Babe, What Do You Know About?
Babe, What Do You Know About?
The Troubled Teen Industry | with Hannah Harper and Scott Salvesen
Are you aware of the dark underbelly of the troubled teen industry and its predatory nature? Because if you aren't, this episode, featuring our guests and industry insiders Scott Salvesen and Hannah Harper, will be a real eye-opener for you. We lift the veil on this complex and often misunderstood industry, unearthing the harrowing tales of abuse, exploitation, and the questionable ethics that tint the promised sanctity of these so-called havens for troubled teens. As we unearth the secrets of this controversial sector, we also explore the intertwined complexities of foster care when it comes to placing teens in these facilities.
We don't just stop at dissecting the problems; we venture into the realm of solutions too. Hear from Scott, a residential treatment facility worker, as he guides us through the labyrinth of ethical establishments that genuinely aim to help troubled teens. We discuss the importance of state accreditation, peel back the layers of adventure therapy and wilderness therapy, and shed light on how to manage dangerous behaviors in teenagers. Notably, we also touch upon the crucial role testimonials play in understanding these facilities and the significant impact of the Breaking Code Silence movement.
While we delve into the disturbing reality of the troubled teen industry, we also circle around some crucial societal responsibilities. From the role of Child Protective Services (CPS) in child abuse cases to the alarming issue of trafficking in the United States, we scrutinize it all. And to end on a hopeful note, we bring to you the inspiring stories of children who've undergone treatment and emerged stronger. Some have even found their calling as staff members in these facilities. So, join us for a conversation that's not just enlightening but profoundly important for our society at large.
Connect with us at @babewhatpodcast for updates, interactions, and polls.
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Welcome to Babe. What do you know about the podcast with your favorite husband and wife duo, Sam
Tayla:and Tayla. Each week we dive deep into a new subject, blending fun and seriousness to push boundaries and buttons.
Sam:Get ready to expand your knowledge, challenge your perspectives and have a blast along the way.
Tayla:We were not adequately dressed for the venue at the dinner.
Hannah:No, we were not. It was funny because when you and I were talking, we were talking like I said I want to go somewhere chill because I didn't bring any nice clothes. And we got there and I'm wearing like a sweater that has words on it.
Tayla:Life is good words. Yeah, life is good.
Hannah:I was like I can't go in here with words on my shirt.
Scott:And then I'm wearing a shirt that's literally all words.
Tayla:Yeah, and then Sam shows up wearing a Utah Jazz shirt and then, hopefully, you felt a bit better. I didn't actually feel better.
Sam:These are actually my very nice restaurant clothes, though.
Tayla:That's true, sam wouldn't have changed even if he'd known the French restaurant was actually a nice restaurant, wow.
Sam:I dress specifically for the French restaurants, like literally the restaurant.
Scott:You dress down for the French restaurant because that's how we feel about the French.
Tayla:Yes, fair enough, I didn't get a watch, though Usually you'll put on a watch or something nice just specifically for that. Well, you guys have heard a couple extra voices today, at least a couple, just kidding, there's just two. I'm going to introduce you guys to Scott and Hannah Salvesen and have them kind of introduce themselves more thoroughly as to what they do, and then I'll introduce our topic for the day, which should be very interesting.
Hannah:Ladies first, because I want to go ahead and have Well, I'm Hannah and I am a social services specialist, which is a CPS case worker, so I work with kids who are in foster care.
Tayla:Man. All right, Scotty boy.
Scott:Yes, I've been on the podcast before, if you guys remember the religious misinformation episode with my cohost JC. So I'm one half of family bro evening, but I'm here talking about a different topic. So if any of you are fans of the family bro evening podcast, this is not going to be like that at all.
Tayla:No, but what do you do?
Scott:So I work in a residential treatment center out in the Missouri Ozarks. I started out kind of as a floor staff shift lead supervisor. Now I'm moving. Right now I do a lot of the quality assurance and data analytics and I'm moving into the clinical side. Nice.
Tayla:Nice. So Scotty boy is my brother, for those of you who remember from that episode. So therefore Sam's brother in law, and Hannah is my friend that also married my brother. So they're kind of a dream team for the topic, because they both work with troubled teens in very, very different ways and the industry itself is complicated. It's can be controversial. So I'm going to do a brief introduction to our topic for the day and then we will jump into it.
Tayla:So today we're going to dive into, as I said, the troubled teen industry. We're talking about boot camps, wilderness programs, residential treatment centers, all promising to straighten out troubled kids. Over 50,000 children are in these facilities at any given time. Many come from the foster care system, a place that is often plagued by challenges and vulnerabilities itself. The industry is worth a whopping $16 billion annually, and the question is who's profiting and who's paying the price? Reports of abuse, restraint, kidnapping and isolation within these facilities can be chilling and disturbingly. Common Studies show that kids who go through these programs often end up worse off, depending on the treatment plan and the facilities. Scott will talk to that a little bit later. It can also be a system ripe with exploitation and questionable practices wrapped up in the shiny promise of parental relief and teenage redemption, but it also can be life changing, not only for the children but also for the family, just depending on how it's handled. Ultimately, babes, honorary babes, what do you know about the troubled teen industry? And pause for Sam to say I know very little.
Tayla:Yeah, there we go which isn't that different from most of the topics that apparently we talk about? He's lying, though. He actually knows a lot more than he pretends.
Scott:So I see who picks the topics in this relationship.
Tayla:I mean he picks topics. Does that mean he does the research preparatory to them? No, I researched Henry Kissinger he did, and it was a great episode.
Scott:What a guy. What a guy Depressing. That's about the most I can say.
Tayla:So, hannah, in your experience, how often are children, just to kick us off from the foster care system, placed in troubled teen facilities? Is that something you've dealt with before?
