S24 Ep13: How Profoundly Sorry I Am

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Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses upsetting topics.

Season 24 survivors discuss violence that they endured as children, which may be triggering for some listeners.

As always, please consume with care.

For a full content warning, sources, and resources for each episode, please visit the episode notes.

Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of broken cycle media.

All persons are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Responses to allegations from individual institutions are included within the season.

Something was wrong and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice.

In the next chapter of this season, we'll hear from survivors of the Academy at Ivy Ridge.

The Academy at Ivy Ridge operated as a privately owned, for-profit behavior modification center for adolescents, marketed to parents as a boarding school for teens struggling with behavioral issues.

The program, located in Ogdensburg, New York, opened in 2001 and was co-owned in a business partnership between the Jason G.

Finlandson Corporation and the Joseph and Alan Mitchell Corporation.

Across the academy's eight years of operation, student recruitment was driven by various internet promotions, referrals from parents, and outreach efforts by marketing companies such as Teen Help.

Ivy Ridge was initially affiliated with the Worldwide Association Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, also known as WASP.

WASP was a for-profit network that provided an operational model and participant referrals for private behavior modification and therapeutic boarding schools across the U.S.,

as well as Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Samoa, and other locations.

The association was founded by Utah businessman Robert Litchfield.

His brother Narvin was also a part of WASP's leadership team with involvement in multiple affiliated programs.

Over the years, WASP came under scrutiny for allegations of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of children in its programs.

According to a 2003 LA Times article, quote, when asked about his success and about the criticism surrounding the network of schools he created, Robert Litchfield makes reference to his fervent Mormon faith.

God is the key to his accomplishments, he says, and Satan is stirring up his foes, end quote.

Ivy Ridge was a part of the WASP network until around 2005.

In May 2005, male residents at Ivy Ridge staged a student riot to draw attention to the abuses occurring at the facility, prompting intervention by state police and other law enforcement.

The incident resulted in the arrests of 12 students and one staff member, as well as dozens of expulsions.

Then, after a months-long probe, the New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer reported that Ivy Ridge had misrepresented itself as an accredited school when it was not authorized in New York to issue diplomas.

Under a settlement, Ivy Ridge agreed to stop issuing diplomas, advertising itself as diploma granting, notify all families that it was not registered or authorized, make partial tuition refunds to graduates, and pay a civil penalty.

By December 2006, the New York State Education Department formally informed the institution that it was not legally recognized as a school.

The New York State Education Department's 2006 letter, which was later published in 2024, flagged health and safety deficiencies at Ivy Ridge alongside academic concerns.

The letter also highlights the issue of inadequate staff training in relation to student restraint practices.

Legal action also ensued.

Families began to file lawsuits such as Dungan v.

Academy at Ivy Ridge, challenging Ivy Ridge's claims regarding diplomas, accreditation, and program standards.

Dungan v.

the Academy at Ivy Ridge was a large civil case in which plaintiffs, including parents and guardians whose children attended the Academy at Ivy Ridge and students who received high school diplomas or credits through Ivy Ridge.

The lawsuit alleged racketeering, fraud or fraud in the inducement, deceptive practices, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and more.

The allegations centered on false representations about accreditation and diplomas.

In 2008, a magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation suggesting partial class certification on certain liability issues in Dungan versus the Academy at Ivy Ridge.

The district judge later rejected the recommendation and denied class certification.

The U.S.

House Committee on Education and Labor held a hearing on April 24th, 2008, entitled, quote, Child Abuse and Deceptive Marketing by Residential Programs for Teens, end quote.

The hearing included testimony from former program participants and medical experts, and it examined cases of abuse and neglect in private residential programs.

This hearing also elaborated on the ways in which these programs market themselves to parents.

The congressional hearings documented patterns such as prolonged restraints, seclusion or discipline rooms, and sexual physical abuse across the sector that included many WASP-linked facilities.

The hearings also called for systemic regulatory and operational change.

In March 2009, facing declining enrollment and mounting criticism, the program's director announced that Ivy Ridge would temporarily close for the fall semester to undergo restructuring.

Ivy Ridge then reportedly went from from around 500 to 60 students enrolled in its program, who were then either sent home or transferred to other programs.

Within a matter of weeks, the property was sold for several million dollars to a Delaware corporation and the facility's operations officially closed.

By 2010, WASP issued a statement reporting that the organization was no longer in business.

However, at that time, it had not been formally dissolved because of ongoing litigation.

In the years following, the public remained largely uninformed until the release of the 2024 Netflix documentary series, The Program, Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping.

In the docuseries, Ivy Ridge survivors, including survivor and director Catherine Kubler, return to the abandoned campus where they dig into a trove of left-behind files and revisit the devastating realities they endured while enrolled there.

The program has been praised for its bravery, impact, and advocacy and was an instrumental resource for us during our research for this season.

In response, WASP founder Robert Litchfield wrote a 2024 letter to the editor published by the St.

George News.

In it, Robert Litchfield states, quote, I usually don't respond to former students' comments as these students usually suffer from a history of severe problems and often mental illness.

But with such vicious attacks, I must respond.

