Sexual Abuse

We have written before about the 2024 Senate Finance Committee’s damning report, titled  Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers Are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities (the Report), exposing widespread abuse and neglect in youth residential treatment facilities (RTFs) across the United States, including here in Massachusetts. RTFs are supposed to offer safety and stability for children and young adults struggling with mental health, behavioral, or substance use challenges. Instead, as both federal investigators and survivors have revealed, too many of these institutions have become environments of abuse, neglect, and trauma. Read more about the Report on our blog.

In a follow-up letter, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee wrote: “Unfortunately, Warehouses of Neglect, reveals a different story about the lives of many children in RTFs and their experiences, due to the predatory practices of these RTF operators. The investigation found that children suffer routine harms inside RTFs, including sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and inadequate provision of behavioral health treatment. This risk of harm to children in RTFs is endemic to the operating model; to maximize per diem margins, RTF providers offer minimal therapeutic treatment in deficient physical settings with lean staff composed of individuals with inadequate educational background and training.” He goes on to say that the Report highlights “numerous instances of abysmal quality of care being provided to youth in congregate care settings by for-profit and nonprofit providers” and “routine harm to vulnerable children in taxpayer-backed facilities, and operators who optimize revenues and evade oversight.” 

Following on from our previous Spotlight on Arbour Hospital, Westwood Lodge, and Southcoast Behavioral Health Center, this post focuses on three additional Massachusetts facilities where serious allegations of abuse and institutional failure have come to light: Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, Pembroke Hospital, and Walden Behavioral Care.

Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health – Rutland, Massachusetts

Devereux is one of the nation’s largest behavioral healthcare providers, devoted to offering “safe, compassionate, and supportive” treatment for children and adults with emotional, behavioral, and developmental challenges. The organization’s Massachusetts residential programs serve children with autism spectrum disorders and girls aged 12-21 who have co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders. Its website paints an image of warmth, predictability, and empathy, promising “absolute commitment to the safety” of those in its care and programs, “so safe and effective that employees would entrust their own family members” to its care.

The reality reported by survivors and investigators tells a far darker story. Devereux was specifically named in the 2024 Senate Finance Committee report for systemic abuse within its youth programs. Over the past several years, numerous lawsuits and media investigations have exposed horrifying allegations of sexual abuse, assault, and neglect spanning decades. Children placed at Devereux facilities were allegedly raped or assaulted by staff and fellow residents, while management ignored or even punished those who tried to report it.

Despite Devereux’s claims of “robust hiring and supervision standards,” survivors describe a pattern of underqualified staff, insufficient oversight, and a culture of silence. In one recent case, a jury awarded a survivor $60 million after finding Devereux liable for severe sexual abuse. Such verdicts highlight what many former residents and their families have long alleged: that the organization’s promises of “empathy” and “healing” too often mask institutional negligence and abuse.

Pembroke Hospital – Pembroke, Massachusetts

Pembroke Hospital, a 120-bed psychiatric facility on the South Shore, is owned by Arbour Health Systems, a subsidiary of Universal Health Services (UHS), one of the largest for-profit behavioral health companies in the country. UHS’s corporate mission centers on “providing compassionate, ethical care” and treating every patient “with dignity and respect.” Pembroke’s website echoes this, portraying its adolescent unit as a “safe, nurturing, and therapeutic environment” for teens ages 13–18.

In practice, Pembroke Hospital has been repeatedly cited by state and federal regulators for failing to meet basic standards of patient safety. Massachusetts inspectors have documented numerous violations, including inadequate staffing, poor supervision, and failure to protect vulnerable patients from harm. In one tragic case, a patient died under the hospital’s care.

The facility’s marketing language, about “healing” and “nurturing environments,” stands in stark contrast to years of inspection reports describing unsafe conditions, untrained staff, and systemic lapses in oversight. Advocates argue that Pembroke’s problems stem from the same root cause identified in the Senate report: a profit-driven operating model that prioritizes occupancy and revenue over patient safety and staff competency.

Walden Behavioral Care / Monte Nido Walden – Dedham, Massachusetts

Walden Behavioral Care and its affiliated program, Monte Nido Walden, operate residential treatment centers focused on eating disorders and adolescent mental health. Their marketing materials describe a “welcoming, home-like environment” designed to “inspire healing,” where children receive “round-the-clock care from compassionate professionals.” They emphasize continuous nursing support, “ethical care,” and a mission to “change lives, one person at a time.”

However, recent scrutiny has raised serious questions about whether these facilities live up to their stated ideals. Former patients and families have alleged neglect, unsafe supervision, and poor treatment practices at certain Walden programs, echoing the same systemic issues identified at other institutions. Critics say that chronic understaffing and inadequate training have left adolescents vulnerable to harm in environments that are supposed to protect them.

