Gavin Cruz speaks about his time detained at BlueFire Wilderness Therapy

This testimony was located on Google. All rights go to the original author.

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The staff were nice but the over all help they had with targeting certain kids including myself was horrible. The staff would mess up the re rash and we would have way less food and we were stuck barely eating. Also your pictures of blue fire on your website is completely false we had horrible quality clothes I was in there when it was five degrees and below and the gloves and layers of clothes were not meant for that environment they were horrible it’s basically cruel punishment for people trying to get help. What’s the point of putting someone with mental issues or drug or alcohol addiction in weather where they can’t feel there hand or body while having kids cook horrible food with horrible ingredients giving during re rash.

I was there for eleven weeks I enjoyed my therapist a lot but I didn’t make any progress at all he was a great guy but didn’t help me at all. I went to a treatment center after and they couldn’t help me either I struggle with depression and anxiety i am the exact same person as before. There is no point of sending a struggling kid to a wilderness therapy especially one that does not give you the tools to be safe. If we didn’t bust a cold we were stuck sitting around the camp site freezing then going into a green wall which y’all said that we were going in a yurt every night on y’all’s website when we went into one only at three camp sites. I remember waking up in a fetal position and I used one of my nalgens filled with my urine and put it on my stomach to keep me warm. And they would only let you sleep in a long sleeve skin tight shirt and pants that matched the shirt with no jacket or anything so you would basically be sleeping in your underwear they also took your shoes so you would have to wake up and pee outside with no shoes and in a shirt and pants in the snow. This was punishment my parents still think it was a fun experience when in reality it was a living hell.

I’m begging you from the bottom of my heart don’t send your kid here they lie to you. Just get a therapist at home and if needed send him or her to a mental hospital. Also don’t send your kid to a treatment center it’s the same process as wilderness but in a building it’s not helpful there at all. Don’t ever consider this.

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Source:
The original testimony on Google

Carter's experiences at Bluefire Wilderness program

This testimony was found on Google. All rights goes to the original author

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Hi i am a past student of blue fire and I am writing this for struggling parents who feel like they have no option but so send their kid here DONT DO IT this place can care less if you come out better and even less that you actually go home.

At my time at blue fire they used cruel punishments on me and the kids in my group we were constantly deprived of food when I first got there it was 8 kids when I left it was 16 kids and we were still getting the same amount of food it was used against us as punishment and what made it worse is the staff knew what they were doing because me and the kids would constantly say you can’t use food as punishment and even are therapist tried to help but once the therapist left and it was just the unsupervised staff with the kids they were free to do as they please and punish how they pleased so we were genuinely scared that whatever we said about the staff out of fear that it would be used against us or that our “privilege” of talking to our family be taken away much of the program is hiking and I remember an occasion when we actually ended up getting lost in the desert and they forced us to hike 25 miles all the kids had blistered feet and we were out of food but of course the staff still had food and they were eating beef jerky in front of us when they knew damn well we were deprived of meat there.

I could write a whole other review talking about the food they fed us horrible beans and rice almost every meal also forgot to mention to have any contact with your parents you have to write them a letter saying how good of a program you are at and how much of an opportunity it is for you to be there and if you don’t your not allowed to talk to your parents these people who run this place are sick in the head and see basic necessities as privileges

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Source:
The original testimony

A mothers testimony about her sons stay at the True Norh Wilderness program in Vermont

The True North wilderness program located near Waitsfield is mostly known in the public for a case where a detainee in the program ran away in 2019 for some time. Here is a testimony from a mother about what she saw when she placed her son in the program.


Our son graduated from TN 15 months ago. Before and during his stay, we disclosed that he had body dysmorphia, extreme anxiety, insomnia and OCD and that he had stopped functioning. During his 94 days at TN, he lost over 33 pounds. No matter how you look at it, that means he simply did not have enough calories to sustain his weight under the extreme conditions. No one at TN ever expressed concern to us about his diet or his weight. In fact, we were constantly reassured that the "kiddos" had plenty to eat. During the second week there, he ran away and made it all the way from the wilderness camp in the woods to the Roxbury library before they found him a few hours later and before anyone called us. We made him finish the program anyway.

When he graduated from TN, he still had body dysmorphia, extreme anxiety, insomnia and OCD. At TN, he was hungry all the time and he learned to tolerate hunger. He has since lost an additional 25 pounds and been diagnosed with an eating disorder as well as with PTSD from the assisted intervention we used to transport him to the program and from other physical and emotional feelings of cold, isolation, fear and abandonment that he experienced while there. After more than a year, he still won’t sleep in his old bedroom because the memories of being “escorted” or “gooned” are too traumatic. He stays under the covers when it snows or if there are thunderstorms and has frequent panic attacks. He doesn't understand how we sent him to TN in the first place or, given his letters home and constant pleas, how we could possibly have left him there. He may never forgive or fully trust us again and, although I hope to change that, I can understand where he is coming from. TN had recommended that we send him to a therapeutic boarding school after graduation. We almost did. Thankfully, we changed our minds and brought him home so we could all heal together.

Within a few weeks after he came home, our son posted several negative reviews about TN using his own name as well as pseudonyms. He detailed the hunger, the weight loss and the running away, among other things. TN quickly abandoned any therapeutic interest in our son and became aggressively defensive about the business and hostile in their rhetoric towards him. We found their approach to his distress particularly shocking given the therapeutic nature of their role and the fact that, when our son graduated from TN, his course leader emphatically invited him to apply to be a guide one day in the future. We nonetheless asked our son to remove all but one review, which he did.

Thankfully, he is living home and now working really hard in outpatient therapy with a therapist who gives him hope and helps him build real skills to move forward. It is a long road and we are all learning to be patient.

I have thought long and hard about whether to post this review. After all this time, I have decided that I need to share my experience with others who are considering residential wilderness programs, especially for anxious kids with no history of substance abuse, violence or any other dangerous externalizing behaviors.

Every parent gets to decide what is best or right for their child. But I have concluded that no anxious 16 year old should be isolated from everyone he knows and loves and left to sleep in a tent for 93 consecutive days without heat or electricity during the brutal Vermont winter. I know that there isn’t enough support for kids who are struggling or for the parents of those children. The options are limited. But I have concluded that highly unregulated outdoor, therapeutic wilderness programs shouldn’t exist. It certainly was not an appropriate or effective therapeutic environment for our son. Collectively, we owe it to our children and to ourselves to find a better way to help them.


Source:
The original testimony on Google

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)