77. Mountain Homes Youth Ranch
It has been used by Dr. Phil and it is located in Colorado. It does not sound very nice if you are there as a person. It is in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do like ordinary teenagers do.
One mother managed to secure $40,000 from the school for the time her son spent there.
Something was very wrong and that is why the school are listed on the website of HEAL-online, which is a human rights organization in the United States.
It does not sound like a nice place for a teenager.
Sources:
- Staff list (The HEAL-online human rights organization)
- Peninsula attorney faces disbarment for mishandling $157,600, officials say (San Mateo County News)
- Factsheet (Anti-Troubled Teen Industry Activism & Survivor Support)
- My Experience At Mountain Homes Youth Ranch (Survivor testimony)
24 responses to “77. Mountain Homes Youth Ranch”
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1000 places You don't want to be as a teenager 
MHYR is not a good place to be. Parents think it will help their troubled teens but truth is, it does nothing. Parent throw away $50,000 dollars that could have been for college to send their children out in the middle of no where with staff who don’t care about the kids there. A few staff are there because they want to help but some are just there to be controlling and watch your misery and failure. a friend of mine was there and he forgot to put on his hat, he failed his week (which means he had to stay another week) and his parents got to pay another $2000 for that week that was failed. The price is absurd. The equipment and things are so cheap that the kids are given. All of the food (spam, rice, lentils) are walmart brand along with the cheapest brand of shampoo they could give you. No wonder everyone had dandruff. Also if you send someone to this program you better expect your kid to come back overweight. I gained 35 pounds while I was there making me self conscious and miserable. Then when I would get weighed the doctor would set the scale off so I didn’t know my own weight. I have a right to know. God forbid you talk about not liking your weight because you can’t have a negative attitude. If you do, you will have points taken on your point card. They treat everyone like they’re kindergardeners. In life sometimes you will have a negative attitude, being punished for it does nothing but give the kid resentment and hate. Every single person I know who has attended this program has gone back to exactly how they were before with drugs and alcohol unless they were an addict and even then a lot of the people still go back to the same thing. This program is not right and i’m looking into the legal obligations because there is too much going on at that place that can not possibly be legal. It’s a waste of money; don’t send youre kid there. You have no idea what you’re doing to them.
I sent my son there. I agree that it appears now to have been corrupt in ways and the food and supplies were ridiculously inadequate, a real rip off. It was not intended to be a punishment, it was therapeutic to teach them consequences, give them specific therapy (which it did do that) that was drug, respect and consequence based. They did provide that kind of therapy. However, it was a scam in the cost and it is true, MOST of the kids that attended, that I have heard about went right back to their old ways, including my son 😦 He keeps saying it was abusive (5 years later, he is 20 now). I really hope he wasn’t really abused in a bad way, and he means it was just too hard and mean the way the consequences were laid out, (it was very rough) but he won’t be specific. I really want to know more, because he brings it up a lot and they definitely mis led us about the percentage of positive results from the attendees after the program! I also got him a $1500 psych eval that they recommended and that was not very helpful and it really missed the boat on his issues. 😦
I’d say from my experience working there that it wasn’t outright abusive. They certainly had intentions not to be so.
Having said that, they were essentially taking people of the street, giving them a few days to a week of training, and then asking them to do an incredibly difficult and demanding job with far too inadequate time to recharge and process and such. Thus, in reaction staff members could potentially have done things that they otherwise wouldn’t have simply because they were at their own breaking point.
Wilderness therapy is a great idea and I’m sure there are places that are do it well. In my experience at MHYR tho, it was just poorly executed.
Rob I was outright abused. Forced to drink full quarts of ice cold water in the snow and then we were only allowed to urinate at designated times with staff supervision and we had to repeatedly yell our “number” (rather than our name) while pissing into a hole in the ground, and if you didn’t yell it loud or often enough they would watch you go. Although the entire “do one thing wrong and you stay an extra week at great cost to your parents” model wasn’t mentioned in the contract, I had to choose between peeing one of my two pairs of pants in front of everyone while begging to use the latrine and bring told no, or staying in the snow eating rice and lentils costing my mom who spent every penny she had to send me there thousands of dollars. So I peed my pants to not fail my week, and the staff that was too lazy to allow me to urinate told me it must be because my penis is so small and if I had a normal penis I could hold it longer. I’m pretty sure his name was Aaron, this was sometime between 2003 and 2005, and he wore a CTR ring that he ended up giving my non-mormon friend Greer in a gesture that creeped us both out, if anyone has any more information or the full name of that guy.
