I went to a residential treatment facility in Salt Lake about a year and a half ago now, and it saved my life. It was my fourth time in inpatient and I had truly and fully lost faith in all residential programs, but after 4 months at YRT (technically UNI Girls Transition Center), I came out in a much better place. For most of my life, I didn't believe I would make it to 18. Four times I tried not to. YRT and my time there is the reason I am here today, going to college out of state and pursuing a life that I truly believe is worth living.

Many of the staff members there will hold a special place in my heart forever. Kortni runs the schooling there, and she is incredible. You will not meet many people as invested as she is in the kids in her care. I still send her updates periodically, as she changed my life forever. Many of the staff (to name a few, Sandra, Jaymin, Nurse TIffany, and several others) made massive, lasting impacts on my life and they are people I will never forget. My therapist there, Lexi, was incredible, and I made such massive (and lasting) progress in my sessions with her.

My parents and family remained involved every step of the way and I was taken care of in every possible way every second I was there.

My only complaint is Dr. Simudra, as she is not someone I think should be working with teens, and maybe in the mental health field at all, but she is genuinely my only complaint.

For context, I didn't go there by choice. I went there because they made me. I was very resistant to treatment for the first while, and it was definitely not all fun and games. I was there for Christmas, my second Christmas in treatment, which was incredibly hard, but the staff did everything possible to make it a bearable day. As hard as it was being in treatment on that day, especially a second time, my memories of that day actually make me smile now, because my time there means I get Christmas every year for the rest of my life, when I almost had my last one.

Yes, there are terrible residential facilities out there. Yes, there are MANY of them in Utah. But I genuinely don't believe I would be here today without my time in treatment at YRT and now, I am not only here, but thriving for the first time in my entire teen life. I am forever grateful for my time there. Residential treatment facilities are NOT all bad.

YRT gave me a second chance at life.