The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act (S.1351; H.R. 2955) is a bipartisan, bicameral, federal bill that was introduced to Congress on April 27th, 2023. This crucial legislation is a response to pervasive child abuse and neglect in the “Troubled Teen Industry” and youth residential treatment programs across the nation. 

 

I submitted my personal testimony into the official Senate Finance Committee hearing record earlier this month.

 

My story: 

 

I was 16 and had just completed a six-week stint in CDU (Chemical Dependency Unit) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about two hours from my hometown. Counselors recommended a treatment plan that included a six-month residential halfway house in Denton, TX that was showing great results. It was covered by our insurance and my parents knew several families that had sent their children there as well. 

 

I was nervous but excited. It was the 80’s and my pot and alcohol post-trauma escape had quickly given way to cocaine and ecstasy, all readily available. I’d been unable to stay sober for three years and I’d hoped the halfway house, filled with sixty other teens who understood addiction and poor choices, would be able to help me overcome the mental struggles that kept me chained to my addiction. 

 

Instead they tightened the shackles. 

 

Unbeknownst to me, the other clients, and the insurance company, the counselors were merely adults who’d come into the program for alcoholism or substance abuse and had nowhere to go. They sobered them up and handed them clipboards. 

 

Their methods were controversial to say the least. While we were neither physically nor sexually abused like many other victims of institutional abuse, we were subjected to mental torment by these unlicensed practitioners. 

 

I once had to listen to the Commodore’s Easy on repeat for two hours and then tell the group through tears and humiliation what it felt like to be ridiculed and called “easy” by my high school classmates back home. 

 

My second counselor, a domestic violence survivor with alcoholism, had been timid and withdrawn when she arrived. She was the only adult in our room of six, and I included her in everything we did. I was thrilled when she started coming out of her shell. The owners were too and they moved her into staff quarters and made her a counselor. She’d been there one month. 

 

Her first official act as counselor was to cancel all of our passes to go home for Christmas. I’d been there five months and had earned my week-long pass, often used as a way to ease us into transitioning back home. After years of being controlled by her husband, she was on a power trip. It was the only year in five decades that I wouldn’t find a way to make it home for Christmas. 

 

Shortly thereafter I’d been outside doing some chores when helicopters began swirling overhead. Sirens pierced the air as teams of FBI agents raided the facility. We saw the owner and his wife taken off in handcuffs. No one knew what was happening. While I’d realized their methods were unconventional, I was too young to realize they were also illegal. 

 

We might have been the wild child members of our families but most of us were from white collar families with little experience in true danger. We were unsure of what to do and frantically called our parents from offices with unmanned phones. 

 

Our parents, who were understandably skeptical, called the main office for verification of our tale. They’d heard lies from us before. 

 

“They’ve lying,” they’d said. “just like they’ve always done. Don’t believe them. They just want to leave.” Those who’d not yet been arrested were doing their best to discredit us and mitigate damage. 

 

I was scared and just wanted my parents. I called two more times and pleaded with my parents to believe me, despite what those in charge were saying. To this day, I’m greatly triggered when someone calls me a liar after I’ve spoken the truth. That was one of the most powerless moments of my life. 

 

Fortunately, my dad sensed something was off. A phone chain had begun and my dad gassed up the motor home with plans to bring home everyone from East Texas to Central Louisiana. We stopped over two dozen times, safely depositing teens to their grateful parents. 

 

The facility closed with little fanfare and zero accountability. Our lives had been unconsidered; our mental health an unmitigated casualty. Many of us still bear lasting scars. We were troubled teens entrusted into the care of a state-sanctioned and insurance-approved residential treatment home with zero oversight. 

 

While this one closed, like many others who simply close shop after an investigation, it did not stop new ones from springing up and inflicting the same physical and mental damage on troubled teens. 

 

I feel fortunate to have had parents back home looking out for my best interest. Many troubled teens in institutions do not. They need someone to speak for them. They need people to stand up and advocate for them. Teenage mistakes should not come with a life sentence of mental torment. They certainly shouldn’t have ended in the 350 preventable deaths on record. 

 

The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act

is pivotal legislation in transforming how youth residential programs are overseen and managed across the United States and should be passed to safeguard the health and well-being of vulnerable youths housed in these facilities.

 

 

Read the full bill at https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1351.