While I have not owned, operated, or worked as a staff at a program for 30 years, if there was systemic or widespread abuse at the programs, there would have been concerns from the many monitors and systems in place to safeguard it.

Further, students while enrolled went to see independent independent doctors, psychiatrists, or psychologists.

To think that all of these outside professionals, again, hid or supported any abuse or mistreatment is not rational.

Additionally, the programs were often closely overseen by competent licensing people who actively investigated things.

Most important, the programs had parents between family visits and seminars on the facility almost every day and had unmonitored talks with their child.

Parents were always especially interested in sharing any concerns.

Lastly, every student went on an off-grounds visit, home visit, or when they left the program for good, they simply could have called child protective or law enforcement and made a complaint.

Where are then such complaints?

Complaints to law enforcement, of course, would have needed specifics that could be verified.

Not the, it didn't happen to me, but I heard it happen to others, that is so prevalent in complaints made in media and online.

So instead of credible evidence from credible persons, nurses, teachers, therapists, or law enforcement, Catherine Kubler gives viewers what she openly admits as a revenge project.

End quote.

By March 13, 2024, the St.

Lawrence County District Attorney had announced a new investigation into allegations regarding the academy at Ivy Ridge, encouraging former students to come forward with any information.

At the time of this episode's release, no public resolution of the investigation has been reported.

On April 27, 2024, Former Ivy Ridge students and families traveled across the country to gather outside the Ogdensburg City Hall to protest the abuse they experienced.

The survivors rally aimed to raise awareness and advocate for institutional reforms to prevent child abuse in similar programs.

In this episode, we'll hear from Shannon, a parent who sent her daughter Kaylin to the Academy at Ivy Ridge from March 2006 to August 2007.

Shannon shares valuable insights regarding the manipulation tactics Ivy Ridge allegedly used to lure parents in and keep them paying.

It's eye-opening to hear how the impact of programs like Ivy Ridge extended to entire families.

Parents, especially, were often pressured into heartbreaking and costly decisions.

I'm Tiffany Rees, and this is something was wrong.

I am Shannon.

I am Kaylin's mom.

And I wanted to share a little bit about my personal experience at Ivy Ridge.

Kaitlyn and her twin sister, Christina, I often refer to them as caged lions.

They were the kids who wanted to jump off the highest thing and fearless.

There's a picture that I have of her where she is wearing tie-dye head to toe, really cool 70s sunglasses, and she's riding a skateboard down a road pointing back at the camera.

That was Kaitin.

Free spirit, full of life.

Kaelin has been a constant joy, even with the struggles that she's had.

She was the kid who didn't want to sit quietly and follow all the basic boring normal rules.

She wanted to go outside and play and dance and be with her friends.

Over the years, her rebelliousness often got her into some trouble.

It all came to a head in 2005 when Kaitin overdosed in middle school.

She was 13.

Of course, my husband and I were devastated.

She was rushed to the hospital, and thankfully, she was okay.

We were shocked.

We found out Kaelin and other kids her age were doing this thing called skittling, where they would swipe pills from parents' medicine cabinets, put them in a bowl and scoop up a handful and take them.

We still just can't imagine that kids would do such reckless things, but if we can remember that they're kids, they're not wired to think of all of the consequences of their actions.

And that certainly was Kaelin.

I don't think for me at the time, I could even make sense of it.

I was in life or death mode.

This is going to kill my kid.

How am I going to save her?

And that became the theme for the next few years.

I spoke to the school counselor who referred me to a community counselor.

I spoke to the pediatrician.

We even took her to our parish priest.

I emailed Dr.

Phil for 100 days straight.

Anyone that we thought outside of us who can get through to this kid,

I really did believe that there was someone out there, some answer.

It just became so tumultuous.

Every day was, what's going to happen?

I started getting online, looking for resources, and I came across Help Your Teen or something like that, clicked the link, called the number, and spoke to a wonderful person who was acknowledging how hard this was and just how desperate we had to be that this really was life or death.

When they told us how much it was going to cost, I said, there's no way that we can afford the enormous amount of money required to help our child.

40,000-ish a year?

It was more than that.

I spoke to one person who then became my contact and I was able to get in touch with her repeatedly and update her.

In February, Kaylin overdosed again.

I remember sitting in the hospital room with my husband and saying, nothing else else has saved this kid.

We're going to have to figure out a way to get her into this program.

We can always make more money, but we can't make another Kaelin.

And he agreed and started the process, which was intense and scary.

For me, it was almost moving too fast.

We can have somebody come and pick her up so you don't have to drive all the way up there.

And I was like, no, no, no, that's not an option for me.

She can't be taken by strangers.

I just dismissed that immediately.

And I said, I'm not going to put my child into a program unless I see it myself.

So sometime in February of 2006, my husband and I drove 81 north to Canada, make a right, to get to Ogdensburg.

And we arrived early the next morning at Ivy Ridge.

It was well kept.

The people whom we interacted with were lovely.

They were kind.

They were acknowledging of all of the pain that we were in.

It was a horseshoe driveway, two sets of double doors.

Hindsight, why were the doors locked?

Didn't even hit my radar.

