r/IAmA • u/marshall_project • 20h ago
This Ohio facility was supposed to help kids heal. Instead, children were so desperate to leave that they created weapons, ran barefoot into the snow, and tried to get arrested. We investigated what happened. AUA.
Edit (4:07 pm EDT): Thank you everyone for your thoughtful questions! We enjoyed talking; feel free to reach out to us (Brittany contact info and Ilica contact info) if you have story tips or want to talk.
One young woman who had lived in Foundations for Living in Mansfield, Ohio, found me here on Reddit. Then my phone number was shared over and over again. Sometimes, I spoke on three-way phone calls with teens who said they had survived unimaginable abuse at residential treatment centers.
I interviewed kids all over Ohio, but this group of young women stood out. They requested their own records. They showed up at the place that traumatized them to get their papers. They leaned on one another. We helped tell the story of their survival through friendship. They educated me on the system that they say made them worse. They told me to look into Fox Run Center for Children and Adolescents, one of the largest residential treatment centers in Ohio. Children as young as 5 are sent there. (A month after I published my investigation with my colleague Ilica Mahajan, the CEO was arrested for unlawful sexual contact with a minor.)
I requested 911 calls and police reports from the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office, which responds to the facility. I learned that Fox Run is owned by Universal Health Services, a Fortune 500 company that has been investigated by the federal government for systemic abuse at its facilities (including the Utah facility where Paris Hilton was held).
Our investigation found that kids desperately wanted to escape what was supposed to be a therapeutic haven in Ohio. Instead, they found themselves confined for months — and sometimes years — inside an institution where they witnessed kids routinely attacking and sexually assaulting each other, anarchic riots by children pushed to the breaking point, and more.
The story doesn’t stop there, though. Jaycee Seele, the first residential treatment survivor I spoke to, who was placed at Foundations for Living, another UHS facility, showed me how young people can get records to prove what happened to them. We developed a toolkit for people who have lived in these kinds of facilities. It walks you through the medical records you are entitled to and the public records you can request.
Ask us anything about residential treatment centers or the “troubled teen” industry, starting @ noon EDT Sept. 3.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the name of Universal Health Services.
