, a movement that’s working to raise awareness of the problems in the troubled teen industry and call for reform.Jen Robison, the media lead of Breaking Code Silence and another former PCS student, believes the first step to creating change is to shed light on this problem and help survivors feel safe enough to speak out. If even someone with the resources of a Hilton is too traumatized to speak out about their experiences, imagine someone without the same means or platform.
There are plenty of reasons it’s hard to open up after leaving one of these places; many students are in precarious situations where their primary concern is simply staying out of the school. If a student is under the age of 18, according to Robison, they’re often put on what’s called a “home contract” that includes a list of agreed-upon rules, which, if broken, means they’ll end up back in the program. This is what Robison says happened to her.
So many of the thousands of stories shared by those who’ve been through the TTI throughout the country are so horrific that they can seem unbelievable. “To hear one individual story, it sounds like a movie, like this is something that somebody wrote anovel about.
Those who do choose to speak out aren’t alone. There’s a whole network of support available, through Breaking Code Silence and other survivor networks, like. “I want all of the other survivors to know that they're not alone. I think that anyone who does share their truth, they're really going to be blown away by all the love and support they’re going to receive from this community.
Many survivors experience intense psychological trauma, and it can be extremely difficult to ask for help or work through the pain. For some, it’s impossible. “As adults, they do suffer from trauma and so many are not okay. I can't even count how many survivors I know of who have committed suicide or overdosed trying to escape from the pain of the trauma,” says Robison.