Eastern Appalachian Teen Challenge EATC WILL MESS YOU UP Troutville Virginia

I am a past student of Eastern Appalachian Teen Challenge and this place is ABSOLUTELY awful. It is not one of the places you want to send your child to when you're looking for help, It will ruin your childs self worth, you'll lose your entire relationship with them and it will make them question their faith.

This place seemed okay before I got there. I was in a TON of legal trouble and sitting in a jail cell waiting on a out of state placement for me to go to. My mom was trying to get me into EATC for months but it is one of those places where you GENUINELY want to go (or atleast thats what I was told) to be accepted into.

Miss Lisa and Mr. Harley even added a 13th bed for me so I could come earlier. Anyways, I came into the house and was greeted by Ms. Chelsea (staff) and some of the sutdents, then my mom went back into the room with Miss Lisa to do my admission. I was already kinda sketched out about this place already. The two students that helped me adjust told me a lot about the program, mostly good things. I think it was because there was a staff right there listening to our conversation.

So when I'm offically admitted, my mom and my sister say their goodbyes and leave. I was then on a 30 day protocol of some sorts. I wasn't allowed to send out / recieve mail (after the 30 days you can get mail from sibblings, parents, and grandparents. NO COUSINS, AUNTS/UNCLES AND NO FRIENDS.), I wasn't allowed to have visits, that type of sorts. We weren't allowed to talk about our "past life" which was our friends, partys, ect.

After me being there a few months it only got worse. They would make us go outside and chop wood, and I'm talking whole trees. While I was there, a girl literally cut off part of her thumb with the wood splitter on accident. They also had this thing called "Walk-a-thon Season", they explained that we go outside and solicite for money. And I was just thinking, my family pays a little bit over $2,000 for me to be there A MONTH.

Why in the world do we need to go door to door and get extra money? (Theres 12 girls at $2,000 a month and thats about $24,000 a month in total, 288,000 a year). So we had this little group at the begining of the season and they said if we made so much money, then we would go out every month and do little outings. I thought that the money we earned would go into our accounts to pay for our outings, but it didn't.

My family sent an extra $50-$100 a month so I could go to Dollar General and to get icecream. THATS RIDICULOUS. We did go to the Amusment park though for a concert, but my family still had to pay fo the ticket. Now, where is that money going? It's going for their personal vacations and things like that.

I remember one time we were in the van and Miss Lisa's kid was talking about how if they made enough money this season she'd get a new iPad. CRAZY. A lot of sketchy stuff went on in that house. They would let their kids come over to the house (isn't that a HIPPA violation?) to do school, and eat our food. Miss Lisa and Mr Harley would also take us to their house to do all of their lawnwork and clean their house.

Anyways, the place was so bad me and a few girls started to plot on how to get kicked out. All of our phone calls and letters were screened and if we said something they didn't like we would be disciplined, so we couldn't tell our parents what was really going on. So eventually, after 4 awful months I got dismissed. When I left they tried to get me to swear that I wouldn't post anything negative about their program on the internet.
If you are planning on sending your child here, please refrain and do a little more research on it. Check the place out and go see it in person.

Check this out:
CRAZY.
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