But we went through the first set of double doors.

And so we were in like a vestibule between another set of double doors, and those were locked.

The lady at the front window said, Oh, Jason will be right with you.

He's the director of the program.

Shortly after, he came in, greeted us, escorted us right down the hallway into this beautifully decorated room with overstuffed fancy furniture and beautiful paintings and cherry wood all around.

He listened to what we were struggling with and he acknowledged that this really is life or death.

They did say they were going to help us keep Kalin alive.

They were going to work with us to help Kalin get back on track.

Something very significant happened in that very first meeting.

Jason brought a student in, and she was delightful.

She was smiling, charismatic, very respectful, well-spoken, and she was an upper-level student at this program.

What was so poignant for us was she shared what got her to Ivy Ridge and the choices that she made were similar to Kaylin's.

Her parents were also desperate and they made the choice to put her in a place that could save her life.

She was getting ready to graduate and she was talking about going on to college and that she and her parents had a wonderful relationship.

And she could give me her parents' number if I wanted, because they would be wonderful resources for us.

And I just remember the hope that I had meeting that young girl.

Jason had escorted her out, and it was just my husband and I sitting in this beautiful room.

And I said to him, Do you think that could be Kaylin one day?

Now we had a beautiful, living, breathing example of thriving after such horrific experiences.

That's what sold it for us.

We did ask to see the dorms and the rooms where they would be in school and learning.

We were told that for privacy concerns, we can't let outsiders see in for privacy concerns.

When we were exiting that fancy room and we're going towards the hallway, a line of students happened to walk by and they were all dressed in these school uniforms that were clean and crisp and they had vests and they had little tie that buckled underneath their collar and they had knee socks and nice clean shoes.

They were orderly, they were quiet.

And I was like, these are the kids that were having such troubles?

Look how respectful they are.

I had no idea what was happening behind the scenes.

It was finally a possibility of hope because we had felt hopeless for quite some time.

When we got into the nitty-gritty of how we were going to afford this, they had all the answers.

Try to get along, ask a family member, you can always get a second mortgage.

We weren't going to let money be the reason our child didn't live.

We had no other options left.

This was it.

We wanted to tell Kaelin, this is what we're choosing.

This is the website.

Here's the pictures.

And there were pictures from a summer fun day on Lake Auglundsburg.

And the kids were having having a blast.

The school classroom where the kids were dutifully working on their computers.

We got the list of all the things that she had to bring.

We went shopping.

She picked out a new comforter.

She was excited to go and we were relieved that she was willing to go.

We went, took her the next day very early in the morning.

Went through the first set of double doors, myself, my husband, and Kaelin with her bags.

We began to sign forms.

Two staff members opened that second set of double doors, escorted Kaelin and all of her belongings, and locked the door behind them.

I didn't realize what was even happening until it had already happened.

I turned around and said, wait, wait, we want to say goodbye.

And the person at the front desk said, you know, it's actually better for the kids to become immersed in the program.

And it just didn't sit well.

But again, they are the source of saving my child.

So I didn't question it.

And at first, you were only able to communicate with her through writing and through the family rep, is that correct?

Yes, there's earning privileges to speak to the parents.

We were reinforced with they've got to know what it's like to miss you.

They've got to follow the rules so that they can earn the opportunity to speak to the parents.

It really was framed in a way that was, everything we're doing is to help keep your child alive.

My husband and I still question this to this day.

Did they tell us that we had to go to these seminars?

We don't really recall, but it was part of the Kaylin's here.

She's going to get her help.

Now you're going to go to these parenting seminars.

We did our first seminar in Atlanta, but then locations opened up in New Jersey.

And so we became part of the New Jersey crew of seminar participants.

I can still vividly remember my first seminar, and it was called Discovery.

The first day, there were 140 of us.

We met doctors, lawyers, and school teachers.

And there was even a rocket scientist in our group who at one point stood up and said, hey, I'm a rocket scientist.

That's easier than trying to rage a teenager.

It was almost like we found our people.

There wasn't the shame of being the only parents who couldn't keep our kids in line.

We were not the only parents whose teenager had overdosed twice.

We were not the only parents who were going to squeeze every nickel and do whatever we could.

Even the language that they spoke was unique.

It was about possibility, clarity, and boundaries.

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We were taught so much about parenting differently.

We ate it up.

We were then surrounded by parents whose children were further up in levels.

The parents who staffed each seminar would come up to the front of the room and tell great stories about how far they had come, about how desperate they were before they got their kid into it program.

And it wasn't just Ivy Ridge.

We found out later there were lots of different schools all over the country, which for us validated this is the key to saving teenagers.

We believed it all.

I never learned any of this stuff.

I don't recall my parents ever sitting us down and talking about boundaries and coming up with our own family values.

We were instructed to go home and have a family values meeting.

Rules are negotiable, but values are not.

And these values helped us parent better.

You can change a rule, you could change the bedtime, but we're always going to be people who commit to these values.

Ours, I can still remember them, faith, family, fun, education, and health.

They were rooted in emotion.

It was about getting out of your comfort zone, sharing vulnerabilities, talking about how much we failed at parenting these teens.

