The death of 17-year-old Taylor Goodridge is the latest test for Utah’s will to regulate the “troubled teen industry”

In September 2021, four months after Utah enacted a new law aimed at tightening restrictions on the state’s residential treatment centers that house hundreds of children who parents and state agencies say they can’t handle at home, then 16-year-old Taylor Goodridge was sent from her home in Washington state to the desert of southern Utah for what her family thought would be a yearlong stay at Diamond Ranch Academy. 

Located about 30 miles west of Zion National Park, Diamond Ranch Academy has a skate park, basketball court and football field and describes itself as “America’s leading therapeutic boarding school and clinical residential program, providing a first-class, structured, and supportive environment for teenagers struggling with emotional, social, educational, or behavioral issues.”

A member of the Stillaguamish tribe, Taylor was having emotional difficulties at home and went to her tribe for counseling, said Alan Mortensen, the Goodridges’ attorney. 

“Taylor thought it would be a good idea to get into a good boarding school to work on some of these issues. Diamond Ranch Academy holds itself out as an outfit that works for Native American tribes,” he said. “On the internet, it looks like a great place.”

Less than a year-and-a-half later, on Dec. 20, 2022, Taylor collapsed on campus and was later declared dead. 

According to a lawsuit filed by Taylor’s father, Dean Goodridge, Taylor was in “very good health” when she arrived at Diamond Ranch Academy, but started having severe stomach aches in December 2022. The lawsuit claims that in the weeks leading up to Taylor’s death, she had a distended belly and high fever and, at one point, collapsed into her vomit. Staff at the facility ignored her repeated cries for help, telling her that she was faking it and needed to “suck it up,” the lawsuit claims.

While an official cause of death has not yet been determined, Taylor’s family said in the lawsuit that they believe she died of sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s response to an infection damages its own tissues. 

Two days after Taylor’s death, the state of Utah placed Diamond Ranch Academy on a conditional license, which bars the school from accepting additional children and subjects it to increased monitoring, pending the results of an investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services. On March 17, 2023, a new conditional license was issued for the school, removing the ban on accepting new clients. An attorney for Diamond Ranch Academy, or DRA, said in an email that many allegations in the lawsuit were false, but federal privacy laws prevented the school from responding in detail.

“I think the majority of kids in these programs shouldn’t be in programs. If you’ve got kids with serious mental health issues that are difficult and challenging, there is certainly a role for some facilities. But I think the role of a community, the role of a family, the role of churches cannot be understated, and I think we can do better.”
— Utah State Sen. Mike McKell

The reaction to Taylor’s death is the latest test of Utah’s efforts to more closely regulate what reform advocates call the “troubled teen industry” and marks a potential turning point in national efforts to increase regulation of facilities like Diamond Ranch Academy.

In the past 16 years, a series of Government Accountability Office reports have detailed instances of abuse and neglect in residential treatment centers nationally. State investigations have found similar instances of facility staff keeping children isolated for weeks at a time, inflicting pain in order to achieve compliance, and injecting children with antihistamines and sedatives when they misbehaved. Diamond Ranch Academy has been the target of at least four lawsuits over the past 11 years that claim students were harmed at the school.

While some states, including Utah, have moved to tighten industry regulations, comprehensive federal legislation has stalled. 

And so, because more kids are sent to Utah for treatment than to any other state, cases like Taylor’s have become a litmus test of whether state-level oversight is effective enough to keep kids safe. 

The growth of an industry 

Residential treatment centers like Diamond Ranch Academy are part of an industry that brings in an estimated $50 billion dollars each year, with approximately $23 billion of that funded by public programs, according to estimates from Caroline Cole, an activist who is pushing for industry reform. Those numbers are based on federal census data on the facilities and an average cost of $508 per day per student, which was calculated from the states’ Medicaid rate sheets. The rest comes from private-pay clients — parents who, in some cases, spend upwards of $10,000 per month on programs that can last up to a year or more. 

The youth who are sent to these facilities — about 120,000 to 200,000 nationally — are typically between 12-17 years old, and their struggles range from drug misuse, eating disorders and self-harm to depression, defiance and mental illness. Some of them are sent by their parents, who are often referred by school counselors, psychiatrists and educational consultants. Others are sent by state child welfare agencies or the juvenile justice system. 

In some cases, they’re transported to treatment centers from other states.

These programs don’t have a common name or methodology. They’re known as “residential treatment centers,” “boot camps,” “behavioral modification schools,” “wilderness therapy,” “secured group homes,” and “conversion therapy,” They’re often owned by private healthcare companies, families or churches, and they tend to thrive in states with limited regulation.

Utah’s prominent role in the industry is due, in part, to the work of an undergrad at Utah’s Brigham Young University, Larry Dean Olsen, who led fellow students on wilderness survival trips. 

