Shutting down abusive troubled teen programs

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I was at an abusive residential treatment program over 15 years ago. I`d like to see it shut down so other kids aren't abused. I've finally healed enough that I think I could mentally withstand a confrontation with those people. So far what I did to try to stop them was post a review and an old newspaper article about them chaining a kid to a pool table on their Google page.

The statute of limitations for my abuse has expired because I was too messed up to report before I turned 30.

Does anyone have any ideas for legal ways to stop them?

The other program I was at was closed after a death.

Has anyone else here been through this? I`m really interested in hearing if and how other people cope.

Go public with it, contact the media, and see if you can tell your story. Maybe if you tell your story, someone who is within the statue of limitations can come forward.

Thank you so much for your suggestion. I've considered that, but I don't really have the social skills to handle being a public figure and even the idea of it really scares me. I think my mental health might go down the tube again if I tried.

Also the abuse that happened at that program, other than the pool table incident, wasn't very sensational. They mostly accept kids who have been through a very abusive short term program and then threaten to send them back if absolute obedience isn't maintained. The worse program they used to partner with got shut down, too, but I think they have a new one now.

One idea I had is that if more former students, er, captives, of these places write reviews then it might hurt their bottom line. Now we have the internet and democracy of information. Also getting more people involved would let us share the weight of stopping them. And it would make it so if I end up broken again they still won't win.

I'm not just interested in stopping my old program although I'd enjoy it the most. A big problem is the staff at places that get shut down find work at other places where they do the same thing. To win I'd really have to change or shut down the industry.

For those of you who are unaware of this mostly-hidden industry: http://www.cracked.com/article_20843_6- ... ustry.html

This is a subject very near to my heart and I often wonder about other fellow 'alumni' and whether they survived to function well enough in society - I've only made it about halfway there myself. Googling provides negligible results about where I was trained, unless it's about a doctor or Ptech moving in corporate circles. Even though on pre-internet days their commercials were all over TV

I go back and forth on my functioning. I found some old papers of mine that just knocked all the old scabs off my wounds, but this is the first time I've tried to face it in a way that most people might agree is healthy. I'm hoping i can fix my head this time.

The biggest social problem I have is that the slightest bit of conflict, especially with authority figures, made my mind cloud and put me in a panic for many years. I've only recently had any success at all in keeping a clearer mind through it.

Can I ask what the best coping tricks you found are?
Do you try to get over it or just pretend it never happened most days?

I think the heal website has done so much to help validate my reality of it, and that is helping. Www.heal-online.Org if you're interested.

yes,in multiple institutions but neither as a teenager.
one; a intelectual disability institution was put in at nineteen years old and lived there till it shut down,suffered from incredible physical,mental and sexual abuse that both the high up people in social services,CSCI [now called CQC;theyre the 'police' of residential services], and the national autistic society all did major enquiries into it,some staff were sacked and some were moved around but the institution tried to pass the blame by saying am to low functioning to understand everything that happened was 'innocent stuff'.

the other was a intelectual disability assessment and treatment acute hospital.
was sectioned there last september for four months,meaning was unable to go outside unless the pyschiatrist had put it on section seventeen leave.
as an autistic who also has intelectual disability,it was extremely frustrating, had suffered physical abuse every day for refusal to do what they want;being thrown to the floor and piled ontop of with their knees forced into rib cage and arm twisted behind back in a pressure point hold so was nearly passing out due to being unable to breathe and the pain.
because of what they and the police did,am suffering from an L1-L5 spinal injury and am getting legal action as it has had a huge effect on life and its the only way can see any closure.

had suffered sensory abuse there because they didnt understand nor attempt to understand why having the main lounge tv up full blast was injurous to some of us, when asking for it to be turned down at least a little bit was told its selfish to ask that as its unfair on the patients who cant hear very well.
we had a lot of fighting over that and one day, one of the nurses was really vicious....was distrought.

it just so happens late at night another autistic patient [who likes directing attention towards himself] set off a fire alarm which unlocks all the doors,so after the alarm had stopped and had recovered from banging head on floor had made a run for the door and was told 'go on then,we dont want you here,' and was called a burden on the other patients.

had ran off [in bare feet and just a t-shirt and nappy] until coming across some people and decided to hide to avoid being reported to the police and found a bush on a bridge which climbed into.
was found hours later by a sniffer dog.

mum,dad and sister put a massive complaint into the hospital and they eventualy got off their arses and put special locked cases on all the fire alarms to stop him from being able to set them off [which was a big distress to self and he did it most days if not watched].

was mentaly and sensory abused every day by the staff and driven to self injury and attempting suicide often,hate some of those staff deeply.
two of the patients were very extremely challenging and was regulary punched in the spine by them both,theyre both autistic and didnt have the mental capacity to understand the consequences but was never protected by the nurses despite having full time 1-1 support from them and was never asked if was ok; fk,he had just made a spinal injury that much worse of course am not going to be ok.
then was sat on and sexualy abused multiple times by a new female patient who said she wants to be gay;that shoud have been reported by staff;hell it was done right in front of them less than five feet away and they saw the distress it caused through behavior but it wasnt reported.

it was only reported to the social services safe guarding team once had been discharged on the twenty second of jan and the SS intelectual disability team found out about it.

I'm so, so sorry that happened to you, KingdomOfRats. That is so horrible. I don't even have words for it.

And so glad your parents believe you now at least and are helping you get some justice and that the place got sacked.

I think not being believed is really difficult. I'm going through that with my family.

Are you in a safe place now? It didn't even occur to me that could stay an ongoing threat for adults. I thought stuff like that happened in prisons sometimes (it shouldn't happen there either, but I thought it was a separate issue sort of), but not to someone who did nothing wrong. I'm updating my goals to include helping adults, too.

I never really realized that sensory abuse is a separate thing, but you're completely right. Before I thought that it sort of fell vaguely somewhere between physical and mental abuse, but it's really part of a type of abuse that uses people's own bodies against themselves, and that's definitely a separate thing. I think you might have come up with a super mind-blowingly important concept with that. I'm going to think about that all day now. Sensory abuse is a separate thing...