so you could earn positive points by following instructions. And the sad part part about Eva Carlston is that everyone who works there thinks that everything they do is in the interest of the girls. Hannah Kay, 27, attended Lighthouse of Northwest Florida in Jay, FL from 2007 to 2011 and now volunteers at Breaking Code Silence. Anyone who attended, I am so deeply sorry. as low as 10 serving size or 13 is NOT ENOUGH FOR 16 PEOPLE!!!! Eva Carlston Academy - Overview, News & Competitors - ZoomInfo Eva Carlston Academy Reviews - Niche Oh yippee now I get to talk about how consequences on your point card were worth 4 good actions!! According to one survivor, if you didnt make enough points in one day (generally either 10,000 or 5,000 depending on level in the program), you had to sit in a silent room working on essays such as the importance of managing anxiety and the importance of accepting no or making what were essential pro and cons lists on dealing with inane situations. If a student loses too much weight, she is fed Ensure rather than being allowed to eat more food. At Eva Carlston Academy, we push our students to make sure they understand what it looks like to put effort into ourselves, and the benefits that . Oh yeah and after I left something similar happened to a girl who got there around the same time as me who struggled with trigatalomania and they wouldnt let her leave, restrained her because she didnt want to get a buzzcut to fix her patchy hair, and put her on subtraction system the whole time she was there because of a disease she CANNOT HELP! Eva Carlston Academy is a #finearts based residential treatment program for girls. This helps them transfer new, pro-social skills to life after treatment. The only time we can speak up is in a group but if we speak up to much then we would probably get in way more trouble and if we spoke up about a certain staff in a group that was it, you were in serious shit. Recently, Danielle Bregoli, better known as rapper Bhad Bhabie, spoke about the abusive treatment she says she received at Turn-About Ranch in Escalante, UT, where she was sent following her viral Dr. Phil appearance. They were so desperate for food, and part of punishment involved not receiving snacks/additional food. It is not treatment to be penalized for having chipped nail polish. In 2005, she began working as a Therapist at, . There were very few staff that genuinely cared and they left because they said there were sketchy things about Eva Carlston they did not want to be around. '", A spokesperson for Eva Carlston responded to Refinery29s request for comment about these claims with this statement: Group therapy is effective, in part, because it relies on one's fellow peers to provide support, feedback, and perspective. Every family is different, and the CORE Parenting program is not a one-size-fits-all approach. She currently still works as the Executive Director of Eva Carlston. It broke my heart to see what you all went through. I also attended ECA, though my stay was late 2014-2015. But regardless of her struggles, every Eva Carlston student is capable of healing and thriving with the right support. Provo Canyon, for instance, told Refinery29 that their facility was "licensed by the State of Utah, Department of Human Services; it is accredited by The Joint Commission (national accreditation of hospitals), and Cognia/AdvancED for academic services. But recently, Utah State Sen. Michael McKell sponsored Bill 127, which proposed changes related to the states human services programs, including explicitly prohibiting peer restraints, strip searches, abuse, neglect, repeated physical exercises, and discipline or punishment that is intended to frighten or humiliate. The bill also increases on-site visitation requirements, requires facilities to implement suicide prevention programs, and requires them to report the use of physical restraints or seclusion within one business day after the incident. When I was picked up they told me I didnt earn that privilege. They put so much shit on our shoulders that we cant take. I remember I had terrible eczema while I was there (due to high stress). She was often lightheaded from hunger and unable to focus in class. You needed to make 10000 points by 5 pm every day.do the math. I think I failed every single test there except maybe three because they wouldnt listen to me about my way of learning. We were referred to this program by a highly-experienced and well-regarded educational consultant. There were some therapeutic benefits, but they were by far outweighed by the emotional abuse, intimidation, and extreme conditions. After girls are allowed to leave Eva Carlston Academy they are often worse than when they got there. They are underfed or sometimes force fed to the point of nausea. My daughter experienced the same exact thing. We seek to raise awareness and to change the law to protect the teenagers in these programs from harm. I pleaded staff to please get me lotion for my eczema and I got in trouble. Eva Carlston Academy - Therapeutic Boarding Schools Though many of the schools in this story are still operating and still accepting hundreds of teens into their programs each year scrutiny of them has increased dramatically, as has attendant legislation. so I went into Eva with depression, anxiety, ptsd and a tiny bit of substance abuse. We are now college students and are working on an article about how platforms like this subreddit and #BreakingCodeSilence are impacting how survivors, their parents, program staff, and the general public understands the TTI. Staff promised that they would get me a