I was a resident at Foundations For Living (aka FF...

I was a resident at Foundations For Living (aka FFL) for 10 months.
One early morning, around 7:00 am, I was woken up by staff (at my prior group home) and they told me I was leaving. I didn t know where I was going. Everyone told me before that if I kept awolling I would end up in a residential. Well, they were right. I became a resident in FLL on March 3, 2018. It was a terrible place. There is no excuse. Before I go into detail, I will say that the website for Foundations is not updated. Those pictures are not even close to what the inside looks like. It s filthy and dirty and only staff and residents will ever be able to verify that. I m not going to sit here and put effort into this review if I were lying. Everything I am saying is from experience.
Don t get me wrong, while in Foundations I learned how to stand up for myself. But the only reason I was able to learn that is because of the constant fights and riots that occured. I would often times get beaten up and bullied by the other female residents on the unit. I ve been on every single unit besides 1West, considering that it s the boy unit. While in Foundations I was always scared when the girls crossed the boys, just because of the things I went through and how those boys acted. There is no structure in this facility whatsoever. The staff didn t exactly encourage the fights, but they did feed into the drama. Staff gossipped almost as much as the residents did, which isn t good. I don t know how many times I ve had to barricade myself in my room because other residents we re trying to jump me. Girls would cut my hair in my sleep and steal my belongings. Remind you I didn t have much at all, considering I came from a group home. I always had nightmares. I ve seen multiple girls go to the hospital from fighting, and oftentimes girls would sneak in other girls rooms to have sex. The staff didn t care at all and they are most likely the source of drama. There was always rioting. Girls would tear down fire extinguishers and spray staff and residents, hit people with em, and some girls would tear off the fire alarms from the walls. The residents would assault staff etc. It was terrible. I was often the target when the girls wanted to hurt someone or do something to them, just because I was the weaker link. It was my first residential and my last, but those girls gave me serious trauma.
When I FIRST got to FFL, they immediately drugged me with a bunch of medication. I became numb and zombie like. I hated everything about Foundations. There were only a few staff who actually cared for the residents. God bless their hearts, because I don t know if I could have made it out of there alive without them.
I was surrounded by nothing but self harm, fights, riots, and drama. Everyday I had to watch someone new slit their wrists in the hall with whatever they could find. Everyday I had to constantly watch behind my back LITERALLY so I didn t get stabbed with a broken dvd or pen. I felt like my life was in danger every single day and it was absolutely terrifying. All of the stress and drama, and based off of everything I had seen, led me to self harm. During my stay at Foundations I attempted to commit suicide 3 times. It was too much stress and chaos, and I couldn t handle it any longer. I will forever be scarred for life, physically and mentally.Foundations for Living is way worse than any other hospital, jail, residential, and locked down facility. It needs to be shut down. The higher up staff who have control of which residents stay and go only keep residents because it highers their paycheck from the government. Please don t incarcerate your child into Foundations