeks. I challenge anyone
who is listening to try to not talk for one day.
We weren't even allowed to look at each other or
to make eye contact or turn our heads out of
(24:01):
line if someone was talking. We had to literally just
act as if no one around us existed. And it
was extremely stressful because we're social, we are social people,
and spending that much time in silence. I always just
like to emphasize what really happens is you just turn
inside yourself. You're in an environment that's scary, you're hearing
(24:25):
yelling and screaming around you. You're seeing your fellow peers,
people that you care about, getting physically restrained, and you
can do nothing about it. My experience at Ivy Ridge
was the farthest thing from family reunification. The very reason
why my mom had signed me up. I think at
the time my mom knew very little. Everything is explained
(24:48):
away by the facility. Everything has a justification from the
very start. They're telling the parents you're not allowed to
talk to your child. They said at the time that
we needed to acclimate to life there, and if you
talk to them on the phone, then they're going to
want to go home. It was never suspected that they
were using that as a tool to silence us. My
(25:10):
mom truly thought, Okay, well, this is a method that
they recommend, and again you're believing their expertise. You're believing
because they say, we do this with families all the time,
and it works.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
It works.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
We have these wild success stories that come out of
this program. And this is the other line that they
would say all the time, trust the process, work the program.
If you're not trusting the process, then you're not working
the program. And if you're not working the program, then
you're definitely not ready to go home, and so that
just creates this ideology where no one asks questions. Everyone
(25:50):
just goes along with it.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I think it's easy to judge parents who send their
kids away, but it's clear that there is just more
to it that did you miss your mom?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I missed my mom terribly. I loved my mom. There
was never a point in time that I stopped loving
my mom. I hated that our relationship was the way
it was, but even on our worst days, I always
deeply loved my mom. And I think one of the
saddest things about the program is that when you're there
(26:26):
for so long without your family, you eventually learn how
to live without your family. My mom shares that, looking
back now, she would have done it all differently.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
At this time in my life now if someone presented
this program to me, and not just because I've already
experienced it, not just because I can say I've been there,
done that sham, scam, beware harm, danger, you know, but
because I've done a lot of my own healing. Now
I've done real healing. Okay, I have a whole different approach,
(27:08):
you know. I would never continue going to any of
that I never even would have signed up in the
first place, to be honest, you know. And that's where
I think that a lot of families can help their
children so much if first they help themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
The time of tough love may be on the decline,
but families still have moments of crisis. They still need help.
Throughout this podcast, as we learn all the wrong things
that have been done, we want to acknowledge that appropriate
treatment is needed. Support is vitally important for those going
through a crisis and their family unit, but it needs
(27:50):
to be true treatment based on healing, not punishment.
Speaker 8 (27:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
I think a lot of people just point their finger
at the kids. Okay, this kid's rotten. They're talking back,
they're doing this, They're gonna be an harms way. And
you know, not to take away from the responsibility of
the kids, you know, especially as they get to be teenagers.
You know, they're not full adults, their brains haven't fully
formed yet, but they do have still some responsibility in
(28:20):
their behaviors. But I think because parents, especially in my era,
my generation of people, it's like, well, you know, we
want things to be right, you know, we want our
kids to be right. We want our communities to be right.
We want we want to be right. We want, and
(28:40):
by right I mean like actually be right, and also
be right, like be be good, you know. But I
think to really do that, we have to look at ourselves,
and not just look at ourselves, but actually get real
help for our own issues that have nothing to do
with these wonderful kids that we gave breath to that
(29:02):
we love that we've just gone sideways.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You know, Caroline's mom wasn't alone in her desire to
have things in her world be right. We spoke with
doctor Elliott Curry, the author of The Road to Whatever,
Middle Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence and a
professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine,
to help understand the unique social environment that may have
(29:27):
influenced the emergence of society's belief in the need for
teen treatment.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
We talked today all the time about what a polarized,
divided society we've become, right, And it's really true. Back
when I wrote that book, and again it seems remarkably
long ago, but just talking roughly twenty years ago that
I began writing, you know, we certainly had the emergence
(29:59):
of this kind of political and social ideology that began
to push back against the ideas that had predominated in
the nineteen sixties and seventies that we should become a
more inclusive society, we should kind of lighten up when
it came to punishment. And the thing about it was
that it went along with a much broader critique about
(30:22):
American society at that time, which I'd say began around
the nineteen eighties, and it was kind of a backlash
against what was seen as the excessive tolerance and leniency
and emphasis on self esteem that happened during the nineteen
sixties and seventies, right when people were challenging the norms
(30:43):
of the society. This was a time around the time
of the election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty when
you begin to see a massive political shift in this
country toward a very different conception of what we as
a society were supposed to be about. You know, everything
from punishment in schools so the way kids should be
(31:04):
brought up in families, to children's rights in the juvenile
justice system. You began to see a very fierce backlash.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
In stark contrast to today's love of gentle parenting. The
eighties and nineties preferred a different approach.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
The sense that we should restore a much tougher vision,
which stressed euphemistic words like accountability and consequences, things of
this sort. It was so pervasive back then that I
used to hear this language, this focus on the need
(31:41):
for consequences and accountability versus you know, nurturing and supporting
and helping children. And it was a shift towards a
much more punitive kind of society, much more punitive use
of government, much more neglectful government way in terms of
(32:01):
cutting back on all kinds of supports for people, including
the American middle class, and that process continues.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
The concept of tough love became one of the pillars
of the Troubled teen industry, and it's a concept that
many parents took to heart. We asked Tabitha Echavaria, the
clinical psychologist from episode three, who did her thesis on WASP,
her thoughts on society's acceptance of tough love at the time.