smoothie after my surgery. Our daughter experienced heightened anxiety due to the intense scrutiny and struggled with the constant fear of earning negative consequences. The staff make girls work out every day, yet dont feed us enough food. They only show five-star reviews on the website, and only positive reviews are highlighted in the blurb you see upon searching Eva Carlston Academy. I speak from my own experience and as someone in college studying psychology. But staff wouldnt let me have it. Then I asked to speak to the authorities and they told me I would have to find a phone which there were none and they told me I couldnt leave sooo wtf again. Students are assigned to the following groups as determined by their individualized treatment plan. When their treatment model is, and has always been, based on aggressive behavior modification which results in punitive and humiliating punishment and abuse, reform can only take us so far., The ultimate goal, Hilton says, should be to implement increased oversight and regulation, reporting procedures, and training for frontline staff so the programs that are abusive will reveal themselves and states can make educated recommendations to intervene for the safety of children., We want children to be protected and safe. A consequence was -2000 points on the daily level and those consequences were given for things like forgetting your water bottle for morning workout, not opening your blinds in your room in the morning, not making your bed neat enough, having holes in your socks, the list of minute stupid tiny little baby fucking joke bad things you could get a consequence for goes on and on. All Eva Carlston families participate with their daughter in weekly family-therapy sessions. Dedicated to past clients of Eva Carlston Academy Residential Treatment Center in Utah. The regulations are very inconsistent across states, but kids are very mobile and they get moved all around. it was never an appropriate time to express any emotion that wasnt submissive obedience. We are to young to be doing all of this. Contact with the outside world is severely limited at Eva Carlston. Our daughter experienced heightened anxiety due to the intense scrutiny and struggled with the constant fear of earning negative consequences. Eva Carlston Academy Youth Therapist Job in Salt Lake City, UT | Glassdoor It was the second program I was sent to after enduring the hell that is Eva Carlston Academy in Utah. I have seen many girls, including myself, graduate and very quickly relapse into old, or even new and more severe, behaviors. Privileges at Eva Carlston were given based on your phase and whether you made enough points that day. In the following, Eva Carlston Academy reviews many of the behaviors and signals that are indicators of a child going through a difficult time. Girls received consequences for crying or expressing their emotions. experienced mental illness since she was a young girl. When I left ECA my eating disorder had never been worse. Eva Carlston Academy is a drug rehab facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is the opposite of what they received there. Community. All correspondence and conversations with family are monitored heavily and any complaining to parents leads to a heavy negative consequence. Not one word that you've written is remotely new to us; the same thing happens day in, day out, across many hundreds of facilities in the U.S. We were referred to this program by a highly-experienced and well-regarded educational consultant. so Im going to start from my first day at eva. Eva Carlston is a for-profit business as well as a treatment center, and bad reviews will obviously affect the number of applicants they receive. amusingly, they would threaten us that if we didnt obey, we would be sent to a lockdown facility. however, eva carlston academy IS a lockdown facility. #troubledteenindustry #breakingcodesilence #fyp. Little did I know it was part of Kristi Ragsdales elaborate scheme to reel in all of the wealthiest troubled teens she could and make it seem like there was no possible way of any kind of abuse going on at her facilities. I remember I had terrible eczema while I was there (due to high stress). im sure the more classically rebellious teens had it far worse they were the ones who got restrained, and that was horrible enough to witness. We are a community based program that focuses on the fine arts as a tool to help girls realize their potential. Therapeutic Boarding Schools in Utah - Find Child & Youth Residential It is marketed as a Residential Treatment Center for teenage girls aged 12-18. I have since learned that the Eva Carlston model was created for treating manipulative, lying girls and I do not know the efficacy of the program for that population. We were referred to this program by a highly-experienced and well-regarded educational consultant. My best friend and this girl they were roommates and my best friend walked in and the girl was hanging herself by the chandelier, she says. Constant anxiety. Eva Carlston treats mental health like a gardener treats a dandelion/weed. Family therapy helps the student, and all family members, learn effective ways to interact, resolve conflicts, and heal. This place will steal your soul. , Eva Carlston Academys website has been carefully designed to depict their residential treatment center as a caring and nurturing environment where teenage girls can feel physically and emotionally safe enough to process and recover from trauma and mental illness. I will say that staff there(not including the owner and founder, Kristi Ragsdale) are mainly