Newport Institute – Shelton

I am writing about the Connecticut, Women's young adult residential program. Where to begin—this is my experience, and I wouldn’t recommend this program to anyone. I met with a therapist once who was so incompetent that… they discharged me prematurely without properly assessing my safety. There was no discharge plan in place. The therapist was also very rude and unprofessional towards me. She did not bother herself with the details of my situation and even verbalized her judgements of me, calling me names and putting me down. Additionally, the other clients were very young. If you are an older adult, I would strongly advise against this program. It felt very infantilizing and seemed to operate on a rigid, boarding school–like system that appeared to compensate for a very low number of employees with rules that minimized autonomy. I was isolated from my outside support system. Phone time was ten minutes a day, once a day. Social environment was hostile, with lots of bullying behavior among young and very immature girls. The way I was treated overall was deplorable. I was yelled at for eating, given food that made me sick, and restricted from using necessary medical equipment. Bullying was pervasive and widespread, and punishment from clinical staff was strict and severe. There was no effort to work with me or meet me where I was at. Overall, the facility failed to provide adequate care. I’m grateful I made it out of that environment without spiraling. I'm doing a lot better since being free of there.

As a therapist and professional in the field for over 15 years, I'm selective about the programs I recommend to families. Newport has consistently stood out. What sticks with me is the feedback I hear after: a strong… clinical program, meaningful family involvement, staff who genuinely care, and a beautiful setting to support their recovery. I've visited the Fairfield facility myself, and I've seen enough success stories from clients who've gone through here to recommend it without hesitation to any family weighing their options.

I went to the Fairfield CT location for depression and trauma treatment: Great program, prescriber is no good. She randomly tapered me off of stimulants which I need for ADHD after convincing me they were having some… sort of adverse affect on my depression treatment. The Wellbutrin she tried to replace them with was not doing much and worsening my Tourette's tics, so after commenting that it was a weird decision my prescriber at the next program I went to put me right back on the stimulants. Even still, it was and still is a much lower dose than the one I found effective before and so I still feel I am experiencing repercussions from the bad decision on her end, in the form of a lack of ability to focus and constant fogginess. I probably would have gotten more out of this program and the one I am at now was it not for the removal of the most important med in my regimen. That being said, the actual therapeutic part of the Newport program was pretty great, CC and treatment staff where very supportive and friendly and did a lot of good work to nurture a healing and safe environment, even if it was sometimes in spite of management, who were not really around a lot and made some questionable changes to the program when they were. Despite being in what I view as a compromised mental state during my time there, in hindsight, I made a lot of great memories with both staff and other clients, and feel I got a lot out of this program.

Tried to admit myself, they didn’t take my insurance because it’s out of state.

I went to the restidential location in bethlemhem, CT and I stayed there for 97 days. Long story short, abusive and full of lies. My hope in posting this to prevent anyone from either supporting them or giving yourself… to newport healthcare. Please be careful. Thank you.