Sources & Further Reading

I do not like to see federal legislation, but there are some times where it has to happen, and if you have a situation like this where people can go from one state to another to avoid prosecution, it might be that federal legislation is needed. I appreciate, Ms. Moss, what your organization is trying to do where you say if some way you can clean up some of the bad apples. I have seen it in other organizations that we deal with, where it has been effective, but sometimes it is not enough, and I think that is something that we need to address. Buck McKeon, R-CA

01:34:56
Jan Moss
On the question of disclosure, one of the things that we always recommend when a parent calls is they need to check with the state licensing agency to see if there is anything in the background of that program. We also stress the fact that if there is no licensing agency, they need to contact the attorney general’s office to make sure that there is nothing in that background. 

01:35:19
Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY
But how do we get this information to these parents? I mean, obviously, usually, the parents are so distressed by the time they even come to this situation where they are trying to find the best treatment for their child, and there are so many programs out there. Half of them are not even registered with the state. It is kind of hard to guide these parents. 

01:35:40
Jan Moss
It is very difficult. 

01:35:42
Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY
They did due diligence. They asked the right questions, and yet they ended up with, unfortunately, their children dying. 

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01:36:08
Paul Lewis
Yes. About 3 or 4 months after the criminal case was resolved in relation to our son, I had called the people at Alldredge Academy, and I talked to the woman that we had originally talked to when we placed Ryan, and I presented myself as a parent that was looking into the program. I said, “I understand you have some legal issues that I have read about a little bit online, and I am concerned about it,” and her response was, “Well, that has all been taken of, and the family is very happy with the result,” and that couldn’t have been further from the truth. So that is the information that they were telling people,if they were to call them and ask about my son’s death. They clearly misrepresented our position on the whole matter. 

Dr. Pinto. 
If I could comment because I do receive calls from families on a weekly basis at this point, and this point is absolutely what I am hearing from families, that they are having such difficulty because there is not a place that they can go on the Web or some kind of a clearinghouse where they can get information about programs, both good programs and programs of concern, and so they are desperately trying to make sense based on the information that is out there. And absolutely when you have a seal on a Website that is the Joint Commission seal and right next to it you have a NATSAP logo seal, I have heard multiple parents saying, “Yes, but it is a NATSAP-affiliated program. It is a NATSAP-accredited program.” So, even though NATSAP says, “We are not about accreditation,” that is how parents are making sense of it. 

I am seriously concerned about the mixed messages that are going to families, because although NATSAP is saying that they are trying to help families, I do not understand why, when NATSAP attended a presentation that Paul Lewis, myself and several other individuals made last year at the American Psychological Association Conference, where we indicated that there were hundreds of reports of mistreatment and abuse in these kinds of facilities, after that presentation, NATSAP representatives came up and expressed such concern and said something very similar to what Ms. Moss just said when she just said, “Well, we will take these back to our board and review them in depth,” that was the same kind of language that we got last year. And what was the response? The response was the open letter to critics that now is on the NATSAP Web site that describes the concerns that we have reported in these presentations at the APA and elsewhere as “the noisy complaints of a few individuals.” So that is not sending a message to families that NATSAP takes these reports of abuse seriously, and I have not seen evidence that they have done anything in response to what we have made very clear in the presentations that we have done over the last 2 years that this is something that is a great concern to them. I really think we are all concerned up here. Weare all parents up here, and I cannot imagine the pain that you parents have suffered. But really, you know, if you belong to an organization that deals with the most vulnerable in our society, the youth, you should be part of the solution and not part of the problem. 

01:44:40
George Miller, D-CA
Would that send you a signal as a trade association, Ms. Moss, that something might be amiss if people had not paid their rent for years?

01:44:50
Jan Moss
Yes, sir. 

01:44:51
George Miller, D-CA
So what have you done in that situation?

01:44:58
Jan Moss
We are not familiar with what programs operate on federal land or not, sir. So if they did not pay their membership dues, their membership is canceled. 

01:45:09
George Miller, D-CA
So it is all about the membership dues?

01:45:12
Jan Moss
No, sir, it is not. It is not. 

01:45:14
George Miller, D-CA
Well, I am trying to figure out what else it is about because you cannot find any evidence of abuse, you don’t know the financial situations. I am just trying to figure out what your association is about. 

