#296 Meg Appelgate - Why Parents Are Being Lied To About Teen “Treatment”

**Shawn Ryan** (0:00)
Hey, you, feeling hungry?

**Meg Appelgate** (0:02)
Run to Denny's for her. The new Eternia Everyday Value Slam.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:06)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:10)
And see the new Masters of the Universe Movie, only in theaters June 5th.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:15)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:50)
Meg Appelgate, welcome to the show.

**Meg Appelgate** (0:52)
Thank you, happy to be here.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:54)
I'm happy you're here. This is, man, these are so heavy. We've really been diving into the kid stuff.
Actually, we've been diving into it for a couple of years. It started with one of my best friends, Ryan Montgomery, and it's just spiraled into, there's a lot of evil shit going on.

**Meg Appelgate** (1:13)
I know.
I feel like evilness is, just like follows the kids. And anywhere there's kids, you're going to find people who don't have the best of intentions, and they just blocked them.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:24)
You know, I finally have come to that conclusion, and everybody always talks about it, you know, that they're going to be where the kids are, but it doesn't register. And then, you know, when I interviewed Elizabeth Phillips, who connected us, that, I don't know, for some reason, that interview is what made it click. And I just realized, you know, okay, we, like, that whole thing was about Camp Canna Cook, you know, the biggest, supposedly the biggest Christian camp in the world.
And I was just thinking about it. I was like, man, this is, I mean, it's great. We're, hopefully nobody ever goes there again, but they didn't get all the pedophiles.
They don't have a record. They're normal people in society with jobs and you just, for whatever reason, that interview made me realize like, holy shit, like these people are everywhere.
Nothing's gonna show up on a background check. They appear to be normal, hardworking, caring people and they insert themselves wherever there's gonna be kids, whether it's a PE coach, a cheerleading coach, a swim coach, a church camp, outdoors camp, boy scouts, girls. It doesn't matter. And I'm not saying boy scouts and girl scouts camps or whatever. I'm just saying wherever there's kids, there is a very, very high possibility there's gonna be pedophiles.

**Meg Appelgate** (2:58)
Yeah, I mean, institutions forever have hidden predators. You know, that's just whatever that's happened. If you add kids, institutions that have, you know, are tailored to helping kids, it's even more. And then, unfortunately, if you add religion into that institution, it makes it even more likely that they are using that as a cover-up. And we see that within the troubled teen industry, too. A lot of times, if, you know, if someone tells me I'm a survivor of INSERT program name and that program is a religious program, almost always the abuse tends to be more severe. And it's also harder to hold them accountable, because a lot of times, there are 501C3s and nonprofits, and they have exemptions from licensing, and they have more leniency from the behaviors and the practices that they're allowed to utilize in their programs.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:48)
Man.

**Meg Appelgate** (3:49)
Yeah.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:51)
Well, I wonder if I'm gonna get sued for this one. I keep getting all these damn seasons.

**Meg Appelgate** (3:54)
I saw that. I saw that, right, like a couple days.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:57)
Which one?

**Meg Appelgate** (3:58)
I know.
I saw the Canuckook Camps and you came on like a day after, two days after it aired. And you were like, yeah, I just got this from them. And I was...

**Shawn Ryan** (4:08)
Got another one.

**Meg Appelgate** (4:09)
Did you really?

**Shawn Ryan** (4:09)
Got another one from them. I haven't even responded to it yet.
I actually, I didn't even read it. I just sent it right to the attorney. I'm like, now it's like the running joke here. Now when a FedEx envelope shows up, we're all taking bets on whether it's a lawsuit or not. It's always a lawsuit.

**Meg Appelgate** (4:24)
You know, to be honest, like I was, I was nervous coming on the show, but then I saw your response to that lawsuit, and I immediately was like, I feel okay now.