Were You in Residential Treatment as a Minor? Here Are the Records You’re Entitled To.

Jaycee Seele wanted proof she wasn’t making it all up. She wanted to know exactly how many times the adults at the residential treatment facility, where she lived for several months, had pinned her to the ground, physically restraining her. Once, she was so physically weak after being held down by staff members that she couldn’t stand up and urinated on herself. She had to be hospitalized for her injuries.

But was it actually as bad as she remembered?

In the summer of 2024, Jaycee drove to Foundations for Living, a residential treatment facility in Mansfield, Ohio. She passed through the chain-link fences and spools of barbed wire, walked into the building that had been the site of so much of her trauma, and asserted her legal right to her information. She walked out of the building with a stack of records taller than her infant daughter, showing that she had been restrained by facility staff dozens of times.

“I have nightmares. I just feel like I’m not healing,” Jaycee said. “Talking about it and getting awareness so it doesn’t happen to other kids is healing. I never got that. That’s why I’m trying to do all this.”

“We understand that former patients and their families may have different perspectives about their treatment experiences, and we take concerns raised about patient care seriously,” wrote Foundations for Living CEO Karen Spires in an email to The Marshall Project, noting that privacy laws prevented her from discussing the experiences of individual patients, like Jaycee. “When concerns are identified, they are investigated thoroughly and appropriate action is taken.”

People who attended youth residential treatment programs, or their parents, are entitled to many records from those facilities, thanks to federal HIPAA regulations. If you are underage or in a conservatorship, it may be harder to get your medical records than it would be for your parents or legal guardian.

If law enforcement responded to calls made from a facility during your time there, you may also be able to collect records they made about what happened under your state’s public records laws. Access to law enforcement records varies by location, type of record and whether it’s part of an active investigation. However, people are often able to acquire reports in which they are named, so it’s worth making the request. The worst they can say is “no.”

Obtaining these records can go a long way in validating your experiences of abuse, shedding light on your own medical history, flagging systemic problems for state lawmakers or journalists, and even seeking recourse through the legal system.

This 2024 Senate report about abuse and neglect at youth residential treatment facilities contains information about lawsuits that have been filed against these types of facilities.

Due to laws that determine how long organizations are required to keep records on file, survivors have a limited window of time to get their records before they can be destroyed. Retention laws can require facilities to maintain medical records anywhere from roughly 5 to 10 years. We have not found a single, comprehensive list of these time periods, but you can do an internet search to find the retention law for medical records in your state.

Even within retention windows, youth residential treatment facilities regularly shut down, switch ownership, or change how they store records, all of which can make it harder to track down your files.

If you’re not emotionally ready to read your records, advocates at Unsilenced, a nonprofit that serves victims of child abuse within the “troubled teen industry,” still suggest requesting them before they are potentially destroyed. Some survivors have asked a trusted friend or family member to store their records until they are ready to read them.

The Marshall Project’s coverage of dangerous conditions at residential treatment facilities would not have been possible without survivors tracking down their own records. Some survivors are using their records to spread broader awareness of the “troubled teen industry” and offer practical advice on how other survivors can do the same.

This guide breaks down what records you are legally entitled to and strategies for how to get them.

If you would like to share your story with The Marshall Project, please fill out this form. We cannot investigate every submission; however, in some cases, we may be able to connect you with a journalist in your own community for their consideration. You are welcome to send any related questions to youth-residential@themarshallproject.org.

Records from the facility

Depending on your goals, gathering your medical records from the youth residential treatment center you attended might be your top priority, so we’ll start with how to collect those records and then break down other documents you may want to track down as well.

Here is a records request template with a detailed list of documents the facility may have on file about you, including but not limited to:

• Medical records, including clinical notes, medication charts, psychotherapy notes and many other records. You may also have medical records at a nearby hospital if you were admitted for emergency care.
• Discharge summary
• Seclusion and restraint reports. You can learn more about these practices here.
• Pictures, which may show injuries sustained during your stay
• Various forms of correspondence, including interoffice memos and communications about treatment or hospitalization
• Security footage

You may have to confirm your identity by sharing your driver’s license (or other form of ID card), address, or some sort of certification of identity form.

Remember that there are no concerns about plagiarism when it comes to making records requests, so you’re free to copy and paste the template language or other examples you find.

By law, facilities should give you your records within 30 days. If they don’t, you can file a HIPAA complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights. Here are instructions on how to file the complaint. Keep in mind that records retention laws differ by state, and while facilities may impose fees for sharing medical records, there are limits to what they can charge.

