by Jeanni Ritchie
I took my Poli-Sci course at LSUA under Dr. Jerry Sanson in 1994. I was fascinated with the concept of lobbying in Washington D.C. for a cause you believed in.
As I got older, I had a markedly different view of lobbyists in our nation’s capital. It was not favorable. I particularly didn’t like the fact that money spoke louder than words.
I dismissed lobbying as an extreme sport only played by the wealthy.
I didn’t realize until recently that lobbying got in my soul that semester and I’d been doing it ever since. I lobbied for school organization support, depoliticization of bereavement support groups, homeless children’s education rights via the McKinney-Vento Act, and, most recently, oversight and accountability in the troubled teen industry.
I had my own story with the latter.
I spent six months in a Denton, Texas halfway house my junior year of high school. I was the poster child for troubled teens that year. The facility was a money grab for the owners, who billed our parents and milked insurance companies for “intensive therapy” in the residential facility.
In actuality, they took the homeless adults who’d come in with alcohol and drug issues and, once sobered up, turned them into counselors. “Therapy” sessions were built on variations of shame and scream therapy.
My time there ended after five months when the FBI descended on the property in a full helicopter raid with SWAT teams swarming the facility. It was mayhem and left many of us fearful and in tears. Our claims in initial calls to our parents went unheeded because those left in charge claimed we were lying “like we always had” and stressed that was why we were there.
It took many years to understand and disentangle the harm those unlicensed counselors did in multiple daily therapy sessions. It also caused years of extreme anger when accused of lying while I’d been telling the truth.
I, along with many others, entered my story into official Senate records earlier this year at the behest of Paris Hilton, whose own experience in the troubled teen industry was far worse than my own.
Lobbying for the Stop Institutionalized Child Abuse Act (S.1351 – H.R.2955) has been a way for survivors to heal. It is also a way for citizens to give a voice to those who have no voice.
According to worldmetrics.org, around 5000 teenagers die every year in programs designed for troubled teens in the United States. This must change.
I felt a sense of closure as I began writing and speaking about my time in Texas. It was wrong. I’d made choices that led to my admittance in the program and, for that, I took full ownership. But exploiting and mishandling teens entrusted to your care should never happen, regardless of their actions. There’s little oversight and no accountability in some of these facilities. These places often close up shop and move elsewhere, starting over with new names and a clean slate.
The sad thing is, it’s not just the troubled teen industry who participates in institutionalized abuse. Some homeless shelters are little more than human trafficking outfits dressed up in philanthropy.
But that’s an article for another day….
Jeanni Ritchie is a contributing journalist hard at work on her next piece “Sheltered or Held Captive?” She can be reached at jeanniritchie54@gmail.com.
