Lexi A at Trails Carolina

This testimony was found on Google. Today Trails Carolina is mostly known in the public due to a tragic deaths of one of their students in 2014. The wilderness area is very much dense forrest making it difficult to determine where you are.

Trails was quite a negative experience.

If you think you are sending your child for therapy, be aware that this is more of a scared straight kind of program. Yes, I did get far better and my future is far brighter than it would have been had I not gone to Trails, but I left feeling overall traumatized. There were major abuses of power on the staffs' part, with one staff even refusing to allow us to replace a broken water filter because it would have been "a waste of money" . I subsequently got very sick from the unclean water and had to take medication for my constant throwing up. The staff didn't write a medical report until the girls in my group vocally protested and stood up for me after my 15th time throwing up. (I was not the only one sick from dirty water in that group). They should have never let it get to this point.

Also, as a previous review stated, be aware when they recommend for your children to go to therapeutic boarding school because it is most often completely unnecessary and prolonging the distance from home will only make it worse. The program also overworks kids while giving them little to eat. They don't tell you future plans (i.e. how much time a hike will take). One girl purposefully broke her toe out of desperation for the 8 hour hikes to stop (something a certain staff member knew was purposeful but ignored). Certain staff members show major and unprofessional favoritism. The therapy seemed to be a joke (I had Tai as a therapist) and sessions with her consisted of reading cards to see our spirit animals and feeling extremely judged.

In the end I am happy I went to Trails because it helped me pull myself together with time for thought, fear of coming back, and a growing thankfulness for home. As with nearly all other girls that I met from Trails and contacted afterwards, my depression got a lot better but my anxiety became crippling. Hopefully, Trails staff see this to help understand these problems because I do believe Trails has the opportunity to be a good program but many issues and the general deception in their marketing really disappoint and leave lasting damage/trauma on children.

I am furious with a lot of what staff allowed to occur because of their abuse of power.

Sources:

• The orignal testimony (Google)
• Trails Carolina - new program (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

"Del Rawr xD" at Trails Carolina

This testimony was found on Google. Today Trails Carolina is mostly known in the public due to a tragic deaths of one of their students in 2014. The wilderness area is very much dense forrest making it difficult to determine where you are.

Trails Carolina was by far the most traumatizing thing I have ever been through.

I didn’t eat my first two weeks other than a few bowls of rice. I lost a significant amount of weight my first two weeks. So much my backpack did not fit me anymore. I tried to tell the staff they did not listen the hip strap did not fit so all the weight was on my shoulders. 3 weeks in I noticed large black bruises on my shoulders welts. Many of us also had these bruises, one boy who was there over the winter had gotten frostbite and lost movement in 3 toes. He had not even received medical attention. I ended up spending 91 days at trails not completing the program. I came home and my relationship with my parents became seemingly worse.

Two months after trials I was diagnosed with PTSD. Trails has ruined my life I have not been able to think straight ever since they flashbacks have caused horrible anxiety. I ended up meeting with 3 group member 1 year later one of them Connor also had been diagnosed with PTSD. It turns out the whole time we where there we were all of us abused both physically and mentally abused. Not to forget the time I was assaulted by another group member the staff did nothing. Please don’t send your kid here.

Sources:

• The orignal testimony (Google)
• Trails Carolina - new program (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

Trails Carolina Experience terrible

This testimony was found on Reddit.

Trails traumatized me. The staff force you to do everything and even when your hiking up a huge mountain with huge heavy pack on they yell at you for stopping and force you to keep moving.

The first week your there the first letter you get is a letter from your parents saying what you did and why your there. The letters you parents try to send basically gets edited by them to make it different so you cant hear what your parents actually wanted to say. The letters are not even sent through the mail they take a picture of you letter and send it through email. The staff don't care if your crying and you only see your therapist once a week and the therapist barely even listens to you and tells your parents the wrong things about you. Mine told my parents I was self harming for attention.

They make you hike in pouring rain and snow no matter what. The food is disgusting and have the same stuff every week and you have clean the pot and scrub and you have very little time to do it. We only shower once or twice a month and on the website it said warm showers and comfy beds which is a lie. Everything is dirty and you sleep in tiny tents with 4 or 5 people which is meant for less and if it is raining you get soaked in the tents. The clothes are very dirty and very low quality and never get washed. People run away all the time and try to self harm with shoe laces and stuff. PEOPLE HAVE DIED HERE!! its so messed up nobody cares about you there. You learn stupid extremely hard wilderness skills and have top learn all of them to leave.