Other programs grew nationally during the ’90s, as juvenile courts began to sentence teens to military-style boot camps as an alternative to incarceration. Savvy — and sometimes deceptive — marketing efforts targeted desperate parents of means at a time when children’s mental health services were significantly lacking.

In recent years, expanded access to public coverage for behavioral health services attracted private equity investment, and large corporations like Acadia Health Services, Deveraux Advanced Behavioral Health, Universal Health Services, and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare, began buying up existing facilities, according to a report from the National Disability Rights Network. 

“We focused on public pay because we figured kids are always going to have issues and they’re always going to get in trouble, and again, the government has to figure out a way to take care of them,” Sequel Co-Founder Jay Ripley said in 2015. In Taylor’s case, the Stillaguamish tribe paid for her stay at Diamond Ranch Academy, Mortensen said.

Prior attempts at reform

While a 2018 federal law focused on child welfare reform — the Family First Prevention Services Act — has tightened regulations on facilities that receive federal dollars, no federal laws govern the many private, for-profit facilities that opt to forego any federal funding. 

“Previous attempts to regulate this industry haven’t worked because it is very difficult to find a federal hook to ask for federal legislation,” said Caroline Cole, the industry reform advocate. “For Medicaid dollars, the feds can require things and states may just say that they would rather forgo that funding than comply.”

Democratic lawmakers introduced federal legislation every year for more than a decade, but it died in committee each time, leaving regulation largely to the states. 

In recent years, a handful of states have passed laws to strengthen protections for young people in these programs, often with the support of the industry, said Megan Stokes, executive director of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP).

The industry group helped develop new regulations in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Utah, she said.

In Utah, a new law that took effect in March 2021 marked the state’s first attempt in 15 years to bring more regulation to the industry. The law and subsequent legislation largely ban chemical sedation and mechanical restraints unless authorized by the Utah Office of Licensing, increase inspection requirements, and require programs to report any use of physical restraints and seclusion to the state. The bill also added additional funding for Office of Licensing staff to oversee the new requirements.

Championed by activists like Cole and celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, who testified before the Utah Legislature that she experienced abuse while attending Provo Canyon School as a teenager, the bill was seen by advocates as a promising first step towards eventual nationwide reform.

The industry group supported that law and follow-up legislation, Stokes said, including an increase in the number of unannounced inspections.  

“This makes it a lot harder for the bad apples to fly under the radar,” she said.

Over the last three years, Utah state investigators have sanctioned at least nine facilities for offenses including locking children out of their residence as a punishment for making repetitive noises; using physical force that led to the fracture of a student’s elbow; and a failure to perform background checks on all staff. Those facilities’ licenses were all placed on conditional status for three to four months, which prohibited them from accepting new students during that time. With the exception of Diamond Ranch, whose license is still conditional, they have all since been placed back in good standing and resumed normal operations.

Over the last three years, the state has not closed any facilities, but State Sen. Mike McKell, who authored Utah’s recent reform legislation, is confident that that will change through the rulemaking process.

“The idea is we’ll create a tier of violations with financial penalties as well as revocation. And certain violations or if they meet that criteria, they’re just going to result in an automatic revocation,” he said.

At Diamond Ranch Academy alone, the police were called 38 times between January 2022 and February 2023, according to police records obtained by Youth Today under state open records laws. About a third of the calls were for altercations between students, which centers are required to report under the new regulations. The others were for investigations of what police records describe as alleged rapes, assaults and injuries including an adult who was issued a citation for assault against a juvenile who sustained minor injuries, a student who was transported to the hospital for treatment of injuries sustained after falling more than 20 feet due to what police records describe as a suspected suicide attempt, and three boys who police deemed missing after running away from campus. None of those incidents resulted in state sanctions.

In response to questions from Youth Today, Diamond Ranch Academy attorney Bill Frazier said in an email that the school is subject to frequent inspections without notice and is accredited by the Joint Commission, even though accreditation is not required by the state. “DRA is committed to providing a safe place for students,” he said.

An earlier test

Nearly a year after the Utah law was enacted, and 11 months before Taylor’s death, it was put to the test when a girl died and then another fell ill but was denied medical care at another residential facility, Maple Lake Academy, which “provides the answers and long-term results to adolescents, ages 12-17, struggling with the effects of autism spectrum disorder, social communication disorder, and verbal/nonverbal learning disorders,” according to its website. 

“This makes it a lot harder for the bad apples to fly under the radar.”
— Megan Stokes, National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, on increased regulation

In its first serious test, the state failed, said Sen. McKell, the law’s author.

Initially, Utah’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) moved to revoke Maple Lake Academy’s license. 

The school appealed the decision, and a hearing was set, but instead of arguing to an administrative law judge that Maple Lake Academy should be shut down, the DHHS Office of Licensing instead put the facility on a corrective action plan in place and allowed it to stay open. The department denied a public records request for correspondence related to Maple Lake. 

