Paris Hilton said she is feeling “so validated” after Utah officials revoked the license for the Springville campus of Provo Canyon School, the residential treatment facility where she has long alleged she experienced abuse as a teenager.

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services announced the license revocation on July 6, citing what it described as the provider’s failure to meet health and safety requirements and a pattern of ongoing noncompliance with state rules. Under the agency’s order, the facility’s license has been revoked effective immediately, services must end by Aug. 6 and the campus is prohibited from accepting new enrollments.

In a statement to PEOPLE, Hilton called the state’s decision a milestone not only for herself but for the many former students who have spent years speaking publicly about their experiences.

“For more than fifty years, children came forward with stories of abuse, neglect, and trauma,” Hilton said. “Today, the state confirmed what survivors have known all along: Provo Canyon School failed the children in its care.”

“I was one of those children. I know what it feels like to cry for help and believe no one is coming,” she said. “Today, children still inside that facility know someone is finally coming to protect them.”

“The little girl in me who was told she would never be believed feels so validated today,” the statement continued. “We were telling the truth. We always were.”

Calling the revocation a reminder that “no institution is too powerful to be held accountable,” Hilton added, “When survivors refuse to stay silent, change is possible.”

The Utah Department of Health notice cites numerous alleged violations, including failures to protect clients from harm and maintain adequate staffing, among other violations.

Hilton also marked the announcement on Instagram, where she described it as “the news I’ve been fighting and praying for” and thanked fellow survivors and advocates who helped bring attention to the issue over the years.

The state’s latest action comes after a series of enforcement measures and legal challenges involving Provo Canyon School. Just last month Utah officials imposed conditions on the Provo campus’ license, citing health and safety concerns.

ABC affiliate KTVX also reported that the campus later faced emergency sanctions over allegations that staff delayed medical treatment for a client. The outlet said separate lawsuits allege the school failed to protect a 13-year-old boy during an assault and delayed care for a teenage girl, who allegedly developed a serious kidney condition after waiting nine days for medical treatment.

Hilton first publicly shared her allegations against Provo Canyon School in her 2020 YouTube Originals documentary This Is Paris. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE that same year, she said she chose to speak out after remaining silent for years about what she alleges she experienced at the Utah boarding school as a teenager.

“I buried my truth for so long,” Hilton told PEOPLE at the time. “But I’m proud of the strong woman I’ve become. People might assume everything in my life came easy to me, but I want to show the world who I truly am.”

Hilton said she spent 11 months at Provo Canyon School after being sent there by her parents as a teenager. She alleged that the abuse began almost immediately after she arrived.

“It was supposed to be a school, but [classes] were not the focus at all,” Hilton said. “From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.”

She further alleged that staff members verbally and physically abused students, claiming they “wanted to instill fear in the kids so we’d be too scared to disobey them.” Four of her former classmates also appeared in the documentary, making similar allegations about their experiences at the school.

Hilton also alleged that she was placed in solitary confinement after another student reported that she planned to run away and said she suffered panic attacks while attending the school. She claimed attempts to tell her parents what was happening were unsuccessful because her communications were closely monitored.

“I was having panic attacks and crying every single day,” Hilton said. “I was just so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life.”

At the time, when reached for comment by PEOPLE regarding Hilton’s allegations, Provo Canyon School said it could not address claims involving the period before its current ownership.

“Originally opened in 1971, Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. We therefore cannot comment on the operations or patient experience prior to this time,” the school said.

Source: people.com

For weeks, Aleah Corona’s 13-year-old son told his mother he was afraid he would be hurt at Provo Canyon School. During their therapy sessions earlier this year, she said, he told her that other students had threatened him and that he didn’t feel safe.

Corona was worried too. It wasn’t like her son to have a “meltdown” over safety concerns, she told The Salt Lake Tribune. But she said school staff reassured her that she didn’t need to worry.

“It’s like a manipulative tactic,” she recalled being assured. “He’s just probably doing it because he wants to go home. A lot of kids are doing it.”

Then, on May 14, another resident — larger than Corona’s son — slammed the teen’s head into the ground, a new lawsuit Corona filed Monday alleges. The lawsuit alleges the assault happened after “tensions between the two youths were permitted to escalate in the presence of staff.”

Corona’s son was knocked unconscious, and he was bleeding from his mouth. But Provo Canyon School staff did not call 911, according to state records, and no ambulance or police came. Instead, the staff took the 13-year-old to an emergency room themselves — which state regulators later determined resulted in a one-hour delay in treatment.

Her lawsuit states that her son’s injuries were so serious that the Orem hospital transferred him to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, where he was diagnosed with a fractured jaw and a traumatic brain injury.

But police were not alerted to the boy’s injuries until a Primary Children’s emergency room doctor — who happened to be a state senator — called law enforcement, Corona’s attorney said Monday.

The physician’s phone call, Corona’s lawsuit alleges, was responsible for “bringing light to this situation that [Provo Canyon School] were trying to keep concealed from police, regulators, a mother and from the consumer public.”

Corona said Monday that she was speaking out and filing a lawsuit because what happened to her son was “not right.”

“We discussed safety concerns. They disregarded safety concerns,” she said. “They manipulated me as a parent.”

Corona on Monday joined high-profile celebrity Paris Hilton on the steps of Provo’s historic courthouse to speak out against Provo Canyon School. Hilton went to Provo Canyon School in the 1990s and alleges that she was abused in the program, overmedicated and sexually assaulted when she was given pelvic exams that had no clear medical purpose.

Hilton urged Utah licensors to take harsher action against Provo Canyon School, saying its own records paint a picture of a “violent and neglectful” program.

“There is only one answer,” she said. “Shut it down.”

‘A facility that is the problem’
Hilton has become an advocate for reform for the so-called “troubled teen industry,” and has helped pass laws in 16 states — including in Utah in 2021 — that brought more oversight to teen treatment programs.

Hilton noted that Provo Canyon School’s current owners, Universal Health Services, have distanced themselves from her abuse allegations, saying they didn’t own the facility when she attended.

But other more recent incidents, she said, show abuse is still happening: A teenager grabbed by his neck by a staff member and thrown to the floor, a 14-year-old girl who was chemically restrained 17 times in three months, and a staff member who struck a teenager during a restraint.

“This is not a facility with problems,” Hilton said. “This is a facility that is the problem.”

State regulators took emergency action, a type of corrective action plan, against Provo Canyon School after Corona’s son was hurt, requiring the program to re-train staff and increasing monitoring. But that additional oversight is expected to end on Thursday.

Hilton wondered if it would take a teenager’s death for Utah to dole out more severe consequences.

“Utah’s silence is a choice,” she said. “If a child dies, it will not be a tragedy that we couldn’t see coming. The warning signs are already here.”

Full article: sltrib.com