One of the first days of the first seminars, one of the seminar leaders was saying something like, These teenagers didn't get there just because they're bad kids.

You guys were bad parents.

And I remember leaning over to my husband and saying, This guy doesn't know me.

He doesn't know everything that I did to try to save this kid.

But the further we went into them, the further we realized that we really did help contribute to a lot of the problems that Kaylin was having.

We weren't consistent with her.

We weren't really firm with boundaries.

We were allowing her to badger us into giving in.

There were lots of things that we could improve on.

And then we would have the examples of parents who had already improved on them, and their kids are getting up in the levels and getting ready to graduate.

So for me, it was like, this is still the answer.

We still have work to do.

If we didn't do all of our seminars and keep our commitment to keep her in the program.

We were risking her life.

That weighed heavy on us because we already almost lost her two times.

You attend the seminar and complete your six or eight weeks homework and then go to the next seminar.

You can go back and staff that first seminar.

I was a believer of the program.

I was witnessing parents who were modeling for me, keep going, do what it takes.

And the messages that were being sent to us about our program was called the plus five, minus five commitment scale.

Plus five is literally called doing whatever it takes.

Yep, DWIT, do what it takes.

Plus five commitment became a theme when we would communicate with Kaylin.

We're at a plus five.

We just finished this seminar.

We're going on to the next.

It really was a measure of what parents were willing to do to get their kids to graduate.

I was looking through my seminar notebook, and that was like the holy grail.

Every parent had their own binder.

So much evidence for us of how we were committed to plus five.

The thicker your binder was, the more seminars you've attended.

The last day of the seminar, the facilitator begins to hype up the next seminar, telling us about all the benefits of going.

Plus five, are you going to be the parents who are going to do whatever it takes to keep your kid alive in the program?

And then they would have staffers share little snippets about the wonderful experience they had in that next seminar.

And it would just further imprint on, we got to go to the next one.

And the facilitator then would challenge us to stand up and make our plus five commitment declaration that we're going to attend the next seminar.

Staffers would come around with a sheet.

They'd take our credit card information, sign us up, and then we're ready to go to the next one.

There would be shame if I couldn't plus five, do what it takes.

There's shame in being a plus one.

For example, somebody could be called called out in a feedback group.

You know, I notice you always sit in the back of the room versus a parent who's always in the front row.

There's a distinction between plus five and plus one.

So you're compliant, you're there, but are you a plus five?

I am not at all defending parents' choices to go to these seminars, but this was the answer to keeping my child alive.

I don't want to entirely speak for my husband, but that was his belief as well.

So anytime I was given feedback of like, I'm at a plus four or plus three, I was like, I gotta do more.

What else can I do?

In a seminar, we talked about and explored how both my husband and I were raised and about factors that could have contributed.

One that stuck out for me was alcoholism.

My husband is not the biological father of my girls.

He adopted them when they were five.

And he has been their dad throughout all of this.

Kaelin's biological father was an alcoholic and he was addicted to drugs.

I didn't have alcoholism in my biological family, but it became apparent that this could be a hereditary issue for Kaitin, which just made me feel worse.

Why couldn't I catch this?

It was really magnified for me that My lack of knowledge and skill contributed to why Kaelin was the way she was.

Now, it was really heavy and really hard to carry, but that's okay because right now we could do this and we can learn these skills.

One of the outings that were given to us as a homework assignment was to go to a smoke shop and find out about different types of smoking.

It was fascinating to my husband and I.

We were shown how kids hide drugs in what looks like a Coke can, but the bottom unscrews and they could hide hide their drugs in there or false bottoms to books or things like that.

It reinforced for me all that I didn't know about addiction and that I wasn't equipped to help Kaylin navigate all of this.

It was really hard.

Once you've completed a seminar, then you can go back and staff.

In seminars, everything is structured.

There is the lead facilitator, then there is a person who is appointed the captain.

The captain is the person who then manages the rest of the staff.

And there are door greeters.

There are people assigned to music.

There is a person or two assigned to chairs to make sure that every time the participants went back into the room, the chairs were configured in a way that was the setup for the next emotional sequence that was going to happen.

There was a woman who was the captain.

She's like the facilitator's right-hand person.

This captain was so well-spoken, confident, charismatic, and clear that we were in the right place.

I remember vividly leaning over my husband and said, I want to be like that lady.

I want to be so confident and know that this is the right thing.

I want to be able to stand up there and say that.

And eventually I did.

There was almost a badge of honor to be able to go through these ranks.

It wasn't that the schools were funding us to staff these seminars.

You were a volunteer staff.

You paid for your own hotel.

All the staff would get together and make potluck meals.

It was our way of giving back the way that other parents gave to us when we first arrived.

It was also a connection to see what's possible for your child.

I stood up in front of the room as a staff member and was proudly toting.

my badge of honor for all of the seminars that I had attended and staffed, all of the work that Kaylin was doing.

I'm ashamed, truly shamed to admit that I became a staffer.

Looking back at some of Kaelin's letters and recalling things from the documentary, the upper level students were challenged to bully the lower levels to stay in the program.

So we were doing the same thing.