Speaker 9 (32:31):
And people who know about behavior and behavior change and
psychological treatment knew that, you know, tough love was tough love.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
How air quotes around tough love.
Speaker 9 (32:44):
Was just like a nice way of talking about punishment.
I don't think parents don't know that we've already figured
out that that's not that that's not effective, and in fact,
that it actually causes more harm than actual research says
that it causes harm. And I don't think that they
knew that.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Tough love wasn't what I needed, But it does help
put my mom's decision into context. By the time I
left Ivy Ridge in two thousand and six, things at
the program were coming apart. There had been a riot
at the school that brought a lot of national attention,
and then in February of two thousand and five, the
then New York State Attorney General began investigating the program
(33:27):
on a variety of complaints from parents of children who
attended the school, including alleged physical abuse of students. During
the course of the investigation, the Attorney General's office discovered
that the school was grossly misrepresenting its academic credentials on
its website and promotional materials. I remember around this time
(33:49):
things at Ivy Ridge began to change. In hindsight, I
think they were trying to make the programs seem more
like a typical school. They started a boys basketball team.
We performed Romeo and Juliet, and some of the overly
stringent rules became more relaxed. I remember overhearing dorm parents
(34:09):
discussed how the program was under fire. There was a
part of me that hoped Ivy Ridge would be shut
down and I would get to go home. Even though
we knew it was performative, it still felt good to
have a sliver of normalcy.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
It's important to remember Academy at Ivy Ridge was marketed
as if it were a boarding school. The school website
claimed that the academic curriculum was a progressive academic curriculum,
which is individualized and competency based. Parents like Caroline's mother,
were told that their children would be receiving a top
tier education, but the Attorney General's investigation would reveal that
(34:49):
Ivy Ridge was only a candidate for accreditation and was
working its way through the multi year process for becoming
accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools. However, to
be accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, it
was required that the school be licensed, certified or registered
(35:10):
in the state in which it's located. Because Ivy Ridge
was never licensed, certified, or registered in New York State.
The school never should have been considered for accreditation.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I caught wind of.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
The school.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Didn't tell me. I read about it. I think in
a newspaper. You know, back at that time, of course
there was internet, but it wasn't like now where you're
getting like, you didn't have smartphones. I think it was
still flip phone days. Okay, so you're still reading the
newspapers regularly and whatnot. And I read that Ivy Ridge
(35:48):
is not acknowledged by the State of New York in
any capacity.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
So while I was at Ivy Ridge, I completed over
two years of school, and I took my school very seriously.
I wanted to get really good grades. I had a
college plan that was all worked out, and you know,
to my knowledge, I was doing very well in school.
But I think I had about three months left in
the program when it was discovered that Ivy Ridge was
(36:15):
not accredited, which meant that the education they were providing
meant nothing. It meant that all of the credits that
I had earned could not be transferred. It was a scandal.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Approximately one hundred and ten kids would leave Ivy Ridge
believing that they had received a diploma and hundreds more
would believe that their credits would be transferred to future
educational institutions, but it was a lie.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
They are not approved by the State Board of Education
of New York, nor are they licensed, nor will any
child who's ever attended the school or is attending it
now have a diploma, or they would not acknowledge the
grade levels that they had work through supposedly at the school,
(37:04):
and they didn't have teachers there. It was online, super basic.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Caroline's mom was shocked. By this time. Caroline had been
in the program for over two years, right in the
middle of her high school years. So her mom did
what she thought was best.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So I stopped paying them, and I said, all resumed pain.
When you become licensed or you know, whatever the process
is for a school in the state of New York
accredited licensed, I will then pay the rest and I
will keep paying. Well, suddenly, what do you know, Oh,
(37:45):
oh my gosh, she's just speeding through these levels. Oh
she's graduating. Yeah, I was no longer paying, and I
have paid over one hundreds, one hundred thousand dollars you know,
to these people. Hundred I think at that point a
one hundred and thirty eight thousand I had paid.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And for a few weeks the misrepresentations continued. Caroline's mom
received a call from a senior staff member of IVY Ridge.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
And he told me that they were just weeks away,
weeks away from accreditation, and they'll be happy to let
me know when I can resume payment. They'll be happy
when their accreditation process is complete. They've just been worked tirelessly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
On August seventeenth, two thousand and five, Academy at Ivy
Ridge entered into an agreement with the State of New
York where they agreed to pay civil penalties of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Attorney General's Office
for issuing unauthorized high school diplomas in lieu of trial
or admission of liability. It was also ordered to issue
(38:54):
partial refunds to families of students who attended the school.
The Attorney General had found that and I quote the actions, representations,
and conduct of IVY Ridge as described herein constitute repeated
and persistent, fraudulent and illegal conduct actionable by the Attorney General.
(39:14):
At the time. Ken Kay, president of WASP, denied any
allegations of abuse and specified that WASP did not quote
deal directly with the kids.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
At the time, I was not aware that my mom
had stopped paying for the program and was considering unenrolling me,
but I did notice that suddenly I seemed to be
skating through. Within a few months, I moved up in
levels and there were talks about finally graduating, something I
had worked so hard for. By the time I graduated,
(39:51):
I had been there for twenty nine months, almost two
and a half years. Looking back, I was a shining
example of a student. I was president of student council
in a model upper level, completed all the seminars, and
was going to church every Sunday. And they couldn't lose
me as a statistic. They couldn't lose me to getting
pulled from the program. No, they needed to prove that
(40:14):
graduating worked. And so when my mom said that she
was thinking about pulling me because she couldn't afford it
any longer, I believe they made sure that I was
graduating because they needed me as a success story, and
they needed me to say that the program worked, and
so they pushed me through pretty quickly after that.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Although she was excited to finally be able to go home.