Hannah:Yes. So I would say a large portion of teenagers who come into foster care in the state where I work end up in residential treatment facilities.
Scott:That's teenagers specifically, teenagers specifically, not like younger kids.
Hannah:Okay, yes, so that would be probably around 14 and up.
Tayla:Which I think is what we're going to mostly focus on as teens for this episode which is great. So what is typically a reason for placement in a facility like that rather than in a home?
Hannah:Sure. So in the state where I work we don't really prosecute parents for abandonment and we have kids. Well, parents from states that surround our state and I live in a border town who will bring their kids to the state because they're sick of them, because they have a behavioral issue or because they're a bad parent or whatever the case may be, and they will drop them off and call CPS and say, hey, you know, there's a kid here, they're abandoned, and then leave them and go home. And those teens I actually have two or three teens who have been in that exact circumstance right now are usually older teenagers, 15 to 17 typically.
Tayla:So it's why would they be placed in a facility in that case instead of a home? Is it behavioral issues? Usually that would contribute to that.
Hannah:So there's a part of it, that's behavioral issues, but there's a big part of it as well. That's the component of what's available.
Tayla:Like not enough foster care homes willing to take older teenagers.
Hannah:Definitely we don't have enough foster care homes that are willing to do teenagers and we also will have foster homes who start out fostering a teenager, or two or three, and the third one steals a car or breaks a window or, you know, is creating child pornography of themselves and selling it on the parent's personal cell phone. Oh man, yeah, and I would not foster a teenager again after that. It's just a little bit higher risk.
Tayla:Yeah, especially in the circumstance where probably a home might have other children.
Scott:Exactly.
Tayla:So it's a very specific demographic that would be open or able to do that in the right circumstance, definitely All right. So, scotty, what is a typical? So you work for a residential treatment facility? I do, I'm guessing not one that has the unethical practices that some of them might have. So what? How do you tell the difference between, if you're a parent, for example, struggling with a teenager and needing kind of desperate measures? How do you tell what is an ethical or right facility to help your child?
Scott:That's a difficult question to answer, mostly because there's a variety of ways to tell what's good. There's a variety of red flags available there's. There's a movement going on right now called breaking code silence, where a lot of former students of the troubled teen industry are kind of like coming out and telling their stories.
Sam:Is this like the Paris Hilton thing?
Scott:Yes, she, she did not start it, but she kind of rode the wave Celebrity voice for it.
Tayla:Yeah, she, she is.
Scott:I do not know how true her story is. I know people that have worked for Provo Canyon the school she was at and they typically don't like the job they have there, but ironically, after the Paris Hilton story broke out, they have never been busier.
Tayla:That is bizarre, yeah, and they're just down the street brother?
Scott:Yeah, they are just down the street from us and hit that school Well.
Sam:well, it's a mouth of the canyon.
Scott:Yeah, it's. Every time you get on 8th North to go up into Orem you pass the main campus.
Tayla:I had no idea.
Sam:That big open field back there.
Tayla:Oh, I had no idea that's Provo Canyon school. Okay, so we're right there by Paris Hilton's facility.
Scott:Yeah. So and the the thing is with breaking code silence. I think it's an important movement because there are a lot of those facilities that, yeah, that crap was going on. At the same time, sometimes you have to take those testimonials with a grain of salt because of the type of kids we're talking about and you know not to dismiss those experiences straight up. A lot of those kids do whatever they can to deflect responsibility and sometimes they lie, and sometimes it's only truth, that's just that's just the problem.
Tayla:It's hard to make it so hard to know how to what to believe to protect the kids.
Scott:Absolutely, and there are ways to tell what makes a good facility. I think number one accreditation Is your facility licensed by the state that it's in.
Tayla:Is it possible. I just didn't even know that it was possible to have a residential treatment facility. That was not.
Hannah:It is so foster kids are only allowed to go to state accredited facilities Okay, so that's a distinction for that. It's not.
Tayla:So parents could send their own children to an unaccredited facility, and those are typically religious.
Scott:Yes, I would say if there is a religious component to the facility's programming not to say that spirituality and stuff isn't allowed to be expressed, but if your program is based on any sort of religion, that's a huge red flag to me.
Tayla:And that's coming from a religious person. Yes, Like you know if you. A fanatic even, A religious fanatic even, definitely.
Scott:Well, I mean, we have a religious-based podcast, that-. Right, that's I assume, some fans, I'm not gonna toot my horn. You know, but, coming from a religious person, if the program touts itself, as you know, we-.
Tayla:Using the religion to treat you know.
Scott:Jesus-based principles. That's a huge red flag because there's a lot of atrocities and a lot of bad practices that have been committed in the name of religion. That's a big problem. And the problem is, you know you get into First Amendment crap. You can that's like basically allowed, and it's actually a big problem. In Utah there's been a few-. Right right, A few things like that in Utah. So I would say accreditation is the first thing. You gotta be licensed by the state because there's very specific guidelines.
Tayla:A non-religious facility. Non-religious facility, and I'm guessing, not just that like, as you said, atrocities being committed, but I imagine there's just not as much or maybe any research or evidence-based methodologies being implemented in facilities like that.
Scott:Yes and no, it's impossible to put a blanket saying you know, this is a religious facility. It's bad, it's just, it's a red flag.
Scott:It's like, okay, you need to maybe look at this a little bit deeper, because I've encountered religious facilities that have done pretty good work, that are not abusive and there's a lot of them that are. But it's a big red flag if that's their practice. But I would say they need to. Some more ways to tell if it's a good facility is their family involvement. Do they do family therapy? If your facility doesn't do family therapy, there is no point in sending your kid there.
Hannah:So your facility, it's once a week right.
Scott:Yes. The parents have to come on Zoom and they have to do a therapy session with the therapist and the kiddo, Because a lot of the times with these kids like I'd say, the vast majority of the time it's environment, and if you treat these kids, you make them better To go back to the same environment. You just wasted your time.