caring people, but they cant help when the entire program is behavior based. Hannah (Google Reviews), 4//3/2016: (SURVIVOR) I dont even know where to begin with this place. I probably still suffer from PTSD from my time there, she said in an interview with Refinery29. (which was caused by my rape but sparked by large amount of intense anxiety) I experienced them the whole 82 days I was there experienced them and the intensity increased. then I told my therapist I was experiencing these things and she gave me the same look everyone else was giving me. While at Spring Ridge, Hubbell said they took part in an exercise called trainings, purportedly therapeutic events that students had to complete in order to graduate. okay. This modality is a powerful, evidence-based approach to promoting pro-social behavior and improving long-term outcomes in residential treatment settings. I often cried myself to sleep at night out of fear. A handful of family teachers were abusive and used shame and humiliation in addition to an extreme focus on negative consequences. Constantly living in fear. For instance, if you get annoyed or frustrated with a staff member for the way they treat you they try to resolve the behavior by giving you more medication. Makes sense that parents would appreciate the company that relieved them of 12-18 months of parenting responsibilities. Being told every single day that doing your best isnt enough and you will never be enough takes a toll. Eva Carlston Academy | 184 followers on LinkedIn. This program left our child with deep scars, and she is currently undergoing specialized trauma-focused therapy to process and heal from her experience. If you are thinking of sending your child to a residential treatment facility, please head to BreakingCodeSilence.org/professional-resource-links for a comprehensive list of evidence-based therapy programs and warning signs you should be on the lookout for as you search for treatment. The staffs job is to keep us safe, and emotional safety is just as important as physical safety, especially in a mental health program. The states that have the most lax regulatory requirements tend to have more programs pop up.. Girls are not allowed to speak about anything relating to struggles or injustices ever. Employees in Salt Lake City have rated Eva Carlston Academy with 3.2 out of 5 for work-life-balance (3.1% lower than company-wide rating), 1.9 out of 5 for diversity and inclusion (38.3% lower than company-wide rating), 3.2 out of 5 for culture and values . for all chores we had every single room white glove tested and if it wasnt clean goes what!!! Research supports parent involvement in the treatment process, and Eva Carlston has our own parenting program designed to meet that need. I literally ate apple sauce and yogurt for 2 weeks. Eva Carlston Academy (2023 Profile) - Salt Lake City, UT The school has since been closed, some time after an article detailing the years of allegations of abuse made by students was published in the Tampa Bay Times. We got phone calls with our parents for 15 minutes and if we went over they would grab the phone from our hands wether or not we said goodbye. And the sad part part about Eva Carlston is that everyone who works there thinks that everything they do is in the interest of the girls. I wasnt there to clean Kristis fuckin house. It isnt only their own experiences that were traumatic. I had to drink those on top of all my food and everything, she says. Please dont send your daughter here. Certain staff had very bad boundaries, very touchy would stay way to close to you and once again you couldnt really say much because they would look at that and say oh thats being disrespectful. Our addictions treatment emphasizes the importance of relationships to young women and the need for both assertiveness skills and female health education. There's a real lack of licensure and oversight, agrees Oregon State Sen. Sara Gelser, who is working on passing more protective legislation. The Parent Coaches are highly trained and experienced treatment providers that develop customized parenting plans. The campus contains three houses, in which anywhere from 12 to 16 girls live. so I have severe ADHD. Girls were denied social interaction for up to 24 hours or longer (mine lasted almost 6 weeks once) and expected to stay sane. Some staff would threaten us with the causes of getting in trouble if we didnt do something they wanted us too. It was the second program I was sent to after enduring the hell that is Eva Carlston Academy in Utah. I can barely mop the floor without wanting to cry from the memories of what they did. For these reasons, it is rare for a student to complain about the program for fear of being reported and punished. Eva Carlston Academy Archives - BREAKING CODE SILENCE Treating people in a bubble and then expecting them to survive in the real world is laughable. Sofia (Google Reviews), 1/29/2020: (SURVIVOR) i went to eva carlston for 14 and a half months. My last night before my parents picked me up I went out of instructional control which means i got 50,000 negatives for not doing something they asked of me for once. on Fridays (and sometimes thursdays) we went on outings. I have certain trauma things and there was a staff that would run behind people, pretend to hit people and tell people to shut up. The fact that our daughter was not allowed to express herself, robbed us from the opportunity to remove her from this extreme and abusive program. Is there any way I can talk privately with you? Teens on the LGBTQI+ spectrum and as well as teens of color are especially affected