On top of that, the phone policy of only getting one phone call every two weeks for 15 minutes, monitored, with Jason ending the call if you tried to tell your parents about their abuses or lies, was illegal. Being forced to listen to stories from the book of Mormon and not being allowed to discuss Non-christian religions (I’m a Christian, but I wanted to talk about Eastern religions when I was 14 and I repeatedly asked not to have LDS materials forced on me to no avail), was illegal. I was not given information on which agencies licensed their activities, or a means to contact that agency or file complaints, which federal law requires.
I don’t have anything to bad to say about Will Moffet or CiCi. Everyone else involved deserves loss of licensure and to be bankrupted paying out lawsuits.
Yupp. I was a student there in 2007 and then I moved out to Utah in March 2013 to work as staff. I worked there for only a few months and then they closed. So rest assured that organization is no more which is good because I saw first hand as a student and staff how corrupt that company was. EVERYTHING the students got was so damn cheap for parents to be shelling out $40,000, not even including if the kids failed their week. That whole place was a joke and I’m happy to see it go under!
Wait they closed? Hahah. Austin that’s hilarious, I didn’t even know. This is Rob btw. And yea, as I’m sure you know, I got fired, which I thought was ridiculous. But hey, looks like I was gonna be out of a job anyways.
I’m bummed, I had a great time at MHYR and learned many valuable life lessons. I know many of the teens in MH3 graduated with enduring success in the long run. I noticed towards the end they had began to hire awful staff that did not care about the students *cough* Brady, Chris. I wish they had kept their old values. I was hoping to become a staff in 2013 to steer them back into a constructive environment, looks like I was too late though.
Hi there. I am a parent who sent two daughters on the programme in 2007/8. I have always wanted to add a parent component to the programme. Is it really true they have closed down?
When I was at MHYR I was assaulted by a staff member named john. John was former attendee then became a staffer. john had tattoo of coyote on his leg. if you have info on john please let me know.
I remember john sir and that tattoo. Feel free to message me and I can get you some details.
Sad to hear it closed great program when I was there in 08. I guess these pussy ass liberarls finally got there way and shut it down been sober for 5 years because of the lessons I learned at that place…. You don’t like there ways well you shouldn’t have done drugs and got sent there in the first place. When is a punishment so pose to be enjoyable.
Drug and alcohol addictions are illnesses. Illnesses should be treated, not punished. You don’t punish people for a broken arm or leg despite the cause could have been poor driving skills or just stupidity. So why punish people for addictions?
Ahhh so you’re one of the faggots that kissed ass to staff? Little bitch. I bet you fucking ratted out kids for saying god.
I worked here as a mentor and was treated like crap by land on Isaac etc. But I worked here to help kids not punish them the way u kids were treated wasn’t right I mean heck u were in the middle of nowhere and had to eat crappy food and be treated like crap by some staff. I wasn’t one of them. U guys made my job good I loved working with u guys and always tried to not be a jerk to u guys there was only one kid I didn’t like. Got let go causE of it going into winter not enough students. Kinda glad they closed. Hey Austin u were one of my favorites.
The program shut down because of Isaac Wallace. He single handedly brought the company down because of his ego and the way he treated everyone. Sad because it was a great program that did a lot of good. If it weren’t for him, the program would still be going today.
I was sent to a place called “turning point” in Utah where landon was the head staff. later i was sent to m.h.y.r in 2005. where i graduated without failing a week and made some of the craziest bow drills youve ever seen. My name is Blane, C.C prolly told stories of all the different bow drills i did.