02:02:08
George Miller, D-CA
Thank you. Either Mr. Kutz or Ms. Clark Harvey, have there been additional deaths at the program since your daughter died?

02:02:20
Cynthia Harvey
Yes, there were two deaths in Catherine Freer Programs after Erica died, one occurred in Nevada close, I believe, in the same wilderness area that Erica died in, and that occurred in October of 2002, and then there was a death in Oregon in, I believe, March of 2003. 

02:02:48
Gregory D. Kutz
That is correct. 

02:02:50
George Miller, D-CA
That is correct with the information you have?

02:02:55
Gregory D. Kutz
Yes. 

02:02:56
George Miller, D-CA
Again, I mean, this is not to make this NATSAP’s problem, but you have five out of 10 deaths here that are facilities that belong to your organization. Two of the five have been closed. One has had additional deaths since Erica Harvey. I mean, this is like Casablanca. You are “shocked that gambling is going on here.” 

Something is very wrong inside a trade organization–you know, one of the things trade organizations have to decide if you have to get rid of the frauds, and if you want to survive, and somehow something is wrong here in the review or the applications or the self-certification or something that people can bring this kind of history and just continue on. Now maybe that is fine. You are obviously making a determination or you are leading this committee to believe you are making changes, but I just say that there is, you know, a period of years here when somebody was asleep at the switch here. 

You know, I appreciate the three testimonies that were attached, Ms. Moss, to your testimony, three statements by people who had been through different programs, and their success, and that is what every parent would wish for. I find that terribly interesting, but not terribly relevant because that would be the expectation of people who signed up for these programs. That would be their hope, not that every kid is going to come back successful as they have cited–they have gone on with their lives, they have become productive, and they have done those things–but that your child would get treatment. At a minimum, you would expect them to be safely kept while they were in care, and that minimum was breached here time and time and time and time–in fact, thousands of times that that has been breached by people taking care of these children. So I guess that, you know, we are here when things go terribly wrong, and I think Dr. Pinto has pointed out being subjected to this, people do not lightly disgorge others that they were abused or that they could not cut it or they could not do these things, and so I think to have people come back now in the numbers that they have and talk about it, this cannot be dismissed as noise. 

02:05:44
Jan Moss
No, sir, it cannot be dismissed as noise, and I agree with that. NATSAP would benefit from a clearinghouse of information as much as a parent and family would. We do not want to be the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. We do want to raise the bar in the industry. We are a young organization learning as we are going. We have made mistakes in the past. Werecognize that. 

02:05:57
George Miller, D-CA
There is some duty of care here, which I think you are missing. 

02:06:00
Jan Moss
Absolutely, sir. I agree with that. 

George Miller, D-CA
I think you are missing it, with all due respect. You can decide for the moment, but I think you are missing it. There is some duty of care here, “as a trade organization,” about what happens in your name. 

02:06:01

02:06:14
Jan Moss
I will take that back to the board, sir, very definitely. 

02:06:18
George Miller, D-CA
It is going to be a very busy board. You are taking things back that—-

02:06:23
Jan Moss
Yes, sir. Very busy. 

02:13:15
Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY
Okay. And, Ms. Moss, just to finish off with one thing. One thing I have learned since being here in Congress–I also sit on Financial Services–is when a trade organization puts their name out and gives the seal of approval of a corporation or an entity that they are supporting, the only thing they have is their reputation, and if you are supporting that reputation, those clients or family members usually will look at that and think that you have already done the investigation. So, whether it is your fault or not, I think you need to look at your organization and maybe possibly decide that you might be doing some of your own investigation if you want to keep your reputation.

01:55:42
Dale E. Kildee, D-MI
Just another question to Ms. Moss. And I look forward to some documentation that you will supply us as to how you responded on a case-by-case basis to the complaints or information you had received. But what do your members gain by joining NATSAP?

01:56:08
Jan Moss
They gain continuing education with our conferences. They gain the journal. They gain access to others in this profession. They gain insight into the newest clinical studies. There are many clinicians in our organizations that present at our conferences. It is basically an education type of benefit. With the new research initiative, they will gain from that. They will be able to—-

01:56:37
Dale E. Kildee, D-MI
Not what they will, what have they. How many conferences do you have a year?

01:56:43
Jan Moss
We have one national conference a year, and we have six regional conferences a year. 

