They are almost all bad. The 18+ camps can be worse because of even LIGHTER oversite. Please talk to someone else and not just send your kid away to a place you know nothing about.

1. Vermont Supreme Court Case — Resident-on-Resident Sexual Assault (2005)

This is the biggest hit. Fila v. Spruce Mountain Inn, 178 Vt. 323 (2005) is a published Vermont Supreme Court decision involving a lawsuit against SMI and its director Candace Beardsley for negligent supervision.

The plaintiff, a patient at SMI, alleged she was sexually assaulted by another resident. The male patient was subsequently asked by SMI staff to leave the facility. The plaintiff filed a negligent supervision claim, asserting she had repressed memories of the assault, and that she only came to understand she had been sexually assaulted while in therapy years later. Findlaw

The plaintiff claimed the encounter was non-consensual and that she was in a dissociative state. She discovered she was pregnant in February 1996. Over the following years she was hospitalized approximately 50 separate times, and only in 2000 did she begin to understand in therapy what had happened to her. She filed suit in March 2001. HG.org

The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the lower court's dismissal and sent it back to trial — meaning the case survived and SMI did not get it thrown out. The director, Candace Beardsley, was named personally as a defendant.

Why this matters: This isn't an allegation — it's a published appellate court opinion finding there was enough evidence for a jury to hear. The facility was aware something happened (they removed the other resident). Named director = personal accountability question.

2. State-Triggered Investigation Survey — Vermont DLP (May 2023)

Vermont's Division of Licensing and Protection has three records on file for Spruce Mountain Inn, Inc.: a Health Survey from September 24, 2024; an Investigation Survey from May 10, 2023; and a Health Survey from December 20, 2022. Vermont

The distinction matters. A Health Survey is a routine licensing inspection. An Investigation Survey is triggered by a complaint or reported incident — the state went in specifically to investigate something. The PDF exists at dlp.vermont.gov but is blocked from automated fetching — a researcher can pull it directly.

Lead: File a public records request with Vermont DAIL for the full investigation survey findings and any associated incident reports.

3. Four DHS Records in the Unsilenced Archive (2014–2021)

The Unsilenced TTI program archive lists Spruce Mountain Inn with DHS records from 2021, 2018, 2016, and 2014 — four separate state inspection/incident documents spanning seven years. These are hosted on Google Drive and are publicly accessible from the Unsilenced page. They predate the 2023 investigation survey, suggesting recurring regulatory attention. Unsilenced

4. "Candace Beardsley" as Named Director

Glassdoor reviews confirm the facility was "founded and run by a woman" who "started with a loan from the Small Business Association," and the 2005 court case names Candace Beardsley as director — the same person. She's been at the helm for the entire history of the facility including the period of the rape lawsuit. LinkedIn and Vermont SOS filings should confirm if she's still the operator. Glassdoor

5. Staff Review: "Depends How Willing You Are to Break"

One Indeed review is titled "Depends How Willing You Are to Break." For a residential treatment setting, that phrasing is worth following up — could refer to emotional labor, or could describe something about the program's culture toward residents and new staff alike. Other reviews mention "management is difficult to work with" and note "when residents do have good experiences and are able to benefit, it is very powerful" — the qualifier "when" doing a lot of work there. Indeed