BOUNDARIES? ADDITIONAL ABUSES AT CEDAR RIDGE

As children detained at Cedar Ridge (the site of what we’ve been informed is renamed Makana Leadership Academy), we were unable to call our parents, or talk to them without supervision of staff members or “therapists” (some of whom we have learned operated without a license). Frequently, our parents were told that we were manipulative liars. “Why trust a troubled teen? They tend to exaggerate things.” As a result, while living in the residential facility, once called Cedar Ridge, we were surrounded by strangers. These strangers often abused us. 

Given the isolated and insulated nature of this facility, such abuses were common. There was nowhere to run and no one to call for help. We couldn’t share information with each other either, as conversations and relationships with our peers and parents were intensely policed. We wish relationships between students and staff had been subjected to the same level of scrutiny. There were no boundaries at Cedar Ridge. 

According to sources, the owners of Cedar Ridge are still physically adjacent to Makana, despite selling the property to a new company. This is cause for concern. While the program was administered by Wes Neilson and Robert Alexander Neilson, we were watched by adult staff 24/7, until making it to the upper levels when we were allowed to walk from one building to another without asking for permission. Thus, for the majority of time we were incarcerated at Cedar Ridge, we were watched by adults while we were in the bathroom, as we took our 3 minute showers, while we slept, ate, spoke, breathed, and as we endlessly completed menial chores. They were our captors. 

Group therapy, when supervised by Robert Alexander Nielson, was often a time of forced confessions, many of them centering sexual themes, of an inappropriate nature. The Nielsons often spoke about their own marital and sexual relationships. We were forced to admit to things we did not do. We were berated for being who we were (especially the LGBTQ kids). We were unable to develop age-appropriate relationships with one another, due to the ongoing influence of staff.

Over the last week, we have been alerted to multiple counts of unreported child sexual abuse while in-residence at Cedar Ridge Academy, now rebranded as Makana. From unwanted genital touching, the sharing of illicit photos, and outright sexual assault, we have uncovered a serial pattern of the Nielsons failing to report sexual misconduct on their facility. 

It has become clear that staff members routinely had intimate and extremely inappropriate sexual relationships with the children in their care. 

One of our former teachers, the daughter of Rob, Christine Nielson, is now purportedly an author of erotic fiction (most likely self-published?), has had known romantic relationships with former inmates twenty+ years her junior. 

We sincerely wish this was fiction. During her tenure at Cedar Ridge and after, Christine Nielson has a track record of cross the line with involuntarily incarcerated teenagers: the same young men she was paid to teach.

Based on our experiences at Cedar Ridge, we denounce this violence, which is common in residential teen programs. We demand that young people placed in such facilities be granted access to cell phones, pre-programmed to call Child Protective Services, 911, Police, and guardians. They deserve to be able to denounce (rather than merely tolerate) abuse. 

If free and open communication is not maintained with the outside world, your child will worry most about when he or she can return home. She will say WHATEVER IT TAKES--that the program saved her life, that she is fine, etc-- rather than be “dropped” in their levels, and being detained longer for opening her mouth. 

As a parent, putting your child in such a program makes you complicit in their abuse. In truth, if these places are “not abusive” they should allow youth to leave at-will--by providing them with airfare and transport wherever they wish to go. 

#BreakingCodeSilence

#RooseveltUtah

#EndInstitutionalChildAbuse

#EducationisaHumanRight

#YouthRights

#ShameonRobNielson