The people try to force your parents to send you to a boarding school and lie that your child is doing bad. I was lucky and got to go home but now I have a very poor relationship with my family and only have a few friends. Trails made it worse. I cry every time i just think about Trails it was the most hardest traumatizing thing that has ever happened to me. I feel so bad for everybody who has to go through this like i did. It made me so depressed and wanted to die while I was there because of how bad it was. I felt more hopeless than ever I thought I would never be going home. trails is torture. you have to carry your food around and your heavy sleeping bad and group gear which the water is from a creek that's not cleaned. The staff don't care and dont help or carry any of it. I was always crying on the hikes because it was hurting me and they yelled at me for being slow. the "school" there is not school there is no activities at trails you just work on your wilderness skills. Many things happen there thats against the law and lie. DONT COME HERE and btw my group was fox trot.

Source:
Trails Carolina Experience terrible (Reddit)

Brittany at Trails Carolina

This testimony was found on Yelp. All rights go to the original author Brittany

Oh let me start from the top with this place. In all honesty, I cannot begin to fathom where I should begin. Let me start with my experience going thru the program. To protect my privacy, I will not name specifics in regards to timing of my dates. I was one of the lucky ones in terms of having knowledge beforehand that I was going. When your parent or legal guardian enrolls you, the admissions counselor tells them to not inform your child of when or where they are going. They have these little deceptive services they use and the rest of the students called them "goons" They came to your house in the middle of the night and literally forced you to pack your things and to get in the car with them to go to Trails Carolina. I was lucky enough not to go thru this, but everyone else in my squad did. I could tell that Trails did not like that I knew ahead of time because they called my parents and told them that I had contacted them for more information. I have documentation supporting that in case it is disputed for any reason in a response.

What was supposed to be a therapeutic experience has left me with nothing but sheer PTSD for the past years following my graduation from the program. Nightmares ensued and still ensue now even years after. The minute I walked into my first day and I was dropped off, I was sent to a room where they made me strip out of my clothes while someone watched, and change into some kind of uniform. A green t shirt and a red hoodie and these quick dry pants and some hiking shoes. I was there for a little over two months during the winter season. In the North Carolina mountains it can get below 0 degrees with the wind chill at night.

This place is anything but therapeutic. Let me tell you the menu of food we had to eat. By the way, they told us when we could eat. Yes. There were times when we were not allowed to eat. Mondays breakfast was oats which we made using a pot filled with water from the creek which was boiled. Mondays lunch? Oh the same with every lunch. One tortilla with honey. Thats it. Everyday for almost 80 days. Dinner on Monday was rice and beans. They portioned the meals into a green cup that everyone had. You had to eat at least half a cup and a maximum of 2.5 cups which you told the person making it before. We carried the food around everywhere with us. Tuesdays dinner was called mush. What is mush? It's literally everything that you didnt use from the week put into one pot and served .This included sometimes noodles, peanut butter, garlic, and whatever else wasnt used because Wednesday was resupply and we were not allowed to keep any food. Each week each person got a bag of food that was called a "p-bag" inside was a ziploc bag of raisins, mixed nuts, 1 jar of peanut butter, 6 oranges, and apricots. If we didnt eat it all we couldnt keep it. Heres the funny thing my first day, I came in on a Monday, so the next day was the last day, I got my p-bag and I had a full jar of peanut butter and all the rest of the kids were mad. So after I turned in my food bag for the night, the staff opened my jar of peanut butter and scooped out half of it to make it "fair"

So Trails has 5 different stages of the program. The first is called Trailhead, then Waypoint, then Legend, then Barron which is the red book then navigator then guide. I never made it to navigator thank god. Honestly, and I'm not going to lie, I learned nothing during those 70 days, I learned after I left that my parents almost had to hire a lawyer to get me home because the therapist assigned to me, Todd Green would not let me leave. He said that I wasn't ready. I was there for a minor reason compared the rest were there for drug trafficking offenses, and he had the audacity to suggest to my parents that I not return home but instead be sent across the country to a therapeutic boarding school. He suggested that I was doing horribly to my parents. My parents were being told that I was doing horribly. He set me up while I was there to try and get me to relapse into my old behaviors so that he could tell my parents that I needed to be sent away. I will repeat this again.

