Sunday, January 12, 2020

Trinity Teen Solutions survivors testimony

This testimony was found on Yelp. All rights goes to the author.
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I attended Trinity as a teen and have since tried to forget the trauma that happened to me while I was there but have found myself 5 years later, still tortured by the memories. I was your typical rebellious teen- experimenting with alcohol and drugs, defiant, hanging out with older boys, and depressed. However, the punishment I received at trinity for being this way is something I would never wish on my worst enemy. All Trinity did was confuse and lie to my family, and further traumatize me. I was sitting in a car one day after I got out drinking and smoking weed with my old friends 100 times MORE self destructive, alone, and sad than I was the day I went to Trinity. The affects of Trinity led me to be a serious hard drug abuser, something I was never destined to be coming from my loving and supporting family that was only trying to help me. I had no other way to numb the memories and pain. Every other girl I attended with had similar fates- either became serious junkies, or became promiscuous and had children out of wedlock because they were only searching for love and to numb the memories as well. I am being totally honest when I say this- I WOULD HAVE RATHER BEEN IN JAIL.

Why? Many reasons. One, in jail you actually know how long you are going to be there. Trinity is on a "need to know basis." So unless it is information you need to know in a life or death situation, it is withheld from you. The MONTHS never knowing when you will be able to see your family again or be treated like a human being are torture. Two, you can talk to other people in jail and rely on each other for support. At Trinity, the girls are not in any case allowed to be friends or talk to each other without permission. No one is allowed to know why the other one is there. Theyre encouraged to tattle on each other and punished if they do not. This creates a lonely and depressing environment versus having other girls there for support and to share similar struggles with. Three, if you are doing well you will get out sooner and vice versa. At Trinity, no matter what you do, you will be accused of faking it and lying and problems will be made up by staff for you, anything in order to tell your parents you need to be kept there longer. It is biased and decided by unqualified "life coaches" that have simply received an undergrad degree in something like psychology and has no training. I was once told by one of these staff members that I was getting too close with another girl and every time I looked or spoke to this other girl I was tacking on a few months to my stay at Trinity. My final reason is you are given adequate hygiene, food, and clothing in jail. At Trinity, every girl there even though we were all different sizes and body builds were FORCED to eat the exact same portion every single meal and if they didn't eat something on their plate? Punished. This was too much for some girls and never enough for others. Showers were maybe once a week in cold water for 5 minutes. And the underwear, bras, and clothing were reused by girls for over 20 years- it was ratty and disgusting. One girl came back as a staff member 10 years after she had been there and said she recognized her sweat pants and hoodies she wore at age 15. This is pretty amusing to me since TRINITY COSTS NEARLY $300 A DAY. Yet they spent none of this money on clothing or anything else really. Food was ordered cheaply in bulk and the girls made every thing themselves- low cost pasta and rice meals- and if anything started getting used to much and became "too expensive" it was immediately nixed. I was once reprimanded for using the too expensive avocados.

Angie Woodward, the owner. How that name makes me cringe. She is the lovely lady responsible for harming so many teen girls and scamming hundreds of people into dumping her loads of cash for her multiple homes, vacations, and boats, cars, horses, ATVs, etc. that she parades around the girls and rubs in their faces while they are slaving away on her ranch. Angie's father owns the trouble teen boys ranch down the road and is where she learned all of these shaming and fear tactics for the clients and families. The only difference between the two ranches is that the boys one has been closed for abuse, neglect, and fraud, while Angie's is surprisingly still open! She claims to have years of experience and be our on staff nurse but I think I only saw her twice in the whole year and a half I was there- like I said she was busy vacationing. She hires 24 years olds fresh out of undergrad to carry out the dirty work instead who are too fresh in the world and naive to know they are doing something wrong- although a few figured it out and left and have written reviews here themselves that are negative but have been removed. Ill spare you the details of the abuse and neglect that goes on at Trinity- all you need to know is it is a scam with false advertising, AND YOU SHOULD NEVER SEND YOUR DAUGHTER HERE.

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