A Pattern of Betrayed Trust

What makes these cases particularly concerning is the population these programs serve: young people already struggling with eating disorders, trauma, and psychiatric instability. Families entrust these facilities with their children’s safety and recovery, often during moments of profound crisis. The common thread across Devereux, Pembroke, Walden, and others is the profound disconnect between marketing promises and lived experiences. 

These facilities position themselves as sanctuaries of healing and places where vulnerable children can rebuild their lives. Yet behind those carefully crafted messages, survivors describe environments rife with neglect, secrecy, and abuse.

The Senate Finance Committee’s 2024 report makes one thing clear: these failures are not isolated. They are the result of systemic problems in how many large, profit-driven behavioral health providers operate, regulate themselves, and respond to abuse.

Contact an Experienced Sexual Abuse Attorney 

If you or someone you love experienced sexual abuse in a Massachusetts residential treatment facility, you are not alone. Survivors are stepping forward, and accountability is within reach. At Shepard O’Donnell, we represent survivors of sexual abuse in residential treatment facilities throughout Massachusetts, using a supportive, trauma-informed approach. Our attorneys are dedicated to helping victims seek justice and hold institutions accountable for the harm they caused. These conversations can be difficult, but when you’re ready, our compassionate and empathetic attorneys are ready to listen to your story.

FAQ

Do I have to file a police report before speaking to a lawyer?
No. You can seek legal advice at any time. Your attorney can help decide how and when to notify law enforcement.

Do I have to go public to file a claim?
No. Courts often allow pseudonyms (like “Jane Doe”) in sexual-abuse cases.

What if the abuse happened years ago?
You can still report it and may have civil options under Massachusetts law. Timelines for lawsuits are often decades long for childhood abuse.

Can I sue both the facility and an individual doctor?
Yes, if both contributed to the harm. Separate claims can be filed within one lawsuit.

Do I have to testify?
Not usually. Most cases settle privately; if testimony is required, we prepare you thoroughly and provide emotional support.

What if I’m not sure if I have a case?
Start with a free, confidential consultation. Together, we can determine how to move forward.

Sources:

• https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rtf_report_warehouses_of_neglect.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com 
• https://www.dlc-ma.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DISABILITY-LAW-CENTER-INVESTIGATION-REPORT-Patient-Deaths-at-Arbour-Health-Systems-final.pdf 
• https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/senate-investigation-slams-residential-treatment-centers-for-children-as-warehouses-of-neglect/250056 
• https://www.patriotledger.com/story/news/politics/state/2016/01/12/state-report-criticizes-pembroke-hospital/31998880007/

Key Takeaways:

• Youth residential treatment facilities (RTFs) market themselves with caring and compassionate language that hides widespread abuse
• Some of the worst offenders in Massachusetts include Southcoast Behavioral Health Center, Arbour Hospital, and Westwood Lodge
• Patients enter with the hope of getting treatment and healing
• The marketing language used by these facilities often masks a darker reality
• Sex abuse at several MA RTFs has been well documented
• Survivors of sex abuse at RTFs continue to come forward to seek justice

We have written before about the 2024 Senate Finance Committee’s scathing report revealing widespread abuse and neglect at many youth residential treatment facilities (RTFs) across the country, including Massachusetts. RTFs are meant to help children and adolescents struggling with behavioral, mental health, or substance use issues, but as the report indicates, they often become places of further trauma. 

The investigation revealed alarming patterns: children being subjected to abuse, including sex abuse, by staff or peers; excessive restraint and seclusion, and unsafe or unsanitary living conditions. The report found that these issues are rooted in an operating model that incentivizes revenue over care, leading facilities to hire underqualified or insufficient staff. This creates a dangerous environment where abuse flourishes. And despite repeated complaints, RTFs often dismiss victims’ reports or hide behind privacy laws to avoid accountability. 

If you experienced sex abuse at an RTF, you are not alone. As a law firm helping victims of sexual abuse in youth facilities in Massachusetts, we are seeing an increasing number of survivors of sexual abuse in residential treatment facilities come forward to share their stories and demand justice. In this blog, we focus on three Massachusetts residential treatment facilities that are facing legal claims for sex abuse that occurred on-site for decades.

