Former students describe Spring Ridge Academy as ‘treated like we are criminals’

In June, a jury awarded the mother of a former Spring Ridge Academy student $2,500,000 after finding that the institution deceived consumers by misrepresenting the program’s practices.

Former residents spoke to FOX 10 about the experiences they called abusive and the broader reach of the industry to troubled teens.

In the quiet town of Mayer, Arizona, in Yavapai County, where fewer than 2,000 people live, behind locked gates are empty buildings and stored memories that still haunt Andi Tuchten.

“I’m standing here just outside the gate,” she says in a FaceTime conversation with her father.

“Gate of what?” says her father Max.

“From Spring Ridge.”

More than twenty years ago, Andi’s parents sent her there when she was a teenager.

Now Andi’s father believes he was taken advantage of in desperate times, in an effort to ensure his child stayed alive and out of prison.

“It was hard,” Max said when he made the decision to send her there. “What was the right thing to do, knowing what you know today?”

When she was 15, Andi struggled with drugs and alcohol. She admits she rebelled against her parents, but never thought she would end up at Spring Ridge Academy.

“I wasn’t mad at them. I was more like, ‘What have I done? Why are you sending me away?'” she said.

“They searched me when I got here. I had to go into a room with staff and had to sit in my socks and make sure I didn’t bring anything. I just went along with it because I didn’t know what else to do.

Spring Ridge Academy sued for fraud, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress

SRA was a boarding school for girls ages 13 to 17, licensed by the state as a residential behavioral health facility.

This is the Linkedin profile for Jean Courtney, the founder of SRA.

Andi said her presence at the academy left her feeling numb and depressed on a daily basis.

Former residents like Andi are now coming forward following a federal civil lawsuit involving Spring Ridge Academy that concluded in June.

Kimberly Sweidy, mother of a former student, sued Spring Ridge and won after accusing the school of fraud, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A jury awarded Sweidy $2.5 million.

Former SRA admissions director Kate Deily was also named as a defendant in the case and was found liable for consumer fraud in the amount of $25,000.

‘We were treated as if we were criminals’

“You get bullied by adults who are in charge of you,” said former student Frankie Clock.

“We were treated as if we were criminals.”

Shannon Saul is another former student and resident of SRA.

“When I first got sent away, I probably cried for a week, and at first I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone, so it was just you knowing me and my thoughts, and there was a lot of uncertainty,” Saul said. .

‘You couldn’t go to the toilet until they said. You couldn’t get water until they said. You don’t know what time it is. You don’t know if it’s day or night because they tape the windows shut. “

According to the lawsuit, tuition cost up to $9,000 per month and Spring Ridge Academy marketed its program on its website and pamphlets as “advanced care” for teens.

Court documents show that the staff also forced these underage girls to work for free.

“The idea is to break you down so you can start healing,” Saul said. “But of course a lot can also go wrong.”

SRA used seminars in which both parents and students were required to participate, which outlined four phases: Discovery, focus, responsibility And Keys to success — in which teens had to demonstrate competency to graduate from Spring Ridge.

Court documents show that a form of highly confrontational psychotherapy called “seizure therapy” was common at the academy. In attack therapy, the patient is verbally abused and humiliated by the therapist or other group members.

Sweidy’s attorneys cite fear of being kicked out of these workshops as a reason why children tolerated the humiliation.

“If you don’t want to think of it as a cult, I would just say it was very coercive and controlled in every aspect of our lives,” Saul said.

The lawsuit says Sweidy’s daughter — referred to in the case as “Jane Doe” — reflected on a workshop in which she forcefully hit a chair with a rolled up towel wrapped in duct tape to release anger at their parents.

“They make you talk to this empty chair like it’s your abuser, and at the end they make you yell at the chair repeatedly,” Sweidy said.

Alleged Spring Ridge survivors say they also had to dress up in costumes and dance for co-workers and staff.

“I had to dress in a Dorothy dress with tights and a leotard underneath. And then I had to act like Dorothy for the entire song,” Andi said.

Shannon described another humiliating example she experienced.

“For me, they made me put on a leotard and dance around like I was a ballerina because I had a lot of body issues,” she said.

“And if you weren’t authentic enough or seductive enough, Jeannie would ask you to leave, and then you’d have to wait months later for the next training and your stay would be extended.”

Then there is something called ‘service’: a specific workshop with massages.

“They would want us to go in and do it for our parents who are taking parent action. So we rub our parents’ feet and shoulders to give them service,” Clock said.

What happened during the Spring Ridge Academy trial?

FOX 10 has obtained transcripts from the Spring Ridge Academy trial. Founder Jean Courtney testified on the stand, confirming this exercise.

“They were excited. They were massaging their backs, massaging their hands, and it was called anonymous service at the time; and the girls liked to do that for their parents, and sometimes other girls were involved,” she said during the trial.

According to transcripts, Courtney also confirmed that staff members also massaged the girls.

“You’re still blindfolded at this point. They start massaging your shoulders. You have no idea who’s doing this to you. You have no idea what’s going on. And at the end it was revealed that it was just like everyone else who staffed action,” Clock said.

Courtney also told the court that she sometimes participated in massages.

She testified at trial that she had no background in psychology and is not a licensed therapist.

Courtney had an interview scheduled for this story, but she canceled those plans.

The interview, which was supposed to last about 15 minutes on Zoom, was arranged through her spokesperson, who canceled the meeting and sent us a statement instead.

Attorneys for Spring Ridge Academy and Kate Deily did not respond to our requests for comment.

The plaintiff has filed an appeal to add another seven people to the list of defendants, including Jean Courtney.

Bigger problems in the industry for troubled teens

The troubled teen industry represents facilities for “troubled youth” – which are a multi-billion dollar business in the United States.

Meg Applegate is the co-founder and CEO of “Unsilenced” – a non-profit organization that helps victims of institutional child abuse.

“The troubled teen industry is a network of powerful and punitive congregate care facilities spanning virtually every state, and we expect 120,000 to 200,000 young people are funneled there annually,” Applegate said.

The facilities include boot camps, wilderness therapy, boarding schools, residential treatment centers and conversion therapy.

Paris Hilton, heiress to a famous hotel, reportedly suffered mental and physical abuse at a Utah boarding school as a teenager, and reiterated in a Public Service Announcement how much money the company made.

“And just to know that it’s still happening in these places, and it’s turned into a $23 billion a year industry. This paid for by our taxpayers is just so heartbreaking,” she says.

“Children are leaving and calling themselves survivors, and no other health care system in the world could ever do that without increased regulation and oversight,” says Applegate.

Paper trail of trauma at Spring Ridge Academy

For those who lived in Spring Ridge, a paper trail of trauma has been left behind.

FOX 10 has reviewed several Yavapai County Sheriff reports and investigations conducted by the state Department of Health documenting incidents of suicide attempts or thoughts.

According to the 2021 DHS findings, a biopsychosocial assessment found that one girl said, “They are just thoughts. Sometimes I have a plan or intention, but none at the moment. Sometimes I act on this plan.”

Journal entries shared with FOX 10 describe being alone, depressed and homesick.

“I wrote a letter to my mother where the last sentence at the end was just, ‘Please help me, Mom,’ and that really affects me because I remember the helplessness I felt,” Shannon explains.

Now that time has passed, Andi’s father, Max, feels exploited in a time of desperation. His main goal is to keep his child safe and out of jail.

“We had the impression (again) that we were in the right place and were being encouraged by the right people, but that turned out not to be the case,” he said.

But Andi and her father know they are not alone.

“We weren’t the only ones who experienced something like this. There are other survivors and people,” says Andi.