An Oklahoma boarding school promised help for troubled girls. Students say they got punishment instead.

She waited until after dark one night in September 2024, took off her ankle monitor and slipped out a back door. She ran into the woods surrounding New Lifehouse Academy in rural Delaware County, carrying only her program-issued Bible. Baerg found a piece of glass in the roadway and cut her forearm five times. She told first responders she couldn’t handle everything going on in her life.

Baerg didn’t want to die. She just wanted relief, she said.

Her adoptive parents sent her to New Lifehouse after a previous suicide attempt, believing she would get the help she needed. Baerg said the school meted out punishment instead of offering support. She said staff physically restrained her for having emotional outbursts, talking too much, and not adhering to the strict rules.

“I just figured the only way out was maybe running away,” she said.

When the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office found her, she said she was sitting on a large rock. An ambulance took her to a hospital in Vinita, where she received stitches, according to medical records.

Mary said the nurse asked why Baerg had run away and tried to hurt herself. She told the nurse she didn’t feel safe at the boarding school. Soon after, a New Lifehouse staff member arrived and sat in Baerg’s room, answering questions from hospital staff, she said. A staffer took Baerg back to New Lifehouse after the incident. She said the school placed her on suicide watch, which meant she had to sleep on the living room couch.

New Lifehouse Academy markets itself to parents of teenage girls facing emotional and behavioral challenges, but is not licensed to provide mental health treatment.

The boarding school is operated by Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma, part of a network of more than 200 Christian recovery programs across the United States that promote studying the Bible to cure addiction and trauma.

Baerg and 23 other former students who attended New Lifehouse over the past decade told The Frontier that the program relied on control and isolation. Former students said punishments included physical exercise, food restriction, outdoor labor, and writing Bible verses. Some former students described staff pushing or punching them. Others said staff would restrain them by holding them down and sitting on them, causing their legs to go numb or making it difficult to breathe. One former student claimed in a federal lawsuit filed in August that she needed help for an eating disorder, anxiety, self-harm, and depression when her family enrolled her from 2014 to 2016. The lawsuit claims New Lifehouse subjected her and other students to violent physical restraint holds and forced exercise to the point of “vomiting, exhaustion, and even fainting.”

Oklahoma Adult & Teen Challenge hasn’t responded in court to the lawsuit yet and told The Frontier it couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

Three former students also told The Frontier that New Lifehouse staff members made inappropriate sexual advances toward them while they were in the program’s care. Former students said the school ignored their complaints about any issues with staff members, or nobody believed them. As a private, faith-based program, the school operates largely outside of state oversight.

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said in written responses to questions that New Lifehouse staff receive training on reporting abuse and that it reports all allegations to police and the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, as required by state law.

“Our approach is unapologetically Christian. We believe biblical principles, personal responsibility, healthy relationships, spiritual growth, and a relationship with Jesus Christ can bring meaningful and lasting change to people’s lives,” Wayne Gray, executive director for Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma, said in a statement. “National research involving Adult & Teen Challenge graduates has reported positive outcomes in areas including sobriety, family relationships, legal involvement, spiritual growth, and overall well-being.”

“Since 1984, New Lifehouse Academy has carried that mission forward by serving adolescent girls whose families have entrusted them to our care. We recognize that caring for young people carries an enormous responsibility. Their safety and well-being are important to us, and our staff are expected to follow established policies and procedures designed to provide a safe, structured, and supportive environment.”

The New Lifehouse website uses words like “struggling” and “troubled” to describe the teenage girls it serves. The website also says the program is designed for girls who are “depressed, withdrawn or self-destructive.”

An admission application provided by a former student who attended the program in 2022 asked parents to check items off a list of reasons they might want to send their daughters there, including depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, or a past rape or molestation.

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said in response to questions that the school had changed its application since 2022. The program asks prospective students questions about their behavioral and personal histories to assess their needs and determine if New Lifehouse Academy is the right placement for them, it said.

“If a parent believes their daughter needs clinical mental health treatment, we encourage them to seek an appropriately licensed provider and can refer families to programs that provide that level of care,” the nonprofit said.

The school did not respond to a request for a copy of its current admissions application.

After The Frontier contacted New Lifehouse, it added a disclaimer at the bottom of its website home page, stating that the program does not have a license to provide clinical treatment for students with mental health disorders and does not enroll students requiring that level of care.

For Baerg, being adopted meant a family had finally chosen her, and she was worthy of love.

But Baerg said that as a teenager, her sense of security slipped away as she struggled to cope with her trauma.

