And when I tried to tell them once, I got in so much trouble I was scared to say it again. Hilton said that three of her classmates make similar allegations in the upcoming YouTube documentary "This is Paris." Provo Canyon School is far from the only treatment center to face persistent allegations of abuse and mistreatment, said Ronald Davidson, who was the director of the Mental Health Policy Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Department of Psychiatry for 20 years until he retired in 2014. 'As I say in the film, usually I shy away from these types of interviews, but there couldn’t be a film about Paris without the person in the world that knows her best. The school recorded that they had five or six staff members restrain me at once. Hilton said she experienced verbal, emotional and physical abuse during the 11 months she attended Provo Canyon School, a Utah boarding school for … 'By her breaking her own silence, she's giving a stage for all of these people to share their stories of what happened to them. His punishment involved standing up against a wall for hours on end for several weeks. Instead, she was subjected to constant abuse. Charter Behavioral Health Systems filed for bankruptcy in 2000, and several months later sold a dozen properties — including Provo Canyon School — to Universal Health Services. When reached by People for comment on the allegations, the school responded: “Originally opened in 1971, Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. So my parents had no idea what was going on.'. The Pennsylvania-based company netted $11.37 billion in annual revenue in 2019, according to its finance forms. He said he identified a recurring pattern of risk factors in certain facilities run by large for-profit corporations where Illinois had placed hundreds of children in its foster care system: Staffing levels were low, incidents of serious harm and abuse were high, children were often overmedicated and over-restrained, and the corporate owners made a lot of money. There, she says she was the victim of boarding school abuse.. “I don’t know if my nightmares are ever going to go away,” Hilton said in the film, released on YouTube. It focuses on the troubled rehabilitation industry in Utah, where youth residential treatment centers are abundant but lack adequate oversight. In her documentary, Hilton says her parents sent her to Provo Canyon School after growing frustrated with her for sneaking out of their home to go clubbing. Now, one of the only physical reminders he has from that time are some textbooks with his assigned number scribbled on it: #142. “I went willingly,” he recalled. “It’s been healing for me to be able to work with other survivors,” she said, “and hopefully change this for the next generations.”, Correction: Sept. 20, 2020: The Utah Office of Licensing estimated it would cost $2,000 for a staffer to redact 341 investigative reports and inspection reports. A previous version of this story misstated that the cost estimate was for the 27 investigations where violations were "substantiated. I'm all of 100 pounds.'. Cruel: Paris said she was subsequently placed in solitary confinement as punishment, and 'they would use that as punishment, sometimes 20 hours a day', Hidden: Paris only just broke her silence about her abuse to her own parents while she was making the documentary, having kept it a secret for years (pictured in February 2020). “There’s no getting out of there. 'We all had to go and watch staff pin this kid down, drag him to isolation. Now six other former students — and a former staff member who was so uncomfortable with the school's methods that he quit — have shared their own experiences, detailing how multiple staff members would 'tackle' disobedient students, bully them, and physically abuse them in numerous ways. A bully picking on a defenseless little kid. What is public is that regulators have noted serious violations, and Provo Canyon School has nearly lost its license several times. 'They would grab the phone or rip up letters I wrote telling me, "No one is going to believe you." Provo Canyon School released … It was around this same time that Provo Canyon School’s parent company was under intense scrutiny, facing allegations of Medicaid fraud and media reports of inappropriate treatment and inadequate care at Charter-owned facilities across the country.