DHHS threatens to yank license of NC camp where child died in February

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services intends to revoke Trails Carolina’s license, according to a letter DHHS sent March 28 to camp management, because the residential therapeutic camp’s violations “endanger the health, safety, and welfare of clients.”

State surveyors found deficiencies during a visit to the Transylvania County facility near Lake Toxaway on March 21 and assessed administrative penalties of $18,000 for some of the violations, according to a separate letter from DHHS concerning the penalties.

Trails Carolina has 10 calendar days from March 28 to submit a written statement showing why the facility is compliant to avoid losing its license. The statement could be a plan of correction showing how management is fixing the deficiencies and will prevent them from happening again, the letter said.

The facility must also correct the deficiencies within required time frames to avoid further penalties, according to DHHS.

The deficiencies at Trails Carolina were cited under regulations including medication and incident response requirements, as well as “Protection from Harm, Abuse, Neglect or Exploitation.”

Trails must fix the latter violation and medication issues by April 13 and another violation concerning restrictive interventions by May 5, according to a letter from DHHS. If not, the facility will accrue additional fines for each day out of compliance. All other violations must be fixed by May 20, the letter said.

DHHS also suspended admissions to Trails Carolina, according to the department.

The state’s move comes after a 12-year old boy died at Trails on Feb. 3. A 17-year-old boy also died a decade earlier after attempting to flee the camp, multiple news media reported at the time.

The state removed all attendees from the camp’s care on Feb. 16 and is still investigating the recent incident.

An autopsy conducted Feb. 6 showed the death appeared not to be natural, but a determination of how it happened remains pending, according to a press release from the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office.

The investigation of the recent death at Trails Carolina is ongoing, Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office said over email to CPP, as the office is waiting for the medical examiner’s report and “forensics on the computers seized pursuant to the search warrants issued.”

The program also faces a lawsuit from a former attendee who describes being sexually assaulted at the camp, claiming management failed to take action. The camp settled a 2023 lawsuit in which another past camper made similar claims.

The lawyer on both cases, Jenkins Mann , said he hopes the cases and public attention helped put this in motion, because his clients’ “driving force” is to expose issues at Trails Carolina.

“I would like to think this is a first step of many that we will be involved in, in efforts to shut down wilderness therapy camps and therapeutic boarding schools that are harmful to children,” he said.

In an emailed statement, Trails Carolina said management was “surprised and disappointed” by the state’s actions but will continue cooperating with the state “to satisfy their concerns.”

“We understand the situation’s immense media pressure and the impact such pressure has on state agencies doing their best to serve the public and act in the best interest of children and their families,” Trails Carolina said in an email.

“The basis for some of the state’s conclusions are unclear, since it indicates policies it had approved, and in some cases helped create, are noncompliant.

“We have always valued our good working relationship with the state and hope to focus on what matters most: providing our students with the highest quality of care in a compassionate healing space.”

Meg Appelgate , founder of the nonprofit Unsilenced , experienced wilderness therapy as a teenager and now raises awareness about issues in the industry. She said it was “encouraging” to see state regulators take the situation seriously.

The two deaths are not only on Trails Carolina’s hands but also on those who pretended the programs were safe when they knew it might not be after the first death, Appelgate said.

“I also hope that this can be the start of regulating programs further,” she said. “This could be a wake up call to enact legislation that would protect youth better in these facilities.”

That legislation at the state level could mean adequate reporting procedures, as well as more frequent and in-depth inspections with more client interviews, she said.

Still, Appelgate said regulation is not a perfect answer. Because the wilderness therapy model was built without much regulation, it’s difficult to apply current regulations onto the programs, she said.

Even if strong regulations were passed in every state, Appelgate said the question of whether kids would be “emotionally or therapeutically” safe in camps like Trails Carolina remains. At the very least, there should be regulations to ensure children’s safety while decision makers figure out whether the camps should exist in the long term, she said.

“I really hope that no more children have to die for states to start taking this seriously,” she said.