Tayla:Right, right, Because, yeah, I do feel like a lot of the time kids that are that troubled it's gotta be, maybe not necessarily just the parents, but environmental in very, very many ways.
Scott:In fact, the vast majority of the reasons that kids do end up in treatment is due to and like parents just suck. Like a lot of the parents we get coming in they just suck and then the kids not knowing how to handle just being teenagers sometimes do really stupid crap.
Tayla:Their brains aren't fully developed. Exactly.
Scott:And we can. I mean, I had a case about a year ago where we had a student who was wonderful. She was in the program for about 11 months, just fantastic. Like she resisted at first and was like, yeah, I wanna be sober, I wanna work. The mic program just did a great job. The mother made zero changes, was basically a functioning drug addict herself, and then as soon as this poor girl went home she was back on it Because the environment just didn't change and mother just justified, justified, justified why she was allowed to keep doing drugs but her daughter wasn't.
Tayla:That's very sad and I imagine that's gotta be a hard thing for each of you in your respective roles to watch so much work and effort be put into helping teenagers heal to see that just squandered by irresponsible adults.
Scott:Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a factor. At the same time, you get good at compartmentalizing, Be like okay, I did what I could. Everything is choices they make from here, and sometimes it is tough to see kids that you've enjoyed being around fail. If all goes well, they'll reach out and for support, and that's the thing is a lot of parents. They expect perfection once we have their kids with us and I'm like, no, you shouldn't expect perfection.
Tayla:They're people still yeah.
Scott:Like, and the difference is how they react to it and what support are they reaching out, so like if your kid goes in vapes after coming home from treatment. Are they reaching out to you or someone else for support, or are they going to their friends? And doing the risky crap that's the difference is what are they doing to help themselves Like? Perfection is just not a realistic expectation, even for kids in treatment.
Sam:If we could rewind just a little bit. I'd love to know, like, why you decided to go into this field from both of you guys and like it definitely sounds like it's very emotionally draining.
Tayla:And or rewarding.
Scott:Oh sure.
Sam:And numbing, maybe Because you get to see so many people struggle, which can be draining. So, yeah, I'd love to know, like, how you got into this field and what keeps you going.
Hannah:Well, we moved to the town where we live for Scott's work and this type of adventure therapy wilderness therapy, adjacent only works in towns that don't have a large population and are far away from anywhere the teens could run to for an Uber or a bus, so in the town you were saying you have to be in the middle of nowhere to do, in the middle of nowhere treatment.
Tayla:Yes, it's horrible.
Hannah:In the town where we live there's just not a lot of jobs that required like a college degree and the challenge you're into.
Hannah:Yes the challenges and things like that. So I had seen the position come up several times and finally I applied. And because they really do need good people, they need way more social workers everywhere, but especially in the state where I am, it's been really good. The supervisors do a great job supporting us and people really care, which is important. We're just part of why you stay, I'm assuming Very much why I stay, because it's rough, Okay.
Tayla:Scotty Boy.
Scott:Well, I had worked in the industry before. Actually Right after I got my green card, after we got married, hannah was kind of looking around for jobs I could take while I was doing college. And actually I worked at a facility down in Spanish Fork in Utah when I was an undergrad and I really liked it. It was a different kind of facility as mostly for kids with autism, which is not really the crowd I'm super experienced with, but I really liked the job. I worked there for about a year and a half until I graduated and went to grad school.
Scott:But even when I went to grad school I worked in adventure therapy as well, like I ran the challenge course at the University of Florida for a year and a half, which was a lot of fun and I got to work with a lot of the same crowd. And then my current employer I had known from when he was here in Utah and he had opened a facility in Missouri where he was from and basically knew I was graduating and was like hey, when you graduate, contact me and we'll connect, and that's basically how it was. I deal more with staffing these days because I've moved away from-.
Tayla:You are the support that Hannah you're trying to provide, the support that Hannah has.
Scott:Well, when I first started working there, I was very much hands-on with the kids because they were a very new facility. They were less than a year old when I started working for them and they needed a lot of people who because that kind of stuff just doesn't exist out there so there's a lot of new staff that didn't have a lot of experience. They brought a lot of. A lot of Utahns were brought out to work in the facility at early stages, because it's just big out here in Utah. There's a lot of facilities.
Tayla:The more experience, yeah.
Scott:And then, once that stabilized, I moved more into the quality assurance and data. So I work more with the staff these days but still get some time with the kids. I do some adventure stuff still, but it's good fun. I think most of the time the kids like they're just regular teenagers who have just either had very bad things happen to them or have made very dumb choices, and everyone deserves a chance to either heal from that or get a second chance from making very dumb choices.
Hannah:That reminds me I wanna touch more on what makes a good facility From-.
Scott:Yeah, we didn't finish that.
Hannah:Well, from the perspective of someone who has to make choices to send kids to facilities every single day, For me I would say a big green flag would be smaller sizes, smaller groups of kids that are allowed. So what is a smaller size?
Scott:Scott takes under 30.
Hannah:We contract with the state for a lot of our kids at facilities that take hundreds. And there's not enough therapists in the world, certainly not in these po-donk little towns where residential treatment facilities are to facilitate the right amount of change and support and treatment.
Tayla:Okay, that's really helpful.
Scott:Well and part of it is going back to the family therapy aspect is families shouldn't be discouraged from coming to see their kids, Like if your facility is saying no, don't come see your kids, Like that's-.
Tayla:Yeah, that should be a red flag anytime.
Scott:We're pretty open, we're like we'll advise, like families, sometimes Like your kids not in the right so like time it yeah time it correctly. Your kids not in the right treatment phase or a family visit will not be beneficial, but we don't be like no you cannot come, you cannot come Because and there's, you know, the research shows that family emoliment is a huge measure of success in these kinds of cases, And-.
