Documentary Review: The Program Exposees Horrifying Abuse in Teen Treatment Facilities
There’s a moment in the documentary The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping where Director Katherine Kubler cheerfully drinks a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. She savors it and says “..this drink sent me to prison for 15 months.” As crazy as it may seem, she is absolutely serious as getting caught with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade prompted her family to send her to Ivy Ridge Academy in upstate New York.
The Program is a documentary on Netflix that traces the origins of Ivy Ridge Academy which was dubbed a teen residential treatment center. Katharine was sent there and the film documents her return to the abandoned facility and the discovery of records, videos, and letters from teenagers who spent their formative years years. Riddled with abuse, suffocating rules, starvation, solitary confinement, and “teachers” who had no certifications, Ivy Ridge was hell on earth for all the children who were admitted.
This documentary film relies on footage from interviews with survivors and at times the conversations feel so intimate you want to look away. One survivor recounts being groomed and sexually abused by an Ivy Ridge employee. Another survivor recounts being physically assaulted and forced to sit in a room all day with only two pieces of bread to eat and a glass of milk to drink all day. He’s triggered and struggling and almost snaps out of it when the Director gently tells him he has the power to leave the room now. The lasting scars of being sent away are still so raw for so many of these survivors.
One compelling aspect is Katherine’s journey with her father who she struggles to forgive for sending her away. There’s hope in healing as her father admits that he was wrong to send her and that he truly didn’t know how bad Ivy Ridge was. This seems rare however as another survivor admits that even after showing her parents proof of a negative drug test found in the basement of Ivy Ridge they STILL didn’t believe her. After all the years survivors healing journeys are disrupted by non-supportive parents or gaslighting former employees of these places.
The other compelling aspect of this documentary is the interview with Nathan Litchfield, the son of Narvin Litchfield, one of the main persons who benefited from these terrible facilities. Nathan details his own abusive and manipulative relationship with Narvin and speaks about his own time in a similar facility.
Kubler carefully traces how these facilities like Ivy Ridge are set up, mostly through shell LLC’s and they enrich the Litchfields through exorbitant fees paid by the parents of these teens. It’s shocking that these parents willingly send these kids to these facilities, and pay thousands of dollars to have their children abused in all kinds of ways, and yet these facilities still exist to this day. While Kubler doesn’t get Narvin or any other Litchfield other than Nathan on record, they should be on notice- these survivors won’t stop until these types of facilities are shut down.
And the former employees of Ivy Ridge? The documentary shows that most are in denial but three are interviewed briefly and one is staunchly defiant not even acknowledging the trauma put on these kids and when presented it it responds, “…And?” One employee alludes to “the lesbians” but before she can continue the team is asked to leave the diner they are interviewing in because a waitress doesn’t want them discussing Ivy Ridge in the building. After all these years Ivy Ridge is the open secret in that small town that many people wish would continue to be swept under the rug.
The Program is an incredibly strong documentary but I wish a few things were addressed in the film. One, Ivy Ridge was shut down but viewers don’t get an explanation as to why and how the building still stands with hundreds of records in it. We also don’t get an idea of what these abusive former employees are doing now. Are they still working with children? It’s truly horrifying to think about.
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