After abuse probe, another Sequel-run program that housed California youth will close
Joaquin Palomino and Sara Tiano and Cynthia Dizikes
One of the nation’s largest youth residential treatment programs is shutting down after California officials, prompted by a Chronicle and Imprint investigation into rampant abuse allegations, decided to stop sending vulnerable children there.
The closure of Clarinda Academy — the flagship facility of Sequel Youth & Family Services, a for-profit company based in Alabama — marks the second Sequel campus to shut down in as many weeks.
Leaders of Sequel said in a statement Monday that they had conducted a “review” of Clarinda’s residential program in southwest Iowa for children with behavioral and emotional problems, before deciding to end the decades-long contract. Late last month, Normative Services, a Sequel-run program in Wyoming where children reported being choked, dragged on the ground and threatened by staff members, announced it too would shut down, following an internal “evaluation of viability.”