New Documentaries By Women Put Spotlight on Systemic Child Abuse

As the #MeToo movement continues to have far-reaching effects for abuse survivors and abusers, a recent wave of women-directed documentaries have been getting significant attention for putting the spotlight on systemic and institutional child abuse. The documentaries have not only been getting impressive viewership for their respective TV networks or streaming services, but they have also raised awareness and motivated people to take action and seek justice through the legal system.

These documentaries include:

• Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (directed by Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz) premiered on March 17 and has former Nickelodeon stars revealing the toxic workplace they endured at the children’s TV network when former Nickelodeon executive producer Dan Schneider was their boss and when the company employed some sexual predators who were later convicted of and imprisoned for sex crimes against children. Quiet on Set (which is also available for streaming on Discovery+ and Max) has been watched by 20 million viewers so far and is the most-watched unscripted/nonfiction series in Max history, according to Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Investigation Discovery, Discovery+, and Max.

• Netflix’s The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping (directed by Katherine Kubler) is a three-episode docuseries exposing Academy at Ivy Ridge, a boarding facility that operated from 2001 to 2009 in Ogdensburg, New York. Paris Hilton is one of dozens of former Academy at Ivy Ridge residents who have gone public with claims about being abused when they were involuntarily sent (many through kidnapping methods) to live at Academy at Ivy Ridge as teens. Kubler, who is also an abuse survivor of the institution, interviewed many other Academy at Ivy Ridge abuse survivors, survivor advocates, and some of her family members for this docuseries, which Kubler narrates. After The Program premiered on Netflix on March 5, it became a Top 3 hit on Netflix’s Top 10 English-language TV series chart. By the end of March, the docuseries remained in the Top 10 of that chart and had a total 11.7 million views.
• Hulu’s Daughters of the Cult (directed by Sara Mast) is an ABC News Studios-produced, five-episode docuseries about people who survived child abuse while growing up in a Mormon extremist offshoot group led by Ervil LeBaron and his descendants. The cult had names such as Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God and Kingdom of God. Most of the abuse survivors who are interviewed in the documentary are women, including Anna LeBaron and Cecilia LeBaron, two of Ervil LaBaron’s children. Daughters of the Cult debuted at No. 1 on Hulu’s Top 15 viewing chart and was on the chart for about two months after the series premiered on January 4.
• Netflix’s Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare (directed by Liza Williams) is a film about the teenage boot camps operated by Steve Cartisano from the late 1980s to the 2000s, with testimonials from former boot campers who say they were abused. After Hell Camp premiered on December 27, 2023, it was in Netflix’s Top 10 movie chart for about two weeks.
• Paramount+’s Born in Synanon (directed by Geeta Gandbhir) is a four-episode docuseries about children who grew up with abuse in the Synanon cult. Former Synanon members Cassidy Arkin and her mother, Sandra Rogers-Hare, are two of the series’ executive producers. Arkin, who is the series narrator and interviewer, was raised as a Synanon child until she was 6 years old, when her divorced mother left Synanon in 1980. After Born in Synanon debuted on December 12, 2023, it was the No. 3 TV series at Paramount+ for all of December, and it ranks at No. 30 for Paramount+ content overall, according to FlixPatrol, a website that tracks viewer data on streaming services.
• HBO’s The Synanon Fix (directed by Rory Kennedy)—a four-episode docuseries that premiered on April 1—also has details and testimonials about child abuse and other abuses in Synanon. This series is also available for streaming on Max.

One of the abuse survivors interviewed in Quiet on Set is former Drake & Josh star Drake Bell. In the docuseries, Bell went public for the first time with previously sealed court information about the sexual abuse that was inflicted on him as an underage teen by Brian Peck, who was a Nickelodeon dialogue coach at the time. In 2003, Peck was convicted of these crimes against Bell, and then in 2004 was sentenced to 16 months in prison. After the Quiet on Set docuseries premiered, the public response was so overwhelming, Investigation Discovery added a fifth episode that aired on April 7.

On March 19, Schneider (who worked for Nickelodeon from 1994 until Nickelodeon declined to renew his contract in 2018) made a public apology by video for the harm that he caused when he worked for Nickelodeon. The apology was in response to accusations in the docuseries that Schneider sexually harassed and discriminated against female employees, was verbally abusive to colleagues of various ages, and created a hostile work environment where Nickelodeon child entertainers were the target of sexually suggestive actions and words. Nickelodeon issued statements in Quiet on Set and elsewhere that the network investigated all allegations of abuse involving Nickelodeon employees and workplace conditions.

Being both an abuse survivor and a documentarian exposing the abuse has been an emotional roller coaster for The Program director Kubler, who says she was physically assaulted and mentally abused by Academy at Ivy Ridge employees. “It’s very scary going public with a very personal story,” Kubler tells Women’s Media Center. “I’m more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. And all of sudden, [I’m] having millions of people aware of not just me but the most traumatic things that have ever happened to me. I already have an anxiety disorder from the [Academy at Ivy Ridge] program.”

