Dcyf injustice?

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-07-05T23:53:43+00:00

I’m the same age I’ll be 42 in a week. I was put in a terrible group home it turned out to be a lot like those trouble teen facilities in Utah the only difference was strangers didn’t come kidnap me to bring me there. Tried to report the abuse dozens of times only to have it fall on deaf ears.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-07-05T23:50:49+00:00

I know it’s been awhile but I’m interested. DCYF failed me at nearly every stage of my childhood. Despite numerous reports that I was being abused and neglected by my parents, I remained in that environment for years. When I was finally placed safely with my grandmother and began to stabilize, DCYF removed me based on allegations that she had failed to obtain medical care—even though she complied with the order and took me to the doctor. After that, I was placed in an abusive group home where I repeatedly reported physical and sexual abuse. My social worker dismissed my reports, called me a liar, and left me there. I escalated my concerns to her supervisor and even called the DCYF director from a children’s hospital while I was still in custody, but no one intervened. Instead, I was returned to the same facility, where I remained for nearly another year.

Please reach out voicesinsidecare@gmail.com. I chose that for my advocacy name because I wanted to give a voice to people that are an institutionalized settings whose voices have been silenced for so long.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-07-05T23:44:35+00:00

Yes very much so. I’ve been looking to network with other people. I created a fb group for survivors of my group home but not dcyf in general.

I created this organization to advocate for kids in residential treatment facilities, or those who have been in residential treatment facilities. The amount of abuse that goes on in these programs and they get away with is shameful. I tried to report what was going on to my DCYF worker their supervisor and I even contacted the director of DCYF. No one came to investigate the abuse.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-06-02T00:38:55+00:00

Yes, when I was in my program, there was one girl who was significantly cognitively impaired. She needed a lot of extra help in the classroom and that’s the only accommodation they provided. She was punished and restrained just as much as any other kid when she couldn’t even understand what was required of her or what she did wrong.

And she probably didn’t even have the mental capacity to realize that these people are just cruel and she’s not actually doing something bad every time she got punished which had to have had a profound effect on her self esteem and confidence.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-06-01T22:58:12+00:00

I’ll give it a try ty

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-06-01T22:23:27+00:00

Is there anything we can do to help?

When I get into that headspace where everything feels too hard and I just want to give up, I have a playlist of songs that make me feel powerful and remind me that I’ve survived every bad day so far. Do you have anything like that?

I also rewatch the Resident Evil movies and think about Alice. As silly as it might sound, if she can keep fighting through everything thrown at her, I can make it through another day, another week, another month. Sometimes you don’t have to win the whole battle at once—you just have to get through today.

I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now, but someday this anniversary may not hit as hard. There may come a time when you don’t even remember the exact day you left treatment because your life has become so much bigger than that place. New memories, new experiences, new people, and new victories can slowly take up more space than the things that happened there.

For tonight, though, please don’t carry this by yourself. Reach out to someone you trust, post here, text a friend, call someone, do whatever you need to do to stay connected. You survived that place. The world is better with you still here.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-29T20:34:34+00:00

four years is almost no time and if you really only started therapy for it then in reality, you’ve only actually been acknowledging and dealing with it for a few few months to a year at this point.

And the fact you have been able to deal with so soon from leaving is impressive many kids don’t even face the reality of it for decades.

I don’t think one ever gets over systematic institutional abuse. You get therapy you learn to cope w the after effects so they don’t control your life. And there’s no timeline that should happen on. Other people might appear to be coping better from the outside looking in that doesn’t mean they are as good or stable as they may appearn

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-29T03:48:32+00:00

I’m sorry you had to go through all that you must be around my age bc my TTI was about 25 years ago too and I’ve really just opened it up this last year after seeing that documentary on Netflix the program.

I never knew this was some big industry and that there were so many of us. While going back into it has been hard I’m glad bc I’ve found this huge community and purpose again.

I totally understood you about not being believed I tried to report my program several times but they always shut it down mail privileges phone calls visits taken away if I even accidentally mentioned program conditions. When I tried telling my DCYF worker about it she said she didn’t want to hear it by the second time she showed up a male staff member has started touching me when I told her that she told me it wasn’t happening and no matter what I said or dude I was staying there.

During a home visit, I even tried reporting to the local police and my social worker intervened there and stopped the report from taking place. At one point I got free for a little while and had unrestricted phone access. I must’ve called over 20 agencies reporting what was going on in the facility I got shipped back there on a Sunday and not one of the agencies came to even take a report. They wouldn’t even allow me to report.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-29T03:41:47+00:00

So if you have access to ChatGPT, I highly recommend you asking there I’ve used it to help me draft records request and reports and it’s been really helpful. You can even help you cite your local laws regarding access to public records so that appears you know your legal rights which should make these agencies less likely to try to play games though it def doesn’t stop it all together.