She didn't know that the most difficult part would be
reckoning that the parts of herself that she lost in
the program.
Speaker 8 (40:46):
I was there for so long. I drank the tea,
I really did. I absolutely became what they called programized,
and I went to the seminars. I took the seminars
very seriously. I took my program very seriously because I
(41:07):
wanted nothing more than to go home, and I knew
in order to go home, I had to show progress,
and I had to show that I was taking steps
to be better and to make good decisions, and to
show leadership and all of these other characteristics that were
expected of you in order to go home. And so
(41:28):
I became a shell of who I was when I
went in. I loved music. I wanted to be a
music journalist. I loved dancing. I loved to socialize, and
when I got out of the program, I had really
lost sight of a lot of that.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
It would take me many years to fully acknowledge what
had happened to me at the Academy at Ivy Ridge
and to find myself again. Over the next few years,
after the Attorney General's investigation, enrollment at ivy Ridge would
drop dramatically, and they officially shuttered their doors in two
thousand and nine. The Academy at Ivy Ridge lives in
(42:13):
my memory and the memories of so many others as
some of the worst years of our lives. The school
actually closed so quickly that many remnants of its existence
are still there in the forests of Ogdensburg, with everything
left just as it was, papers littered the floor, uniforms
(42:34):
hanging in closets in eerie museum of the place the
director once called the boarding school of the future. The
lasting impact that the program has had on my family
is sadly not a unique experience. It's only the tip
of the iceberg, one that extends far below the surface
(42:58):
for those affected. Just as I was progrimized, core aspects
of the WASP curriculum were taken outside of the facility
walls too. They tried to brainwash my mom next week
on trapped in treatment.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
They told me I was going to be Shania Twain, okay,
and that what's that song, man, I feel like a woman? Okay,
that I need to go buy a Shania Twain outfit,
and that I was going to be Shania Twain. So
there's like eighty ninety people there, that I would be
(43:36):
dancing for everybody in the middle of this ballroom, seminar ballroom.
Not only that, but I would be picking out one
man out of the audience and doing a lap dance
for this guy. Okay, I'm not kidding. I mean I
was just terrified. I was just terrified, like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
All of ours to reach Robert Litchfield for comment were unsuccessful,
and he did not respond to our request for comment.
From our research, no one mentioned in this episode has
ever been charged with or found guilty of any crime
stemming from allegations of abuse or in connection with WASP
or any of the schools affiliated therewith.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Hey guys, it's Paris.
Speaker 7 (44:22):
Thanks for listening to episode six. WASP was tearing families apart,
but why are they so effective?
Speaker 3 (44:28):
We'll continue to explore this question throughout the season.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Make sure to sign up at the link in the
episode description to get involved.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
See you next week.
The following episode contains disturbing and graphic accounts of survivor experiences.
It may not be suitable for younger audiences. Please listen
with care. Hey, it's Caroline. As many of our listeners know,
I'm a survivor myself. I was sent to the Academy
(00:23):
at Ivy Ridge when I was fourteen years old and
didn't leave until I was almost seventeen. The Academy at
ivy Ridge was a WASP affiliated facility located in upstate
New York. Way upstate, like on the Canadian border. You
could actually see Canada from the campus. It's this same
(00:46):
school that was featured on the recent Netflix Stock You
series the program. My time at ivy Ridge was a
very difficult few years for my mom and me. It
drove us apart instead of bringing us together like they
had promised, something that we're still healing from to this day.
In episode one, I told you this story was personal,
(01:10):
and in this episode you'll find out why.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
From iHeartRadio London audio and executive producer Paris Hilton, this
is Trapped in Treatment. We're your hosts. I'm Rebecca Mellinger Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And I'm Caroline Cole. We have one mission to make
sure that no child has to experience the hell that
is the trouble teen industry. This season is all about WASP,
the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs in Schools, one of
the largest networks of treatment facilities in the industry, masterminded
(01:58):
by one man, Robert Litchfield. The stories you will hear
in today's episode are the personal allegations and accounts of myself,
my mother, and two former staff who worked at the
school I attended. All experiences, views, and opinions are our own.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Over the past five weeks, we've broken down the origins
of the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs in Schools, or
WASP for short, and its creator, Robert Litchfield. Lichfield had
his foot in the troubled teen industry door before establishing
his programs. After getting his start as a dorm parent
at Provocanian School, Robert Litchfield got an itch to open
(02:45):
up programs of his own. He first enlisted the help
of his brother in law, Dan Peart. Peerret opened Majestic
Ranch on his property. Then Robert Litchfield's brother Narvin took
over marketing for all things WASP. Plus the Internet was
peeking its way into everyday life. So Narvin Litchfield jumped
(03:05):
on this opportunity and helped his brother's programs become a
top search result. While still in his early years, Robert
attended a Life Spring seminar and ended up hiring two
of the program's facilitators to develop a series of seminars
for girls at his school in the Virkin, Utah. This
set Lichfield's facilities apart from the rest of his competitors
(03:28):
in the troubled team industry space and became the backbone
of wasp's identity. Then, Litchfield gained operational control of a
psychiatric hospital in Utah called Brightway, which funneled kids to
various WASP affiliated programs, and though he would eventually stop
directly running programs himself, allegations would continue to be generated
(03:52):
against programs affiliated with Lichfield's organization. It seems to us
that Robert Litchfield and his associates under stood the desperation
of American families, focusing on the pain points and reeling
families in one child at a time. We've taken you
through multiple allegations told by survivors of various WASP programs,
(04:14):
both in the United States and abroad. Some spoke about
dog cages. Another claims she was used as a human doormat.
