851. Desert Hills

Desert Hills located in Albuquerque, New Mexico closed in 2019. Various lawsuits mention Acadia Healthcare as owner. Drugs were used on the children and not to heal them but to control their temper.

Lawsuits also mention various forms of abuse including sexual abuse.

It could not have been fun to be there as a child.

Reviews left on Rehab.com mention:

i was a patient in 2014 for 4 months. i was sent there because i had just been removed from a home where i was abused for 4 years. i was starved, brainwashed, emotionally abused, & upon many other things. i don’t remember alot after what happened because i blocked it out, but i have vivid memories of my treatment here. i remember almost all the ppl i was grouped w & the staff. i was in the aspen branch i believe in the girls unit. i don’t remember being treated poorly, except for the other patients who would physically harm me, but their behavior was punished so i didnt mind. this place holds so many memories for me & this is the only i really felt like i could reach out, because they apparently closed april 1st.

and

A few years ago i was a patient in this facility. I am 15 years old now and was 12 when I left. I hated the place. Some of the staff were helpful but most (like 95 percent of the staff) didn’t take their job seriously and would literally look at their phones most of the time. Even though a lot of new and great staff came in every day, the kids would pick and choose the staff by making them quit by either physical or emotional means. This made it so the whole facility was under staffed and in utter chaos. I stayed here for a long time because it was so stressful my priority was staying safe and not getting out by behaving. If you tried to behave the kids that were the worst would be happy to push you past your breaking point and then do whatever you could to get out of the unit. Also, the “ring-leaders” of the unit would scare the staff so much that the staff would give them good marks on their check board saying that “they did great today” even if they didn’t.

It could not have been fun to be there as a child.

Sources:

• Lawsuit: Desert Hills staff used ‘booty juice’ to control children (KOB 4 news)
• Multiple lawsuits claim physical and sexual abuse at Desert Hills, Acadia Healthcare (KOB 4 news)
• Agency moves to shut down ‘archaic’ facility, attitudes (Santa Fe – New Mexican)
• Problems with child welfare services persist after closure of troubled facility (Santa Fe – New Mexican)