Meet the New Diamond Ranch Academy, Same As the Old Diamond Ranch Academy?

Fake Treatment Team, Fake Treatment?

The former Diamond Ranch Academy (via Washington County, Utah recorder’s office)

For over a decade youth alleged serious abuses and negligence at the for-profit Diamond Ranch Academy (D.R.A.) in Hurricane, Utah. State licensors and many parents were slow to heed those allegations. D.R.A., after all, advertised itself as a “World-Class Therapeutic Program” and “the diamond standard in therapeutic boarding schools.”

Then three children died there.

D.R.A.’s methods were always unorthodox—par for the course in what the American Bar Association and others call the “Troubled Teen Industry.” In 2008, the U.S. Government Accountability Office investigated the industry and told Congress it “found torture and abuse of youth across the United States.”

Last summer Utah officials effectively shut down D.R.A. Many of its former residents rejoiced. But, for the most part, they already knew what MartyG Reports was quick to note: similar programs have “closed due to criminal and licensing actions, only for the same staffers to reopen [them] under new names, including in Utah.”

Perhaps true to form, less than a year later, RAFA Academy announced its “Grand Opening.” Even by then, like D.R.A., RAFA had already established itself—at least in its own estimation—as “America’s leading teen therapeutic boarding school and clinical residential program.”

But the connections between RAFA and D.R.A. are, perhaps intentionally, not always obvious. RAFA’s address, for instance, is different than D.R.A.’s.

That’s because the road was renamed. At least at first, RAFA registered its location with the state as “433 Diamond Ranch Parkway.”

And, while it is true that D.R.A.’s $20-million campus changed hands in December, the transfer deed reflects it was sold from one L.L.C. to another for ten dollars ($10).

Other parts of RAFA may also seem familiar to those who knew D.R.A.

Visitors to RAFA Academy’s snazzy new website see a group picture of 15 relatively diverse, but mostly young adults next to text that reads, “Our Entire Team is Certified in the RAFA Therapeutic Process.”

But those who assume that the picture depicts RAFA Academy’s treatment team, or any treatment team, are likely incorrect. The same picture has appeared, as far back as May 12, 2020, on the HR Learning Center’s website. The HR Learning Center’s HTML indicates that the image comes from Shutterstock.

MartyG Reports searched for a state license associated with RAFA Academy but found none. MartyG Reports then emailed the Utah Department of Licensing and Background Checks, which licenses youth residential programs, and asked if RAFA is licensed. The department did not respond.

A fake treatment team is one thing, intellectual property infringement is another. One might argue that the real Rafa Academy is in Spain, named for famed tennis champion Rafael Nadal Parera. In the U.S., Rafa Nadal Academy has been trademarked since 2015. (Rafa Nadal Academy’s attorney of record did not immediately respond when alerted to the new RAFA Academy’s existence.)

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