It has been one dehumanizing and demeaning claim after the next.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
As we've taken you through the stories of numerous survivors
from various WASP programs, one thing remains apparent. There has
been a huge lack of justice for the people who
endured months or even years at these facilities. The extent
of justice has been their ability to share their stories
with you. As we dig into the world of WASP,
(04:51):
we will continue to investigate why it was so challenging
for survivors to hold WASP accountable.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Last week, we heard the stories of Chelsea and Marina,
two young women who were first sent to Kossa by
the Sea and then to High Impact, two facilities in
northern Mexico that were seemingly attached to WASP, though senior
leadership denied being connected to High Impact at the time.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
They didn't even make you like They didn't make you
feel like a human, but they also didn't make you
feel like an animal.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
It was so demoralizing.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
High Impact had a reputation for and history of allegations
of abuse, but its cross border location specifically made it
difficult for American officials to investigate the claims that abounded
at the time. As we also know from some of
the claims brought up in other episodes, horrifying conditions weren't
exclusive to international waters.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
To US.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
It seems like Robert Litchfield and his associates found a
way to capitalize on the pain of families and crisis.
It feels like they took advantage of fractured relationships in
scared parents, and in doing so created a framework for
WASP to generate millions of dollars. For some families, it
would cost them everything. Families like mine. Though several WASP
(06:19):
affiliated facilities were located outside of the US, today we
will be focusing on one a little bit closer to
home in Upstate New York. Parenting a teenager isn't easy.
As a mother of a teen myself, I live and
(06:40):
breathe it every day. It's a time of rapid growth.
They're finding their independence, pushing boundaries, and preparing for adulthood
as they should. As difficult as this moment may be,
it's a natural part of growing up. It can be rocky,
and when our children start making questionable choices, it can
(07:03):
cause any parent to worry. A fearful parent will do
anything for their child, including my own mother, Meretith Sinclair,
who you'll hear throughout this episode. Our problems started when
I was still pretty young.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It starts slowly. It's not something that as all of
a sudden a big event. Usually, I think, not just
for us, but for other families, other kids.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You know, some things that seemed easy for other kids
just weren't for me. I was smart and would complete
school projects, and then I just wouldn't turn them in.
I found myself daydreaming in class, and I had a
hard time focusing. I would have rather been anywhere else.
I now realize that I probably had undiagnosed ADHD. On
(07:52):
top of that, when my relationship with my mom and
family started to fall apart, I started rebelling.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I'll say'm fifth grade. I started getting phone calls from
her school that were maybe once a month with a
problem that happened, not like she didn't turn in her
homework or something, but bigger problems. So maybe that was
once a month, and then it escalated to twice a month,
and then in sixth grade, it was got to be
(08:21):
say every week. Well, since it does start slowly, you know,
you're seeing things and so it's like, okay, well, I'll
implement the normal parent thing, which is okay, Well, because
this happened, you are grounded for two weeks a week
or what you know what I mean. You're just kind
of like seeing it in Like now I can look
(08:43):
back and see the whole movie. I can see the
whole picture. I can see what should have been done. Okay,
But at the time I had started just doing regular
things that we all do well. Then things got bigger
and the consequences got bigger, and things escalated.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
One day, when I was in the eighth grade, I
got into a fight at school. A girl had thrown
a basketball at me over a boy, and I felt
like I had to defend myself. I ended up getting suspended.
I admit it wasn't my shining moment, but this is
when things really began to take a downward turn. I
(09:20):
was angry at my mom. I felt resentful about dynamics
and our family, and I felt like I had no one.
On top of that, she didn't approve of my friends,
how I dressed, or the music I listened to, which
resulted in a lot of arguments and hurt feelings. But
what hurt the most is I felt like I was
(09:41):
losing my best friend, my mom. We couldn't see to eye.
I mean, I was a teenager, But what I didn't
understand at the time was that my mom didn't have
all the answers and was trying to figure out this
thing called life too. She was a single mom and
was only twenty too when she had me. As children,
(10:03):
we think our parents know everything, they are the ultimate authority.
But as a mother now myself, I realized that it's
not quite that simple.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So I had talked to many doctors. I had talked
to her a physician, you know her regular you kind
of start at like the primary care physician.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
And I had reached out to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And I was getting therapy on my own, you know,
for my own issues, and then also obviously involving my daughter.
That was a major component of things falling apart and
our family. So I had talked to anyone and everyone.
I'd made phone calls to doctors people I didn't even
(10:45):
know in person, just they were recommended. They might have
been clear across the country trying to get some help.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
In this moment, I realized that maybe it hadn't been
as easy as I thought for her to let me go.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Most parents, most people who have kids, you feel like
you're doing the right thing. So it starts out just like, Okay, well,
I mean, I'm quite sure she's going to learn from this,
because there was a punishment for it, you know, being
grounded or whatever. And then you can see that that's
(11:23):
not working. That didn't work. You know, Caroline would wait
out her two weeks of being grounded, which often entailed
no computer, no TV. I put all that in my
trunk so she couldn't access it, blah blah blah. And
then you know, you get to a point after talking
to so many people, there's really no help, effective help
(11:49):
from anyone, or helpful ideas. So really you get to
the point of despair. That's how I felt, anyways, which
is what me to sending her to this program. If
someone you know, at that point, she was in eighth grade,
So if I could have gone back, or thinking back,
(12:09):
if someone would have suggested sending her somewhere or even
in seventh grade or sixth grade, I would have thought, oh, gosh, no,
I would never do that, you know, my first reaction.
