The Program, a new Netflix documentary released in 2024, features a cast of real people telling the story of a behavior modification program operating within the Academy at Ivy Ridge.
Established in 2001, Ivy Ridge was described as a boarding school for troubled youth in Ogdensburg, New York, but it was only a front for a program that enabled horrific child abuse for the better part of a decade.
Released on Netflix on March 5, a documentary titled The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping takes a deep dive into the specifics of what happened at Ivy Ridge with first-hand accounts from former students and survivors.
Every Cast Member/Interviewee in Netflix's The Program
Ahead is a list of every person involved with Netflix's 2024 documentary, The Program, who conducted an interview or was a part of the core story.
All of the cast members have connections to the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) organization, which funded and ran programs such as Ivy Ridge all over the world.
Katherine Kubler
Instagram: katherinekubler
This story is most prominently told by survivor Katherine Kubler, who spent 15 months in the Ivy Ridge program after being sent away at 16 years old.
Coming from a very conservative Christian family and losing her mom at just under two years old, she was taken to the Academy by two armed guards after her father and stepmother signed her up for the program.
She spent more than a decade investigating the corruption and abuse seen in this system, and she only started speaking with her father again in recent years after shutting him out of her life because of the academy.
Phil Elberg
Phil Elberg is an attorney interviewed for the Netflix documentary and was one of the first to investigate how bad programs like Ivy Ridge were, even successfully suing one of them for their malpractice.
He spoke with Kubler about how the kids who went through the program were scared into silence, never being able to discuss how bad things were behind closed doors.
Janja Lalich
Instagram: janja_lalich
Janja Lalich is a sociologist and the author of the book Take Back Your Life. In the doc, she went into detail on the process behind how the kids in programs like Ivy Ridge were taken from their families.
She explained how huge men in black would come with handcuffs in the middle of the night under the description of "transport services," with parents watching from the door as their kids were hauled away.
Alexa Brand
Alexa Brand entered the WWASP program when she was 15 years old and spent 22 grueling months at Ivy Ridge, describing some of her experiences there.
She recalled having a male employee do a full strip search on her and shared how she was friends with Katherine in the 7th grade before the program, but Ivy Ridge would not allow friendships of any kind.
Allison
Allison was admitted into Ivy Ridge at 15 years old and also spent 22 months at the "school."
She detailed having a "hope buddy," which was an older and more experienced youth at the academy who explained dozens of rules to her in her first three days. These rules included not being able to look outside or even smile at anybody else.
Her interviews also revealed information about seminars, which would last from two to four days and put the kids through immense psychological and physical torture through various exhausting and degrading activities.
Dominick
Sent to the program at age 16, Dominick spent 18 months at Ivy Ridge and told his peers and viewers about some of the horrors he saw while he was there.
This included the "no-camera room," in which kids were thrown against the walls and the floor as punishment for any sort of infraction, no matter how small.
Dominick also looked back to the one day per year when the kids would get to go outside and do fun activities, although he made it clear that it was a publicity stunt where photos were taken to make the school seem legit.
Diana
Spending three and a half years at Ivy Ridge after being sent there at 16, Diana's experience was particularly trauma-inducing as staff members took bets on who would break her first psychologically.
She was one of the rare kids who refused to follow the rules, leading her to be sent to intervention, forced to take medication, and sit in tiny, cramped rooms as she stared at a wall for hours and days at a time.
Diana opened a heartbreaking wound revealing how she lost her father in a car accident when she was three years old, but she even said that Ivy Ridge was worse, as the staff made her relive that moment and believe it was her fault.
Amy Ritchie
While the Netflix documentary did not include any interview or video footage, it detailed how Amy Ritchie was the director of the girls' program at Ivy Ridge.
She would help to enable countless instances of abuse against the young girls she kept in her program as all of the survivors in the documentary looked back on her with disgust.
Thomas Houlahan
Thomas Houlahan is a veteran journalist who investigated everything happening at Ivy Ridge, seeing constant oppression against the victims as he looked in from the outside.
He and Kubler spoke at length about the work he did interviewing witnesses, who would tell him about how the kids were restricted on who they could write to and how the program did everything in its power to keep the truth hidden.