by mental health issues. Among these allegations include claims of emotional/verbal abuse, attack therapy, forced manual labor, isolation/solitary confinement, humiliation techniques, and more. If you do get lucky enough to go on an outing, youll get severe punishments for even looking in the same direction of a male. They ended up giving me a paint bucket like a five-gallon paint bucket. Sydney Haga currently works as a Therapist at Eva Carlston Academy. She heard what happened through a counselors walkie-talkie. According to one survivor, the daily schedule is as follows: Eva Carlston Academy is reported by many survivors to be an abusive program. NO ONE should be here talk about loss of education. The children are underfed. If you call the Utah State Department of Licensing and ask to hear what reports were filed against the program, you'll be told that a patient was slapped by a staff member. Towards the end, close to when my parents finally had it and scooped me all the way from Texas, things got really fucking weird. one, DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILD HERE. third, this place caused me mental and emotional abuse and many other girls also. Girls were forced to starve themselves because everyone had to take measuring cup servings. Along the way, they master skills such as communication, confrontation, tolerating differences, and compromise. While we strongly disagree with her account of the time she spent with us, we continue to wish her well.. Girls are still suffering there and need your help. It was overwhelming, the type of abuse we all experienced. All incoming and outgoing mail is reportedly monitored and censored by staff. M. v. Premera Blue Cross, No. 18-4098 (10th Cir. 2020) :: Justia going into eva, I had a very normal diet. But dont let their advertising fool you its not. Well then I realized I was starving so I did the worst thing I had ever done while at ECAI went downstairs without asking to the pantry without asking and got my box of honey graham Ohs I bought with my points at the convenient store run and i took them upstairs without asking and ate them in my bed. It was signed into law in April. The other names of the levels are unknown. This industry needs an overhaul and many of these places need to be shut down due to their inability to provide actual trauma-informed treatment and care to vulnerable populations, Hilton tells Refinery29. okay so all in all. This approach requires that all staffespecially the house staff or Youth Mentorsare trained to support a coordinated effort to teach and reinforce positive behaviors and social interactions. They are in constant states of fear and are threatened often. Terrible. She previously has worked at both, currently works as a Therapist at Eva Carlston Academy. It also helps that some claim to be religion-based, and a lot of states do not require religious programs to be licensed, which means theres no documentation of them at all, says Jenna Bulis, an activist and survivor of the Troubled Teen Industry. at eva when we went to costco (i only got to go once my whole stay), we got food with serving sizes that ranged from 10-13. we had 13 teenage girls and 3 staff at the house I was at. Certain staff were very disrespectful but we couldnt speak up about it because we would get in trouble if we did. After researching this facility we had the impression this would be a nurturing and supportive environment for our child to continue her growth and development as she was exhibiting depression and anxiety. In fact, if you refuse to eat or take too much food, you can be punished. It was supposed to be my golden year, I had missed junior prom to go to wildy, I was about to have my 18th birthday, finally go to prom that I had somehow missed every year, and soak up all the final moments with my best friends before heading off to college.HAAHA what a fucking joke. I literally ate apple sauce and yogurt for 2 weeks. Counselor Jobs, Employment in Bingham Cyn, UT | Indeed.com so i went into eva on November 22nd which was a Friday. Rayburn, like Kyra, isnt fully satisfied. Being told every single day that doing your best isnt enough and you will never be enough takes a toll. Eva Carlston Academy - Home | Facebook This was horrifying to say the least. I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom and I peed my pants and then was punished with 50,000 negative points with NO POSITIVE CORRECTION. Eva Carlston Academy | Employee Profiles, Emails, Mutual Contacts No matter how girls who were there behaved, they left with regrets. Our bathroom breaks were monitored and you were not allowed to use the restroom until at least one hour after a meal. It is a horrible place that profits off the back of children and teens. An example is when we were taken to a mortuary and there was a cremation happening, I cried since it brought lots of emotion and just was an inappropriate activity to bring a ton of depressed teenagers too but instead of support I got a consequence in negatives on a behavioral point card. I have made a formal complaint to the Utah State Department of Licensing. Currently, our daughter is part of a private Facebook group of graduates of Eva Carlston Academy. Eva Carlston Academy Reviews Residential vs. Outpatient for Treatment Eva Carlston Academy is a provider established in Salt Lake City, Utah operating as a Residential Treatment Facility, Emotionally Disturbed Children. The strict environment encourages deceit and division in the houses. Believe it or not there was a lot I couldnt even cover because Im typing on an LG tablet and the autocorrect is driving