We were bullying the new people.

to do whatever it took to get to graduation.

It's absolutely maddening to me.

I bought into it.

My kid kid was alive.

My kid was writing letters of hope and possibility.

That same kid who almost died twice.

I really believed that this program was saving my child's life and any contribution I could have to helping parents save their kids' lives, I'm in.

You and your husband were aligned, it sounds like.

Yes, we were both fully committed.

We attended and graduated every seminar offered.

Outside of the seminars, we were given small groups to have weekly conference calls with.

So we were each in our own small group.

We were each given weekly assignments.

We would call in a conference number.

He would be in one room on his call and I would be in another room on my call doing the plus five, showing up every week.

We were both fully in it, fully duped.

We both were doing whatever we could to show Kaylin that we were never going to give up on her.

And what that also meant was do whatever you can to get to graduation.

And in order to get to graduation, you've got to get through all of the levels.

There's a get reel letter that we're all challenged to do in a seminar.

In this get real letter, we are to declare we're going to keep going to these seminars, keep doing our homework and our conference calls.

And it's up to the team now to do what it takes on their end because we're holding up our end.

Some parents have said it was a turning point for them, having written it all down and made that declaration.

It really solidified for them.

They're going to do what it takes.

But how did it impact these teens to then get this letter, you're there to graduation?

And it's not like it was, you're there for 30 more days, 60 more days, 90 more days.

You're there until you get to that top level and then reach graduation.

How am I questioning a program that is all I have left to save my child where I have evidence of parents whose children have been saved?

I've learned a different way of parenting that is intentional, clear, that's not wrapped in chaos.

How can I speak ill of this program?

And it really became an internal struggle for me that I've got to just keep working my program and let Kaylin work hers.

There was a point where they were concerned because Kaelin was developing a romantic relationship with another student.

They encouraged me to put Kaelin in therapy.

Okay, sign her up.

Contacted my insurance company to make sure that I can have all of her therapy covered.

And Bob at the Blue Cross became my lifeline to make sure that every session was covered.

How long was it supposed to take her to complete it?

Did they give you any sort of estimate?

That was one of the, you know, famous unanswered questions.

I don't recall any nine months, 12 months, 15 months, but what I do recall are parents who would proudly say, we're in here for 23 months and they're back to level one, but we're going to keep working on our program.

I would even find that admirable.

Wow, these parents are going to do it for as long as it takes to keep their child alive.

That's what we're going to do too.

There were different points where I would ask, what are you doing differently that your child is already at level four?

I became hyper-focused on aligning myself and doing whatever the parents were doing where their kids were closer to graduation.

It may sound maybe to others that I was the Pollyanna.

I just blindly bought into everything, but I didn't.

I challenged the frequency of turnover with the dorm parents.

There were dorm parents and there were family reps.

Kaylin had a family rep, one adult who was our primary communicator.

We would get a weekly email.

I would drive into work early so that I could get my email and print it out and savor every word that Kaelin had written.

I would bring it home and my husband and I would type up a response.

It was our lifeline to Kaelin's progress and setbacks.

There were several months where Kaelin wasn't advancing any levels.

And I would challenge, like, you guys are the experts.

Often I was redirected to this website called the BBS where I could vent and question other parents parents whose kids were at this stuck place at the lower levels.

And there were other parents whose kids were further along.

Hang in there, keep going, keep working your program.

You got to believe in yourself, believe in her.

Being reassured, what I recall are it being mostly parents.

Later, I heard that the schools had fake accounts.

I can't speak to that, but what I can speak to is that it was a source of overwhelming support.

The first phone call that we got to have with Kaelin was brief.

It was the quick, hi, I love you, I love you, I miss you, I miss you, we believe in you, you're doing great.

And Kaelin said something about the food wasn't good or the heat wasn't on or something like that.

And immediately her family rep who was in the room ended the phone call.

My husband and I were like, what just happened here?

And a few minutes later, she called back and that's when she explained that these kids make up these stories.

They tell these lies because they want to try to trick you into bringing her home.

And Kaelin's going to get a consequence for lying.

We didn't even consider that she was telling the truth.

That's how much we were enthralled with they must know what they're doing.

They're catching her in a lie and they're going to have an immediate consequence.

We couldn't even keep the consequences at home, but they are.

What I was denying Kaelin was the opportunity to tell us the truth.

That was really challenging.

But again, going on to the BBS and talking to other parents, and oh, my teen did that too.

Oh, the stories they tell, and wait till you hear this one.

And they would share these war stories of what kids would say.

And the parents would reassure that, well, that can't be happening.

They've got to learn that lying isn't going to get them anywhere.

When did you get to go and see Kaylin in person for the first time while she was at Academy at Ivy Ridge?

And what did she have to do in order to earn that privilege?

She had to be a certain level prior to our visit and we also had to have completed X amount of seminars in order to qualify for that visit.

In hindsight, how in the heck did I not get that this was just another way

to get parents to spend money to go to these seminars and keep our kids in the program?

We finally got to see Kaylin seven months after we took her to Ivy Ridge.

And it was for PC1.

It's called Parent-Child One.

