Discovery Ranch for girls DONT CARE ABOUT YOUR GIRLS IT JUST MONEY!! Cedar City Utah

Many educational and therapeutic consultants recommend the wilderness camps from Utah based on the rferral fee they get per each referral, which is quite substantial $10K. The cost per month to have a child in their wilderness camp is about $12k/month, yes, you read it right, $12,000/month.

Children/teenagers are physically abused and kept hostages in spite of parents decision to remove them from the program.

Here is what people that worked at Discovery Ranch had to say:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Discovery-Ranch-Reviews-E993382.htm

Cons

- The turnover rate lies between 47-50% every year.
- Administration don't understand boundaries of their employees. They'll often ask pointed and personal questions which compromises employee privacy.
- Frequent policy changes are made on a whim and not communicated to employees which causes problems for staff and clients alike.
- Clients are often treated poorly. Have observed senior staff yelling at clients, making overt threats, and just general lack of empathy.
- Overall it's a very caustic environment to work in, lots of unprofessional interactions and unnecessary infighting among a staff and clinical team who really need to be on the same page for the safety of the young people it aims to serve

Cons

The administration does not care about the mentors and supervisors. There is a lot of nepotism. The profit driven nature really impacts the treatment the students receive. Raises are given based on how much administration likes you or if you threaten to quit during a time that it would be bad for the administration for you to quit.

Cons

Terrible benefits. Lack of communication and interaction between hourly staff and salaried administration. They take on whatever boys they can to increase profits. Poorly trained staff and very high turnaround. Horrible pay even after years of loyal employment.

Cons

Terrible administration. People love the job for about 6-9 months and then they start seeing the behind the scenes dysfunction.

Training is a joke. Turn over is high. I worked there for over 4 years and there were only 3 residential staff who had been there longer than me. The pay is terrible. The company cares about money and doesn't care about the clients. The program was designed for specific populations and they accept clients who don't match with with program to fill beds.

Pros

There are good kids here.

Cons

People treat them all poorly. Punishment based. Bad management.

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Discovery-Ranch/reviews

It was the worst work experience that I have ever had in my life. Very underpaying job with little benefits. Kids you work for are very unhappy to be there all forced.

Very high stress job that keeps you on your toes. Very meaningful working with the boys and coworkers, but administration quickly ruin it. They are extremely political and if you aren't one of their favorites then they only have negative feedback. Administration is very unethical and never follow through on their word. Lousy benefits. Administration puts staff in a dangerous spot by training them to not follow policies, then won't back staff when situations arise.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/discovery-ranch-mapleton?sort_by=date_desc

this place literally ruined my life. i was emotionally abused by the majority of the staff and they lied to my parents about things i didn't do like threatening my life on them when i was actually doing good. my parents pulled me from the program when i told them what DRG was actually doing to me. i am doing better than 95% of the girls that graduated. all the girls that graduated are now doing drugs and in trouble and i'm on an academic scholarship at a big university and engaged and going to school to be a therapist. do not send your kid here.

Second review for more information on dr: (Read my first review too!)

Glassdoor reviews (previous employees reviews) shows exactly what I explained in my review. glassdoor.com/Reviews/Di… 
One of the employees said they weren't even asked any questions during the interview! 

I also want to mention:
A lot of parents write reviews on this program right after their kid got out or while their child was in the program. Parents DO NOT. And I repeat.. DO NOT!! Know what is going on inside this program. They are lied to and manipulated. As students here, you aren't allowed to defend yourself whatsoever, so we learned to keep our mouth shut, even when we KNEW what was going on was wrong. If we complained in any way, we were shut down and accused of being a liar. I don't mean to de-validate other peoples reviews, but It's important that parents understand that they DO NOT KNOW what is happening and their child seems happy because they HAVE TO! I was like a robot leaving this program; I told everyone I loved it because I was trained to. It took time for me to finally share the pain I (and others) were put through during my stay.
MORE points:
Discovery Ranch pushes their students to branch out quite a lot. In a normal high school or social setting, I would say that it's a great idea to branch out. At Discovery Ranch, I made friends with kids that had severe behavioral issues as well as mental illnesses. Lying, stealing, manipulating, crying about just about anything, screaming, cutting, intentional backstabbing, poor hygiene...These behaviors became normal to me after a year of living with the other students. Being around kids that are like this for such a long period of time made me lose touch with reality. I started to think that everyone was like this. When I left Discovery Ranch, I struggled to make friends and connect with others because I learned to only be friends with mentally ill kids. I lost my ability to connect with the "normal" kids. When I tried to talk to the other peers at my school, I often got anxious because I only knew how to talk about therapeutic things. Everyone was into the new social trends and I was mentally stuck in the year I was sent away. 

