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Desperate parents or state authorities often turn to residential psychological treatments for troubled teenagers, but when the staff resorts to restraints and isolation rooms to control children, it's very controversial because the children are so vulnerable.
Poplar Springs looks like the ideal setting for troubled teens. Last month Virginia's First Lady and other dignitaries dedicated a beautiful new wing. What they did not see is what happens when the cameras go away.
"They held me down. They took all my clothes away," said Zanetta, "And, I was just being drugged up."
Zanetta was a happy child growing up. But she began to act out when she turned 12, and she ran away from home. The State of Virginia became her temporary guardian and eventually sent her to Poplar Springs for evaluation and treatment. But months later when Zanetta's mom tried to get her released, the hospital refused.
"They sat around and punished her and warehoused her, and let a check be written to them every month," said Andie Jackson, Zanetta's mother. She believes Poplar Springs had an incentive to keep her daughter, 14,000 a month in tax dollars for Zanetta's care.
"Because I was asking too many questions, they cut off our visitation, they cut off our family therapy sessions," Jackson said.
Although the facility owner tells us that "Poplar Springs works in close cooperation "..to re-unite children and their families",
when Andie went to court to try and get Zanetta back, Poplar Springs refused to let her daughter go.
"I'm thinking in my head you guys don't want me to go to court because you don't want the judge to know what you guys are doing," said Zanetta.
That's when Zanetta got upset and the staff moved to restrain her. "I go off. I'm crying. I'm kicking," Zanetta said, "I'm trying to get them off me."
She says attendants forced her into the place she dreaded the most, the seclusion room, with its double bolts.
"They took all my clothes away from me and there were like two, three men still physically restraining me at a time. And I had no underwear on or nothing," said Zanetta.
Jackson recalled Zanetta's terrifying ordeal, "She's standing nude in a seclusion room."
Poplar Springs says incidents like this never happen. Its handbook says seclusion is "...voluntary and not to be used as punishment..." Zanetta says while she was held in isolation, they injected her with sedatives repeatedly.
Gerard Huffman says "It's not a therapeutic setting in any way shape or form." His 15-year-old daughter Emmalee is at Poplar Springs also. She called her dad's cell and said she witnessed Zanetta being stripped.
"She said that while all the commotion was going on, all of the girls went to the nurse's station, leaned over the desk and watched it all happen on the close-circuited camera," Huffman said.
"It's frightening, intimidating, very scary," said Dr. Larke Huang, a federal mental health expert, "It would be traumatizing, even if you didn't have a mental health issue."
Dr. Huang says such use of restraints and isolation rooms is outmoded and re-traumatizing. "It's a treatment failure."
The corporate owners, Psychiatric Solutions Inc., has had problems in its facilities across the country. In Charlottesville, a manager pleaded guilty in a sex scandal involving teen patients. In Austin a SWAT team was called when children got out of control. Serious under staffing was blamed. And in Sacramento a patient was killed being pinned to the floor by a staff member.
"It's barbaric is what it is," said Terry Blanchard.
Although the company denies it, the parents of Autumn Mozingo say their daughter was left in isolation for days. "Unfortunately for her, she upset somebody on a Friday. And it was a four day weekend, so they were short crew," said Blanchard.
ABC 7's I-Team showed Autumn's parents what the isolation room looked like. "That's crazy. Who do they think they're holding? Maximum security prisoners," said Blanchard.
Within days after the I-Team called Poplar Springs about Zanetta, they decided to release her. Eight months and a day after she went in. This week she returned to school and is in therapy. Now Autumn's parents hope the I-Team's report will help bring their daughter home, as well.
"These kids need help. And that's not the place to get it," said Julie Blanchard, Autumn's mother. "We're going to get through it. But we're going to get her home," said Autumn's father, Terry.
Click here for Poplar Springs' Response to the I-Team's Investigation
Click here to see a map of all the Psychiatric Solutions Inc. facilities across the nation.
Click here for resources and information.
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