The National Disability Rights Network has legal authority to access records from residential treatment facilities in all 50 states. Within that network, here are the state Protection and Advocacy agencies that may be able to help you secure your records.

Another helpful resource for tracking down facility records may be a youth ombudsperson office, like this office in Ohio or this one in New York. A youth ombudsperson (sometimes referred to as an “ombudsman” or “advocate”) office is an independent organization that investigates complaints, including concerns about children’s services and placements. In some states, like California, there may be one office focused on kids in foster care and another focused on kids in the juvenile justice system, along with county offices, like this one in Los Angeles.

You can learn more about the role of an ombudsperson in this explainer by the National Conference of State Legislatures, which includes a list of offices by state.

We have information below with tips on what to do when a records request is denied.

Records from law enforcement

Did you ever see police officers or sheriff’s deputies in the facility? Did you ever make or hear about 911 calls? Law enforcement can be called to a facility for several reasons, such as a false alarm, a runaway teen, a suicide attempt, an assault, a sexual assault, a riot, an arrest or a hospitalization. In these situations, law enforcement officials likely wrote down a record of what happened that you can obtain.

Law enforcement records are important because they provide external documentation of what’s happening inside of a facility. Some departments have quite detailed documentation, and officers don’t work for the facility, so their records may be more neutral or transparent than facility records.

A close-up of a record in Jaycee’s case file from her time at Foundations for Living. Bethany Mollenkof for The Marshall Project

Incident reports

When someone at a residential facility calls 911, it prompts local law enforcement to document what happened in a police report. These are often called incident reports, but there are other types of police reports you can review here.

You can request any reports associated with your name from the law enforcement agency that responds to the facility, and you can request multiple reports within a single records request. It may be hard to remember what agency responded to your facility, so it’s important to look for the police department or sheriff’s office in the town or county where the facility is located.

It may be helpful to know the year or rough timeframe of the incident. When you request those reports, you can also ask for any attached or supporting documents and investigative notes. The attachments could include things like drone footage, additional body camera footage, and indications about whether any kids or teens were interviewed by law enforcement.

An example of a police report request from Marshall Project reporter Brittany Hailer to the Richland Township Police Department. Email addresses and the physical location address redacted by The Marshall Project.

Body camera footage

If the police responded to a facility while you were there, there may be body camera footage showing what they experienced. Hearing how the police interacted with each other and facility staff members during an incident can be helpful, especially if the officer commented on ongoing poor conditions, which we’ve seen several times in our investigations.

State laws related to accessing body cam footage vary. In Alabama, for instance, body cam footage is not a public record, but people can request body cam footage in which they are visible and potentially view it at the police station. If you are told you can’t access body camera footage in which you would be visible, explain that you are the subject of the record and ask what law prevents you from accessing it.

In other states, like Michigan, subjects of body camera recordings and their parents (if the subject is a minor) can request access to, and even a copy of, the footage. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press offers a guide showing body camera access laws in every state.

Body camera footage turned over to members of the public is often redacted, meaning faces and other identifying details can be blurred. You can find more information on how to handle redactions here.

To learn more about laws in your state related to accessing police records, you can use the Open Government Guide, provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Here are the steps to take:

• First, go to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press’ Open Government Guide.
• Next, click on the state you’re interested in.
• On the left-hand side, scroll down until you see section O, which is called “Police Records.” Then, select the type of police record you’re interested in learning about.
• Finally, click the yellow “compare” button, and it’ll generate a summary of the laws in every state related to accessing that specific record.

Within the Open Government Guide, you can also find details about how long agencies in each state have to respond to records requests by selecting a state and scrolling down on the left-hand side to section IV (under Open Records), part B, which is called “How long to wait.”

The amount of time an agency has to respond and to actually fulfill a request varies from state to state. Ballotpedia has a breakdown of records request response times here.

Please email us at youth-residential@themarshallproject.org if you have already collected some of your records and would like to share what the process was like with us.

Records from child-placing agencies

Foster care agencies, which are typically run by state or county governments, may place children into residential treatment facilities. If you were placed into a facility by a county agency, they should have your case file, which may contain information about transfers, investigations into neglect and abuse, and any other allegations. Since the agency is in charge of keeping kids safe, they can investigate alleged abuse or neglect, so they may also have investigation files and any surveillance footage about your facility.