But things had escalated so much that I was searching
and searching for help, not to get rid of her,
not to send her off, not as a punishment. I
(12:30):
thought it was true help.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Like so many other parents, my mom got online. The
internet was new, and she didn't know anything about keywords
or targeted ads like we do today.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Again, I had never heard of anyone else doing it, however,
and looking at the program online. I didn't go online
searching for a program. I didn't even know that they existed.
Was just searching for help, a book, an article, other parents,
(13:04):
a blog, vlog, whatever, to get some help. But then
you know, I came across this program, so yeah, you know,
I think I was looking up like videos, you know,
anything like or even just books I could buy to
read to help. Well, whatever keywords I put in, like teenager,
(13:28):
problems at home, problems at school, whatever, I mean, I
just you know, drug use, this that alcohol use or
you know, stealing things or you know all those key words.
Of course, well, what do you know, here's troubled Team
websites information. It wasn't really presented in a way at
(13:49):
the time. When I saw it like a splashy ad
with a splashy website, you know, it was more like
like supposed to be for another parent. Oh thank goodness,
I sent my child to I be rig or casted
by the sea, or whatever other ones there were at
the time in that group. So I felt like, oh,
(14:11):
wait a minute, what this is something that this person
had success with, you know, so I kind of think
that those were just I think those were not real.
As I found out.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Later, my mother had no support, no system in place
to guide her. She called the number on the website
and what she heard spoke to her worst fears.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I feel like they really capitalized on our pain and
sorrow and the problems we were going through. They they
capitalized on that. And yeah, so it was time as
of the essence, either they were filling up or really
(14:54):
looking back on it now, the guilt trips. Do you
want to be responsible? So if I say, your daughter's dad,
things like that, which at the time, I was so overwhelmed,
as parents are at that point at that stage, because
you've tried talking to everybody, you know, doing every single
(15:15):
thing you can to help your family. So you get
to that point, Yeah, of course you're as a parent,
you're thinking, well, no, no, of course I wouldn't want that.
Even if you don't answer it outwardly, like inside yourself,
it's a feeling of oh my gosh, that could I've
got to do something now, you know.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
I knew at the.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Time that my family really needed help. I was willing
to do anything to fix our family. Neither of us
were happy when the transporters arrived at my house to
take me to Ivy Ridge. My mom actually told me
that I was going to boarding school, and I was excited.
I thought that this was going to be a college
like experience. I was going to have a dorm room
(15:55):
and make friends. We'd paint each other's nails and stay
up late talking about boys, and I thought it was
going to be a chance for me to figure out
who I was outside of the pressure of my life
at home. But it wouldn't turn out like either of
us expected. I was sent away in June two thousand
(16:17):
and four to the Academy at Ivy Ridge, a facility
in Ogdensburg, New York. It's a tiny little town of
about ten thousand people, surrounded by farmland and the Saint
Lawrence River. Being this far away from home and the
places I knew made Ivy Ridge feel even more isolated.
(16:38):
Megan and her younger sister Andrea were both dorm parents
during my time there. They were a bit nervous for
the interview as it was the first time they have
ever spoken publicly about their experiences working there. During their employment,
they were about twenty one and nineteen years old, only
two or three years older than some of the girls
(16:59):
in their care including me. Here's Megan Oh.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I was looking for a job because I had just
moved to New York and.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
So our background we were raised Mormon, and my mom
was going to the LDS Church in Potsdam, and she
had found out or heard about the academy, because if
you're from Saint Mawrence County, you know the Academy at
Ivy Ridge. We didn't, however, so I was looking for
a job and they were hiring. At that time, I
(17:32):
was torn between working at a radio station or working
at the.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Academy at Ivy Ridge.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
And the radio station was going to pay me six
dollars an hour, and the academy was going to pay
me probably around that. However, we would get paid more
because we had like nights on and nights off, so
you'd get extra money because you were there for days
at a time.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
So as a twenty.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
One year old who was looking for a job, I
was like, of course, I'm going to choose the one
where I'm going to get more money.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
At twenty one years old, Megan was hired and would
become intricately involved in the lives of young, impressionable girls.
But it wasn't just about the money for her. There
was another reason she felt drawn to the school for girls.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
What we thought we were getting into wasn't what we
were doing.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
So it was about a job, but at the same time,
it was also about working with women or girls who
we were told that had behavioral issues. And we have
our own backgrounds and probably could have ended up there too,
you know, honestly. So my biggest thing growing up was
like helping girls not have to go through some of
(18:40):
the shit that we went through.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
So in my mind, that's what I thought we were
going to do.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Andrea, her sister, felt the same, like.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
A mentorship program almost like be a mentor for these
girls to and and this is probably what we created
in our own minds because it's the most part of
this thing from the reality of what actually happened when
we started working there.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Once hired, they were assigned a group of girls.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
But I do remember going and being interviewed by like
the head guy. I don't think that I trained for
very long underneath somebody, though I really think it was.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
In my mind. It was just a few days before
I had my own family.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Andrea felt whatever training they did receive was inadequate.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
We were not qualified, Like I can't say bad enough.
We were not I had a CNA certification, certified nurses
Aid and that's what I did for a couple of
months prior to working there, But I didn't have a
college degree. I didn't even go to college until after
I left working at Academy. I was just thrown into it, like,
(19:53):
here's your group of girls. These are the rules. They're
supposed to follow. This as their schedule. So like seen
twenty one, no experience, just here you go, now be
in charge of these girls.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
What they say they were taught was how to dole
out punishment. Here's Andrea again explaining her perspective of what
she recalls while working there.