Hannah:I would say it's the biggest measure of success.
Scott:honestly, I would agree with that is how involved the family is With the family. Support of your kids can be successful but at the same time, like if you're scared of a parent coming to your facility and potentially seeing what's happened.
Tayla:Then what are you doing? Then what are you doing?
Scott:And actually I had a story. I was talking to a parent because I interact with parents with data stuff, I make phone calls and stuff. But I was interacting with a parent not too long ago and they were just telling me like I just kind of asked them off the cuff, like why did you choose us? And she was like well, we came and visited the facility before and I just saw how comfortable the kids were with the staff, like they're kind of buddy, buddy, you know they're, you know play, play, shoving, and it's like those kids feel safe. And I think that's a big thing is, if the kids feel safe, they can actually work on therapy. You know this is going back to psych 101, as those hierarchy of needs.
Scott:If you don't feel safe, you can't work on the rest of the stuff, and that was what sold that parent is that the kids felt safe around the staff, safe enough that some of these kids who had sexual abuse safe enough to like you know, give a, give the staff a little friendly punch on the arm or safe enough to give them hugs, like that kind of thing.
Tayla:Like, and again some of these kids or even to be like not perfect right.
Scott:Safe to fall apart a little bit, yeah, and that happens a lot more than you would think the falling apart part but I think that's a part of it is how much the facility allows families. And the small facilities I think for sure are a big key because you know, like Hannah said, these big facilities, you know we're talking like the hundreds and hundreds of kids Is a factory. Yeah, and it just, it's just not effective. There's not enough, like Hannah said, not enough people in the world to really focus on these kids to give them enough support or anything like that.
Tayla:So one thing I'm wondering about I bet you see kids join the facilities or join the foster care system at all stages of like appropriateness, like kids that come way too late. They think they waited very like way too long to get help, or maybe people that were a little bit alarmist and were sending kids that were perfectly normal and probably didn't need a facility. I guess if a parent is really struggling with a teenager and this will be kind of a different question for Scott and maybe a different question for Hannah because of the different things.
Scott:Yeah, because my facility doesn't really take a lot of state cases.
Tayla:In fact, I think I'm kind of one hand.
Scott:How many state cases we've?
Tayla:taken. So for Scott, the question is if you're a parent struggling with a teenager in a way that you feel like is excessive it's, you're not quite sure what to do to help the teenager to learn the skills to make better decisions, that sort of thing, safety issues, et cetera At what point should a parent be looking into a facility like that? And for Hannah, I would almost ask, on the other side is like for people who are maybe not the parents of children but are concerned for the welfare of children in their life, or people that they see, at what point should someone get involved or do something with what they're seeing? So those are my questions for each of you and you can kind of answer however you like.
Scott:Well for a facility like ours, where it isn't, like I said, we don't take a lot of state cases. Most of the time it's.
Hannah:Talk also about levels, oh yes, of escalation, yes.
Scott:So when I would say for parents not knowing what to do, like as a facility right for my kid, I'd say you know it's gonna be different for everyone. But I'd say a good rule of thumb is are you managing behaviors right? If you have, what does that mean?
Tayla:Oh, okay, I'll get into that.
Scott:So I think there's not a family in this world that doesn't have some sort of teenager parent conflict. I mean I could go into like our childhood and the conflict there.
Tayla:Yeah, I will.
Scott:I think the thing is, is your teenager engaging in dangerous or risky behaviors that are unmanageable by your family? I think that's when you need to start looking Some teenagers like oh, maybe they do a couple of risky things, but family's able to step in and be like, okay, let's figure this out. You know, maybe they smoke weed one time and the family's able to help, like they don't really need residential treatment.
Tayla:But if someone's like, for example, they're stealing freak, like often multiple times and it doesn't and it's not. The behavior doesn't change, even with like attempted intervention, or perhaps they're taking part in like risky sexual behavior, stuff like that.
Scott:Yeah, it's. It's how well are you managing kind of these dangerous behaviors Like one or two? Often you're able to manage it. I'd say probably get some outpatient treatment. Um, that's usually pretty effective Cause I mean sending a kid to residential treatment is the last resort. It should, it should be in theory. That doesn't mean that it's not necessary, but it should be kind of a last resort because it's it's very extreme, like you're separating a kid from their family, and our kids miss their their, their parents, they.
Scott:it's surprising how much like conflicts some of these kids have with their parents, but they still miss them. It's very few of them come in and say I hate my mother. Well, they say that because they dropped them off at a treatment facility, but they don't actually mean that yeah. So I would say that would be the key to whether it's the right choice, and then again it may.
Scott:There's a lot of factors with that. And even the kids outpatient therapist, I think, is a good source of information because you can kind of check with them and be like, hey, is this escalating beyond the point where we need to?
Tayla:have a strength intervention. That's what I ask is like what professional would you consult to help you make the decision? I'm guessing it wouldn't. You probably. My mind is like you wouldn't rely on a facility to tell you whether they should go to a facility, because there seems like there's a bit of a conflict of interest it depends so definitely bias there so for us like we're pretty good because we're a small facility and we have a waitlist. We can be more selective.
Scott:We can be more selective and we we have told parents hey, we don't feel like you're the right fit for us. Here's some suggestions. Um, a therapist is a very good source of it and like, if your therapist is in this crappy therapist in the world, obviously, but I think a therapist would be a good gauge to consult. Um, there's educational consultants out there that you know kind of specialize in placement things. Uh, that's hit or miss In my opinion. I'm not super chuffed with the educational consultant industry. It's kind of like a sub industry of the trouble. Yeah, it's like recruiters.
Tayla:And I'm not. I'm not super. Not down.
