PARENTAL WORRY Concerned mothers (from left) Connie Shalin of Tyler, Texas, Celeste Siebol, of Renton, Wash., and Connie Johnstone, of McMinnville, Ore., meet outside Morava Academy near Brno, Czech Republic, last November. They defended the facility, run by Teen Help, against allegations of child abuse that were investigated by Czech police. The facility subsequently closed.

Mexico
The first case began on May 10, 1996, at Sunrise Beach, a facility near Cancun, Mexico. After the newspaper Cronica de Cancun reported child abuse allegations at the facility, Mexican authorities staged a surprise raid.

Police said they learned that some teens had been held in punishment rooms for as long as four days at a time. Police ordered Glenda and Steve Roach, a Utah couple running the facility, to report to immigration authorities.

Instead, the Roaches headed to a nearby airport with 41 girls in tow. Mexican police stopped them before they could board a plane to Los Angeles. Authorities arranged for the juveniles to return home and charged the Roaches with immigration violations.

The Roaches spent about two months in jail before posting bail and returning to the United States, Mexican authorities said.

Farnsworth said the Sunrise Beach staff "let some people go and they convinced the police that it was a house of ill repute." He said Mexican police closed the facility based on "trumped up charges."

Facer said the operators of Sunrise Beach "decided to close the faciliites because they felt that the local legal system may not have been above-board and dependable enough to get a fair hearing."

Utah

Celece Dochterman was a defiant teen when her mother sought help in 1995 and again in 1997. According to a lawsuit she and her mother filed in November, Celece already had been seen by psychologists and counselors and spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Nothing seemed to work.

FACILITY CLOSED Teen Help's Morava Academy, near Brno, Czech Republic, was closed after police received allegations that teens were being abused there. The Utah-based organization called the charges "absurd, ridiculous."

Finally, her mother turned to Cross Creek Manor, the girls treatment facility Teen Help founder Robert Lichfield launched in 1990 in La Verkin, Utah. It was less expensive than a psychiatric hospital, and Cross Creek brochures promised "a powerfully impacting intervention that includes a proven behavior modification program."

Celece, however, was not the kind of teen-ager who could adapt to Teen Help's strict behavior control programs, according to the suit, which is pending.

"This case has absolutely no credibility," Teen Help said in a statement. The organization said Celece's mother insisted that her daughter be placed at Cross Creek Manor although the staff believed the girl would be better served somewhere else.

Teen Help has officially denied the allegations in court and has countersued Ceta Dochterman, the mother, charging her with breach of contract.

According to the Dochtermans' lawsuit, Celece was kicked, grabbed and routinely called a "slut" and "family destroyer."

Celece, like other teens there, was assigned a buddy who followed her everywhere, even to the bathroom. This disturbed Celece so much that she refused to eat or drink to try to slow digestion, the suit said.

Once, after she soiled her clothes, a male staff member taped a plastic bag around her waist as a form of diaper. When she refused to shower, she was stripped and placed in a bathtub, the suit said.

Finally, Cross Creek staff members took her to Brightway Adolescent Hospital, Teen Help's intake center, in nearby St. George.

That's where Neal and Sheryl Dorenbosch say they saw marks on her body that disturbed them. The couple were working as minimum-wage staff members at Brightway.

"She (Celece) claimed to have been sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused," Neal Dorenbosch said. "When they brought her in, my wife observed bruises all over her body. And she was begging my wife for some help, to call her parents."

Neal Dorenbosch called the hospital in St. George for advice. He was told that Utah state law requires that suspected abuse be reported immediately to law enforcement authorities.

He said he and his wife brought their concerns to the professional staff at Brightway and were told the matter would be handled "in house."

"At that point, we just waited out the night," Neal said. "That morning when we left the shift, we went home and called the state and called the sheriff. Within two or three hours, we were called to come in and talk with our supervisor. They were threatening to sue us for breach of confidentiality."

The Dorenbosches say Brightway then fired them from their $6-an-hour jobs. Teen Help did not respond to the Dorenbosches' allegations.

 

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