me too crazy to go back and edit and add more for now . My skin was ruined and bloody and scarred. [Courtney] was very adamant that she was trained at a WWASP school, says Sara Hubbell, 22, who attended Spring Ridge Academy from February 2016 to August 2018. Get this- Taking a nap was a privilege, reading a book was a privilege, listening to your ipod was a privilege, interacting with other girls was a privilege, taking samples at Costco if you were one of the 2 that were invited to grocery shop once a week was a privilege, watching TV even if it was on right in front of you was a privilege, putting on makeup was a privilege, shaving your legs was a privilege, taking longer than 15 minutes to get ready was a privilege. i am also queer and anyone who was LGBTQ+ there was not allowed to talk about their orientations because it wasnt appropriate to discuss it outside of individual therapy, apparently. mental health!!! all the doors were locked with codes and the windows had alarms that would go off if ever opened, and more beyond that. Snacks are given based upon your daily score card results and often leads to girls going to bed hungry and being malnourished due to the lack of food. Some of the offshoots, including The Seed and Straight Inc. targeted teens. But youre usually about a week or two from graduating at this point anyway so who gives a shit? I'm glad that a parent can say that Eva was not a great choice. Eva Carlston became a. member in 2015. The practitioner's primary taxonomy code is 322D00000X. Our dedicated staff ensures our urban-living spaces are safe, secure, and supportive. There was and is a girl there that has put other people in danger over and over again wether that be throwing windex at someones head. like I literally have 504 plan for it. They are punished regularly. Parents, do not let Eva Carlston Academy manipulate you into sending (or keeping) your daughter there if its not a good fit. , Interesting that my review was removed. Which is true! I could write a book about this place. Call: 801-449-0089. the most disciplining, most strict, and unhumane piece of cardstock I have ever seen. All residents are fed a highly low-fat diet with strict portion control. It is NO safe have. and yes-- by the time we're asked to give tours, we either are too scared to say how we felt, or we've been conditioned enough to think positively of everything that happened. They are given a very short amount of time to eat the food given, which often times causes them to vomit due to this added stress; again this results in another negative consequence. In fact, if you refuse to eat or take too much food, you can be punished. HausofMeow (@catlovescats95) | TikTok Every student is assigned to a licensed psychotherapist who serves as that girls case manager and dedicated therapist. I do know Eva Carlston was deeply harmful to our depressed, anxious child. Each girl will identify her own obstacles to a drug-free life and will identify strategies to overcome those obstacles and maintain a healthy lifestyle. If a resident did not earn at least 10,000 points in a day, they were forbidden from speaking to anybody and were forced to complete worksheets and write essays. Often you would then be late to wherever you were going, which resulted in you receiving a minimum negative consequence of -5000. But now that a growing number of high-profile figures who have shared similar experiences have also come forward, their collective voices are hard to ignore. The level system consists of four levels, the first of which is called Daily. One little fuck up and youre toast! Not everyone loses so much weight because metabolisms vary. After I got my parents to come visit me for 3 days after not seeing them for 5 months. Thank you for loving your daughter enough to see the harm, to believe her, and to stand up for her. But thats the bottom line.. I have gotten in trouble for having a panic attack when I should have been doing chores. 3 min read. Eva Carlston Academy abuse. I had four hours of sleep the first day I got there because my luggage was lost in the airport and they wouldnt let me just fucking lie down because apparently a staff needed to be watching you on every floor of the three story stupid fucking house unless you were on the last phase of the program and you could just go to whatever floor you pleased.yeah LAST PHASE. I was in a juvenile detention center before ECA and I can honestly say I got treated better there and had more rights. It is not treatment to be forced to lie about ones experiences because if one says a bad thing about the program one will receive a large consequence for lying. Many of these students report PTSD-like symptoms including panic attacks and nightmares. If you didnt do something right away you got in trouble and once again you couldnt speak up about it or you would get in more trouble. The nutritional habits they instill are extreme and even opposite of what nutritionists advise. I have watched girls breakdown from staff being mean and staff telling them they keep doing this wrong and that they didnt do this right and why cant you do that better and go do that now or else. oh also on saturdays we either did photography, acting at SLAC, or volunteer work(shoveling, intense cleaning, taking down christmas lights. Group members will learn to identify their addictive behaviors and thinking errors, and will master techniques to manage triggers. but the other outings we went on were going to symphonies, art galleries, walking around the ginormous mormon church in downtown salt lake, and sometimes if we were lucky going to hockey games.