‘Turning teens for profit’: Local author puts trauma on the page

When Eden Prairie native Jessica Woodville was young, she watched as police dragged one of her parents out of the family home. Later, at the age of 16, a similar thing happened to her.

“I was more or less kidnapped. A very large man twice my size, coming into my room and telling me that we could either do this the hard or the easy way,” Woodville said. “I thought I was being put up for adoption. I had no idea what was going on.”

What was going on was that Woodville was taken to Cross Creek Manor, a reform school in La Verkin, Utah. The school was part of the “troubled-teen” industry – schools that try to rehabilitate children with behavioral issues. But Woodville says rehabilitation isn’t what she experienced.

“It’s turning teens for profit,” she said. “They are feeding on these desperate parents who have a kid who is having trauma responses. … They make it sound like a great option for parents, with the price tag that is comparable to a mortgage payment.”

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Woodville, who writes under that pseudonym to protect her anonymity, used the experiences at Cross Creek to inform her new memoir, “Smoking in Garages: A Survivor’s Story of Trauma and Resilience.”

Even before Cross Creek, Woodville says, her life wasn’t easy.

“(There was) a multitude of traumas just stacked on top of each other, without the proper support and guidance that’s needed for children,” she said.

Those early experiences led to her lashing out in different ways, including smoking and drinking while in high school. It was these early moments as a young teen that led to Woodville being sent to Cross Creek Manor. 

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When deciding what to include in her memoir, Woodville opted to stick to only what she personally experienced. But there was much more.

“I saw girls getting abused. … Manipulative therapy practices that were performed by people who weren’t actually licensed therapists,” she said, adding that the therapy was based on discredited practices.

Cross Creek Manor and its parent organization, the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, were named in multiple lawsuits between 2006 and 2017, some of which were dismissed on procedural grounds. While Cross Creek Manor faced legal scrutiny, no court formally found the institution liable for abuse or misconduct before it closed. The school operated until it was sold and turned into a hotel.

Later in life, Woodville was searching for a way to begin dealing with the trauma she had from her time at Cross Creek. In hopes of doing something productive with the pain, she turned to writing.

“I knew I needed to use my voice, and this was the only way I knew how,” Woodville said. “I decided … to turn my pain into passion.”

That passion turned into her memoir, available on Amazon. And Woodville said she hopes it inspires other survivors of the troubled-teen industry to come forward and share their own stories.

“The more I was talking to survivors, the more I realized a large chunk of us were either having a trauma response or dealing with … parents that didn’t have the tools to be able to help us,” Woodville said. “I’m hoping that, as raw as this book is, that it can be a light for others to find a way to turn their past and their pain into something that can bring them and others light.”

Woodville says many survivors of the troubled-teen industry are suffering in silence, with support groups calling it “suburbia’s dirty little secret.”

Today, Woodville continues to struggle with the trauma and fear that, she says, life at Cross Creek caused. While she says she hasn’t recovered yet, she’s on the path to recovery, after therapy and connections to other survivors. She says she’s focusing on raising her kids, improving from day to day and learning how to live life to her fullest. And that journey is what will inspire her next piece.

“That’s what my next book, my next memoir, will be,” Woodville said. “What happens after, when I finally get to start thriving.”