If you think m.h.y.r was bad you shouldve seen turning point in granita park, an indian reservation wasteland where the staff were locals from dueschane utah that got paid minimum wage and beat us on a regular basis. I watched Landon sit back and let all of the abuse happen without lifting a finger. So when my brother went to work at m.h.y.r as a staff, and i heard landon had been hired I was outraged. I cant speak for after that, but before Landon came, m.h.y.r was an amazing treatment tool, 90% of the staff were there to help and loved on me. I have been clean for 10 years and contribute much of my lifes success to what I learned there. granted the food was garbage and i gained a bunch of weight. I still vividly remember my time there, and appreciate the time i spent there as a 17 yr old. anybody have any crazy bow drill stories? I still make bow drill fires when im camping and use alot of knots and traps they taught. One time I made a bow drill with a 10 ft juniper tree and dragged it across the ground with a boulder as my palm stone. lol and many many more crazy ways. the only bow drill i couldnt make work was using my own fingers as the bow. tried for 2 weeks straight. Sad to hear the bad stuff about it, sounds like it changed a lot since i went there. anybody wanna chat hit me up at blanebob@aol.com id love to hear your war stories. P.S when i was there, they let me do bible studies at night in the tent and we could say God or Jesus all we wanted. also on my solo I snuck my way to my buddies solo camp and we had an amazing night under the stars talking about God and life and how many straks we would eat when we got out. glad i didnt get caught lol. mmmm spamghetti, never get that taste out of my memory, ive tried. havent touched spam with a 10 ft pole since.
Blane I remember you! This is Sarah. I believe I started as you left. I remember hearing the bow drill stories hahaha. I agree with your statement however spamghetti is still my jam lol. Glad to hear another member is doing well!
This is sad to hear. I worked for the original founders of the program, back in 1995-1997. This a wonderful program. I worked with 12 different kids, and only two needed extra help, thanks to their parents, but some of these comments just really saddens me. I was 18-19 years old helping 12-17 year old son, so sometimes it goes to show you how bad you really want a different life. Also shows that true hard work pays off, looks like they took this program the wrong way.
is this “wildflower”? I was there from Jan 1996 to May 1996
I was a staff at MHYR/AVW from 2008-2010. My feelings about the program are pretty mixed. I really enjoyed being outdoors and working with the students who really wanted to improve. In the experiences I have had since leaving the program, I have come to see that although some of the concepts could be pretty helpful, the program really lacked a lot of things. Although it did help some people, who have been able to stay clean for years, I would contribute that more to the individual wanting to change than the program. I have a low opinion of the owners, Rob and Marty, and also of Isaac and Landon. I told them the day I quit that I have never had a job that I hated more. Why did I hate it? And if I hated it, why did I stay for almost two years? I hated it because rule-based programs where students are not able to think for themselves and all students are treated the same is just not effective. No upstanding therapist or psychiatrist treats all of their patients in the same manner. The rules were ridiculous and punishments most definitely did not fit the crimes. I stayed because of those students who really tried and wanted to be better. I stayed because we were in some beautiful country. I stayed because it was awesome to be free of phones, computers, technology, the general public, etc. I learned a lot from my time working for the company. I learned important lessons on how to raise my own children and some things that I most definitely do not want to do. I became more disciplined, more humble, more rational. Sorry this was all over the place, but if the rumors are true and this place is closed down, I am happy. Kids deserve better help than this.
Hello! My name is Destiny and I am the writer of the survivor testimony. I never got to finish the blog as I cannot remember my password to it. If you would still like to write on this program, I am more than happy to send you everything that I experienced there.
Really? It doesn’t “sound” like a nice place? Umm it’s to help parents with out of control teenagers. It’s not meant to be “nice.” However it is definitely not abusive or neglectful. And the reason I know that is because I was there as a teenager for 5 months and let me tell you, it prepared me for life and it is a place I will forever hold dear to my heart. You guys are absolutely ridiculous
I worked on the mountain for over 7 years. I went through a program when I was 26 called Anasazi. It changed my life. I went to work for MHYR to give back. I stayed because of the changes I saw take place in the amazing kids that went through the program. A light would come on in their eyes. I was there till the end. I cried when I drove away for the last time. I miss it still. I dream about it all the time. I Miss all of you. It definitely wasn’t a perfect place, but it was a good place. Those that hated it were the ones that refused to grow and progress. The ones who fought the program. I fought the program I went through and even tried to hurt myself. It took me 2 weeks to have a change of heart. I wish everyone could experience that change and wake up to life. I have read allot of hate about MHYR, but I have seen over a thousand students leave happier than they had ever been before. I would encourage everyone to look always for the good in lifes experiences. Our trials are especially when we need to be looking. Those are the times for true growth. He we strive to learn from those times we will become happier and happier. I an sorry to hear about those that resent their time on the mountain. I wish I could have done something more to help you and show true care for you. Every one of you will always be in my heart.
Soaring yellow elk? I remember you. You were one of the good staff there. I still have some things you gave to me