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At some point, all reporters miss things they should have caught. This is one of mine. I wrote this @TheAtlantic story in 2014 about abuse at wilderness programs for troubled teens. I visited a program called Redcliff Ascent in Utah, here @TroubledKidHelp. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/when-wilderness-boot-camps-take-tough-love-too-far/375582/
The situation at Redcliff was not one I would have wanted to end up in as a teenager, but the landscape was stunningly beautiful, and I was being shown around by a very nice and sincere man, who truly seemed to mean well. His sincerity made me miss what I should not have.
I had heard horrific stories of abuse at other camps, but staff at Redcliff introduced me to kids who seemed healthy and, if not happy, at least not being tortured. I opened with an anecdote about a red-faced, heavy-set girl I never spoke with, who was crying to go home.
I felt I had been very fair to Redcliff, but they were unhappy with the piece. One person I interviewed, who worked for a company these programs hire to literally kidnap troubled teenagers out of their beds and toss them into the woods, wrote this about me https://www.safepassagetransport.com/articles/2019/2/18/wilderness-and-transports-view-from-the-other-side
On December 9, six years after I published my story, I received this email from a young woman—the red-faced girl I had written about. She told me she suffered horrific abuse at Redcliff.
This young woman, whose name I will not include out of respect for her privacy, told me she is still tormented by what happened at Redcliff, currently struggles with alcohol abuse, and suffers from severe PTSD, to the extent that she can’t sleep more than an hour or two a night.
I was absolutely gutted to read this. I failed in my job, which is to expose things like what happened to her. Unfortunately, her experience is par for the course, in an unregulated troubled teen industry rife with institutional problems and abuse. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/08/30/inside-utahs-troubled/
I told this young lady nothing that happened was her fault. She was just a kid, and she deserved better from the adults around her, including myself. I’m sharing her story, so places like RedCliff Ascent will know that experiences like hers are forever—and now this will be too.