Scott:Yeah, I'm not super down with it because it feels more like they're getting commission on placing kids in facilities like that If they don't even if they don't need to but suffice to say um. The facility should speak for itself.
Hannah:Like and. I would also say like there's levels of escalation right, and one of the main failings of the foster care system and really the social network of the United States is that we are a reactive agency, we are not a proactive agency.
Scott:So especially CPS right.
Hannah:So with parents you know who have reached their breaking point, like we can react and intervene with the kids. But when you are looking at your options before that, you can send the kid to therapy right, you can go to therapy as a family. You can buy and read they do that. Yes, you can buy and read the book the Anatomy of Peace, which you know is like $5. There's used copies all over the place and it's very accessible. It's designed for parents.
Tayla:Family conflict yeah, family conflict it's what it was written for. I actually didn't know that.
Hannah:Mm-hmm.
Tayla:It's beautiful, it's a good book.
Scott:I mean, if it just anyone who's dealing with family conflict. I'd recommend reading the Anatomy of Peace because it's designed for family conflict and it's written in a very accessible way, because it's written like a fictional story.
Tayla:Adding to my good read Thank you Definitely.
Hannah:And then you know if it's risky sexual behavior or risky drug behavior. Can you take your child to the doctor and really go over it with a doctor or a nurse that you may know and explain. Here are the huge risks. You know if you have a child, here's how much that's going to cost you, not only to raise a child but an opportunity costs for your life. You know if you're doing drugs, here's how much, how many crumbs of fentanyl it takes to kill you and it's like microscopic.
Scott:I had a kid come in high on fentanyl one time. It was scary. That is scary yeah.
Hannah:So, and they don't do detox at Scott's facility. So yeah, that was stressful.
Scott:And she was so little I'm like, okay, are we about to deal with a life-threatening overdose?
Hannah:Yeah, that's a situation that was kind of scary.
Scott:So, yeah, she ended up graduating successfully, by the way, good.
Hannah:Those earlier interventions will help a lot and just listening to and facilitating good relationships and healthy boundaries with your kids.
Tayla:Cool. So to Hannah's question. That's a complicated and a difficult question, I think, why people err on the side of just not getting involved with other people's business. But if you see or you suspect or you're worried about children either neighbors or kids, friends or whatever, however you're exposed to kids what would you recommend as far as what to do when you have those concerns?
Hannah:So this is a really important question and it's something that a lot of people you know if they work in the medical field or our teachers or work with kids, typically they have to take some sort of mandated reporter training, and I want to talk a little bit about mandated reporting and what that means and what that looks like.
Scott:So what it doesn't look like, right, because I think a lot of people misunderstand it.
Hannah:So I like follow some CPS type forums and stuff online on Reddit and things, and something that we see and like the CPS workers will comment regularly is CPS procedures vary by state and CPS their job, our job, is to investigate and to react. It is your job as a parent, as a neighbor, as a teacher, as a moral human being, to, if you see something, say something. So about a third of families in the United States of America will at some point or another have a hotline reported on them to CPS. Ma'am, that's a lot.
Scott:Yeah, it's astronomical, it's actually astounding how many just crappy parents there are in the world. I am surprised by that statistic, yeah.
Tayla:But like a lot of, that is not crappy parenting.
Hannah:So if your kid breaks their arm because they're three years old and they fall off a slide and it happens and that break, is it all suspicious, it is the doctor's moral, ethical and legal obligation to report that, To check it Well in fact, my friend JC, who is my co-host on Family Bro Evening he's doing a residency for PA school and he's a co-host.
Scott:He's a co-host of PA school and he had a situation like that earlier where he treated a teenager with a broken arm that he felt was suspicious and so he had to call it in.
Tayla:You don't really know.
Scott:No, no, but that's not his responsibility. It's his responsibility to just make sure that someone looks at it.
Hannah:Exactly, and so, and that's you know. It's really important because if you say CPS goes out and they find everything to be appropriate, they close the case. Almost all CPS hotlines are closed pretty much immediately, within an hour, if they find the call to be unsubstantiated and they don't need to look further. Or, you know, within a few days, if they go out, check it out, say this is great, or even sometimes they'll go out, check it out, make some sort of safety plan, follow up for a few weeks to make sure the family has whatever resources CPS in the area can provide, and then they'll be done and go on their merry way.
Tayla:So this is definitely different to what I thought or pictured. So it's really helpful to understand that you don't need to be sure something bad is going on. That CPS's job to figure out the truth is not your job to be sure something bad is happening. If I'm understanding right, you'd maybe recommend airing on the side of caution.
Hannah:Definitely so. I would say it's, you know, like the abandoned backpack in an airport. Most of the time somebody just forgot it or is going to the bathroom. But it's not your job to go pick up the backpack and shake it and make sure there's not an explosive in there. It's your job to let TSA know and they'll handle it.
Scott:And I think that's what a lot of people where they kind of miss the mark on mandated reporting is. The majority of people are not trained to recognize abuse or even what to do when abuse is present, and, quite frankly, it's not their job to do either. What is their job is to pay attention. Trust your gut, then. Let people who are trained to know what abuse is and what To do when abuse has occurred to handle that. It's kind of like the. It's kind of like allowing people to do their jobs and you, all you're doing is being the eyes and ears saying you know this? This doesn't feel right, you know. Let me say something. And if nothing comes of it, great, no harm, no foul.
Hannah:And if something does come of it, great, you just took some kids out of a really crappy situation and I will say only about five percent of CPS investigations in the United States Result in some sort of removal from the home and you don't get paid commission for that. And we do not get paid commission for that. There's lots of conspiracy theorists who think?
Hannah:yeah, we get paid by the kid and I'm like I wish because I meant 300%, our maximum number of kids On my caseload- Hannah had a woman accused her of taking her kids away For my mission, but the irony is, as most people don't know, the CPS does not remove kids from the home.
