Standing Up to the Troubled Teen Industry - TRIAL Magazine (AAJ) August 2025
TRIAL Magazine, published by the American Association of Justice (AAJ), this month includes a co-authored piece written by Justice Law Collaborative (JLC) partner Kelly Guagenty, attorney Martha Carol, and JLC intern Ryan Scully, “Standing Up to the Troubled Teen Industry.” The piece serves as a beacon for attorneys who represent and advocate for those survivors who have successfully emerged from institutions and facilities that market themselves as supportive, when in fact, their existence is much more malevolent.
The “troubled teen” industry (or TTI) refers to a network of private residential programs, including therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness programs, and residential treatment centers that claim to provide treatment and rehabilitation for adolescents with behavioral, emotional, or substance abuse issues. These programs frequently promise to offer focused education, therapy, and counseling to correct misguided ways, often at significant cost to parents or guardians.
What has consistently surfaced through survivor stories is a hidden backdrop of forced and unpaid labor, severe neglect, false imprisonment, kidnapping, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, physical assault and restraint, isolation, and a bevy of abusive practices. Further, the lack of oversight or regulation by state or federal entities has resulted in the employment of inadequate and unqualified staff, medical and mental health neglect, institutional corruption, and even the death of residents.
Desperate families, seeking support for their children, have been persuaded by polished and strategically designed campaigns promising help and support, very little of which is ever delivered. Instead, the troubled teen industry has left widespread collateral damage in its wake.
Justice Law Collaborative advocates for and represents troubled teen industry survivors nationwide
Justice Law Collaborative has been leading litigation against troubled teen programs across the country and is directly involved in legislative reform designed to dismantle the abusive practices associated with TTI. The most recent is Justice Law Collaborative’s filing against Hyde School (Bath, Maine), alleging abuse, neglect, and forced labor, which closely follows its lawsuit against Trails Carolina.
On the heels of numerous documentaries spotlighting the dark deeds associated with the troubled teen industry, INSIDE Edition’s Deborah Hastings began researching Arizona-based Re-Creation Retreat (RCR), a so-called therapeutic wellness boarding school for girls. When she learned that survivor protests were being held, her investigation led her to horrific stories about abuse, neglect, and suicide attempts from within RCR’s walls. The syndicated news magazine then launched a full-scale investigation, pulling back the veil and exposing years of wrongdoing.
Justice Law Collaborative partner Kelly Guagenty, with support from attorney Carol, has been providing legal support for numerous survivors of RCR and beyond. Survivor protests, legal support, and Inside Edition’s investigation ultimately led to the successful, forced closure of the Arizona facility in June 2025.
Justice Law Collaborative Lobbies for Legislative Reform to Dismantle Troubled Teen Industry
Kim Dougherty, co-founder of Justice Law Collaborative, has been consistently aligned with efforts to dismantle elements associated with the troubled teen industry. She has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with survivors, including Paris Hilton, lobbying for greater protections. Those efforts led to the December 2024 passage of the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act. Dougherty also testified with Hilton to lobby lawmakers in Maryland to pass the Preventing Abduction in Youth Transport Act to eliminate the practice of ‘gooning,’ well known among troubled teen industry survivors as the practice of forcibly transporting teenagers to residential facilities or troubled teen programs against their will and often without prior knowledge.
Beyond government bodies, Hollywood has rallied behind survivors of troubled teen programs and have encouraged them to share their stories through docuseries and documentaries. Netflix and HBO shows, including Teen Torture, Inc. and The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping, were just the beginning. In September, Netflix will release Wayward, synopsized as “A bucolic but sinister town explores the insidious intricacies of the troubled teen industry and the eternal struggle of the next generation.”
The fact remains that survivors are, in droves, recounting horrifying tales of happenings that occurred (and continue to occur) behind closed doors at these facilities located throughout the United States.
“Our job, as attorneys, is to lead a legal reckoning while facilitating opportunities for survivors to heal their trauma. We designed this article to serve as a primer plus blueprint for other attorneys who may find themselves in a position to represent troubled teen industry survivors.”
~Kelly Guagenty, Attorney and Partner, Justice Law Collaborative, LLC
Follow this link to read the article in its entirety.
August 13, 2025