Around halfway through my stay, a staff duct taped a student's hands tightly so she couldn't hurt herself while she was in the school house. I found this incredibly inappropriate because it once again was not focusing on why she was cutting herself. Instead, it was forcing her hands to stick together in the same position for several hours so the staff didn't have to watch her.

A student living in my house was put on reds for expressing that she thinks she might be gay. She was taken away and forced to pick up horse manure, weed, clean and do homework and therapy for hours. She was put on "business only", meaning she wasn't allowed to say a word unless it had to do with needing to go to the bathroom or something else that is urgent. I didn't see her for a couple days which was often the case with these protocols. One of the boy's house staff brought a bunch of students to his own house to do his yard work. The program is taking advantage of struggling kids and forcing them to do child labor instead of helping them

The students at DR have no voice. You aren't allowed to bring up going home, ever. If you bring it up during a visit with your parents, you risk losing your level which meant you just prolonged your stay. It felt so unsafe to be with my parents when they visited because I felt like I couldn't communicate with them honestly. I had to pretend to be happy because I there were strict rules against complaining about the program. 

My therapist, BJ Stober, was beyond emotionally abusive to each one of her students. She lied to parents, opened and read the students letters and filtered out which ones she was willing to send. I sent countless letters to my parents explaining what is wrong with the program and I only recently found out they never received any of them.

Staff were the ones who really decided whether or not students were doing "well". (they were so black and white, it was either you are good or bad, and I still struggle to get out of that incredibly negative mindset) Staff were not trained in the subject whatsoever. They were allowed to work there if they graduated high school. This is absolutely appalling. I would not want my child who needs psychological care to be cared for by people that have the same level of credentials as people that work at McDonald's. If a staff wanted to, they could decide not to sign your "level sheet" meaning your stay was prolonged. This happened very often. Staff would come to work pissed off from home life and take it out on the students. They decided treatments for students when they had NO CREDENTIALS. 

If you have any questions, contact me through yelp.

Hello, 

 i am the owner of www.safeteenschools.org we expose child abuse in boarding faciities such as Discovery Ranch. i would love to talk to you about what happened at the facility and possibly get you to share your story anonymously or with your name attached. Please go to my website and email me as soon as possible. Thank you for your time.

Lillian

Safe Teen Schools

It is unfortunate that in the very short time that you gave your employment at DR, you were unable to really comprehend the value based, therapeutic environment in which our girls thrive. My daughter has been there for 10 months and without the structure and discipline coupled with talented treatment team she would not be where she is today. For what it's worth, you are not there to be their friend, to sneak them food or to be manipulated by what the girls want--in many cases that is why they are there in the first place. These girls are all learning to use their voice, take responsibility for their actions and learn that life is not always about getting what you want it us about earning it. 

For you who passed judgement so quickly with barely any service at all on the ranch, did more harm than good for the girls as you showed only that it is easier to quit than to learn how to navigate challenge. They are stronger and more capable based on the rules and parameters in place. As for the staff Rachel and the man you referenced are always accessible to parents as we need them, but quite frankly are there to maintain consistency so that our girls can work on restoring respect and dignity to their own lives. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, are you really even credible after a mere 8 weekS ? Had you stuck it out and learned to "seek to understand" before bashing an institution you know very little about, we would all be better off. 

As as for medical care, DR has an amazing nurse who responds within minutes to every text I have ever sent her.  As my daughter says, those who disrespect the program, don't understand the program.