Southcoast Behavioral Health Center, Dartmouth, Massachusetts

Southcoast Behavioral Health is a 190-bed RTF in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, that claims to provide structured inpatient psychiatric care for children and adolescents ages 5–17 who are experiencing severe mental health symptoms or crises. Stays at Southcoast typically last seven to 14 days, during which patients receive 24/7 monitoring and care from a multidisciplinary team that includes psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, and therapists. Southcoast Behavioral Health markets itself on its website as a “premier” psychiatric hospital offering “superior care” for children and adolescents in crisis. It purports to be a safe, supportive environment where young people can “stabilize and get on a path to a productive, bright future.” The website is filled with positive messages, including “age-appropriate care,” “individualized treatment,” “compassionate professionals,” and “healing environments.” Families desperate for help are told their children will receive evidence-based therapy and personalized attention from a “caring team.”

The contrast between these polished marketing materials and the allegations of abuse at Southcoast Behavioral Health is striking.  The reality described by survivors, families, and investigators tells a dark story of abuse at this facility. Staff shortages and inadequate training, among other things, have left vulnerable youth in unsafe situations, often retraumatized by the people who promised to protect them. For too many children, “treatment” at Southcoast has meant enduring pain under the guise of care.

Arbour Hospital, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Arbour Hospital’s Adolescent Inpatient Program provides intensive, short-term psychiatric care for teens in crisis who may be experiencing suicidal thoughts, psychosis, severe mood changes, or behaviors that pose a danger to themselves or others. The program claims to offer a safe, structured environment where adolescents receive 24-hour nursing supervision and individualized treatment designed to promote stabilization and recovery. Like Southcoast, Arbour Hospital outwardly presents itself as a compassionate behavioral health facility dedicated to helping adolescents in crisis. Its website describes a caring, therapeutic environment where young people receive round-the-clock supervision, evidence-based therapy, and “compassionate, understanding behavioral health support.” It emphasizes patient dignity, collaboration, and “a quality, effective and positive experience.”

But again, recent revelations paint a very different picture. Behind the reassuring language lies a facility repeatedly cited for serious abuse and neglect, where the promise of “stabilization and recovery” often masks an ugly reality. Arbour Hospital’s claims of “qualified staff”, “respect” and putting “patients rights” first ring hollow in the face of widespread accounts of youth being assaulted or abused – sometimes by the very people charged with protecting them – and administrators who ignored or silenced complaints.

Westwood Lodge, Westwood, Massachusetts

Despite its closure in 2017, claims of sex abuse at Westwood Lodge continue to surface, and it may not be too late to hold those responsible accountable. Like many other facilities, Westwood Lodge (owned by Arbour Health Systems) once portrayed itself as a trusted, community-centered psychiatric hospital devoted to “healing,” “respect,” and “quality care.” Its marketing touted a supportive environment staffed by skilled professionals dedicated to guiding children and young adults through mental health crises. Parents and caregivers were led to believe they were entrusting their loved ones to a safe facility designed for recovery.

In reality, Westwood Lodge became synonymous with neglect, abuse, and institutional failure. The Boston Globe reported in 2017 that Westwood was permanently closed due to issues of patient safety, quality of care, and the facility’s failure to comply with Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) requirements. Regulators repeatedly cited the facility for safety violations and patient mistreatment. Reports from former patients and staff detailed sex, physical, and emotional abuse, overuse of restraints, falsified records, and administrators who routinely ignored or covered up serious incidents, including the death of a patient. Despite mounting evidence, Westwood continued to operate for years until it was closed by DMH. Once again, a hospital’s marketing language portraying it as a place of “healing and hope” proved little more than a misleading façade. 

Contact an Experienced, Compassionate Sexual Abuse Attorney Today

The disconnect between the public image presented by these Massachusetts residential treatment facilities (and others like them) and their internal reality reflects a systemic problem: facilities profiting from the suffering of vulnerable children while hiding behind therapeutic jargon, privacy laws, and corporate spin. It has to stop!

We are Massachusetts residential treatment facility sexual abuse lawyers. Survivors deserve justice. If you or a loved one suffered abuse in a Massachusetts residential treatment facility, Shepard O’Donnell is here to help. Our experienced, compassionate attorneys stand ready to listen, fight for your rights, and pursue accountability from those responsible. Learn more about commonly asked questions about a sex abuse case in our blog, or contact us for a confidential consultation.

If you suffered sexual abuse at a residential treatment facility (RTF), you are not alone. RTFs are intended to support vulnerable young populations suffering from mental health, substance use, and behavioral challenges. Troubled children and youth enter these facilities expecting help and support yet the very people tasked with helping them are sometimes the ones who cause further trauma.

In 2024, the Senate Finance Committee released a scathing report revealing widespread abuse and neglect at many youth RTFs across the country. Based on a two-year investigation into dozens of facilities, including those in Massachusetts, operated by four of the largest behavioral health providers in the country—Universal Health Services, Acadia Healthcare, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare—the report reveals that RTF providers frequently optimize profit over the wellbeing and safety of children and youth. While this report concerns placements financed by Medicaid and the child welfare system, children whose stays are covered by private and public funds often overlap in the same programs, including in facilities at-issue in this investigation.