Speaker 7 (20:19):
You demoted the girls for everything that they did, and
I mean everything, and as a staff, you would like
get in trouble if you did not give out like
demerits and if you're it was impossible for your family
to have a perfect day without demerits. If that was
(20:40):
the case, you as a staff were not doing your job,
and so then it would come down on you. So
it was like you were forced to find reasons to
punish these girls and take their points away so that
they couldn't rank up. And so that was something that
was really hard because you formed bonds of these They
(21:01):
were kids, Like I was nineteen, and some of them
were like a year if not the same age as
I was, but some of them were as young as
like twelve years old. And it's like, when you don't
feel good, you just want to be comforted, but as
a staff, you're not allowed to comfort them because you
would get in trouble because then they're just basically playing
(21:25):
on your emotions and taking advantage of you and like
manipulating you. That was a big thing that you were
always being manipulated by these girls, so you would you
would have to go out of the way to find
things that they did wrong, even if they didn't necessarily
do anything wrong. Or if maybe they did do something
(21:49):
wrong but it was like insignificant. But to them, it
wasn't like if they dropped their pen on the floor,
then they were not being considerate of their family and
being disruptive. You would have to give them a demera.
And it's like was like this, it's like psychological warfare.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
There's that term again, psychological warfare. Day to day life
in the program was soul crushing. No matter how hard
you tried, there was a consequence waiting just around the corner,
and the tiniest mistake could set you back.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I can't imagine living as a child in that punitive
of an environment, one that masquerades is helping kids and
reunifying families.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Ivy Ridge admitted on their then website that the base
program was not therapeutic, and that therapy could be made
available at an additional cost. Their program was based in
behavior modification. It had all the trappings of a classic
WASP program, the same levels, worksheets, observational placement, strict structure,
(22:57):
and silence we've heard from in various programs already discussed
in this season. One piece of the WASP model we
haven't fully touched on yet is that we were not
allowed to talk at all for any reason. We were
required to be an absolute silence. This means that we
(23:17):
couldn't even say thank you, or if you're walking past
someone to say excuse me. It was complete silence at
all times. They actually had a talk list that you
could sign up on if you wanted to talk to someone,
and so there were certain parts of the day throughout
the week they would go down this list and you
were allowed to talk for five minutes to someone of
(23:39):
your choice. What that really turned out to look like
is you were only allowed to talk freely for about
five minutes, maybe maybe every two weeks. I challenge anyone
who is listening to try to not talk for one day.
We weren't even allowed to look at each other or
to make eye contact or turn our heads out of
(24:01):
line if someone was talking. We had to literally just
act as if no one around us existed. And it
was extremely stressful because we're social, we are social people,
and spending that much time in silence. I always just
like to emphasize what really happens is you just turn
inside yourself. You're in an environment that's scary, you're hearing
(24:25):
yelling and screaming around you. You're seeing your fellow peers,
people that you care about, getting physically restrained, and you
can do nothing about it. My experience at Ivy Ridge
was the farthest thing from family reunification. The very reason
why my mom had signed me up. I think at
the time my mom knew very little. Everything is explained
(24:48):
away by the facility. Everything has a justification from the
very start. They're telling the parents you're not allowed to
talk to your child. They said at the time that
we needed to acclimate to life there, and if you
talk to them on the phone, then they're going to
want to go home. It was never suspected that they
were using that as a tool to silence us. My
(25:10):
mom truly thought, Okay, well, this is a method that
they recommend, and again you're believing their expertise. You're believing
because they say, we do this with families all the time,
and it works.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
It works.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
We have these wild success stories that come out of
this program. And this is the other line that they
would say all the time, trust the process, work the program.
If you're not trusting the process, then you're not working
the program. And if you're not working the program, then
you're definitely not ready to go home, and so that
just creates this ideology where no one asks questions. Everyone
(25:50):
just goes along with it.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I think it's easy to judge parents who send their
kids away, but it's clear that there is just more
to it that did you miss your mom?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I missed my mom terribly. I loved my mom. There
was never a point in time that I stopped loving
my mom. I hated that our relationship was the way
it was, but even on our worst days, I always
deeply loved my mom. And I think one of the
saddest things about the program is that when you're there
(26:26):
for so long without your family, you eventually learn how
to live without your family. My mom shares that, looking
back now, she would have done it all differently.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
At this time in my life now if someone presented
this program to me, and not just because I've already
experienced it, not just because I can say I've been there,
done that sham, scam, beware harm, danger, you know, but
because I've done a lot of my own healing. Now
I've done real healing. Okay, I have a whole different approach,
(27:08):
you know. I would never continue going to any of
that I never even would have signed up in the
first place, to be honest, you know. And that's where
I think that a lot of families can help their
children so much if first they help themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
The time of tough love may be on the decline,
but families still have moments of crisis. They still need help.
Throughout this podcast, as we learn all the wrong things
that have been done, we want to acknowledge that appropriate
treatment is needed. Support is vitally important for those going
through a crisis and their family unit, but it needs
(27:50):
to be true treatment based on healing, not punishment.
Speaker 8 (27:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
I think a lot of people just point their finger
at the kids. Okay, this kid's rotten. They're talking back,
they're doing this, They're gonna be an harms way. And
you know, not to take away from the responsibility of
the kids, you know, especially as they get to be teenagers.