I recall vividly as if it had happened yesterday that my entire family went.

We took my parents, my young son, Christina, up to a hotel where we were welcomed with open arms.

People in the town were lovely.

Everybody was like, you've got a kid at Ivy Ridge.

It's a great place.

We got to the school and we were put into the seminar room with other parents and we were given very specific instructions.

They were going to turn the lights down low.

We were going to stand in a very large circle, each parent next to another, facing the middle.

What we didn't know at the time was the students were then brought into the center of the circle facing out, but they were not allowed to hug us until they were prompted to do so.

Later on, finding out that she would have dropped levels and not see us if she hugged us before she was allowed to.

That's insane insane to even imagine now.

But that's what happened.

We were prompted to remember Keelan as a child, filled with love and light and hope and innocence, and then reminded of the things that these teens were doing in order to get themselves here.

And that acknowledging the parents for doing everything they can because we're doing the hard work to save our children.

And the moment that we got to hug her, it was life-changing.

It was blissfully important to be able to hold our child.

And we didn't even want to let go.

We didn't get to hug her goodbye the day that we dropped her off.

And to finally have her in our presence and to know that she had done the work to get herself to this seminar.

It was like we were hugging a child who was going to live.

and was going to eventually thrive.

At the end of the seminar, they allowed the extended family as well as the teens to be in the cafeteria for whatever meal it was.

To see Kaylin and Christina and my younger son crying and hugging on each other, and I thought, we're going to be a family again.

Kaylin was so happy to see Christina that she put Christina on her back and was running around the cafeteria giving her piggybacks.

And I just thought, how beautiful is this?

Look how silly.

And see, this is how they're supposed to be.

I found out later that she was dropped a level.

Did it feel like confirmation that she was on the right path after that visit?

It really did.

I mean, for me, it was that she can go up in levels.

She can do her homework.

She can follow the rules.

She's going to be okay.

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One of the challenges that we had with Kaelin was she had reached a point in her program where she was adamant about seeing her biological father.

Up until that time, neither of my girls had seen their biological father since they were three and a half.

And I was absolutely rigid with saying, no, this is not a good idea.

This is not safe for Kaylin.

For weeks, it went back and forth.

I would get letters from Kaelin.

I think at one point I had two or three phone calls with her therapist, like, she's not going to progress any further.

She's got to meet with her dad.

And against my better judgment, I finally said, okay.

okay.

And that was one of the worst failures that I made as their parent.

Kaylin wrote him a letter.

I don't know what Kaelin wrote, but I have a letter that he wrote back saying, I'm so glad you reached out.

There's more to the story.

I want to wait till I could meet both of you.

And that seemed to suffice, Kaylin, for the time.

We were so hyper-focused on Kaelin that we weren't paying attention to what Christina was doing.

And she started to get into trouble herself.

It became then, well, are you going to bring Christina?

Shall we put Christina in the school?

And it was very challenging for us because we couldn't arrive at a clear decision.

One of the things that they encouraged was for Christina to come to Ivy Ridge with Kaelin and we just didn't think that was a good idea.

We also couldn't figure out another way to afford that.

I can recall finding letters later from the school encouraging us, well, if you can't afford it, here's a link to a website where they can can help homeowners get additional funding without increasing your monthly payment.

At the same time, they had a leadership program for teens.

So we put Christina on a plane.

She went to California for a week.

And we thought, okay, that's going to help her.

She'll be back on track in no time.

And that didn't work.

So as the months went on, we were still trying to navigate.

helping Christina at home with all of these new tools, all of these new ways to parent, while we were still encouraging Kaelin to keep working in her program.

It was like we were doing what we should have done with Kaelin.

We're now doing it with Christina in the way that works because all of these boundaries, these values are going to work.

Over the months, it just got harder and harder to navigate all of it with how much money that everything costs.

threats to not being able to attend the next seminar because we were behind in a payment.

The shame around money was something that was a constant for us.

But at the same time, I was starting to notice things falling apart.

There were more red flags.

We ultimately decided not to put Christina in the program because we were losing faith in the program.

It was hard for us because we still knew that Christina needed help.

We were getting her outside help.

So we were still trying to figure her stuff out, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to put her in a place where we were losing faith.

It was a hard decision, but it was necessary.

Parents who pulled their kid no longer had access to any of the seminars.

They no longer had access to speaking to other parents whose kids were still in the program.

It was like you were all the way in and when you're out, you were all the way out, completely blocked out.

It was as if they were frowned upon for giving up.

Don't associate yourself with people who didn't have what it took to get to graduation because because those people are going to bring you down.

I

early on was like, those parents didn't have what it took.

I wish they would have stayed.

They were doing so well.

I myself declined calls from people because I didn't want to risk my integrity by answering a phone call from someone who didn't continue to put the blood, sweat, and tears in to get to graduation.

It still boggles my mind that I didn't have the wherewithal to be like, wait a minute, what's wrong with this?

I am truly deeply ashamed that I didn't get it.

There were so many discrepancies that were happening.

The family reps were changing.

One person would say one thing to me on the phone, and then the next week someone would say completely different.

I was requesting to speak to the program director.

He was never available.

