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

When Meagan Crider began exchanging notes with a staffer at the Utah teen treatment center where she was staying in the early 2000s, the extra attention felt exciting.

Crider was 16 years old. The staff member was an adult several years older. “I remember we would write letters back and forth,” she said. “That’s how we would communicate. And I bet there was two boxes full of letters.”

They kept their notes a secret. But at one point — she can’t remember exactly when — Crider said the tone of the letters changed. “The letters were starting to get more and more crossing the line,” Crider said. “She knew she could get in trouble for this. That’s why we had to be so secretive.”

The staffer was able to sneak Crider out of the program and into her apartment. There, the woman had sexual contact with her, according to Crider.

The former staffer, who Sent Away is not identifying because she was not charged with a crime, didn’t respond to multiple interview requests.

Crider left Integrity House in 2003. While she as there, Crider didn’t tell anyone what was happening. It wasn’t until three years later that her mom found shoeboxes of letters at their home in Texas and alerted Integrity House and the police. But her report went nowhere.

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.

Utah law is clear that minors cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult, particularly if that person holds a position of trust, as staff members at youth treatment facilities do.

Experts say this type of abuse can happen in congregate care programs where young people are often isolated from their families with under-trained staff keeping watch. They also say it can be prevented with proper oversight and clear boundaries.

That didn’t happen when she was at Integrity House, Crider said. “Those lines, without a doubt, they were crossed. It was pretty bad.”

‘Inappropriate boundaries’

What happened to Crider occurred 20 years ago. But Sent Away’s data analysis shows that staff members crossing boundaries with children in Utah youth treatment centers has been a continuing problem. In the first half of 2021, at least five facilities disclosed inappropriate staff behavior to state regulators.

It happened last January, when a teen alleged that a staff member at Logan River Academy touched her upper thigh.

“The student in question has lied in the past regarding staff indiscretions,” a member of management wrote in a report to regulators, noting that the accused staff member was still fired because she wasn’t connecting with the children. 

Weeks later, regulators received a report that a woman who worked at Falcon Ridge Ranch had slapped students’ buttocks and shown them a photo of her husband’s genitals. She was fired.

Last June, a child welfare worker sent a photo to the state that showed a Renewed Hope Ranch staff member rubbing and combing his fingers through teens’ hair.

“These pictures show inappropriate boundaries and what might be considered grooming,” wrote the government worker who reported it. “Male staff and female staff aren’t allowed to do this. They allow him to.”  

Last month, police in Iron County charged a 23-year-old man after he allegedly kissed a girl while he was working at Zion Hills Academy. The facility’s director of programs said that employee was fired.

Lise Milne, a professor at the University of Regina in Canada, has researched child sexual abuse among kids in residential treatment. She said sex abuse in group care settings is “staggeringly high” in the U.S. and Canada. “Sexual abuse, whether perpetrated by staff members or peers, is common enough to warrant concern and to ensure that strong measures are in place for its prevention,” Milne said.

It’s critical, she said, for facilities to take care with hiring, training, and monitoring to make sure boundaries aren’t crossed.

The insular nature of congregate care can contribute to sexual misconduct, Milne noted, along with uneven training for staff about youth development and the need to establish boundaries between the kids and the staff. “It’s really important (to remember) that even when they act mature or adult-like, or even seem to be inviting this activity, they’re still children,” she said.

Lack of accountability

Crider’s mother called the Cedar City police and Integrity House in 2006 after finding her boxes of letters and talking with her daughter. The police report noted Crider’s mom said her daughter disclosed what happened “to prevent another young female from being involved in an inappropriate relationship” with the staffer.

But there’s no record of the Cedar City police department taking any action beyond writing down what Crider’s mother reported. The officer who took the report told a Sent Away reporter that he wasn’t sure why it seemed nothing happened and that typically, reports like that would be referred for investigation.

The former staffer was never charged. And there is no record that Integrity House management reported the allegation to state regulators, which they were required to do.

Daniel Taylor, who ran Integrity House at that time, said in an interview with Sent Away that management didn’t do much to investigate Crider’s allegation themselves.

“No. 1, it wasn’t (the employee’s) character,” he said. “No. 2, these individuals, young ladies, they don’t want to be there. They’re angry. They’ll say or do whatever they can to get out of the program or out of wherever they’re at. So, I had no evidence. There was no investigation on it. So, it was just like — what do we do about it?”

Crider believed her mother received an out-of-court settlement from Integrity House. Her mom wouldn’t agree to an interview. Faron Taylor, Daniel’s older brother and at the time owner of Integrity House, said that a lawyer had “handled” the situation, but declined to elaborate.

Crider said she has read about teen treatment programs as she’s gotten older and started a family. Sometimes, it’s hard for her to believe that she went through it herself. 

It makes her angry, she said, to think about how these programs cater to desperate parents who feel they have no other choice. Yet, even years later, some of these programs haven’t always kept children safe. “It blows my mind that we don’t have some better things in place to make sure that these kids get what they need. It doesn’t seem right to me,” she said.