“I always had an underlying feeling that it’s all temporary,” she said. “Just because I hadn’t had a family or a support system in so long.”

Mary began acting out, Dustin Baerg said. She would throw and break household items when throwing a fit. On one occasion, she hit his wife, he said. Baerg said the incident happened after she was prescribed multiple mental health medications that didn’t mix well and caused her to have mood swings.

When Baerg was 16 years old, she opened a bottle of Tylenol and swallowed as many pills as she could. After a three-day hospitalization, doctors transferred her to a psychiatric hospital that recommended inpatient treatment, according to her adoptive father. Dustin Baerg said he looked online for inpatient treatment programs, and Teen Challenge facilities dominated the search results. The Baergs first sent Mary to a different Teen Challenge facility, Kansas City Girls Academy.

But Mary said she was kicked out for running away.

The Kansas City Girls Academy — recently renamed Heartland Girls Academy — didn’t return The Frontier’s request for comment or respond to Baerg’s request for her program records.

So the Baergs enrolled Mary in New Lifehouse Academy. The school’s social media posts show girls swimming, eating cupcakes and having fun. New Lifehouse staff told the Baergs it didn’t offer licensed counseling, but it had life coaches and student mentors. Dustin later learned that some of the life coaches were graduates of the program.

One former staffer said that New Lifehouse provided limited training for working with troubled teenagers. Direct care staff had to have a high school diploma, be at least 21 years old, ‌agree with the Teen Challenge mission, be amenable to the Assemblies of God church doctrine, and have “mature and Godly character,” according to a 2026 job listing.

The nonprofit wrote in an emailed statement to The Frontier that staff qualifications vary by position and that “employees who work directly with students receive training appropriate to their responsibilities, including student safety, mandatory reporting, and appropriate restraint procedures.”

Baerg’s adoptive parents drove her three hours from Kansas City to New Lifehouse Academy’s remote campus down a narrow, winding road in rural Oklahoma.

Baerg felt like her family didn’t love her or want her at home.

Bill Goldner, an Assemblies of God minister, and his wife Linda founded New Lifehouse in 1984. The couple built the school near Grand Lake after Bill Goldner thought he saw a young woman walking alone on a nearby dam, according to a 2019 article in Oklahoma Today magazine.

“At that moment, he felt God impress upon him that there are many girls without homes or hope,” Linda Goldner told the magazine.

The Goldners later founded Picture In Scripture, a 1,000-seat outdoor amphitheater that had biblical plays next door to the school, which has since closed.

The couple transferred ownership of New Lifehouse to the Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma in 1996. Organized as a church, Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma operates six faith-based recovery programs for men, women, and teenagers across the state.

Today, New Lifehouse Academy can house up to 32 girls at a time. The program also operates a year-round private school on site, The Cross Christian Academy, where New Lifehouse girls attend classes.

The Goldners now serve on the Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma’s board of directors, Linda Goldner told The Frontier in June. The couple also operates Oasis Animal Adventures, a petting zoo next door to New Lifehouse. New Lifehouse students participate in what the school describes as animal therapy through Oasis Animal Adventures. Families paid a one-time $1,200 fee for the program, according to the 2022 admissions paperwork.

Baerg said she was excited about the animal therapy program, which showcased horses, kangaroos, and other exotic animals on the New Lifehouse website, but she soon felt disappointed. She and other former students said the animal therapy mostly involved cleaning stalls and feeding animals and described it as unpaid labor. A former student also claimed in a lawsuit that her “involvement with the animals consisted primarily of uncompensated and unsupervised custodial labor, including feeding and grooming, rather than any structured or supervised therapeutic interaction.”

Linda Goldner described the program in an interview with The Frontier as a “playdate with animals” instead of actual therapy.

“Those girls were over here one hour a week; that hardly constitutes free labor,” Linda Goldner said. “If you’ve ever kept an animal farm, you work seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said that New Lifehouse’s animal program teaches “responsibility, empathy, accountability, and basic life skills.”

“Caring for animals can include appropriate activities associated with their feeding, grooming, and environment,” the organization said in a written response.

Former students told The Frontier that New Lifehouse required them to perform various types of unpaid work, including selling and restocking products at Jake’s Fireworks each summer. Students also had to raise money for the program at the annual Brush Creek Bazaar each fall and at other off-campus fundraisers. Two former students who attended the program between 2014 and 2016 claim in separate lawsuits that Teen Challenge forced students to work at the fireworks stand without meal or rest breaks. The lawsuits also claim staff pulled students from scheduled academic instruction to work additional shifts at the fireworks stand.