01:56:49
Dale E. Kildee, D-MI
It would seem that much of what they may gain–and this is what I worry about–is that they may gain a certain credibility that to belong to, you know, this Good Housekeeping group. I do not think your group exactly is comparable to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, but I think that can be used as an advertising thing, “We belong to NATSAP, and, obviously, we are good.” I think you have something to prove to this committee and to the American public that you are supplying more than just credibility to these groups that belong to you, and I worry about that. I think very often people see a national organization and feel it is something like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. I think you have a long ways to go before you ever approach that. I think what I worry about is that you supply them just credibility. 

Paul Lewis
“…On February 7, 2001, we enrolled Ryan where, again, we were assured by the program personnel that Ryan would be safe. We called every day to inquire about how Ryan was doing. We were assured that he was just fine.

On February 13, only 7 days into the program, we were startled by a call at 11:15 at night. The news ripped through us like an explosion tearing us into a million pieces. L. Jay Mitchell, the owner of Alldredge Academy, informed us that Ryan had hung himself. He told us that there was no indication that Ryan was in trouble. It caught them all completely by surprise, and there was nothing they could have done.

The next day, we flew to West Virginia and met with L. Jay Mitchell, John Weston White and Lance Wells who repeated the same story as the night before. The story did not make sense to me.

The following day, we met with the investigating West Virginia state trooper who told us we were being lied to about the circumstances of Ryan’s death. This news was like losing Ryan all over again. In his view, it was a death that could have been prevented.

Spoiler

He told us that the night before Ryan died, he had slashed his arm four times with a pocketknife issued to him by the program.

He told them, ‘‘Take this away from me before I hurt myself anymore. I cannot take it anymore, I want to call my mom, and I want to go home.’’ The counselors talked to Ryan for a few minutes, and he was told that the people that could help him were coming out the next day. Then they gave him the knife back.

L. Jay Mitchell and John Weston White arrived the next day. Even though they called themselves therapists, neither one of them had any credentials that could remotely qualify them as mental health professionals. In fact, L. Jay Mitchell is a lawyer.

These individuals decided Ryan’s desperate cry for help was manipulation so that he could get out of the program. Ryan was ignored and, consequently, at approximately 7:30 on a cold, rainy night, desperate, alone and abandoned, our son hung himself.

One year later, Alldredge Academy, L. Jay Mitchell and John Weston White were indicted by the State of West Virginia for child neglect resulting in death. We were adamantly opposed to the plea agreement made that allowed Alldredge Academy, the corporation, to plea no contest in exchange for dropping charges against the individuals. Alldredge was fined $5,000 for the horrific death of my son. We filed a civil suit alleging wrongful death, fraud and a tort of outrage. Once again, L. Jay Mitchell was unable to defend himself and acknowledged fault.

In spite of two court verdicts, L. Jay Mitchell continues in this business today. In my opinion, as we sit here today, children are at great risk. Incredibly, Alldredge continues to be a proud member of NATSAP, the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs.”

Cynthia Clark Harvey

Erica was in the care of a psychiatrist and a therapist who both recommended that we consider a residential treatment program. Michael and I were desperate to find help for Erica. Our daughter was 15 1⁄2 years old when we made the decision to send her to what we believed was a legitimate treatment program, a place staffed with people who could help our family move forward from some very dark times.

We compared several programs over a period of many weeks. We eventually focused in on Catherine Freer Wilderness because they were and continue to be leaders in the industry, one of the founding members of NATSAP and of OBHIC. We chose Catherine Freer because they have claimed to be fully licensed, because they were JCAHO accredited, because they claimed experience with teens being treated with psychiatric medications.

We as parents were interviewed by the program. We laid bare our hearts, our souls and our story to the program. They told us our daughter would be treated by experienced staff, experienced therapists and experienced wilderness guides and emergency medical technicians. They touted their backcountry planning and emergency procedures. They told us we could trust our most precious first-born daughter, Erica, to them.

On May 2, 2002, the first full day of Erica’s Nevada wilderness trek, Freer’s trusted team mistook a dire medical emergency for teenage belligerence, and Erica died that afternoon of heat stroke with dehydration.

Spoiler

Over a period of hours, Erica’s condition had worsened as she was pushed to keep hiking. When Erica’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell off the trail head first into rocks and scrub brush, she was left to lie where she fell for 45 minutes while two Freer staffers, still unwilling or unable to recognize what was happening, watched Erica die a slow, painful death.