Kubler adds, “But it’s exciting because the response to the series has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve been receiving thousands of messages from people all over the world. It’s been heartwarming to receive but also heartbreaking because so many people [have said], ‘I also went to a program. I also experienced this [abuse].’ I’ve been investigating this industry since I’ve been in it [for] over a decade. I keep hearing names of programs I’ve never heard of before. It’s unfortunate how pernicious this industry is. There are so many survivors, even if they didn’t go to a [forced] program, they feel validated by seeing this series.”

Religious cults such as Synanon (founded in 1958) and the Ervil LeBaron family cult (which began in 1972) often used the institution of religion to justify and inflict their child abuse. Even though Ervil LeBaron died in 1981, at the age of 56 (he was serving a life sentence in prison for conspiracy to commit murder), a few of his sons and his associates took over leadership of the cult and continued the abuse. These abuses have lingering effects through generational trauma, says Daughters of the Cult director Mast. Daughters of the Cult features interviews with several LeBaron family members and associates who are no longer in the cult and who have disavowed all the crimes—such as murder, incest, and rape—that were committed in the name of the cult. The LeBaron cult membership significantly decreased in the 1990s, after two of the cult leaders—Heber LeBaron and Aaron LeBaron, both sons of Ervil LeBaron—got life sentences in prison for murder.

“The whole family had been traumatized at such an early age—brainwashed and abused,” Mast says of the LeBaron family, which included numerous polygamists. “And to see how they could come out of it is such a powerful message.” Daughters of the Cult has a statistic at the end of the documentary that says the LeBaron family has about 7,000 members. “I think I probably underestimated by 3,000, only because I had to use the [U.S.] Census,” says Mast. “They’re probably the largest family in the Americas. A lot of them hid in shame.”

Shame was a manipulation tool for Academy at Ivy Ridge—part of a network called World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS)—which was not an accredited school but was described as a “behavior modification” program, where the residents (who were mostly underage teenagers) were not allowed to smile, laugh, talk to each other without permission, or look out of windows. The children were treated like prisoners, with punishments such as physical assaults, mental abuse, and solitary confinement. They were also forced to do unpaid labor, according to Kubler and many of the survivors. The Academy at Ivy Ridge kids were threatened with even more punishments if they told anyone outside the institution about the abuse, and the kids were trained to tell lies and cover up the abuse when the kids had visitors.

Mast says that secrecy was a driving force in the LeBaron family and the reason why the child abuse in the family’s cult went on for as long as it did: “A lot of LeBarons have since come forward [to say] they didn’t know the true story because it was all hidden.” Some of the LeBaron family members “didn’t even know they were related,” Mast adds.

Many of the abuses that took place in the LeBaron family happened in the 20th century, before social media existed. Mast says that even if the abuse took place in more modern times, it probably still would have been kept very secretive. “I don’t think they would’ve spoken out, because they thought they were doing the right thing,” Mast comments. “Their belief system with the abuse was this was the trial they had to bear.”

Mast also notes that the LeBaron family cult members forbade their children from having access to technology, advanced education, and contact with outside society. Mast says, “They weren’t allowed to read books. They weren’t allowed to go to movies. They were kept in isolated communities.” Daughters of the Cult also mentions that the children were taught to lie and cover up abuse to outsiders who asked questions or tried to investigate how the children were being raised.

Kubler says that cover-ups were very common at the Academy at Ivy Ridge program, which was run by unqualified people who did not get background checks—unbeknownst to the parents who sent their children to Academy at Ivy Ridge and were misled into thinking it was a safe and ethical therapy institution. In The Program docuseries, Kubler (whose mother died of cancer when Kubler was 2 years old) says that her father and stepmother, whom she describes as conservative Christians, sent her to Academy at Ivy Ridge against her will at age 16, because she was caught with hard lemonade. Kubler was at Academy at Ivy Ridge from March 2004 to June 2005, when her father took her out of the program after he became aware of the abuse. It’s mentioned in the documentary that most of the kids in the program were not violent criminals, addicted to drugs, or serious troublemakers. The Academy at Ivy Ridge did not offer any therapy, rehab counseling from licensed professionals, or legitimate academic education to its residents, say Kubler and other survivors.

It took several years, beginning in 2010, for Kubler to film The Program, which includes video recordings of Kubler and other Academy at Ivy Ridge survivors retrieving abandoned documents, video surveillance footage, and other evidence left behind at the vacated building that used to house the facility. Finding this evidence was a “game changer” for the documentary, Kubler says. “That was the hardest thing for so many years: trying to find the proof—not just relying on testimony.” Some of the evidence is shown in the documentary, including video surveillance footage of Academy at Ivy Ridge employees assaulting children, as well as meticulous records of illegal punishments doled out by employees.

