PUMAGIRL at Excelsior Youth Center

This testimony was found on the Internet as a comment to an article about the so-called treatment facility. All rights goes to the original author.

All lies - try 45 girls to a unit not 12. They look like mid-century mental hospital rooms.
I was here in 1986-1989 and staff steals from you. If you say anything, 24 hours lock up for you my earrings were gone and the witch had the nerve to wear them to work claiming they were hers. There was nothing I could do plus because I said something I was locked up 24 hours straight in a dirty room with no mattress. Btw my mom had the earrings custom made for me and my best friends 6th grade graduation that included our birthstones to make them more personal on top of the design so how would she have the same pair??? … she wouldn’t that’s how ugh!!!

Do not send your girls here it really messed me up worse than I was I’m 43 now and still have a reoccurring nightmare where I wake up and I’m there it is terrifying every time I have it and it’s been happening since 1989. I always wake up and I’m crying I literally have tears in my eyes because I’m locked up there in my old room and it’s dark and so sad the feeling is just despair!

Don’t do this to your girls it ruined my relationship with my mom I never trusted her again and was hurt she actually put me in this prison that is what it is it’s horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They made me feel like I was nothing and put me down every chance they had because they said I was conceded or I thought too much of myself … how does one do that and why would they want me to feel like less of anything.

My friend June Pena hung herself when I was there I’ll never forget the look on her face hanging in the laundry room “ever” !! By the way June was 14 and that’s as far as her life went I hate this place and everyone who works here old hags just under paid pissed off jealous evil witches then they have a website called “working at excelsior youth center” complaining about the girls and how they laugh at them with one another “how professional” !!! And saying that they are horrible, dirty (hygiene wise not true) also some claiming the girls are too much trouble and not worth it and they’re too hard to deal with. Well they knew where they were applying what did they expect sweet valley high? And if that’s how they feel about the girls why work there to begin with? To take it out on the girls that their life didn’t turn out as they hoped I mean if they feel like they were too good for the job they should have got a better education or married a doctor like I did I guess they’re the ones who really needed the help … bums!


Sources:

• Excelsior Youth Center (Rehabs reviews)
• 74. Excelsior Youth Center (1000 places You don't want to be as a teenager)

fourceawakens at Summit School in Nyack, New York

This testimony was found on Reddit. All rights go the original author known as fourceawakens

From what I understood from some of the other students, it was a country club among "therapeutic residential programs".

The good was that the campus was beautiful, the food was tasty (and they let us work in the kitchen for cash), we had a little autonomy over dorm life, and we got frequent mall/movie trips assuming we didn't fall afoul of the points system.

The bad was... nearly everything else. Poorly maintained school buildings, frequent use of restraints, completely inappropriate room assignments, bullying (neuroatypical kids particularly) in full view of staff, apathetic teachers playing Farmville behind their desks, dorms effectively run by abusive cliques.

Some of the staff were overtly racist or homophobic, some were hard drug users. The "therapeutic" component was wildly inconsistent in quality and often resulted in some really fucked up situations for students. Police were called to campus on a weekly basis to deal with the aftermath of fights, and a lot of people kept shanks or other improvised weapons in their rooms. I knew several kids there who'd been on room restriction (outside of school and meal hours) for the majority of their time there for really petty shit. There were rumors of organized sexual abuse going on in the "worse" girls' dorm, but the people who perpetuated those rumors were pretty unreliable in general so idk. Many of the students were over 18 but still stuck there for one reason or another. Drug deals were extremely common.

The murder was pretty common knowledge on campus but it wasn't really talked about because a) what is there to talk about when you're 16 and stuck in that place? and b) the staff got really alarmed whenever it came up. Found an old yearbook that had both the perp and victim in it, was good for a few laughs. I was unsurprised to hear of the suicide, and very surprised that one hadn't happened during my time there - though there were a few serious attempts I heard of.

If anyone wants specifically personal anecdotes, pm.

A murder took place on the campus a decade ago. For reasons unknown they didn't screen two boys and put them together even their diagnoses should have spoken against it. Tragedy struck and one of the boys flew out the window. The other boy was put in prison properly too sick to realize what he did.

Years later in 2014 a girl was found dead. This time it was suicide or at least so it was ruled.

Sources:

• Summit Nyack "alumni" (The original testimony on Reddit)
• New York: Upper Nyack: Student Charged In Fatal Plunge (The New York Times)
• 15-year-old's death at Summit school ruled suicide (Lohud)