I-Team: Drug Center Closes

HELL YEAH!

A controversial drug treatment program the I-Team profiled several years ago has shut its doors to patients. But that doesn’t mean the controversy is over. The I-Team’s Hagit Limor says the teenagers have just been moved to another state.

Kids Helping Kids presented itself as the treatment of last resort when the I-Team got an unprecedented look inside four years ago. No cameras had been allowed before. The treatment the I-Team saw called for complete isolation of newcomers, who don’t go to their home or to school for months, sometimes longer. They aren’t allowed to listen to music or TV. They can’t talk to each other, and must get permission to speak at all.

The executive director of the facility in Milford, Ohio told us in 2005, there’s a reason for this tough love. Penny Walker said, “We deal with difficult kids and sometimes difficult families, and we’re not going to please everybody.” Walker no longer works for Kids Helping Kids.