Wilderness Therapy and Teen Program Deaths in California

As a parent of a child with Substance Use Disorder (SUD), you may have felt that a Wilderness Therapy program offered the best chance of recovery.

But these “boot camp” style youth facilities can promise a safe environment, only to fail in properly monitoring your child. A trip to an unsafe rehab camp can even lead to the injury and tragic death of a child.

You may have agreed to turn your child over to camp owners, and you may have signed waivers, but that doesn’t mean you are powerless to seek justice. Families can demand accountability and support from negligent camp owners.

To find out how to take action, call us today or fill out a free case review form.

Are Wilderness Therapy Facilities Licensed in California?

Wilderness Therapy programs usually offer a strict camp experience for minor children coping with SUD. Teens will reside in places like the mountains or desert for weeks or months with little outside contact.

These tough settings are meant to help them change their behaviors and learn self-reliance and teamwork. Counseling and peer support are emphasized. But these businesses wouldn’t usually be licensed by the state through the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS).

The DHCS inspects and awards licenses to facilities that provide detoxification, medical services, professional counseling sessions, and alcohol and drug abuse recovery planning. Wilderness Therapy programs (and many group homes) usually wouldn’t offer medical care or clinical detox therapy to campers. Like Sober Living Homes, they usually wouldn’t need DHCS licensing to operate.

If camps did offer these services, they would violate California’s Health and Safety Codes. A group camp could be shut down and face fines. Their dangerous actions could also serve as evidence of negligence after a tragic death.

See: How California Regulates Drug Rehab Facilities.

When Wilderness Programs Are Liable for Fatal Accidents

Wilderness Therapy programs may also call themselves religious academies, therapeutic retreats, and boot camps. Some group them all under the term “The troubled teen industry.”

It’s a type of business that’s been under scrutiny for abuse and harm to participants across the nation. CBS News reported on victims who describe physical and sexual abuse, and parents who regret turning over control to camp operators.

Facilities can be financially liable for the harm done to their campers. The evidence can come from wounds and mental scars. But the promises that are made to attendees and their parents that are quickly broken can also be strong proof of a therapy program that grew careless.

These are a few of the strongest pieces of evidence families can use to show negligence and liability:

Troubling intake methods, such as abducting some campers at home in their beds, against their will.
Unqualified assessment of potential patients. Failing to identify suicide risk and overdose risk. Perhaps downplaying the patient’s need for a licensed program and medical care.
A staff unqualified to help patients who may be in withdrawal from drugs like benzos, fentanyl, and cocaine.
Lack of security shown when campers are able to obtain drugs and overdose.
Lack of security that allows staffers and other campers to physically and sexually assault victims.
Grueling conditions and activities such as long hikes, unsafe shelter, and exposure to weather for campers who may already be physically weak.
Evidence of civil rights violations.
Unqualified chemical sedation of campers or negligent restraint.
Staff unqualified and ill-equipped to administer immediate care to overdose patients.
Understaffing creating dangerous conditions for teen residents.
Negligent patient discharge for teens who may not be prepared to re-enter normal life safely.

Who Is Liable If My Child Is Killed in a Therapeutic Retreat Setting?

A Wilderness Therapy provider may be telling you that your child was at fault for their own tragic death. But that’s simply not true.

A health care business admitting your vulnerable child and taking your money is responsible for the safety and safe return of your loved one.

When a group home welcomes a camper, the owners accept a legal duty of care for a patient. A business can be held liable for their safety under California’s premises liability laws.

Therapeutic business networks also owe an elevated duty of care when the resident is known to be medically vulnerable. They are liable when they allow a medical condition or a difficult withdrawal to go untreated, endangering a patient. When the owners and operators allow a staff member or another patient to harm someone, the company or corporation will be legally accountable.

The negligent party can end up being a company or corporation funding a string of therapeutic youth camps. It may be a church or non-profit organization that operates the camp.

You may feel you are the only person standing up for your child and insisting your vulnerable child should not be held responsible for a tragic death. We want to stand with you and make sure a therapeutic camp operator faces responsibility.

See: What to Do After a Child Is Hurt at an Adolescent Drug Treatment Center

The Evidence in a Wilderness Therapy Wrongful Death Case

Families can struggle to secure the necessary evidence showing who was really to blame for a child’s death. Corporate lawyers can get involved and block access to documents and counselors. The evidence from an internal investigation of how a child was allowed to die may be locked away in a filing cabinet.

A California Wrongful Death Drug Rehab Facility Lawyer would act quickly to make legal requests to preserve this evidence and then get it turned over.

An experienced lawyer would be seeking this sort of powerful evidence and other proof:

Monitoring logs and bed-check records. When was the last time someone checked on your child’s well-being?
Staffing and hiring records. Were there enough staff members to safely care for the number of residents at the therapy camp?
Medication records. Were important medications administered to the victim?
Surveillance footage. Can the neglect of a camper or even an assault be clearly seen on security cameras?
Security records. How did security personnel protect guests and respond to emergencies?
911 and cellphone records. Was 911 contacted soon enough? Could 911 be contacted in such an unsafe, remote location?
Witness testimony from other campers. Did other campers experience the same risks?
The findings from a coroner or medical examiner after a fatal overdose. How does an official cause of death match up with what a therapy provider is telling you?
Copies of facility policies and contracts with families. What guarantees are made in the company’s policies that weren’t fulfilled?

Can My Family Seek Justice If We Signed a Waiver?

Yes. In many cases. Campers and their parents may be asked to sign consent forms and risk acknowledgement forms. However, these documents usually only protect camp owners when patients are hurt by standard, expected hazards for youth living and working in the outdoors.

Families have every right to file a claim, and have a good chance to hold a facility responsible when injuries or a death involve these factors:

Gross negligence: When operators and staff members show extreme negligence concerning a victim. This might come up if a camp owner fires staff members simply to boost profits. It might apply if a staffer ignored a patient’s injury or overdose and left them in their beds for hours.
Criminal acts: If a resident is sexually or physically harmed on purpose, a waiver form wouldn’t offer protection to owners.
Medical malpractice: If a patient was given the wrong medication or negligent medical care, a consent form would likely not protect the parent company.
Fraud: If an outdoor behavioral health program committed fraud and it threatened a child’s safety, a waiver offers no protection.

You may still have questions about how your child was harmed. A California attorney can help you figure out who you can hold responsible in a free consultation session.

Support for Families After a Wilderness Program Death

A skilled California Wilderness Therapy Wrongful Death Lawyer would also focus on the needs of the family left behind.

Every hardship they faced would be listed in a wrongful death claim. An attorney would demand support for the family’s current needs and for their future protection.

Money to cover funeral expenses
Coverage of the emergency response fees and hospital bills left behind through a survival action
A refund on the camp fee a family paid in hopes a loved one could get better
Replacement of the income the victim can no longer support loved ones with in the years to come
Support for the emotional trauma the family will continue to experience
Loss of companionship and support for parents who lose a precious child at an understaffed adolescent rehab facility

An attorney is often able to earn the family much more in a claim than the family could by handling a lawsuit themselves.

Contact Us if a Teen Therapy Program Caused Your Child Harm.

Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to families who lost a loved one at a Wilderness Therapy camp or group therapy retreat. We are also able to help families hold a facility that’s since been shut down responsible.

There’s no obligation, but if you need our help, your family doesn’t have to worry about finding the money to hire a lawyer.

We are only paid if we win the case for your family. Then our fee comes out of the settlement check that a negligent facility must write for your family.