I have PTSD still from this. I tried repressing it for a long time but I face it now still. I will never forget collecting sticks from the woods in the freezing cold rain and my hands almost frostbitten and if I stopped I would have gotten reported in the blue books that they kept a log in. Once again, I will repeat that I cheated my way thru the program because I didnt think I would ever get out. We had to bust a coal which means create a spark that turned into a fire using a bowdrill. This was really stupid because the whole program was centered around busting a coal or you couldnt go home. I signed several activities as complete myself so I could go home. This place is a mess do not send your child here. I promise you it will be a nightmare. Please feel free to contact me for further info

Sources:

• (The original testimony on Yelp)

Trails Carolina experience

This testimony was found on Google. Today Trails Carolina is mostly known in the public due to a tragic deaths of one of their students in 2014. The wilderness area is very much dense forrest making it difficult to determine where you are.

Oh let me start from the top with this place. In all honesty, I cannot begin to fathom where I should begin. Let me start with my experience going thru the program. To protect my privacy, I will not name specifics in regards to timing of my dates.

I was one of the lucky ones in terms of having knowledge beforehand that I was going. When your parent or legal guardian enrolls you, the admissions counselor tells them to not inform your child of when or where they are going. They have these little deceptive services they use and the rest of the students called them "goons" They came to your house in the middle of the night and literally forced you to pack your things and to get in the car with them to go to Trails Carolina. I was lucky enough not to go thru this, but everyone else in my squad did. I could tell that Trails did not like that I knew ahead of time because they called my parents and told them that I had contacted them for more information. I have documentation supporting that in case it is disputed for any reason in a response.

What was supposed to be a therapeutic experience has left me with nothing but sheer PTSD for the past years following my graduation from the program. Nightmares ensued and still ensue now even years after. The minute I walked into my first day and I was dropped off, I was sent to a room where they made me strip out of my clothes while someone watched, and change into some kind of uniform. A green t shirt and a red hoodie and these quick dry pants and some hiking shoes. I was there for a little over two months during the winter season. In the North Carolina mountains it can get below 0 degrees with the wind chill at night. This place is anything but therapeutic. Let me tell you the menu of food we had to eat. By the way, they told us when we could eat. Yes. There were times when we were not allowed to eat. Mondays breakfast was oats which we made using a pot filled with water from the creek which was boiled. Mondays lunch? Oh the same with every lunch. One tortilla with honey. Thats it. Everyday for almost 80 days. Dinner on Monday was rice and beans. They portioned the meals into a green cup that everyone had. You had to eat at least half a cup and a maximum of 2.5 cups which you told the person making it before. We carried the food around everywhere with us. Tuesdays dinner was called mush. What is mush? It's literally everything that you didnt use from the week put into one pot and served .This included sometimes noodles, peanut butter, garlic, and whatever else wasnt used because Wednesday was resupply and we were not allowed to keep any food. Each week each person got a bag of food that was called a "p-bag" inside was a ziploc bag of raisins, mixed nuts, 1 jar of peanut butter, 6 oranges, and apricots. If we didnt eat it all we couldnt keep it. Heres the funny thing my first day, I came in on a Monday, so the next day was the last day, I got my p-bag and I had a full jar of peanut butter and all the rest of the kids were mad. So after I turned in my food bag for the night, the staff opened my jar of peanut butter and scooped out half of it to make it "fair"

So Trails has 5 different stages of the program. The first is called Trailhead, then Waypoint, then Legend, then Barron which is the red book then navigator then guide. I never made it to navigator thank god. Honestly, and I'm not going to lie, I learned nothing during those 70 days, I learned after I left that my parents almost had to hire a lawyer to get me home because the therapist assigned to me, Todd Green would not let me leave. He said that I wasn't ready. I was there for a minor reason compared the rest were there for drug trafficking offenses, and he had the audacity to suggest to my parents that I not return home but instead be sent across the country to a therapeutic boarding school. This place is a mess do not send your child here. I promise you it will be a nightmare.

Source:

• The orignal testimony (Google)
• Trails Carolina - new program (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)