Last month Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres, forwarded me a link from ProPublica with a headline that made of us both infuriated. There Were Warning Signs Of Sexual Abuse At a Youth Center. Indiana Kept Sending Boys and Money Anyway. No one wants teenagers to be abused, especially at state-funded Christian facilities, but it was beyond maddening…
New Horizons Youth Ministries
A User’s Guide to Unreformed/ Moving to Substack
Thank you to everyone who read my Unreformed blog. I’m starting a substack which will occasionally focus on the troubled teen industry but also will include outtakes from my interviews (the next three are Darrin Bell, Emi Nietfield, and Myriam Gurba), what I’m reading, and what I’m researching— I’m currently working on a project exploring…
Conversion Therapy Is Abuse- Dame Magazine
Last month I published this essay over at Dame Magazine about undergoing conversion therapy as a teen at Escuela Caribe/ New Horizons Youth Ministries. Recently the 11th Circuit Court effectively legalized conversion therapy. It was important for me to illuminate what conversion therapy actually entails. It’s a term which sounds clinical but is in reality…
All about Escuela Caribe
List of previously published posts that are relevant to my experience with Escuela Caribe. Enjoy!
To Hell and Back: the Rise and Fall of New Horizons Youth Ministries
Last week NUVO, Indianapolis’ alternative weekly, published the first in a series of articles exposing the rise and fall of the fundamentalist boot camp I attended, New Horizons Youth Ministries. Alumni Theresa Rosado writes that NHYM had its license revoked in 2009 for failing to comply with state policies. They did not provide background checks for sex offenders. They…
Won’t Get Fooled Again # Crosswinds
I began this blog in 2008 because I wanted people to understand that teens sent to treatment facilities are often traumatized in the name of therapy. I know, because I was traumatized. It took me 10 years before I could discuss the abuse. I began this blog after I traveled to my teen treatment facility, Escuela Caribe. I traveled…
The Truth about New Horizons Youth Ministries
All I wanted was to go to boarding school and play guitar in a rock band, but instead my parents sent me to a Christian reform school in the D.R. So part of my life has been dictated by forces outside of my control- because I went to Escuela Caribe, I have to write about…