Scott:Law enforcement does.
Hannah:It depends on the state, but in most areas that's true. So we just work with law enforcement in those instances.
Hannah:It's a collaboration, yeah, and the goal is always reunification right, which means we want to get the parents the rehab they need, the jobs they need the education, whatever it is, and most of my job Is making sure the kids are safe and the homes are appropriate. But then the rest of the time I work with the parents, I go to court, I advocate for my parents, so long as they're doing what they're supposed to do to get their kids back. And you know they text me all the time. You know, sometimes we become friends in real life because sometimes people are just in a bad place and they just need some help. And what I've learned with this job is I am so so lucky Like crazy. Lucky in my own, like family circumstances, because I have always had support, family support, a social safety network, you know. But for people who do not have that, we want to be able to provide that as much as possible, as much as possible in preventative services, but sometimes CPS intervention does become necessary.
Scott:That's super helpful. Thank you and I'd say the goal for our facility?
Tayla:Well, any treatment facility really should also be Reunification and I tell, and we tell you that it's safe.
Scott:Well, yeah, and we tell us to parents all the time. It's like if your goal is not to have your kid back in the home with you, then you're wasting your time and money Because you're pointing off your kids or you're pointing off your kid and we've. We've actually had cases where we've Sent kids home because parents were not doing therapy or had no intention of bringing them home. We're like you're just wasting our time. We have another kid who's who's trying to do it?
Scott:We're gonna bring them in when, so we've done that before that's hard at the same time, you there's kind of every facility.
Hannah:We'll do that because they like the money right but I mean.
Scott:That's a different thing altogether. But I would say like If you do get to the point where you're putting your kid in residential treatment, you should have the goal of bringing them home. Yeah otherwise their treatment is not gonna go well. Because I mean, we we call it the bullshit meter. Like kids are pretty smart, like especially teenagers, they're pretty smart. They can smell the bullshit on people, especially their parents, and if they know that the parents are not working, they have no motive, motivation to work and that's just teenagers being teenagers.
Tayla:That's supposed to be the people most invested in you, and if they're not doing it like, why?
Scott:and and we've seen that and it's really hard. It's really heartbreaking when we see that, because we see these kids who are working so so, so hard and then the parents are just I don't, I'll do what, I'll do what I've always done, and it's like Nothing is changing and your kids just gonna end up back in the facility. Like it's really sad.
Tayla:Yeah, when we, when Sam and I, ever get exposed to Foster care like our sister is fostering some kids right now and just any, any exposure to that kind of thing Sam and I often talk about like you know, no family is perfect Then we have had our things. But, like we, we both feel so lucky to have had the parents that we did. Imperfect that they were, the intention was always to Help us be safe, even if maybe the execution not so much.
Sam:Yeah, I think probably that's part of the reason why I some of my my focus, since Having the kids has just been so I have like blind is on, I can't. We had that. I lost recording. We recorded about the science of gift-giving and.
Sam:I was like, you know, I haven't even thought about anyone else besides my family for like years now, and I, you know, I think that's probably part of it. It's just really wanting to make sure that our kids grew up in an environment where they like what Hannah was saying. They there is a support system, there is structure, there is like you know you, you feel loved, you feel safe and, if you know, our kids do go through problems and struggles, we are equipped to be able to deal with that. So, yeah, that's, it's super important to me.
Tayla:I will say it's flipping terrifying because I think about this all the time where I can just see and I think it's part of this is like where you At least for me, as I've been like going through like therapy or healing, like you kind of almost Reparent yourself through some of your childhood things that, like your parents, didn't know or weren't equipped to help you with. And I think by like Reparenting myself in some ways it's Made me notice like even small things could make such small messaging that I'm giving Ella in particular. Max is small enough that I Haven't thought as much about it, but if I tell her something like you're being mean, like I'm just like I don't want her to have that message.
Tayla:I want her to understand that the behavior she's doing like it's so scary to think about because such small things can affect how people feel about themselves, how they grow, and that's scary as a parent. But at the same time it is amazing how resilient children can be and how fragile it can be and that's got to be a really complicated thing from your guys's professional standpoint to try and Balance and deal with and help between those that that sway of like you're super resilient, you are strong and you can get through this and also like Something you you can be so damaged by like one thing you know.
Scott:Oh, and that's that's kind of my reputation at the facility. I'm the kind of the tough love guy because the kids know that's the thing with boundaries I think parents don't realize is people, parents think that boundaries are a bad thing. It's like oh, I want my kids to be free. I'm like there are significant studies that show that boundaries actually help your kids feel safer and and when boundaries we mean like rules, structure right.
Tayla:Consistency.
Hannah:We are home by five o'clock, otherwise we lose our privilege, Otherwise this happens yeah. You know we do not use our phones after 8 pm. They go in mom and dad's room on the charger. You know there are no televisions in the bedroom, like those are sort of Rules, boundaries of the household.
Scott:That can be really beneficial for kids and that's what a lot of I had with the kids that come into the facility. A lot of them come from Boundaryless families where they were just permitted to do whatever they want, and then they hate me. At first because I enforce the boundaries, I'm like, nope, this is not gonna happen. This is the consequence if you do it. And then by the end of the treatment they all say we love you to death because children thrive in that well.
Scott:Well, part of it also is that they feel safe because you know exactly what's gonna happen if that, if you know, if I do this, this person's gonna do that, and if they actually have.
Hannah:Another thing is follow through with your boundaries, some people will set a boundary and not follow through with it. Don't do that. That's not a boundary, no, it's not a boundary.
Scott:That's a, that's a wish. Yeah but I the they feel safe because they know you can come to you. And I always tell the kids I will never be mad at you for telling the truth. Right, that doesn't mean you won't get a consequence, but I will never be mad at you for telling the truth.