I was asking to speak to the therapist.

They weren't taking phone calls.

It just became more and more like something's just not right.

And I began to post on the BBS about my concerns.

More often than not, those same

statements that had kept me believing in the program for so long from parents further along started to become bullshit.

I wasn't blocked out until we were absolutely clear that we were taking Kaelin home.

I notified them, let's say on a Tuesday that I would be there on a Wednesday, whatever.

My husband and I drove to Ogdensburg, checked into our local hotel, and then then went there the next morning.

When we got there, someone opened up the first set of double doors.

The person at the window said, okay, here's your forms to sign.

By the time I turned around, they had brought Kaelin to the second set of double doors with all of her stuff just jammed into garbage bags, ushered her through and locked the doors behind them and off they went.

We were dumbfounded.

I mean, we were so happy to see her, of course, but we were like, what the hell?

I remember going to the hotel that night and I'm locked out of the BBS.

I'm calling the people who are in my group.

People in the groups aren't answering me.

People that I thought were my friends, my confidants, my heroes, my saviors.

Gone.

Kaylin came home from the program and got herself into some trouble and she did some things, but she still was fighting the good fight, trying to be her free spirit.

What's so interesting is that Kaitin did not blast the program.

She would talk about really great people that she met and she would tell stories of how they would have a secret code of how they would laugh and communicate and she would tell stories of a girl that she fell in love with and that they kept each other going.

It was still for me saying, see, she did learn things.

She does see hope.

She does see possibility.

But she didn't tell me any of these things that were what really was going on for her.

For years, I didn't press her on it.

I didn't want to take her back to that time.

We didn't really talk about it.

I think what's important for people to know about our story is that in 2017, Kaylin was living in DC.

She had gotten a job at a restaurant.

She had a couple of roommates.

She was talking about going into the Peace Corps.

And she had just gotten back from a trip to Manchu Picchu.

She was living her

In 2017, Kaelin passed away.

I still believe that there was foul play.

There's questions that I have that are unanswered about that experience.

I'm so incredibly sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

One of the things that hurts me the most is that when one of the families from Ivy Ridge mailed me her files, those files that you saw in the documentary that were just left.

I found out while I was cheering her on and I'm doing my program, she was suffering.

Kaylin did not tell me about being put into the isolation room and being forced to write and write and write.

And Kaelin's files were many of her journal entries that she would pour her heart into.

So much of it was the pain that she was really in, that she just wanted to come home.

She just wanted to be with her family.

And we kept denying her that because we wanted her to graduate the program.

I do know now that once the relationship with the student was discovered, Kaelin dropped all her levels.

So that was the punishment for it.

I recall Kaitin telling me about one of the female staff members that she was really close to and would get to spend extra time in her office.

I recall Kaelin speaking very lovingly about this person.

And then I remember her saying something like, she got really mean to me.

I don't want to talk about it.

Whatever happened for Kaylin?

I don't know.

Multiple former Academy at Ivy Ridge students have accused former staff of grooming and sexually abusing students.

The St.

Lawrence County District Attorney's Office is investigating various abuse claims at Ivy Ridge, but no criminal charges have been filed as of the release of this episode.

Relatedly, following the Netflix docuseries, The Program, Cons, Colts, and Kidnapping, an undisclosed number of former Ivy Ridge employees were placed on administrative leave from their positions at state-run St.

Lawrence Psychiatric Center, also in Ogdensburg, New York.

In our research, we have been unable to find any coverage from credible outlets carrying an official statement in regards to these allegations.

I don't have, nor will I ever have, the opportunity to apologize and to tell her that we were wrong and that we failed and that we shouldn't have ever sent her there.

And there's no possibility for her to tell us in her own words what happened and for us to really listen.

I think that's much of what drives me to share this experience.

Christina, her twin sister, overdosed from fentanyl in 2022.

And so much of the healing opportunities with Christina will never happen.

On the 15th, it was their 33rd birthday.

My husband and I sat down and had coffee and we thought, gosh, what would they be like now?

How would they be in this world?

I know there are so many parents whose children went through such horrific experiences at these schools.

And they're no longer with us.

There's kids who got into drugs soon after or got into into trouble with the law, but they weren't given the opportunity to be heard.

And many of them are gone.

And that just breaks my heart.

When we talk about Ivy Ridge as a school with qualified staff, I truly believed that these people knew what the heck they were doing.

After getting her files, there was a part under staffing.

Academy at Ivy Ridge is not a treatment facility.

Therefore, sponsors understand that staff are hired not necessarily by credentials, but to provide supervision and carry out the structure's environment.

I just find that ironic.

I recall printing out and reading through page after page and questioning this agreement that I signed in order for her to go.

And even I missed that.

I was so desperate to save her life

that I didn't consider who was supervising her and at what depth.

And that's on me.

You had mentioned she worked with a therapist while she was there, which you had to pay extra for.

Was that a licensed therapist to your understanding?

Yes, that was a licensed therapist to my understanding.

They use therapeutic jargon to track progress, track setbacks.

Speaking to a parent who wasn't a therapist at the time and was just like, okay, okay, so this is working.