You know, they're not full adults, their brains haven't fully
formed yet, but they do have still some responsibility in
(28:20):
their behaviors. But I think because parents, especially in my era,
my generation of people, it's like, well, you know, we
want things to be right, you know, we want our
kids to be right. We want our communities to be right.
We want we want to be right. We want, and
(28:40):
by right I mean like actually be right, and also
be right, like be be good, you know. But I
think to really do that, we have to look at ourselves,
and not just look at ourselves, but actually get real
help for our own issues that have nothing to do
with these wonderful kids that we gave breath to that
(29:02):
we love that we've just gone sideways.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You know, Caroline's mom wasn't alone in her desire to
have things in her world be right. We spoke with
doctor Elliott Curry, the author of The Road to Whatever,
Middle Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence and a
professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine,
to help understand the unique social environment that may have
(29:27):
influenced the emergence of society's belief in the need for
teen treatment.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
We talked today all the time about what a polarized,
divided society we've become, right, And it's really true. Back
when I wrote that book, and again it seems remarkably
long ago, but just talking roughly twenty years ago that
I began writing, you know, we certainly had the emergence
(29:59):
of this kind of political and social ideology that began
to push back against the ideas that had predominated in
the nineteen sixties and seventies that we should become a
more inclusive society, we should kind of lighten up when
it came to punishment. And the thing about it was
that it went along with a much broader critique about
(30:22):
American society at that time, which I'd say began around
the nineteen eighties, and it was kind of a backlash
against what was seen as the excessive tolerance and leniency
and emphasis on self esteem that happened during the nineteen
sixties and seventies, right when people were challenging the norms
(30:43):
of the society. This was a time around the time
of the election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty when
you begin to see a massive political shift in this
country toward a very different conception of what we as
a society were supposed to be about. You know, everything
from punishment in schools so the way kids should be
(31:04):
brought up in families, to children's rights in the juvenile
justice system. You began to see a very fierce backlash.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
In stark contrast to today's love of gentle parenting. The
eighties and nineties preferred a different approach.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
The sense that we should restore a much tougher vision,
which stressed euphemistic words like accountability and consequences, things of
this sort. It was so pervasive back then that I
used to hear this language, this focus on the need
(31:41):
for consequences and accountability versus you know, nurturing and supporting
and helping children. And it was a shift towards a
much more punitive kind of society, much more punitive use
of government, much more neglectful government way in terms of
(32:01):
cutting back on all kinds of supports for people, including
the American middle class, and that process continues.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
The concept of tough love became one of the pillars
of the Troubled teen industry, and it's a concept that
many parents took to heart. We asked Tabitha Echavaria, the
clinical psychologist from episode three, who did her thesis on WASP,
her thoughts on society's acceptance of tough love at the time.
Speaker 9 (32:31):
And people who know about behavior and behavior change and
psychological treatment knew that, you know, tough love was tough love.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
How air quotes around tough love.
Speaker 9 (32:44):
Was just like a nice way of talking about punishment.
I don't think parents don't know that we've already figured
out that that's not that that's not effective, and in fact,
that it actually causes more harm than actual research says
that it causes harm. And I don't think that they
knew that.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Tough love wasn't what I needed, But it does help
put my mom's decision into context. By the time I
left Ivy Ridge in two thousand and six, things at
the program were coming apart. There had been a riot
at the school that brought a lot of national attention,
and then in February of two thousand and five, the
then New York State Attorney General began investigating the program
(33:27):
on a variety of complaints from parents of children who
attended the school, including alleged physical abuse of students. During
the course of the investigation, the Attorney General's office discovered
that the school was grossly misrepresenting its academic credentials on
its website and promotional materials. I remember around this time
(33:49):
things at Ivy Ridge began to change. In hindsight, I
think they were trying to make the programs seem more
like a typical school. They started a boys basketball team.
We performed Romeo and Juliet, and some of the overly
stringent rules became more relaxed. I remember overhearing dorm parents
(34:09):
discussed how the program was under fire. There was a
part of me that hoped Ivy Ridge would be shut
down and I would get to go home. Even though
we knew it was performative, it still felt good to
have a sliver of normalcy.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
It's important to remember Academy at Ivy Ridge was marketed
as if it were a boarding school. The school website
claimed that the academic curriculum was a progressive academic curriculum,
which is individualized and competency based. Parents like Caroline's mother,
were told that their children would be receiving a top
tier education, but the Attorney General's investigation would reveal that
(34:49):
Ivy Ridge was only a candidate for accreditation and was
working its way through the multi year process for becoming
accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools. However, to
be accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, it
was required that the school be licensed, certified or registered
(35:10):
in the state in which it's located. Because Ivy Ridge
was never licensed, certified, or registered in New York State.
The school never should have been considered for accreditation.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I caught wind of.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
The school.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Didn't tell me. I read about it. I think in
a newspaper. You know, back at that time, of course
there was internet, but it wasn't like now where you're
getting like, you didn't have smartphones. I think it was
still flip phone days. Okay, so you're still reading the
newspapers regularly and whatnot. And I read that Ivy Ridge
(35:48):
is not acknowledged by the State of New York in
any capacity.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
So while I was at Ivy Ridge, I completed over
two years of school, and I took my school very seriously.
I wanted to get really good grades. I had a
college plan that was all worked out, and you know,
to my knowledge, I was doing very well in school.