Scott:Yeah, you're not gonna be afraid of me, and and that's what I try to do is like I'm gonna hold a boundary with you and you're gonna hate me at first, but guess what? You're gonna feel a lot safer around me later, and that's that's been true. Overwhelmingly is you have to hold those boundaries, yeah and then as they progress and they're gonna mess up like to To say that someone is. You know. You think of it like a slope.
Tayla:Yeah, you know, it's not just gonna be a steady slope.
Scott:There's gonna be, ups and downs, but as long as it's heading in the right direction, you're doing fine. What I find, though, is a lot of people get stuck in the behaviors right is.
Scott:You know, self-harm is a big thing. Where I'm at, you know people will self-harm and you're just so focused like why you don't self-harm. That's really bad. It's like have we sat down to wonder why this person is hurting themselves? And I actually had the conversation with my students right before we came on vacation is why are you self-harming? It's like, well, because I was going through a lot of distress. Okay, that's understandable. Why self-harm, instead of talking to your parents about about it? Yeah, well, she had shared a lot of the distress, love school issues. I'm like so why didn't you talk to your parents about this? It's like, well, I didn't feel like that they could help me. And it's like, well, did you ask them? No, okay, so there's, there's a start of the problem. And then they were like well, I don't feel like they can. It's like, okay, great, like your parents could be parenting perfectly.
Sam:But that's how you feel right feel this way for a reason.
Scott:Why do you feel that you couldn't go to your parents for help, just that kind of thing, you know, just kind of progressing like, because ultimately, if you treat the symptoms, if you treat the problems, the behaviors go away. That's what we found right, that makes sense.
Tayla:So you guys have shared a few. I just have like two more questions. You guys have shared a few stories or experiences that have kind of Given some good pictures of things I would love Of you each to share, maybe like one more story each on, like a personal experience that either highlights the complexities of the issue or Is something you, you think about a lot, whether it was a really hard experience or whether it was like a triumph that Helped with bandwidth or your drive to continue.
Hannah:Um, alright, so my circuit manager, so that's my boss's boss. The CPS system is organized by the judicial circuit, okay, so usually that's a county where we are. It's very rural, so we have three counties and so she's in charge of the three counties. During trainings and team meetings and stuff, sometimes she'll talk about her experiences in order to help us with our experiences. And she has said something interesting. The other day she said you know, I've had like great, great grandkids of kids because she's been there almost 30 years, or maybe it was just great of kids who I personally brought into foster care when she started her career.
Hannah:And it really highlights the complexity of the issues, because the issues that we are facing within CPS are generational trauma to an extreme extent Coupled with drug use, and oftentimes the parents and their parents and their parents had their own fetal drug use and so they're not operating on full power from day one out of the womb and so that feeds into the generational trauma and we have like a horrific, horrific, and we don't realize this. I feel like so much. In Utah it's a more opulent area we can get our drugs by going to the doctor and requesting them, even if you don't really need them. It's pretty easy to get them safely Right, not so in especially the planes states sort of middle of the country, america. It is horrifying the drug epidemic that is out there and that adds to, you know, just the poverty and the hoarding and the mental illnesses that are already present in the home.
Scott:On the trafficking. I think people well, and you know, with the Tim Ballard thing going on right now, I think a lot of people in the US think that trafficking is this huge grand conspiracy, you know, perpetuated by the Jeffrey Epstein's or whatever the hell conspiracy you want to believe.
Hannah:Or that it's an out of country thing.
Scott:Right Sex tourism.
Hannah:To Mexico or Thailand or wherever.
Scott:But the fact of the matter is is that for the vast majority of trafficking cases in the United States it's perpetuated by the child's family in the child's hometown.
Tayla:Yes Off for drugs and in their own homes.
Scott:For drugs, yeah.
Hannah:And that's, that's my bread and butter of cases Tale trafficking as old as time. Yeah, so many of my kids are in foster care due to trafficking by the parents.
Scott:Yeah, it's not this grand conspiracy like people think it is. It's shocking who and even maybe people you know, like who, is trafficking their kids for drugs.
Tayla:Man, that's devastating. Yeah, Thanks for sharing.
Scott:Well, I think like a success for me is I had a kid not long after I started working, horrible trauma case, you know, as she had a reactive attachment disorder and if you guys research, reactive attachment is one of the most difficult disorder childhood disorders to treat. It's extremely difficult and we've had decent success with it, but it's it's a talking, a two year process to treat these kids with reactive attachment. Wow, because it has to do with, you know, basically from birth trauma. So this poor girl, we think she was trafficked from birth. Somehow she ended up. I don't know the story exactly, but she ended up with a family who adopted. Her adopted mom died. So now you've lost three parents under the age of like five or something, man, and you know, mom, dad gets remarried and all this stuff. But she horrible, horrible reactive attachment and that's kind of characterized by very extremes like kids. You know lots of manipulation, lots of. You know if you love me, you'll let me do what I want and if you hold me accountable, I hate you.
Hannah:And also lots of fawning which is along with the manipulation. But I can tell Pretty quickly when I work with a kid Thanks to, you know, volunteering with scots kids for a while and then just Experience. Because they want to get in good with you, they tell you stories to elicit sympathy and they also like an investment into they're like, wow, you're so pretty. And I'm like, okay, it's three in the morning, we're all tired. Your eyes are swollen and puffy from crying.
Scott:Let's not come well, and a lot of it is characterized by also pushing away people because they don't want to get invested in a relationship. That's just kind of way yeah, so, which is very difficult for kids in treatment because Relationships change all the time.