This is where she's struggling.

On where we go.

Keep working the program.

But it's fascinating to me to find later in Kaelin's documents that there's a communication from August 23rd of 2007 noting that, and this was when I was getting ready to pull Kaelin, that the therapist said, and I'm quoting, she and the other therapists believe Kaelin has gotten all she will get out of this program.

A red flag was breakdown in the system.

And on the side note, it's written that this therapist is frustrated with consistency here, and kids can see it as well.

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How do you put two feet in front of the other when you've experienced the things that you have, Shannon?

Some days are definitely harder than others.

Shortly after Kaylin passed away, a friend of mine messaged me and said, you know, you really should get around horses.

I know this lady, you can go to her farm, go pet some horses.

I would go there for hours, day after day, not talk to any people, but just connect with these horses.

I've really experienced some profound impacts with horses.

One night after I was there, I had this dream.

I was laying up in the field behind the barn where the horses were kept.

I'm looking up and I could feel the sun on my face and I hear this rustling sound.

And I can't quite make it out because the sun's in my eyes.

And then all of a sudden I could feel the breath of a horse right in front of my face.

I could see the red on the horse's mane.

And I hear the words, Mama, it's me.

And I suddenly woke up.

I go back to the farm week after week and the farm owner's daughter said, oh, Shannon, you've got to come and see.

We've got two new babies.

They came from Arizona.

I turned the corner and that was the horse that was in my dream.

I took care of that horse for a year and then I bought her.

Kaelin had fiery red hair, so I named her Ruby Red Heaven Sent.

And the way that I get through every day is I spend time with Ruby Red.

I don't talk to people.

I just hang out at the farm.

Sometimes I ride her, sometimes I don't.

But for me, it's

what I believe is a connection to Kaelin.

I, during COVID, went back to school.

I got my master's in marriage and family therapy.

I'm now a therapist.

I help families in crisis.

I worked for an organization in Florida for a few years where I would help families with teens out of control.

I still believe that there are ways to help our teens, but it's not with a program like this that locks them up and demands that they walk in the single file line and don't break your eyes with the head that's in front of you.

I'm working on opening a branch of my company to do equine assisted therapy because I truly believe in the power of horses.

My way of surviving the depths of loss of my girls is to be of service for those who still have breath in them, who still are trying to find ways to heal.

That's how I get up every day.

I don't know if I can ever really come to terms with that same program that I did learn so much from and

have helped myself and others be the exact same source of such devastation.

And for many, Death,

it just doesn't make sense.

My hope is that I'm not misheard as saying that I give support for any of these residential facilities because I do not.

But what I believe is that somewhere there can be some possibility of helping families in a healthy way that does not include berating and shaming and bullying.

but to help them work through these very hard things that life has.

I I won't ever have the opportunity to hear Kaelin tell me her whole truth.

That's for me what has been this ongoing pain that there are other survivors who no longer have their voice.

I honor and value and validate each survivor's experience who still does have a voice.

My continued hope is that These survivors will speak on behalf of many who aren't ready to talk about it.

My hope is that those beautiful, lovely humans who experienced such devastation are given the opportunity to heal.

Whether that includes their parents or not, they all get to hear from someone that they didn't deserve to suffer the way that they suffered and that they're not bad people and there's nothing flawed about them.

Their parents, whether knowingly or unknowingly, put their children in the lives of strangers.

That was wrong.

What advice would you give to a parent that's listening who's struggling with those feelings of guilt or shame?

Everybody's experience is unique, and I would be open to listening to how it was for each of them.

What's important for someone who is ready to talk about this is to be able to say, I was wrong.

And I want to figure out a way to work through this.

I want to encourage people to know that if you believe that you made these choices based on life or death and it was wrong, find a way to work through that.

Find a way to find some understanding into how it happened in coming from so many different directions.

If I was a staffer at your seminar bullying you to be a plus five, I was a cog in that wheel.

And I now know it was wrong.

It's so important for us to, in our own comfort level, share that this was not okay for our children to experience such atrocities, but it wasn't okay for us to try to keep our kids in this program when we didn't really know what was going on behind the curtain.

It's okay to work through that as long as it takes.

And for me, I'm still in the process of it.

I just don't have my girls to ever say it to their faces how profoundly sorry I am.

I really admire your resilience and your willingness to speak on Kaylin's behalf and for the other students who can no longer speak for themselves and share about your beautiful daughters with us.

I think they would be extremely proud of how you're honoring their legacy.

Thank you.

My hope is that they're at peace.

That's all that I hope for.

Next time on something was wrong.

They get you in such a vulnerable state that there's nothing you can do really but comply at some point.

My spirit was so broken from the kidnapping and the thought that my parents could have me taken against my will to some place they had never visited or apparently never even checked down.

If they didn't think they were doing anything wrong by sending me there, why would they lie about it?

Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production.

Created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Reese, associate producers Amy B.

Chesler and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High.

Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing manager, Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist, and Marissen Travis from WME.

Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories.

And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support and listenership.

In the episode notes, you'll always find episode-specific content warnings, sources, and resources.

Thank you so much for your support.

Until next time, stay safe, friends.

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