The cases are still pending. The nonprofit denied the former students’ allegations in one lawsuit, but hasn’t filed a response in court to the second case yet. A July Facebook post said the students worked “long hours” serving customers at the fireworks stand.

Jake’s Fireworks didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Laurie Koller, a lawyer with Red Dirt Legal, who is representing the former New Lifehouse students, said the firm has spoken to dozens of young women detailing identical allegations.

The lawsuits were filed under a 2003 federal human trafficking law that allows victims of forced labor to sue for damages.

“New Lifehouse students have historically participated in limited school-sponsored fundraising, service, and community activities as part of their broader educational and program experience,”  Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma wrote in response to questions.

The nonprofit said it couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said part of the admissions process requires students deemed a flight risk to change into their undergarments while two female staffers conduct a “brief visual safety check for prohibited items that could be used to harm themselves or others.”

During Baerg’s first week at New Lifehouse, she learned that staff controlled students’ every move. She said her morning started at 5:45 a.m. If she was on D-level, the most restrictive stage of discipline, she said staff limited her diet to lumpy oatmeal for breakfast and tuna with white bread for lunch. Dinner was meat and vegetables. At night, they gave her 10 saltine crackers. Baerg said she spent most of her time on this level. Students on D-level weren’t allowed to have condiments or dessert, according to the 2025 school handbook. The two pending lawsuits claim staff restricted access to food as punishment and kept students on strict food rations.

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma denied withholding food as discipline.

“New Lifehouse does not restrict or withhold food based on a student’s program or disciplinary level. A student’s placement on D-level does not determine or reduce the amount or type of food provided. Students are all provided the same regular meals, and items such as saltine crackers may be provided as a snack and are not a substitute for a meal or a disciplinary food restriction,” the nonprofit said in an email.

New Lifehouse has recently reduced the saltine crackers to five for students on D-level, according to the school’s 2025 handbook.

If students asked for help with their schoolwork and the teacher found the answer within one minute, they were required to write the answer to the question 25 times, according to the 2025 student handbook.

Former students told The Frontier staff didn’t allow them to talk unless staff addressed them as a form of discipline the program calls “wordfast.” The former students said staff didn’t allow them to laugh, smile or communicate through gestures while they were on wordfast. The handbook described wordfast as “no communication through talking, gestures, notes or messages.”

Staff closely monitored nearly every aspect of students’ communication with their families. Baerg said staff stood over her during phone calls home and read her mail and personal journal. The two pending lawsuits claim staff forced students to rewrite their letters home if they complained about New Lifehouse. If a student refused, staff refused to mail the letter.

The school’s 2025 student handbook instructed parents not to believe their children’s complaints about the program and to confirm information with the student mentor.

The handbook also said parents should be prepared to receive “negative communication” from their child.

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said New Lifehouse monitors student mail and phone calls “to promote student safety, maintain appropriate program boundaries, and address safety or security concerns consistent with information provided to parents upon enrollment,” and not to keep students from expressing legitimate concerns.

“A structured residential program can sometimes lead to disagreements or frustration,  particularly as students adjust to expectations and boundaries. We encouraged parents to communicate with both their child and program staff so they could obtain additional context and fully understand concerns that were raised,” the nonprofit wrote in an emailed response.

The school declined to release a current copy of its handbook.

But that soon changed.

At one point, Baerg found a razor on Davis’ bed and used it to cut herself.

Baerg said staff disciplined her by having her write sentences and Bible verses about not being a fool. She said she didn’t know if the school had notified her parents about her self-harm. Dustin Baerg declined to answer follow-up questions about the family’s experience with New Lifehouse.

Former students told The Frontier that staff often responded to emotional distress by physically restraining them, making jokes or disciplining them, but rarely consoling them.

Emily Adamo, who attended the program between April 2022 and June 2023, told The Frontier that staff frequently yelled at students and shamed them for sharing their emotions. She said staff told students their anxiety and depression were demons and that if they prayed hard enough, their issues would go away.

Adamo said a staff member yelled at her and made her repeatedly write a Bible verse about loving herself.

Students also said staff pressured them to express a belief in the Christian faith.

Olivia Harp was 17 when her parents sent her to New Lifehouse because she was suicidal and struggled with drug addiction. She attended the program in 2024 with Baerg.

Harp said staff made students talk about how Jesus changed their lives, even if they didn’t share those beliefs.

“Even if you weren’t Christian, or you weren’t religious, you were forced to say that,” Harp said.

Teen Challenge wrote in an email response that it doesn’t require students to worship but asks students to be respectful during mandatory chapel services.

