E.A testimony about her stay at Uinta Academy

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

I was sent to Uinta back in early 2007. There are many many problems with this facility and the first being you are medicated for anything and everything. There is not a girl who isn't medicated by her first appointment with the psychiatrist. Staff members are very unprofessional, you are criticized for everything and rarely receive genuine positive feedback. Your daughter has little to no contact with the outside world, friends or family members. The place is run by Mormons who are unaccepting of other religions and do not so let you speak the word "God" or you are punished. I was a vegetarian prior to my admittance to Uinta, but it wasn't mentioned in the paperwork. For months I was forced to eat meat until it was verified that I was a vegetarian. My privacy was taken away from me. I was forced to leave the door open while I went to the bathroom. I had to have someone in the bathroom with me while I showered. I had to do 'body checks' where I had to remove almost all my clothing and show a staff member every inch of my body. I had an eating disorder which staff members said was just 'attention seeking behavior' and treated it as such instead of a young girl with body image issues. The only positive is that I kept up with my academics, although that was with little help from the two or three teachers that came in every other day. I was definitely not the easiest girl to go through this program, and probably will not be the last. But with the way I was treated and humiliated I would never want a young teenager girl to go through what I did.

I went into this program as a young teenage girl with a few insecurity issues and academia problems. I left Uinta Academy completely broken with no sense of self and a whole new array of baggage. Uinta sounds like a great place on paper and looks like a beautiful place in photos but it is toxic, depressing, and caused more damage to me personally than it fixed. I am currently in my twenties, many years out of Uinta, and still struggle with issues I developed as a result of Uinta Academy. This place can cause irrevocable damage to your daughter. My advice is to read the article Savannah M. attached in her review below and think very hard before you send your daughter to Uinta. If you are desperate enough to send your daughter away and put her in the hands of strangers, please make sure you are choosing a safe and accepting environment for her.



Sources:

• The original testimony on Yelp.com
• Data sheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Stu C.about his daughters stay at Uinta Academy

This testimony was found on Yelp made by a father to one of girls, the facility had in their custody. All rights goes to the original author.

This place is not only a prison for the girls attending there, but more disturbingly believes they have the legal right to keep one parent from talking with their child at all, let alone visiting them. Oh they will try to point to confusing court documents submitted by the other parent, but when in doubt, or even when no doubt, their policy is the PAYING parent, the admitting parent controls ALL contact the young adult is allowed. So in cases of divorce that means if the mother admitted their daughter not only can the mother prevent the father from ANY contact with her, but also her paternal grand parents, aunts, uncles, etc... as well as the young lady's best friends. That means not only phone calls & visits, but also letters, cards and gifts! Impossible in America! you say! It has happened to my daughter. 100% contact from any past friends or paternal relatives blocked not by court orders, but by Uinta Academy personnel simply because mother wanted it that way. And it's been that way for over ONE YEAR now. Sadly, that's despite our daughter's attempt to reach out to her father & father's family over a year ago, so this is 100% about the paying parent's will, not the child's desire or needs. And if the young lady speaks up about her desires, her needs, her wants of ANY kind that doesn't fit within the institution's definition of healthy requests, they control all privileges, this is brain washing, mind control, behavioral reprogramming of the most insidious kind. If I had had the $'s we would have taken these abuses all the way to the Supreme Court if need be... it's only a matter of time before someone does. Thank God! Girls imprisoned in such an environment become hopeless and therefore the police record of reports for this "prison" reveals multiple suicide attempts and girls that run away. Don't take my word for how manipulative and controlling the absolute power is that this prison exercises over their "patients", the young ladies that went there say it better than I ever could,

"...i was sent to Uinta for 10 months for depression basically, and from first hand experience, i know the program worked for some girls, but i hated it and did exactly what i had to do to get out of there. i never really got in trouble because i just wanted to go home, but because of that i have had to totally compromise who i am, i lost all my creativity, fire, passion, and leadership spirit, i am now to shy and quiet and scared to even just go out and hang out wth friends, being forced to do everything we had to their made me less of a person and i will never forget that. please never send your kids here, they might benefit but i've seen heard and experienced my self and others horrible stories of how they will never be the same. i still have nightmares every night that girls from uinta are constantly in, and its horrifyingly haunting...".

"...i attended this place for 1 year and it sounds beautiful, it looks beautiful, but to be on the inside is a whole different world, the staff were mean and cruel and broke me down till i felt like a shell of a person, for the sake of your child please dont send them here, i would of been much happier in a rehab or honestly, jail!"

"...i went there. its awful. i tried to kill myself because it was so awful. been to 12 treatment centers. it was the worst. jeff simpson is a con artist. i ran away 2 times. the staff are mean and rude. people there do not care about the girls. just the money..."



Sources:

• The original testimony found on Yelp.com
• Factsheet about the program (Fornits Wiki)