SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP/KY3) – A residential treatment center in Missouri advertises to adoptive parents that it can help heal struggling children. Calo Programs is part of the so-called troubled teen industry that has been quietly institutionalizing adopted children at extraordinarily high rates.
Some youth treatment centers depend on government funding despite limited oversight. Calo is facing more than a dozen lawsuits, and parents describe a chaotic environment that left their children more traumatized than before. Calo denies wrongdoing and says its treatment has helped many children.
How Calo makes money and what happens to kids there offers a window into a larger phenomenon. KY3’s Steve Grant and St. Louis NPR reporter Luck Nozicka discuss recent claims of abuse at the treatment center. Read more of his reporting on the issue by clicking here…