When the Freer team finally responded

Spoiler

to Erica’s last few tortured breaths,

they contacted their on-call medical doctor, but the doctor turned out not to be a doctor at all, rather a physician’s assistant located in Oregon.

They called the local authorities to ask for help and a helicopter to get Erica to a hospital, but they did not know where they were, and they sent a search-and-rescue team to the wrong GPS coordinates. The helicopter took hours to arrive because, contrary to the advanced planning that we were told to expect, no arrangements with local authorities had been made, nor was any sort of trip plan filed.

Later, we found out that none of the Freer team had experience with administering psychotropic drugs and no training in how to evaluate those drugs’ effects on an individual during a trek. We also found out that the EMT on the team was on his very first trek and had only recently completed coursework in EMT and had never experienced a real medical emergency before.

Bob Bacon

“…Taken from what appears to be the industry’s handbook, their policy had predetermined that these kids are all liars and manipulators and, therefore, Aaron was faking.

Spoiler

This grotesque skeleton is what Aaron looked like the evening before he died.

He was seen by Georgette Costigan, the registered EMT who is still insisting that he was faking, did not even take his vital signs, but instead took the occasion to barter a meager piece of cheese in return for his promise to try harder and to hike the following day.

This company-employed EMT and relative of owner Bill Henry dismissed his final desperate plea to see a doctor who could prove he was not faking and made a conscious decision to prove a point, rather than render aid, thus effectively killing our son rather than saving him.”

“…Posing as fictitious parents with troubled teenagers, we called a number of programs and referral services to see what they would tell us. What we found were examples of deceptive and other questionable marketing practices. Let me describe a few of these cases for you. 

First, one program told our fictitious parent that they must apply to have their child admitted to the program. Although we never actually applied, the posterboard on my right shows that our fictitious child, Devon, was approved for admission to this program. One fictitious parent was also told that membership in a trade association was like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval.” Greg Kutz, GAO

“Residential programs for teens, which come in a variety of forms, including therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps, boot camps and behavior modification facilities, have sprung up in greater numbers since the 1990s. As we will hear today, a number of these programs use deceptive marketing practices to appeal to parents. They claim to be subject to independent inspections that never happen. They claim to offer services that they don’t, like schooling with transferable education credits. They assure parents that health insurance will cover the cost of their services when, in reality, it won’t.

Programs are aided in these deceptions by their relationships with ancillary service providers, like referral services. While referral services purport to offer independent advice to parents about which programs would be best for their children, the truth is that at least some of the referral services operate with significant conflicts of interest. This tangled web of deception, fraud and conflicts of interest makes it extremely difficult for parents to judge whether any of these programs offer a safe, professional, high-quality environment for their children.” George Miller, D-CA

“ I am here to share the tragic experience of myself and family at an unregulated facility in Montana called Mission Mountain School, a NATSAP member program where the headmaster, John Mercer, served on the board of directors for several years. … The most powerful figure at the facility was a headmaster with no formal training in mental health and whose group therapy sessions were particularly bizarre and frightening. He was often confrontational or would smirk and laugh. He would attempt to unearth repressed memories and encourage regressive states. I recall on multiple occasions my friends speaking as if they were toddlers, recounting alleged instances of abuse.” Kathryn Whitehead, CAFETY co-founder, Mission Mountain School Survivor

“All right. Let me go through those with you. The names of the facilities, the first four were death cases, and that was the Arizona Boys Ranch, Lonestar Expeditions, Star Ranch, and Summit Quest Academy. Those were cases one through four. The other four cases, which were abuse cases–three of the first four also were abuse cases. Cases five through eight were Kids of North Jersey, Bethel Boys Academy, Whitmore Academy, and Royal Gorge Academy. So those are the eight cases of death and abuse. 

With the marketing, some of the 10 in there are multiple hits, if you will. So I will go through those. Case number one was the C.S. Landre Foundation, and that was one of the cases you saw in my opening statement on the monitor, of the tax scheme where people were asking others to make donations for their children. The second case was Spring Creek Lodge Academy. Cases three, four and five were Lonestar Expeditions, which was the same as our case number two, the death case. Cases six, seven and 10 were Teen Path, and that is a referral service. And cases eight and nine were Parent Help, and that is also a referral service.” Gregory Kutz, GAO