Former Ivy Ridge worker quit after one month because of how the teens were treated
Apr. 21—OSWEGATCHIE — A former Academy at Ivy Ridge employee who quit after working for about one month says the conditions there were abusive and manipulative not only for the students, but for staff as well.
Brandy Tyo, who lives near Morristown, worked the night watch in a girls dormitory from about June 25 to July 26, 2007. She told the Times she was disturbed by how other staffers treated the teens who were detained there.
The now-shuttered Ivy Ridge, which was open from 2001 to 2009, is the focus of the Netflix documentary "The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping." The filmmakers detail the physical, mental, and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Ivy Ridge staff when they were sent there as teenagers in the 2000s and detained against their will. They were released only after completing a program that was purposely designed to be difficult to finish, or if their parents pulled them out. In the documentary, a group of former Ivy Ridge kids who are now adults gain access to the abandoned building and discover a trove of documents and surveillance videos left behind when it closed that corroborate their stories. The documentary also shed light on former staff members, including Tom A. Nichols, who was the facility's public relations coordinator and who is now St. Lawrence County's Republican elections commissioner.
Ivy Ridge marketed itself as a place for parents to get help for troubled teens, where they could eventually receive a New York State high school diploma. However, a New York State Attorney General's Office investigation revealed the diplomas were bogus and Ivy Ridge was nothing more than a behavior modification center with no real educational component.
The St. Lawrence County district attorney and sheriff are investigating abuse allegations from Ivy Ridge. Any former Ivy Ridge attendees who want to report physical or sexual abuse to law enforcement can contact the St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office at 315-379-2222 or the St. Lawrence County District Attorney's Office at 315-379-2225.
Tyo, who is featured in "The Program," said she never saw any physical or sexual abuse, nor did she ever see any of the girls with bruises, welts or marks that would indicate physical abuse. However, she clearly remembers that mental and emotional abuse of the teens was the norm for other employees and encouraged by the higher-ups. Her job was to sit at one end of a hallway in a girls dorm with about 16 to 20 teens, while another night watch sat at the opposite end.
"The job bothered me right from the rip," Tyo said. "I was so angry when I left."
Part of her duties involved monitoring minute details about the teens, including how they positioned their heads on their pillows and where their hands were when they slept. They had to sleep face up with their hands above the covers.
Tyo said the other night watch, who has since died, "was perfect for her job." She said that person would frequently give the teens what was called a correction. In order to leave the program, the kids had to accumulate a certain amount of points to work their way through a six-tiered system. Corrections took points away, which could potentially erase months or years of accumulation. They could be written for something as simple as looking out of a window, which the teens weren't allowed to do.
"I did not like the way [the other night watch] was with them ... she'd enforce the rules and she'd [write up] dumb things, like giggling," Tyo said. "Their head would be up or their hands outside the blankets."
"There was no reason to be that bad. That's why I wasn't cut out for it," Tyo said. "You couldn't just let it go? Tell them to put their hands over the blanket and move on."
Tyo recalls writing up one girl for calling the other night watch person ugly. It still doesn't sit right with her today.
"When she called her (the other night watch) ugly, I state in my letter I can't let that go. If it was my daughter, it would be the same for her," Tyo said, so she wrote up the girl for disrespect of staff.
"I wrote her up and it's been bothering me ever since," she said.
One of the claims made in "The Program" is that staff used violent restraint techniques on teens, often for no legitimate reason at all. A former Ivy Ridge staff member, Florence "Siss" Dedekker, who lives in the Ogdensburg area, speaks on camera in "The Program" and describes using pressure points to intentionally inflict pain on teenagers when she would do or assist in a takedown.
Tyo said there was no restraint-technique training offered. She did receive proper restraint training at a prior job working for United Helpers in the late 1980s. In order to legally perform a restraint, multiple people are involved — specifically to avoid inflicting pain or injury.
"It's so you're not hurting them. You need multiple people to avoid pressure points," Tyo said, adding that she never physically restrained anyone while working at Ivy Ridge.
Another allegation in the documentary is that the staff were inexperienced, were paid little and not given any real training. Many of them were between ages 18 and 20, Tyo said. She was certified as a nurse's aid, but was not given training at Ivy Ridge in mandatory reporting of abuse, and was not qualified in any areas of social work or education.
Tyo, who was in her 30s when she worked at Ivy Ridge, said her only relevant experience was working at United Helpers in 1988 in an intermediate care facility for people with disabilities.
"When I got hired, it was so fast," Tyo said. "I basically was hired before I even got there."
"They definitely didn't do any history on me. They didn't check anything about me," Tyo said. "I baby-sat at Ivy Ridge."
She said she worked four 10-hour midnight shifts, for which she was paid minimum wage. During that time, she had little contact with the teens, about 10 minutes when they came back to go to bed and a few minutes when they woke up in the morning, and she always tried to be kind to them.
"I on average maybe saw them maybe 10 minutes at night, that's stretching it, and maybe three minutes in the morning," Tyo said.
When she started, she was more social and would chat with them, but then limited that to simply greet them in morning.
"I got chewed out for giving them a hug goodnight. I wasn't allowed to have that kind of interaction with them because it was showing kindness and we're not allowed to do that," Tyo said. "They're not supposed to know anything about you. You're not supposed to know anything about them."
Tyo said working those shifts left her exhausted at the end of the 10 hours.
"I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was stressful. This job was stressful," Tyo said. "Here I am, I've got three kids at home, I've got bills and dishes and laundry to get done, now I've got to sit in a hallway and stay awake."
A major red flag for Tyo was when the girls in the dorm would slip her notes. She doesn't recall them containing any abuse allegations. One note she recalls was an attempt to get Tyo to contact a parent on behalf of the teenager. Another, which Tyo said was written by a girl named Carly, said the teen wanted to leave the facility and live with her.
"I knew she was breaking rules saying she was going to run away from there," Tyo said. "I remember feeling, oh wow, this is a big deal."
Tyo said other employees and supervisors had manipulated her into thinking that by taking the letter or doing anything to help the girl would get her in trouble — not just in house, but legally.
"I was afraid of getting in trouble," she said. "I pictured myself getting arrested for making contact with [the teens]. They definitely give you that feeling. I was 36 when I worked there. I was not a child. I was naive, but I wasn't stupid."
"It is so easy to be manipulated by the people you're working for," Tyo said.