But I think I had about three months left in
the program when it was discovered that Ivy Ridge was
(36:15):
not accredited, which meant that the education they were providing
meant nothing. It meant that all of the credits that
I had earned could not be transferred. It was a scandal.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Approximately one hundred and ten kids would leave Ivy Ridge
believing that they had received a diploma and hundreds more
would believe that their credits would be transferred to future
educational institutions, but it was a lie.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
They are not approved by the State Board of Education
of New York, nor are they licensed, nor will any
child who's ever attended the school or is attending it
now have a diploma, or they would not acknowledge the
grade levels that they had work through supposedly at the school,
(37:04):
and they didn't have teachers there. It was online, super basic.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Caroline's mom was shocked. By this time. Caroline had been
in the program for over two years, right in the
middle of her high school years. So her mom did
what she thought was best.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So I stopped paying them, and I said, all resumed pain.
When you become licensed or you know, whatever the process
is for a school in the state of New York
accredited licensed, I will then pay the rest and I
will keep paying. Well, suddenly, what do you know, Oh,
(37:45):
oh my gosh, she's just speeding through these levels. Oh
she's graduating. Yeah, I was no longer paying, and I
have paid over one hundreds, one hundred thousand dollars you know,
to these people. Hundred I think at that point a
one hundred and thirty eight thousand I had paid.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And for a few weeks the misrepresentations continued. Caroline's mom
received a call from a senior staff member of IVY Ridge.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
And he told me that they were just weeks away,
weeks away from accreditation, and they'll be happy to let
me know when I can resume payment. They'll be happy
when their accreditation process is complete. They've just been worked tirelessly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
On August seventeenth, two thousand and five, Academy at Ivy
Ridge entered into an agreement with the State of New
York where they agreed to pay civil penalties of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Attorney General's Office
for issuing unauthorized high school diplomas in lieu of trial
or admission of liability. It was also ordered to issue
(38:54):
partial refunds to families of students who attended the school.
The Attorney General had found that and I quote the actions, representations,
and conduct of IVY Ridge as described herein constitute repeated
and persistent, fraudulent and illegal conduct actionable by the Attorney General.
(39:14):
At the time. Ken Kay, president of WASP, denied any
allegations of abuse and specified that WASP did not quote
deal directly with the kids.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
At the time, I was not aware that my mom
had stopped paying for the program and was considering unenrolling me,
but I did notice that suddenly I seemed to be
skating through. Within a few months, I moved up in
levels and there were talks about finally graduating, something I
had worked so hard for. By the time I graduated,
(39:51):
I had been there for twenty nine months, almost two
and a half years. Looking back, I was a shining
example of a student. I was president of student council
in a model upper level, completed all the seminars, and
was going to church every Sunday. And they couldn't lose
me as a statistic. They couldn't lose me to getting
pulled from the program. No, they needed to prove that
(40:14):
graduating worked. And so when my mom said that she
was thinking about pulling me because she couldn't afford it
any longer, I believe they made sure that I was
graduating because they needed me as a success story, and
they needed me to say that the program worked, and
so they pushed me through pretty quickly after that.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Although she was excited to finally be able to go home.
She didn't know that the most difficult part would be
reckoning that the parts of herself that she lost in
the program.
Speaker 8 (40:46):
I was there for so long. I drank the tea,
I really did. I absolutely became what they called programized,
and I went to the seminars. I took the seminars
very seriously. I took my program very seriously because I
(41:07):
wanted nothing more than to go home, and I knew
in order to go home, I had to show progress,
and I had to show that I was taking steps
to be better and to make good decisions, and to
show leadership and all of these other characteristics that were
expected of you in order to go home. And so
(41:28):
I became a shell of who I was when I
went in. I loved music. I wanted to be a
music journalist. I loved dancing. I loved to socialize, and
when I got out of the program, I had really
lost sight of a lot of that.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
It would take me many years to fully acknowledge what
had happened to me at the Academy at Ivy Ridge
and to find myself again. Over the next few years,
after the Attorney General's investigation, enrollment at ivy Ridge would
drop dramatically, and they officially shuttered their doors in two
thousand and nine. The Academy at Ivy Ridge lives in
(42:13):
my memory and the memories of so many others as
some of the worst years of our lives. The school
actually closed so quickly that many remnants of its existence
are still there in the forests of Ogdensburg, with everything
left just as it was, papers littered the floor, uniforms
(42:34):
hanging in closets in eerie museum of the place the
director once called the boarding school of the future. The
lasting impact that the program has had on my family
is sadly not a unique experience. It's only the tip
of the iceberg, one that extends far below the surface
(42:58):
for those affected. Just as I was progrimized, core aspects
of the WASP curriculum were taken outside of the facility
walls too. They tried to brainwash my mom next week
on trapped in treatment.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
They told me I was going to be Shania Twain, okay,
and that what's that song, man, I feel like a woman? Okay,
that I need to go buy a Shania Twain outfit,
and that I was going to be Shania Twain. So
there's like eighty ninety people there, that I would be
(43:36):
dancing for everybody in the middle of this ballroom, seminar ballroom.
Not only that, but I would be picking out one
man out of the audience and doing a lap dance
for this guy. Okay, I'm not kidding. I mean I
was just terrified. I was just terrified, like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
All of ours to reach Robert Litchfield for comment were unsuccessful,
and he did not respond to our request for comment.
From our research, no one mentioned in this episode has
ever been charged with or found guilty of any crime
stemming from allegations of abuse or in connection with WASP
or any of the schools affiliated therewith.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Hey guys, it's Paris.
Speaker 7 (44:22):
Thanks for listening to episode six. WASP was tearing families apart,
but why are they so effective?
Speaker 3 (44:28):
We'll continue to explore this question throughout the season.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Make sure to sign up at the link in the
episode description to get involved.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
See you next week.
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