Kubler tells Women’s Media Center that the evidence will be put to good use to get justice: “We are communicating with law enforcement at every level: local, state, federal. We’re sharing all the documentation that we have. One of the things working against us is the statute of limitations for a lot of these claims. One good thing in our favor is that New York state extended the statute of limitations for childhood victims of sexual assault. We really need to change the laws and extend the statute of limitations for some of these cases—especially for children who’ve gone through abuse in these institutions because it takes a long time to undo the brainwashing.”

Finding this evidence also helped the abuse survivors in the docuseries be more forthcoming about the crimes committed against them, according to Kubler. “All my friends in the documentary, when I first reached out to them in the early years, they weren’t ready to talk about it,” Kubler says. “It takes several years to come to terms with the abuse that we experienced and see it for what it is and be willing to talk about it.” Tragically, many former Academy at Ivy Ridge victims did not live to talk about it in a documentary because they died by suicide or overdoses. The Program includes footage of Kubler and other survivors paying tribute to the people who did not survive.

One of the more emotionally wrenching parts of The Program is when survivor Alexa Brand describes repeated sexual abuse that she experienced from a female Academy at Ivy Ridge employee, who is not seen or named in the docuseries. However, Kubler gives Women’s Media Center this update: “Alexa filed a police report [against the abuser].” Kubler says of the accused abuser: “She was recently fired from her job at a psychiatric hospital, where she was working with another vulnerable population. We have a list of other girls she abused. Since the documentary [came out], the list is up to 27 girls.”

In 2003, Narvin Lichfield, a brother of WWASPS founder Robert Lichfield, was arrested but later cleared of a charge of depriving children of their civil liberties in Costa Rica, where Narvin Lichfield operated a WWASPS-affiliated facility called the Academy at Dundee Ranch. Several lawsuits over the years have been filed against WWASPS or WWASPS facilities for alleged child abuse and other crimes. Kubler says that Robert Lichfield is the WWASPS mastermind and the one who is most responsible for any of the rampant abuse at WWASPS facilities. Kubler states, “I really hope this ends with Robert Lichfield in prison.”

Kubler mentions in The Program that she did not want her documentary to be a platform for accused abusers, which is why she did not pursue interviews with WWASPS officials. However, the docuseries has some archival footage of Robert Lichfield giving deposition testimony in a civil lawsuit against WWASPS, and Kubler pokes fun at Narvin Lichfield’s habit of inviting people on social media to watch him do karaoke at bars. In the documentary, Kubler also interviewed Narvin Lichfield’s son Samuel Lichfield, who denounces his father and WWASPS.

As seen in The Program, Kubler also went undercover at WWASPS recruitment seminars, where she says parents are conned into putting their children in WWASPS programs that usually have annual fees that are higher than elite universities and yet are usually operated by unqualified and unlicensed people. The slick marketing campaigns for WWASPS facilities include glossy brochures and websites where kids are told to pose for misleading photos and videos, says Kubler.

Kubler adds, “It will be very, very hard for parents to see the [WWASPS] program for what it is. The actual business of these programs is the manipulation of the parents.” She also says that brainwashing of children is also part of the business model of WWASPS and similar companies: “Unfortunately, there are a lot of kids who’ve been to these programs who still don’t believe them [the abuse survivors] and still support the programs. The kids are pawns in all of this. The parents are the clients, not the kids.”

Kubler is candid in The Program about how the abuse that she experienced at Academy at Ivy Ridge damaged her relationship with her father. She and her father were estranged and did not speak to each other for more than a year, but they eventually reconciled, as seen in the documentary. Kubler gives this update: “My dad and I are doing as best we can. He’s been a real sport through this whole thing. He’s so repenting and so apologetic. He’s still married to my stepmother, and I have no contact with her. That’s a difficult thing we still have to navigate. He is tremendously supportive of this documentary. He’s always been supportive of my filmmaking.”

Kubler says, “It's very hard to go on in life knowing that there are still kids trapped in these places. I‘ve always felt a heavy responsibility to get this story out. I‘m very happy I did that.” She adds, “We are trying to work on a larger movement and keep this going. The number-one thing that gets these programs closed is awareness and exposure.” Kubler advises people who know about kids in these programs: “Do a wellness check on them.” She says that any survivors or survivor allies who need to share information can contact her at her website (www.katherinekubler.com). In addition, Academy at Ivy Ridge survivors who want access to the files that Kubler found with her team can email theradicalchildadvocacyagenda@gmail.com.

Although these documentaries have a lot of disturbing information, directors Kubler and Mast both say that the takeaway should be about the resilience of the abuse survivors and how society should support survivors who courageously share their stories. Mast says that she wants Daughters of the Cult to be a “catharsis” for abusive survivors and other people affected by abuse to continue on a path of healing. Mast adds, “We got a lot of responses from people who said it was very freeing to see that. It did give them hope.”