Jaycee Seele at the public library in Defiance, Ohio, in October 2024. Bethany Mollenkof for The Marshall Project

Additional context to consider

Populations in congregate care, shelter care, and foster care are often overlooked by the public, and they lack meaningful pop culture representation. Many people simply don’t know that youth residential treatment facilities exist or what happens inside them. And yet, the abuse and neglect within them have been widespread for decades, as evidenced by a list of deceased victims of the “troubled teen industry” maintained by Breaking Code Silence, a nonprofit advocacy group that supports survivors.

We’ve heard from survivors that when people leave a residential treatment facility, they may feel a spectrum of emotions. They may be unsure if what they experienced actually qualifies as abuse. They may feel guilt about other residents enduring more suffering than they did. The process of gathering your records can bring up intense feelings, including self-doubt and shame, and reviewing the records can be upsetting, since they may include details of abuse and neglect you don’t remember. There are opportunities for seeking peer support, so you don’t have to go through this alone. There are community groups, youth advocacy organizations and the r/troubledteens subreddit. There are also local support groups for foster care alumni, provided by organizations such as Foster Care Alumni of America.

Throughout this process, you may decide you want to report abuse or neglect related to a facility or an individual provider, such as a doctor, nurse, therapist, social worker or psychologist. If so, here is a list of licensing authorities.

How to navigate denials

Expect resistance and delays while pursuing your records. This is normal. The entire process can take several months, and you will likely have to push back if you receive incomplete records by repeatedly asking for “any and all records” that are associated with you. You may try every option and still be denied certain records. A public records request is a negotiation, and getting a denial doesn’t necessarily mean you did anything wrong. The professional journalists at The Marshall Project are frequently denied records and often push back to assert their First Amendment freedoms.

If someone isn’t responding, email the same person every two to three days for a few weeks. Even if you feel ignored, don’t accuse them of ignoring you, and don’t focus the communication on your feelings. Once a few weeks go by, start copying other people at the agency so they see your correspondence about the request. You can be polite while also being firm about what the law requires.

Here are some obstacles you may encounter when trying to access your records from a private facility:

• Survivors have told us that facilities have insisted they collect their records in person, which can be challenging due to a lack of transportation or childcare, along with the potential for bringing up old trauma. If this happens, you can ask the facility to point to the specific law or policy requiring in-person collection.
• A facility may say they can only fax you the records. You can push back, telling them you don’t own a fax machine and need the records mailed or emailed.
• If you are denied records, ask the facility to point to the state statute, law or policy that explicitly states why they cannot share the records. Denying you your own records can be against the law, so the facility will need to provide specific justification for withholding documents.
• If you continue to be denied, you might consider finding a First Amendment attorney near you (they often work for universities) or consulting this directory of lawyers who want to help survivors of residential treatment programs.
• When an entity misses a response deadline, which is likely, you can email them to document the missed deadline and to request the records again. If they keep missing deadlines, you can file a HIPAA complaint for medical records.
• If your requests aren’t being taken seriously, which is an unfortunate reality for youth who have been labeled and stigmatized as “problematic,” you might consider asking a parent or older person to request your records to see if they have a different outcome.

Here are some obstacles you may encounter when trying to access public records from law enforcement or state or local government:

• There are some exemptions to public records laws, which can vary by state. For instance, law enforcement may exempt body cam footage or other records if they’re part of an active criminal investigation.
• Many kids or teens are sent to a facility in a different state. If you were never a resident of the state where the facility in question is located, or you’ve since moved away, there may be a residency requirement for public records requests made to law enforcement and state and local governments (though your current location should not affect requests for your private facility records). In these six states, you have to be a resident in order to file a request: Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Delaware and Alabama. Finding a proxy, such as a friend, family member, attorney or journalist based in the state where the facility is located, could help in instances when you need a resident of that state to file the request. Keep in mind that due to HIPAA, a journalist cannot retrieve your medical records.
• If you get to view body camera footage from law enforcement, but it’s too heavily redacted to be useful, ask what law allows for so many redactions when you are the subject of the footage. You could also consider asking a lawyer to write a “compel” or “demand” letter to urge the agency to release the unredacted footage to you.
• You can find more strategies for making effective public records requests in this toolkit.

For your correspondence with the facility and other entities that have your records, you should include: what the law requires of the facility or agency, a list of every record you are requesting, the number of days they have to fulfill the request, and a deadline for them to send the records. You could also say something to the effect of “I want every document and material you have on me — even things I haven’t mentioned,” and see what you get back.

And remember, your emails don’t need to include personal details or an explanation of why you want the records. All that matters is that you want them.