Draft:Trails Carolina

Trails Carolina is a residential treatment center and wilderness therapy program located in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina. It is owned by Family Help & Wellness and is a member of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs.

The camp has been closed since February 2024 following the death of a 12-year-old boy on February 3, 2024. Its license would later be revoked on May 17, 2024 by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), with the program having 60 days to appeal the decision.

History
Trails Carolina was founded by Graham Shannonhouse, who had previously worked at and lead two different wilderness therapy programs in Idaho and North Carolina, in 2008.

Program
Trails Carolina charges an initial fee of $4,900 plus $715 per day for those enrolling in the Youth Groups and $615 for the Adolescent Groups, with the average length of stay in the program being claimed to be 85 days.

Controversies
Trails Carolina has faced allegations of abusive practices by past attendees of the program, with some alleged practices having included attendees going for several days to weeks with no access to basic hygiene such as showers, limited access to restrooms and therapists, and emotional and psychological abuse.

A lawsuit filed by a former attendee in February 2024 accused the program of ignoring reports that another attendee had sexually assaulted a girl attending the program in 2016. Upon the assault being reported, Trails was alleged to have not removed the assailant and instead forced all of the children to sleep under a tarp in a line. When another sexual assault on the same victim and by the same assailant had been reported, staff members failed to report the incidents to local law enforcement and regulators in spite of such reports being required, and a therapist for Trails had dismissed the reports as "drama in the group".

A former employee of the program also alleged that Trails Carolina provided only three days of minimal training before being sent to work with the children, this leaving him inadequately prepared for the level of care required for the attendees and contrasted claims of a six-day training program that an attorney hired and a letter sent by the program had told the North Carolina Senate.

Deaths at Trails Carolina

 * On November 10, 2014, 17-year-old Alec Lansing walked away from his group at the camp, prompting a massive search effort that ended twelve days later when he was found deceased in a stream. An autopsy later concluded that Alec had died from hypothermia, and investigators believed that he had broken his hip from falling from a tree and into the stream, rendering him unable to move. An investigation conducted by the NCDHHS revealed that, according to a deputy, Trails Carolina staff waited over five hours before calling for help, and Lansing likely would have had a better chance of being found alive had they called earlier. Trails Carolina was fined $12,000, though was allowed to continue operations.
 * On February 3, 2024, emergency responders responded to a 911 call regarding an unidentified 12-year-old boy who was found not breathing. CPR efforts had been made according to the staff, but, when first responders arrived, the boy was found to have been deceased long enough for rigor mortis to have set in. A preliminary examination had concluded that the boy's death was suspicious as he had arrived at the camp less than a day prior to his death, and a forensic pathologist claimed that his death appeared to be unnatural. Two search warrants were executed at the cabin where the boy was found dead and at another cabin where his cabin mates were relocated to upon the discovery, and on February 16, NCDHHS ordered that all children were to be removed from Trails Carolina and prohibited the program from accepting attendees until April 14.