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STORIES
BY LOU KILZER
An international network
Teen Help is an umbrella name for a consortium of companies headquartered in the red canyonlands of southwestern Utah.
Together with local owners, the Utah group has operated behavior modification camps for teen-agers in the United States, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Jamaica and Western Samoa.
Thousands of parents have turned to Teen Help and similar organizations in recent years to cope with potentially self-destructive behavior by their adolescent children. Teen Help uses sophisticated marketing to offer parents the hope of extricating their teens from a downward spiral.
In glowing testimonials, many parents say that Teen Help's methods allowed them to save their children. Laura says it was her last hope.
"Kids are violent and they're scary and parents are not empowered to do anything," she said. "Parents are told to leave their kids alone and not be parents, which is the last thing kids need.
"People are chased off by the government. They're told they can't let their kids leave the house even when their kids are extremely destructive to the rest of the family. They're not given any help. They're not given any support. And they're given all the blame. All you have to do is look at Littleton. What a terrific example. Who helped those parents?"
But some mental health professionals suggest that Teen Help's doctrines may be harmful to some in the long run.
Children sent to Teen Help's facilities undergo a series of intense psychological programs — often including recovering memories of alleged early childhood trauma — in an effort to modify destructive behavior.
Some of the children in Teen Help compounds, however, do not develop the same adoration of the program as their parents, and a dozen lawsuits have charged the organization with abuse. Teen Help has denied the allegations.
Civil authorities have taken action against some Teen Help facilities. Authorities in Mexico and the Czech Republic raided facilities after receiving complaints that teens were being mistreated there.
And Paradise Cove, the compound where Corey Murphy spent 22 months in a thatched hut, came under scrutiny by the Western Samoan government after the State Department received allegations of abuse.
The State Department said it received "credible allegations" in 1998 of abuse against American teens at Paradise Cove, about the time that Corey Murphy's stay there was coming to an end.
"The abuse alleged to have occurred includes beatings, isolation, food and water deprivation, choke-holds, kicking, punching, bondage, spraying with chemical agents, forced medication, verbal abuse and threats of further physical abuse," according to a September 1998 State Department cable sent from Washington to the U.S. Embassy in Apia, Western Samoa.
The State Department asked the Western Samoan government to investigate.
Ken Kay, president of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs, a Teen Help umbrella organization, says he knew nothing about the State Department's probe. He says it "never was, never has been part of the treatment to beat or abuse kids." Teen Help ended its involvement with Paradise Cove at the end of May.
Kay calls Corey's death "terrible."
"It's devastating," he says. "Our whole life and being is to do what we can to help people so they don't get to that spot."
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