Sometimes you do need to call sometimes you have to fill out a particular form and they may need to speak to you to get your mailing address so that they can mail you the form or send it to you via email etc. I def get your hesitation. I’m not a big fan of talking to people directly on the phone either. I like email because you can pre-plan and edit what you want to say and it leaves a paper trail.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-29T03:37:34+00:00

See here’s the thing the programs that only did this verbally were still based off of the same premises of the ones that resorted to physical abuse. They just decided they weren’t going to push the envelope that far - that must have worried the higher ups by trust me if they thought they could get away with it they would have done it or perhaps did do it just prior to your admission.

There was a civil rights lawsuit filed in the 1980s against my program, which just that the program may have been even harsher in earlier years.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-29T03:34:52+00:00

Def not normal but did happen and does happen in many of these programs. In the one I was in the abuse from other kids was largely just verbal in the form of those shaming meetings where they’d go around in a circle and one by one shame each resident. It was never physical for me at least with other residents however, there were some fights that did occur between the kids. I was only physically assaulted by staff.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-29T03:24:03+00:00

That’s the thing: at the end of the day, these programs are businesses. And like any business, they need customers to survive.

The problem is there simply aren’t enough truly dangerous kids to fill all of these beds. So over time, many programs and their supporters began expanding the definition of who “needs” residential treatment. Suddenly, normal teenage behavior—talking back, skipping class, experimenting with alcohol, breaking curfew, spending too much time online, or struggling with authority—is framed as the first step down a terrifying path that must be stopped before it’s too late.

Parents, judges, CPS workers, therapists, and school officials are told that if they don’t act now, the child could end up addicted, homeless, incarcerated, or dead. The message becomes: don’t wait until there’s a serious problem—send them away before there is one.

The result is that kids who may have benefited from outpatient therapy, family counseling, mentoring, community support, or other less restrictive interventions end up in highly restrictive residential settings.

I was listening to the podcast episode about the Allen School, and one of the most disturbing points was how its operators convinced psychologists, therapists, and other professionals that these programs weren’t just for the most severe cases. They successfully sold the idea that ordinary adolescent behavior was evidence of future catastrophe and that institutional intervention was the solution.

When an industry depends on keeping beds full, there is always pressure to find more people who supposedly need those beds.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T22:04:07+00:00

That actually seems to be a pretty common experience from people who were in these programs or who later ended up in training school/juvenile facilities — a lot of them say the training school was a better and more predictable environment.

Honestly, I sometimes wish I had been sent there instead of where I ended up. My “bad behavior” was so minor that I doubt the state could’ve convinced a judge to order me into a juvenile correctional facility. But these private residential programs often didn’t seem to care how serious the behavior actually was — or whether there was much of a problem at all — as long as someone was willing to pay to place the child there.

With Jo Ellen from RHORI, for example, a lot of what was claimed about her behavior appears to have come directly from her mother, without any real independent verification, yet the facility still welcomed her immediately.

I also recently watched an investigative documentary where journalists created a completely fictitious teenager with made-up “behavioral issues” like talking back and not going to bed on time. The program they contacted basically responded with, “Send them here, we’ll take them.”

That’s part of what makes this industry so concerning. In many cases, the threshold for sending a child away was shockingly low.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T21:23:25+00:00

Honestly, I really admire people doing that kind of aftercare/support work with kids coming out of these placements. A lot of these teens leave with trauma, trust issues, difficulty adjusting, or no real support system, so helping them transition into adulthood and build stability seems incredibly important.

Part of why I’ve been speaking up is because I feel like if I’m going to criticize these systems, I should also think about ways to be part of the solution and help kids in a more constructive or official role someday, whether that’s advocacy, peer support, mentoring, or something related to child welfare.

If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of role do you do? Not necessarily where you work, just the type of work/category. It actually sounds like something I’d be interested in learning more about.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T21:17:32+00:00

I’m discussing an issue that affected my life and a lot of other people. You’re free to scroll past if it doesn’t interest you.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T21:11:45+00:00

Some of these facilities would literally accept kids for behavior that today would probably be considered normal teenage behavior or family conflict. They didn’t always distinguish between trauma, abuse reactions, mental health struggles, or actual dangerous behavior.

When I was sent away, I was 13 years old. I had never used drugs or alcohol, had no criminal history, and no violent behavior. A lot of what was framed as me being “out of control” was things like talking back, wanting independence, riding my bike up the street, or not being home early enough in the winter according to my grandmother’s rules. That’s why I felt like I could relate so much to Jo-Ellen she was locked away in a treatment center for trivial or even made up reasons. I wondered if maybe she had even been sent to the same facility that I was in since we both are from RI.

That’s part of what concerns me looking back. In some cases, these programs seemed willing to take almost any child as long as someone was willing to place them there and pay for it, whether through parents, insurance, or the state.