Scott:You have kids coming in and out all the time and it's difficult for kids in treatment. So this poor girl you know we were buddies to start with like we, we just, you know, hit it off really cool. I was supportive in the treatment and then, as soon as she started to get a whole held accountable for the stuff she was doing, just the classic reaction severe hatred. Like I'm done with you, like all this stuff, and I'm like, oh crap, now I get what parents were going through. Like I think of of any Case that I had worked with At the treatment facility, I think I understood the parents best with this. With this girl I was like, oh Hard that this is like for 16 years this has been the parents relationship. I've only had her for like a year and it's hard on me like this is like emotional.
Tayla:Yeah, like it's because you care about her. Yeah, you do. You care about the kids. For sure. Hard to hear them say stuff like that.
Scott:I mean you, I think. I think I've gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing when it's like, okay, this is the rad, the reactive attachment talking right, because you don't want to, you don't want to get hurt and I don't like you, kind of learn to figure out. You know it's not personal, kind of separated, that's just the way to react. But, and especially with reactive attachment, they cannot get away with anything like you cannot let them get away with anything right, you have to be, you have to be firm.
Scott:You have to be consistent. Other disorders you can like, maybe let some things go, you know, pick your battles, but with the after-detachment, know you have to be very, very consistent. Not let them get away with anything because otherwise they use that as ammunition against you and continue to manipulate. But Almost two years in she she worked on it Doing really, really great. Right now, like she still contacts people at the treatment center, she'll text me every now and again say I'm doing really good.
Scott:I think that's kind of like the rewarding success stories where you have these really really difficult kids who, honestly, sometimes you think Sometimes we've sat and like is this the right place for this kid? Like is, do we need to kick him out? And then you make the decision not to and they get really really successful. Like it's super rewarding when you see that, especially when they they don't relapse into whatever it is they're doing there, they stay doing well and in fact we we do have several staff who were former treatment kids themselves- I didn't know that success stories and so like that's the big thing with facilities like this is it can be life-changing.
Scott:Like the our staff who have gone through programs like this. They they'll say over and over again like this changed my life. I didn't want to do it, but you know, there's what it is and it's kind of funny. We sometimes our facility gets tagged on, unread it and like all these abuse things and like people make a bunch of claims and I'm actually seeing students defend us on Reddit like I don't know who they are.
Scott:It's like there was a Not that long ago. We someone was like oh don't, don't send your kids this facility, you know they're abusive. The cops get called all the time and this kid came. It's like I was there. The cops were never called in us and the kids that say it doesn't work Just sat on their butts and did nothing. And if you actually went to work and did the work Like you will like, have a great time and your life will change.
Hannah:That's gotta be cool. That, I think, is the hardest thing with Residential treatment is and with foster kiddos. You know they come into the system based on very real abuse and there's evidence of, you know, extreme problems that would make remaining in the home unsafe. But after a while, the kids who are in and out again and again, they learn how to pull the heartstrings right. And you know, friday Friday we went to dinner with People Scott knows through his work and I was late.
Scott:It was a former student. Yes, and that's a big thing. I've had former students come back and visit and like talk to kids.
Hannah:I'm like you know, if we were abusive we wouldn't have you want to come back and visit, you know and I was late because I was delivering Christmas gifts around to all my 34 cases and I pull up at the last house. The the Kiddos are home, so so they're on what we call trial home placement and Mom is in the yard like crying at her widsend.
Hannah:Because, some of the kiddos are older teens and they prefer the foster parents home because it was safer for longer and it was a more secure environment. So they have started Making claims and we investigate every claim, right. The victim is right, always is from the get-go until you investigate more right. So we operate as if each claim is true while we do our investigation and then the investigator Compiles whatever evidence there may or may not be and decides there's something here to warrant further investigation or there isn't. And in this case, the kid actually told the investigator in an interview yeah, I made that up because you know, I thought the I wanted the teacher sympathy and I wanted to go back to the foster family.
Hannah:So that can be. That's really difficult because sometimes victims of trauma Recind it later and say they made it up. So it's hard and you want to take each thing seriously. But it's also hard because mom Screwed up monumentally right. She's ruined these kids childhood and she and I have had very frank conversations about that. But and the kiddos are at an age and a Point in their process of dealing with that trauma where they are angry with mom right and making her life difficult. And you know, kids do lie and it's a very Delicate and difficult line to walk in residential treatment right between yes, kids lie and make claims about abuse.
Hannah:Sometimes, especially if they have been victims of very real and atrocious, horrible crimes and abuse. But also it's an environment where abuse is Going to happen, much like religious church environments. Residential treatment facilities operate with people who are in power Right and people who have no power right, and that's an environment that is dangerous and so that there has to be so much transparency and checks and balances and parent involvement, so it's hard man, I have learned so much and I feel like this is gonna be like I've been riveted the whole time.
Tayla:So thank you so much.
Sam:Yeah, I think for me, the my favorite part about learning about this has been understanding just how so much of these problems on generational, generational trauma and that's what you guys are doing and what the industry is trying to doing is trying to say, hey, let's stop the cycle of this trauma. In theory, that's what the industry is doing, yeah, trying to do and so there's definitely a need for it, and so I'm grateful that there are people that you know are passionate about it and want to do it, because you know I've got friends that I've gone through programs and they've turned out to be good adults.
Tayla:So yeah, yeah, no good job guys. Yeah, thank you so much.
Scott:I feel like we scratch the surface. I know I'll have to have you on again.
Tayla:But, as Scott said, he's got a podcast called Family Bro Evening that you guys can follow and listen to not focused on the trouble, not focused on this at all, and Hannah, she hasn't been keeping up with it because she's been busy as hell, but she actually has a podcast that I really love, called of witches and women as well, and I'd recommend it.
Hannah:Thank you, it's our trademark, millennial feature.
Tayla:The Gen X version of let's start a band, exactly Exactly but thank you, so much time for more chocolate mousse from the French Baker or French restaurant. Thanks for listening to the babe. What do you know about podcast?
Sam:Remember to rate, subscribe and review.
