From Desperate Measures – CAICA.org (site no longer exists)

“Carolina Springs Academy teaches values, integrity, honor and respect for authority.”

So begins the Teen Help marketing handbook’s description of one of the company’s newest teen facilities. It has housed dozens of teens, including a 17-year-old girl from Colorado.

Opened last year near Abbeville, S.C., Carolina Springs “helps teens to become an asset to the community,” the promotional material continues. “The program is located on [a] campus with a southern style all its own. The youth experience a mixture of Old South courtliness, European heritage and American nostalgia.”

But investigators for the South Carolina Department of Social Services found conditions there far less idyllic.
In the fall, the agency three times ordered the facility to close because it was operating without a state license. Richard Byars, Carolina Springs’ director at the time, refused, saying the compound was a boarding school, not a residential care facility, and didn’t need a license.

Teen Help attributed Carolina Springs’ licensing problem to unnamed foes of its behavior modification system.

“Unknown to us, sources hostile to the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (a Teen Help umbrella group) made the (state) believe that they were dealing with some kind of boot camp/brainwashing process that did nothing but abuse kids,” Teen Help said in a recent Internet statement. “As a result, their interaction with Carolina Springs Academy was less than … balanced.”

State social services investigators inspected the facility in December and January. Their reports said that:

• Several teens, including at least one who had attempted suicide before arriving at Carolina Springs, no longer were taking medication for depression. 
• One girl told them that another girl “tried to kill herself. She was hitting, kicking, spitting, etc. They said that her hands were crossed over her chest and her wrists were handcuffed behind her neck. They said duct tape was put over her mouth and around her legs. At the top of the stairs, she jumped on her head to try to break her neck so she could go to the hospital.” 
• The teens’ letters to their parents were read before being mailed “and if the child says something inappropriate … you require the child to change it.” Telephone calls are monitored. “There is very strict control of the content of written correspondence and telephone conversations. And the children do not have opportunities for free conversation with their parents.” 
• Children’s records contained little information about previous hospital stays and psychological evaluations. 
• Toilets lacked doors or curtains. 
• A psychiatrist Byars said examined the teens had never visited the facility. 
• One teen-age girl was found sitting in a mop closet — “she was crying.” 

A Jan. 26 letter from the agency warned Byars that “there are currently two incidents of disciplinary action that may constitute cruel and inhumane punishment.” A follow-up letter nine days later said: “to our knowledge, the facility staff members who are alleged perpetrators have not been relieved of their duties.””I have never abused anybody,” Byars told the Denver Rocky Mountain News. ” … We have no punishment here. This is just a boarding schoool. That’s it. … Most kids lie if they have the opportunity.”

The social services agency said the staff members at Carolina Springs weren’t qualified for work with teens.
Many staff members had held only low-wage jobs before being hired. Some had worked as checkout clerks, laborers, porters and appliance salesmen. Many were from Utah.

“The staff have little or no training in child care issues,” the agency reported. “Most of them (excluding teachers) have only a high school education and no experience in child care.”

Gena Boggero, a former employee at Carolina Springs, harshly criticized Byars’ supervision.
“Half the kids didn’t deserve to be there,” she said. “Richard tells them when they first get there that he has custody of them. … He tells these kids that they not only will be there until they are 18, if they don’t really bust their butts to get out of there, but if he sees no improvement, he can keep them until they’re 21. The kids don’t know any different. “I would not wish it on my worst enemy to have a job there.”

Boggero described how one teen-age girl told her she had come to Carolina Springs: “Her mom had told her that they were going to go out to eat to try to patch things up. … Her mom goes inside (a) store and leaves her in the car. This van pulls up. They jump out, open up the passenger door where she is sitting and grab her. She had no idea who these people are. She thinks she’s being kidnapped. She was hanging on to the steering wheel for her life. They reached inside the car and pried her hands from the steering wheel, placed her in a van and drove her to South Carolina.”

The social services agency in April put on hold a request for an injunction to close Carolina Springs when Teen Help agreed to replace Byars and make other changes. Byars was succeeded as director of Carolina Springs Academy by Peggy Elaine Bell Davis. “We will expect the program to blossom under her direction,” Teen Help said in a statement.

Jerry Adams, spokesman for the Department of Social Services, said the agency and Carolina Springs are trying to work out their differences but the facility remains unlicensed. “They are operating in good faith to correct the problems,” Adams said of Carolina Springs.

“CSA believed then and now that they are a boarding school, but to end conflict and better serve their students by resolving that conflict, CSA decided to try to meet the (state) demand for (a license),” Teen Help said in a recent statement. “… In the interest of the students’ progress, we made the agreement so that we could get on to helping to change the kids’ lives.”
“Local government wanted to close the facility,” Facer said. “However, after reviewing the facts, the legal system determined that complaints were unfounded and unsubstantiated and further ruled that Carolina Springs should continue to operate their facility.”

However, Carolina Springs still faces a strong challenge by another state agency. The Department of Health and Environmental Control, is seeking an injunction to close Carolina Springs for “operating as an unlicensed residental treatment facility.”

Its investigation uncovered several potential problems. One girl told investigators that girls were told to remove their clothing and be subjected to “full body searches by junior staff.” Another girl complained of stomach pains and asked to be taken to a doctor. Aid was delayed five days “and by that time, my cysts had ruptured,” she told investigators.

Another girl said that “one of the girls was really mad because he (an employee) came over into the room and jumped on her while she was in bed.” The girl reported that the employee “lay down on top of her” and “was rolling around.”
Officials removed two girls who had spoken to investigators for fear that upper-level teens might harm them, Adams said.
Davis said she expected the social services department to issue Carolina Springs a child care license by the end of this month. She said she was unaware of the health department’s motion for an injunction.