Baerg said the teacher was allowed to continue teaching and staff didn’t remove her from his classroom. He is no longer employed at New Lifehouse.

The Frontier could find no record that the school had ever reported him to law enforcement.

Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said New Lifehouse had no record of Baerg reporting the teacher. New Lifehouse said it “reported the information provided to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services for independent review” after questions from The Frontier.

The teacher didn’t return The Frontier’s request for comment. His wife contacted The Frontier and denied any claims that he was inappropriate with a student, and described the girls in the program as “troubled.”

Baerg said she felt ashamed when her allegations against the teacher weren’t taken seriously. She said that she stopped caring about the program after that and frequently clashed with staff.

Kiersten Faulk, one of Baerg’s roommates, told The Frontier that she watched a staffer physically restrain Baerg during a disagreement over permission to use the restroom. Faulk said the woman grabbed Baerg and held her arms. She also said staff members treated Baerg poorly and told her she was dramatic, attention-seeking, or should pray more when she was struggling.

Faulk recalled that Baerg often cried herself to sleep, showing a puffy, tear-stained face the next morning.

“There were times where I’d see her go to talk to staff because she was either having a panic attack or dealing with suicidal ideations, and they just looked at her like she was stupid,” Faulk said.

Thirteen former students who attended New Lifehouse between 2012 and 2024 said this same staff member routinely restrained girls by sitting on their legs and holding them down. Students also said she slammed them into doors and pushed them down. She has worked at New Lifehouse for 20 years. Two former staff members said the staffer was harder on certain kids, including Baerg.

The staff member didn’t return The Frontier’s request for comment. Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said it has a process for students to report issues, but had no record of student allegations against the staffer.

While former staff members said they were trained to de-escalate situations, Adamo said staff rarely did and used physical restraint as the first option when a teenager was experiencing a crisis or suicidal ideation.

“They abused their power to restrain us,” Adamo said.

New Lifehouse only uses restraint techniques when “a student may present an immediate risk of harm to herself or others,” Adult & Teen Challenge of Oklahoma said.

“Staff are trained to use approved restraint techniques intended to minimize physical and emotional harm,” the nonprofit said in written responses to questions. “Each restraint incident is documented, including  the circumstances of the intervention, so the incident can be reviewed in accordance with New Lifehouse procedures.”

The program also says it notifies parents after it uses a physical restraint hold on a child.

The staff member said Baerg’s experience was one reason she quit working at New Lifehouse Academy. She said staff failed to address Baerg’s mental health needs and kept her enrolled in the program.

Less than two weeks later, Baerg snuck out early in the morning and walked in the direction of the Pensacola Dam, which is about eight miles from the school. Baerg planned to jump off the dam and kill herself, according to psychiatric records. But two people passing by intervened and took her to the local police department.

Mary was taken to Willow Crest Psychiatric Hospital in Miami, Oklahoma, where she was diagnosed with depression, according to medical records.

Baerg spent nearly three weeks in the psychiatric hospital. When the hospital staff discharged Baerg, they recommended outpatient therapy. But her parents sent her to another boarding school in Utah instead, which was not affiliated with Teen Challenge. Baerg never returned to her adoptive parents’ household. After leaving the school in Utah, she eventually moved in with her best friend’s family in a small town in Kansas. She turned 18 last year and now lives with her boyfriend and his family in another nearby town.

When Baerg tried to get her records from New Lifehouse Academy, she received an email from the program’s lawyer, refusing to release the documents. When The Frontier called New Lifehouse’s admissions office, an employee said the school keeps student records for seven years.

The admissions staffer also said students are entitled to those records. But New Lifehouse would only release Baerg’s school transcript.

New Lifehouse Executive Director Carrie Collins sent Baerg an email saying, “We do not issue Teen Challenge student records. They are proprietary Teen Challenge property, and we are not required to by law. Since we are not a medical facility, patient rights from HIPPA do not apply. We are a private boarding school subject to Oklahoma laws and regulations.”

Two other students The Frontier spoke with had previously requested their records and ‌received hundreds of pages from the school, including grievances they had filed against staff and students and their disciplinary records.

Baerg recently graduated from high school and gave birth to a baby boy in August. She would eventually like to get her Kansas real estate license.

She said she continues to struggle with her mental health and her relationship with her adoptive parents. She feels like her family does not fully understand the effect New Lifehouse has ‌had on her.

Dustin Baerg said he wouldn’t recommend this program to other parents.

“We didn’t get what we paid for or asked for,” he said. “What was advertised ultimately wasn’t delivered.”

This story was fueled by a tip we received as partners with ProPublica through the Local Reporting Network.