Jason Finlinson
Jason Finlinson worked for years as the director of Ivy Ridge, describing the system in archive footage as a level program that "enables kids to see where they’ve been misled."
He was also married to MayBeth Lichfield, the daughter of one of the biggest figures in the entire WWASP organization, and he did not show himself to be an intelligent individual on any level based on video evidence.
Florence "Siss" Dedekker
Florence “Siss” Dedekker worked as a shift supervisor for the Ivy Ridge girls, keeping an eye on the teens as they went about their daily lives.
Described as "loud" and "unapologetic," she also sat down for breakfast with Kubler, telling her how she realized "this isn’t a boarding school, this is a fucking prison."
During their conversation, they were even told to leave the diner in which they were eating, as the staff and other customers did not want them discussing Ivy Ridge in public.
George Tulip
Only shown in images and discussed in conversations, George Tulip worked as the director of Ivy Ridge's boys program, and he was described as nothing less than a tyrant.
The investigative team found multiple signed documents detailing how he would discipline children and they described him as a child abuser.
Video footage showed him pulling a kid and holding him in the air by his throat, and he was seen in another video tackling and restraining a boy forcing him to shave his head.
Sean
Sean spent two years at Ivy Ridge starting when he was 15 years old, looking back to times when he was made to crossdress and dance in front of other students and faculty as he was humiliated and shamed.
Although he "graduated" in 2006, he realized the program was a complete fraud when he applied to college, and he was never able to take on higher education or get a college degree.
Quentin
Quentin was 15 years old when he was sent to the program and spent 8 months at Ivy Ridge, although he made no effort to advance in the level system there in his entire tenure.
He found himself in solitary confinement often and was once fed only two pieces of bread and eight ounces of milk per day for two weeks straight, experiencing immense levels of pain and trauma.
Quentin even compared his time there to being sent to prison and made it clear that prison was a less horrible experience.
Maia Szalavitz
X/Twitter: @maiasz
Maia Szalavitz is a journalist who wrote the book Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, providing an in-depth investigation of the terrors seen in this industry.
She described places like Ivy Ridge as a kind of heaven for pedophiles, who could abuse countless people as often and as harshly as they wanted with nobody looking at anything they were doing.
Roderick S. Hall, PhD.
Business website: Link
Roderick S. Hall, PhD. is an experienced psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist who bluntly described what kids experience in places like Ivy Ridge as "a mindfuck."
He also made efforts to investigate other locations run by WWASP such as Casa by the Seas in Mexico, attempting to alert legislators to the horrible practices enacted there.
Nikki
Nikki was sent to the Casa by the Sea program at 17 and spent one year there and at Ivy Ridge, being transferred to the latter after the Mexican program was shut down.
Trying to overcome a heroin addiction and attempting suicide on multiple occasions, Nikki said the program did not help whatsoever, recounting her time in solitary confinement and admitting to losing any sense of dignity.
Molly
Molly joined Ivy Ridge when she was 14 years old and spent 16 months there, discussing how both she and her little brother were sent to similar programs since their parents thought so highly of the organization.
She echoed Katherine Kubler's sentiments about the program not allowing friendships, and she was also punished once simply for accidentally tripping over Kubler.
Julie
Katherine Kubler met up with her sister Julie as they looked back on their shared experience with the program after their parents sent Katherine to Ivy Ridge.
At one point, Julie flew from Washington, D.C. to Syracuse and rented a car to drive more than two hours to see her sister for the first time in months, instantly realizing something was wrong with what was happening.
Claire
Katherine has another sister named Claire, who was overseas while Katherine was in the Ivy Ridge program.
Upon reuniting with both of her sisters and their father, she discussed scary intimate details of what happened to Katherine, including her body being carefully scrutinized and analyzed.
Katie
Katie was the program at an even younger age than many other interviewees, starting at 13 years old and staying there for 19 months, although she put in heavy work diving into the institution years later.
She found and filed away hundreds of files for all of the victims, even mailing them out to those who wanted to get a sense of closure while helping burn the rest of them so she, Kubler, and others could get their own closure.
Cindy
While working with Katherine Kubler, Katie visited her mother, Cindy, who spoke about how the program caught vulnerable parents and assured them the institution would help their kids.
She even explained how Ivy Ridge would incentivize parents, who would have portions of tuition money covered for free after referring other families to the program.