In an email to Youth Today, Director of Licensing Simon Bolivar said, “The facility license was never revoked. We issued an ‘Intent to Revoke,’ which is part of our regular process.” Bolivar did not respond to a request for clarification on what that process entails. 

“To date, I’ve not heard a legitimate justification from Maple Lake as to why they should be allowed to continue to treat children. I don’t think they should,” said Sen. McKell.

Officials at Maple Lake Academy did not respond to multiple requests for comment; in response to allegations of previous medical neglect Maple Lake Academy told the Salt Lake Tribune “It is the nature of the work we do that not every client will leave happy.”

Lawsuits describe injury and sexual assault

Diamond Ranch Academy, where Taylor fell sick, is on a conditional license while the state investigates. Conditions include submitting weekly reports of the number of clients who were taken off-site for medical care, compliance with bi-weekly onsite monitoring, communication with the Office of Licensing for any policy changes, and weekly updates of employee rosters to ensure compliance with background check and training requirements.

Over the past 11 years, Diamond Ranch Academy, which is owned by Utah residents Rob and Sherri Dias, has been sued at least five times by the families of former students and a former employee.

In one lawsuit, the parents of a boy who hung himself in his bathroom at the facility said that their son was discovered by staff but left to hang for an additional two minutes while they finished a prospective parent tour. In its defense filings, Diamond Ranch Academy denied any wrongdoing and that the delay in removing the child ”made no medical difference.” The suit was settled for $750,000. 

A 2017 suit alleged that a male therapist covered his office windows with butcher paper in order to sexually abuse a 16-year-old girl. Diamond Ranch Academy and the therapist both disputed the allegations, and the therapist countersued the girl and her family for defamation (they denied wrongdoing as well). Both suits were dismissed following an out-of-court agreement.

A third asserts that Diamond Ranch Academy staff members restrained a girl twice in one day, leaving her with partial facial paralysis. In one of the incidents, four adult staff members held her on the ground for 15 minutes, applying pressure between her jaw and neck because she was making what incident reports called “inappropriate comments,” according to school records. In court records, Diamond Ranch Academy denied wrongdoing.

In interviews with Youth Today, 23 former Diamond Ranch Academy students told Youth Today that painful restraints were often used as punishment, strip searches occurred regularly, and self-harm resulted in seclusion for students.

In an email to Youth Today, Frazier, the Diamond Ranch Academy attorney, said the school denies “any form of solitary confinement.” 

“Students have access to staff, counselors, and their parents or guardians,” he wrote. “Policies regarding restraints of students engaged in harmful behaviors toward themselves or others have evolved at the state level over the years, but DRA’s policies have never condoned using a ‘restraint as a punishment.’” 

But Cayla, whose parents paid for her to go to Diamond Ranch Academy in 2016, said that when students tried to hurt themselves, Diamond Ranch Academy staff would isolate students, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. Youth Today is identifying Cayla by her first name only because of the stigma associated with being sent to a residential treatment center.

“You’d pull weeds or organize rocks, and when that was over with then you’d repeatedly walk or exercise. You can’t speak to anyone, you had to go to a room and just do homework and sit in silence. That was their response to kids who were self-harming,” she said.

According to Tianamarie Govan, a former Diamond Ranch Academy employee who supervised Taylor and other girls during night shifts from July-October 2022, Diamond Ranch Academy managers told staff not to provide medical assistance to sick students.

Govan, who performed night watch for Taylor’s dorm, recalled times when Taylor would throw up, complain of severe back and stomach pain, and run a high fever, but said that management refused to provide a thermometer so Govan could take Taylor’s temperature.

‘We can do better’

The owners of Diamond Ranch Academy didn’t respond to requests for comment, but Frazier, an attorney representing the school, addressed questions from Youth Today in an email.

Frazier said the school has a medical department and a policy to provide medical assessment to students. “DRA has been, and remains, committed to cooperating fully and transparently with state licensing and other applicable regulatory authorities,” he wrote.  

The Goodridge family wants Diamond Ranch shut down, said Mortensen, their attorney.

Given the current limits of the law, though, shutting the school down may prove to be difficult.

In the wake of the death at Maple Lake Academy, Bolivar said in a statement that the Office of Licensing’s goal is to work with providers to protect the health and safety of vulnerable populations. That work, he said, includes helping centers improve and come into compliance.

For industry critics like McKell, helping centers improve is just the first step toward overhauling what he says is a $500 million industry for the state.

“It’s a big industry in the state of Utah. It’s a vibrant business model. But my default is how do we protect the kids first and foremost. And if that means there’s not as much revenue, there’s not as many facilities, I’m totally comfortable with that,” McKell said.

“I think the majority of kids in these programs shouldn’t be in programs. If you’ve got kids with serious mental health issues that are difficult and challenging, there is certainly a role for some facilities. But I think the role of a community, the role of a family, the role of churches cannot be understated, and I think we can do better.”

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Ellen Ranta Olson is a Utah-based journalist.