The troubled teen industry encompasses mental health facilities aimed at rehabiling teenagers in therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness therapy programs, boot camps, and more. Teenagers who are recruited into the troubled teen industry often recall instances of abuse, brainwashing, and mental health regression once released. Through an analysis of literature that examines the origins of the industry and personal experiences of survivors, this study seeks to understand how the troubled teen industry came to be so prevalent and the effectiveness of its practices.This literature will involve past studies, books, podcast episodes, memoirs, and documentaries that detail either the history of or personal experience within the industry.

Previous studies have cited a number of factors that may influence youth experiences with mental health and substance abuse services – including insurance, lack of services given, racial disparities (Lopez, Nuno 2018). Further, studies focusing on youth of color have found that these youth have significantly lower rates of mental health service utilization and are most at risk for underserved mental health needs. (Rawal et al., 2004). Yet, with an everchanging society, in which factors like technology, social media, campaigns to destigmatize mental illness, and the global COVID-19 pandemic, it is unclear if youth of color still hold similar views about mental health and substance abuse. The current study will use a qualitative design (semi-structured interviews) and recruit a sample of college students between the ages 18-22 years old who are of any minority group: Hispanics, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaskan Native and other non-White groups. The main findings of this research are to determine youth’s perceptions of mental health, to determine what racial disparities come in between the access to mental health and substance abuse services and to determine the youth’s perceptions and thoughts on juvenile youth with mental health and substance abuse.

Researchers have conducted many studies about the environment in prison. However, most of these studies focus on the prisoners and their perceptions of the prison environment and their well-being while incarcerated. Very few of them focus on the perceptions and well-being of the prison staff. The study conducted in this paper is a non-experimental, qualitative survey. This survey study asks the prison staff several questions regarding their perceptions of the prison environment. These perceptions include how they perceive working there has affected their well-being, and, if needed to, what can be done to improve the prison environment and their well-being.