After discussing their experience, Cindy even took a big step and apologized sincerely to Katie, breaking down into tears as they bonded with each other.
David Gilcrease
Not interviewed in the series, David Gilcrease was the man who created the WWASP seminars, which were one of the main devices his facilities used to torture and abuse teens.
Spending 10 years at the Lifespring cult before moving to WWASP, he copied his work from his first locale for Ivy Ridge and other centers, and he was always adamant that all participants complete their assigned programs.
Tom Nichols
Tom Nichols worked as the public relations coordinator for Ivy Ridge and took marketing photos of the kids participating in outdoor activities to keep up the facade of helping youth.
He was a former politician brought in to help put a positive spin on the program, and these days, he works as a pastor at a church.
Kubler even went there to try to interview him about her experience, although he wanted nothing to do with her team, actively opposing being part of a "60 minutes exposé" on Ivy Ridge.
Ken
Katherine Kubler took a huge step in setting up a talk with her father, Ken, who had only spoken with her via email and text over the years since the program ruined her life.
It took a lot of time, he apologized for sending her there and wished he'd figured out what was happening to her sooner, although he voluntarily pulled her out before she had to "graduate."
Brandy
Brandy worked at Ivy Ridge for only a month after a friend of hers recommended her for the position, saying the facility needed employees.
She first thought she'd only have to sit in a hallway and watch the kids, but when she found out more, she did everything she could to follow the rules without breaking her moral code of conduct, which was highly difficult.
Ken Kay
One of the worst offenders in this documentary is Ken Kay, who worked for years as the president of WWASP after spending time as a nighttime security guard at a similar facility, Brightway Adolescent Hospital.
In archival footage from past interviews and depositions, Kay fully denied all allegations of abuse at any of his organizations, enabling everything happening to the children there.
John Sullivan
John Sullivan is the former regional director at the New York Office of Attorney General, who gave details on the numbers at the personnel numbers at Ivy Ridge, which totaled 500 students, 240 staff, and only one certified teacher.
He uncovered the truth about it being an educational fraud, which was the largest case of its kind in New York state history for more than a decade.
Ann Moderne
Ann Moderne is an accomplished lawyer who enacted a heavy lawsuit against WWASP, dedicating the better part of two years to investigating a case where a child died after being abused and beaten to death.
The lawyer who sued WWASP dedicated most of her time for two years to looking into a case where a kid died at one of the schools, found dozens of companies connected to WWASP, and realized most of them were from Utah.
Robert Lichfield
Arguably the heart of this entire system was Robert Lichfield, who is the founder and owner of WWASP and continues his work in various organizations to this day.
Coming from a large poverty-ridden Mormon family in Utah with 11 siblings, he was described as a humorless dictatorial figure who got a sick pleasure out of torturing program participants.
Nathaniel Lichfield
Nathaniel Lichfield is the son of Narvin Lichfield, one of Robert's brothers who held numerous high-ranking positions in the WWASP organization.
Nathaniel reached out in a private WWASP survivors group offering to speak with survivors and victims, openly sharing with Katherine how horrible his father was both with the program and with his own family.
Sadly, he did not realize how horrible the organization was until he was in his 20s, and he has only spoken to his father on rare occasions since he found out the truth.
Caroline Cole
Caroline Cole spent 29 months in Ivy Ridge after being sent there at 14 years old, and since then, she has put in considerable effort in exposing the entire controversy.
In 2008, she was part of a congressional investigation that got as far as being featured on 60 Minutes, and she's worked on getting official legislation passed to prevent abusive programs like this from thriving.
Mike McKell
Utah State Senator Mike McKell agreed to an interview for this documentary, discussing how the troubled teen industry is a $500 million industry in the state with 100 facilities operating in Utah.
He momentarily addressed Robert Lichfield's transgressions, and he shared how much he was looking forward to diving into this documentary once it was released.
Sara Gelser Blouin
Sara Gelser Blouin is a prominent Oregon State Senator who reflected on a young boy named Cornelius who died in a similar program, with employees restraining him roughly for 12 minutes simply for throwing a piece of bread.
She also pointed out how the video of that incident showed other victims and employees not having any kind of visceral reaction to that death, seeing incidents like that regularly.
The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping is now available to stream on Netflix.
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