Utah's Youth Treatment Industry

APM Reports has partnered with KUER and The Salt Lake Tribune for a series of investigations on the teen treatment industry in Utah. Our podcast is called Sent Away.

April 12, 2022

More citations and new concerns follow Utah's increased oversight of troubled-teen industry

One year after the first regulatory reform in 15 years, one lawmaker says the state’s tools are still not strong enough. “There are certain violations that absolutely merit a facility being shut down.”

April 5, 2022

How Utah became the leading place to send the nation's troubled teens

A lawmaker cites the state’s “clean look, clean feel” and strong family values. But the answer is a complex combination of history, culture and weak rules and regulations. Regulators haven’t closed a facility in the last five years.

March 29, 2022

Discreet discipline: Here's why Utah will soon make it easier to search a teen treatment program's violation history

Six years ago, a cruel disciplinary act against a young girl was kept secret — she had been forced to sit in a horse trough filled with cold water for 30 minutes. The incident only became public after the Sent Away team released a database of records that included every violation report documented at youth treatment facilities statewide. Today the state is planning to release violation and disciplinary information online.

March 22, 2022

Shutting down a teen treatment facility in Utah is no easy task, even after serious allegations

Opening a youth treatment center is relatively simple in Utah. But state regulators often can't — or won't — shut a place down after abuse is alleged.

March 15, 2022

How 'inappropriate boundaries' for staff can lead to sexual abuse at Utah teen treatment centers

Inappropriate contact between children and staff members has happened with some frequency in Utah’s teen treatment programs. Between November 2018 and July 2021, state regulators investigated at least 20 reports of staff pushing the boundaries with children, sometimes amounting to sexual abuse. State records show that 13 people resigned or were fired from youth treatment facilities after allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior during that time, according to a data analysis from Sent Away journalists.

March 8, 2022

'Blindfolds, hoods and handcuffs': How some teenagers get to Utah's youth treatment programs

“Secure transport services,” a shadowy corner of the teen-treatment industry, are almost entirely unregulated. Parent-hired transporters can pull kids from their beds, handcuff them, hold them down or blindfold them. In Utah, a legislator who recently sponsored a bill that brought regulatory reform to the state’s booming teen-treatment industry said he wants to take a closer look at how kids from all over the country are getting to the state for treatment.

November 19, 2021

Two Utah teen centers under fire for using ‘gooseneck’ holds and other ‘painful restraints’

One facility is being sued after a staffer broke a boy’s wrist, while another has been disciplined by the state for similar tactics.

June 23, 2021

The teen got a concussion. The school got a pass.

Up until 2019, the agency regulating Utah’s massive youth treatment industry rarely cited facilities for violating rules — even after cases of abuse. After a 2016 incident left a teenager with a concussion, state regulators listened to his mom’s complaint — and then did nothing about it.

How Utah has let its many youth treatment centers off the hook

March 26, 2021