A key finding of the investigation is that children “suffer harms such as the risk of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of staff and peers, improperly executed and overused restraint and seclusion, inadequate treatment and supervision, and non-homelike environments that are often unsanitary and unsafe. These harms amount to acute safety concerns and have long-term effects, including suffering, trauma and even death.” 

Prioritizing Profits Over Patients

How can this happen? Private residential treatment is big business. Facilities are marketed as nurturing, supportive solutions to challenging behavioral and mental health challenges. Websites are full of encouraging language such as “treating individuals with respect”, “operating with integrity”, “dedication of staff”, “provid[ing] a quality, effective and positive experience”, “patients are our top priority”, and “compassionate, understanding behavioral health support”. 

It turns out much of this language is lip service, intended to keep shareholders happy, federal dollars flowing, and trusting, well-meaning parents in the dark so they keep sending their children for what they believe will be “compassionate, quality care.” 

Because many RTFs are reimbursed by the government on a per patient basis, they are incentivized to cut costs and corners in order to reap big profits. The congressional report calls this out directly: “The risk of harm to children in RTFs is endemic to the operating model. The harms children in RTFs experienced are the direct, causal result of an operating model that incentivizes providers to optimize revenues and operating and profit margin.”

Unqualified, Overburdened, Undertrained Staff

Part of their cost-cutting measures involves those related to staffing. Whether that means hiring less qualified (and, therefore, cheaper) staff or not enough staff in relation to the number of patients, the resulting lack of appropriate personnel and supervision creates an environment ripe for abuse. 

The congressional investigation found that “children spend the majority of their time supervised by…staff who are ill-equipped to address their complex behavioral health needs and, in some cases, children interact with staff who pose a direct threat to their wellbeing… In the worst of circumstances, children at RTFs suffer…sexual, physical, verbal, or emotional abuse at the hands of staff. Mistreatment is endemic to the conditions at RTFs.”

Whether it is the staff perpetrating these atrocities or creating an environment in which they are allowed to occur, unchecked, by others, the lack of investment in qualified employees is putting patients in danger. Maximizing profits at the expense of the most vulnerable patients is abhorrent and must be stopped.

Blaming the Victim – Again

It is an unfortunate reality that predators target the most vulnerable. It stands to reason, then, that RTFs should have a heightened duty of care, with more than the average protections in place to shield their vulnerable, often fragile patients. The congressional investigation found that, in reality, “horrific instances of sexual abuse persist unremediated inside RTFs.”

Many of these facilities have inadequate processes or policies in place to protect their patients or give them a voice. Sadly, because of their mental health or behavioral challenges, patients are frequently discounted as people, and their complaints against staff members or fellow patients go unheeded. In some instances, even multiple complaints about individuals or situations have not been followed up on, and accused staff are simply moved to another wing or another facility altogether without disciplinary action.

Scapegoating tactics abound. Accused staff members or peers will claim that sexual activity was consensual, that the victim was “promiscuous”, that they were “in a relationship”, or a host of other excuses that deflect blame away from themselves. And, facilities hide behind HIPAA as an excuse to keep these incidents quiet. Victims feel victimized all over again when their complaints are minimized or not taken seriously. 

Denial: We’ve Seen This Playbook Before

Any attempts at remedial action fail to address the underlying culture of harm at RTFs. Despite being found in violation of state and federal regulations, RTFs in Massachusetts rely on the state’s lack of resources for follow-up to ignore demands to improve practices. This is very much the kind of playbook that we, at Shepard O’Donnell, have seen before from tobacco and asbestos companies: there is a well-known, well-documented, dangerous, and systemic problem, but the companies continue to profit and, therefore, use their substantial resources to fight in the courts and in the press to deny any wrongdoing.

And yet, despite their denials, asbestos manufacturers and tobacco companies regularly pay large financial settlements to victims. Isn’t it time RTFs were held to the same account?

Contact a Sexual Abuse Attorney

If you suffered sexual abuse at a RTF, know that it was not your fault. As this congressional report shows, abuse is rampant in many of these facilities. The companies that own and manage these facilities have allowed, even enabled, this abuse to take place and should be held financially accountable.  

In our experience working with survivors of sexual abuse, we have learned how difficult it is, not only to come to terms with what happened to you, but also how difficult it is to come forward and tell your story. We are empathetic yet fierce defenders of your honor and promise to do everything in our power to hold sexual offenders and the institutions that employ them, accountable for the harm they’ve inflicted. When you’re ready, we are available for a confidential, no-obligation discussion about possible legal action.