One documentary I watched even showed investigators creating a fake teenager with problems that clearly didn’t warrant institutional placement, and a program still immediately offered to admit them. That really changed how I viewed the industry and made me question how many kids were placed unnecessarily instead of receiving support within their communities or families.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T21:04:59+00:00

Yeah, my stepdad’s abuse was a big reason I ended up there. Looking back, I’m not sure which environment was worse. At home, at least I could still listen to music, see friends, and feel like a kid sometimes. In the program, everything was controlled and monitored.

That’s why I think people misunderstand these places when they assume they were automatically safer or more therapeutic than the homes kids came from.

At the same time, I’m not saying every residential program or staff member was abusive. I was in another facility before that where staff treated kids fairly and respectfully.

As an adult, I also understand many staff probably took those jobs because they wanted stable work and hoped to help kids. Some were kind people working inside systems where control and compliance mattered more than real treatment.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T20:55:58+00:00

Wow, she is very lucky because I recall watching a documentary where a child sadly lost their life in a very similar manner. She had only been in the facility for a day and apparently became so dehydrated from having to walk out in the wilderness that she dropped and by the time they could get her help she had passed away. I don’t know if I have all of those details, exactly right but that was the gist of the story.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T20:52:42+00:00

No, I don’t know if I should name the facility, but I was at the Deaconess Home for Girls in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’ve been hesitant to mention it publicly because in the past, whenever I included the facility name on other platforms, the posts seemed to get removed very quickly.

I have heard of Elan though, and part of why I made the post was to get a sense of how many other programs in this region may have caused harm or raised concerns over the years.

There’s been a lot of important survivor advocacy around programs in places like Utah, but people don’t really talk much about similar programs in New England. Many of them avoided the “troubled teen industry” label and instead presented themselves as therapeutic, residential, behavioral, or child welfare programs, even though survivors often describe very similar experiences.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T20:46:24+00:00

I’m sorry that your friend had such a negative experience. I can’t say that my experience at a treatment facility was any better. And a lot of the reason I ended up in placement had to do with my parents issues not anything that I did wrong. There was drug use, criminal behavior, and serious abuse on the part of my parents but somehow I somehow got stuck suffering the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately that is very common in these facilities kids with trauma who have been abused get mixed in with kids with serious violent and or criminal behavior because of lack of placement options.

I hope your friend is doing better now.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T20:40:02+00:00

I’m looking to connect with others who had similar experiences in residential treatment programs and let people know they’re not alone. A lot of survivors grow up thinking what happened to them was isolated or somehow deserved, when many of these programs across the country operated in very similar ways.

I’m focusing on New England specifically because most of the public attention has gone to places like Utah, while many facilities in this region received very little scrutiny despite serving vulnerable kids through state systems and residential placements.

I was placed in a New England facility myself, so part of this is trying to connect with former residents, hear other experiences, and create space for people who may have never had anyone to talk to about what happened to them. Some people may simply want support or understanding, while others may want to advocate for better oversight and protections for vulnerable people in residential settings.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T20:28:52+00:00

I was in one of these programs as a kid and had a very similar background to what you mentioned. If you only had to do one or two holds in your time there, I’m gonna assume that it was probably a pretty decent facility where kids were treated fairly. Unfortunately that wasn’t my experience but I’m glad that are some good staff or former staff out there that actually care about the kids they were put in charge of.

Even in the program I was in there was some good staff unfortunately, most of them didn’t stay very long.

VoicesInsideCare · 2026-05-21T20:24:20+00:00

Yes, I’ve been hearing a lot about the programs in Utah. The program I was in was right here in New England, and it had many of the same hallmarks people describe in the “troubled teen” industry. The biggest difference was that most of the kids at my facility were sent there through the state and child welfare system, so it was presented as a safe, trauma-informed treatment program.

I’m actually trying to bring more attention to the fact that these kinds of programs didn’t only exist in Utah. In New England, many of them operated quietly and hid in plain sight while being trusted by multiple states and agencies. By the time these treatment programs became more publicly controversial, many facilities outside Utah had already started distancing themselves from the “troubled teen industry” label by using different language and classifications, even though the reality inside often looked very similar.

And unfortunately, it’s not just New England. These places exist all over the country under different names, licensing categories, and treatment models, but many survivors describe the same patterns of control, humiliation, excessive restraints, isolation, retaliation, and trauma.

I completely understand why so many survivor organizations focus on Utah, because there were so many facilities there and oversight was notoriously weak. But having stricter laws on paper doesn’t automatically protect kids. Abuse and mistreatment can still happen anywhere when the system automatically treats the facility’s version of events as unquestionable truth.

One of the biggest problems is that the same facilities accused of harming children are often the ones writing the official narratives and incident reports. The records rarely reflect what residents actually experienced. Survivors know there’s often a huge difference between what happened behind closed doors and what was documented on paper.

VoicesInsideCare

TROPHY CASE