Sam T. at the Midwest Center For Youth & Families
Not A Good Place For Anyone
I was placed in MCYF against my will. I was there for 31 days and cried every night I was there. As I had been 13 at the time, I was placed on West unit with about 10 other girls, I'll never forget my stay here. Terrifying.
I went there early March, so it was cold most of the time. The first four days I was there, I was a "foot in door" so that, based on what staff said, they could make sure I wasn't going to attempt suicide or hurt myself. You have 10 minutes in the bathroom every time, and if you exceed your 10 minutes, they open the door.
From Saturday to Thursday, there was a staff member named Valeria, or Mrs. V., and she was as bad as bad gets. She thought of herself as kind, but she was overly strict and extremely rude to people. Likewise, she had her favorites. She was against tattoos, LGTBQ+, and a lot of other things. You had to do things her way or you lost points. That points system is extremely biased and I only got 50 points 1 out of 31 days.
The bugs were terrible, there was lice, too, and bedtime was 8:30. The blankets never kept me warm, and after 20 days I finally got my own blanket.
You get 20 minutes to eat, no more, no less. You have to eat 50% of your meal to get your points, and if you throw up you get put on an all liquid diet. You can have 2 salads, but only if you eat 50%. The food was probably worse that school lunches... extremely revolting. No caffeine, no chocolate, no soda, nothing.
For other rules, no friends, no physical contact, no passing notes, stay on your side of the room, arms length apart, don't talk to your B.O.B (black out boundaries, if you get "too close" to another resident) et cetera, et cetera.
There were only four good staff I could recall. Nicole (weekend staff), Rob (week staff), Nurse Sam, and Teacher Matt.
Don't recommend searching for treatment here, it's worse than worse.