Campaigns
Background
As an attorney for children and a child welfare expert, I am aware of the predatory nature of the behavioral health industry targeting states with limited service and placement arrays when it comes to the placement of youth in expensive out-of-state institutions. In fact, I was the lead investigator and developed the facts leading to the class action complaints against the states of Oregon and West Virginia, including specific claims related to this practice with respect to foster youth. However, focus on this issue is generally on the so-called troubled teen industry.
One of the issues that I am best known for is that of broken adoptions and have written and spoken about the impact on youth extensively including the disturbing reality that the adoption subsidy continues to be paid even if the child is no longer in the adoptive parent’s home and even if the child is returned to foster care. The youth I have worked with who experienced a broken adoption are often homeless, back in foster care, couch hopping, or, as I have learned through my work in Jamaica, abandoned, after they were removed from an abusive American-owned facility connected to the so-called troubled teen industry, Atlantis Leadership Academy.
Past Campaign
In February 2024, Jamaica’s Child Protection and Family Services Agency removed teens from ALA in February after they visited the facility and observed signs of abuse and neglect. The agency then placed the teens into foster care. Afterwards—whether due to misinformation they received from ALA, its administrators, or the program’s attorney, or simply because they didn’t want their teen home —some parents did not immediately respond to authorities or cooperate to plan for their child’s return to the United States. As a result, the boys languished. Against this backdrop, I arrived in Jamaica to advocate for them. While give were returned to the U.S., three of the adopted teens were abandoned and placed in the “permanent custody” of Jamaica. As of September 2024, the last abandoned adopted teen has been returned to the U.S. and we continue to advocate for all the boys’ needs in their placements.
Current Campaign
Alarmingly, there is another facility in Jamaica that has approximately 170 youth, the majority from the United States and adopted from foster care: Youth of Vision Academy (YOVA). The fact that there are so many adopted teens in Jamaica exposes several gaps in the system, including a lack of post-adoption support and services for those well-meaning parents searching for help to address their teen’s behavioral, emotional, and mental challenges. But for other parents, it is an easy place to warehouse their adopted teen until adulthood.
Three out of the five leaders at YOVA and at least one of the 501 officers allegedly have direct ties to a private school in West Virginia called Miracle Meadows that was forcibly closed for the sadistic torture of the children in their care. To understand the depravity of what occurred, consider the fact that lawsuits settled for over 100 million dollars.
When youth are transported out of the United States to countries like Jamaica or Mexico, parents typically do not fully appreciate that their children are then subject to the laws of that country—the embassy cannot simply drop in and rescue these kids, they must operate within the parameters of the jurisdiction’s legal system. Given that the facilities are generally unlicensed and unregulated, they generally act with impunity.
In addition to public awareness campaigns and education, we engage in legal services and advocacy to address broken adoptions, sibling visitation, and institutional child abuse and neglect in residential facilities for youth nationally and abroad.