“Reform at Victory is a compelling coming-of-age story of one girl’s horrifying experience in a ‘Christian’ ‘reform school.’ Michele Ulriksen vividly captures adolescent life in a program aimed at stamping out any trace of individuality and spirit. If you want to understand how ‘tough love’ hurts teens, this book is a must-read.”
- Maia Szalavitz, Author, "Help At Any Cost:  How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids"

“Michele’s personal account can help us to better recognize the very painful injuries that are being inflicted upon youth and families, and our society as a whole, by the present day phenomenon of institutional abuse in alternative residential treatment.”
- Dr. Allison Pinto, Clinical Psychologist at University of South Florida

“Child abuse masquerading as religion is a very real and serious problem. Reform at Victory sheds light on an issue that is largely ignored by our society...The typical survivor of these reform schools and programs like them really struggle in life… The abuse causes them to have very low self-esteem. They feel "lost" because their year(s) of isolation in the program have left them unprepared to deal with life beyond the walls of the facility. Drug and alcohol abuse is common. Many survivors have little or no contact with their families. They have trouble holding steady jobs. Stable intimate relationships are rare. As adults, many victims need professional counseling and a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not uncommon.”
- Shelby Earnshaw, Director of ISAC; International Survivor’s Action Committee, www.isaccorp.org

Michele Ulriksen's Reform at Victory provides an emotional and shockingly candid portrayal of life in what passes for a Christian reform school, but amounts to a religious jail designed to brainwash its inmates. Her startling memoir chronicles her own experience as a 16-year-old whose sneaking out of the house lands her in a place where physical and emotional abuse is rampant and where she is denied even the most basic rights that most prisoners enjoy, as well as the after-the-fact impact of such incarceration. This is a must read for those who have survived these "schools," for parents considering placing a rebellious teen in such a setting, for mental health professionals who must deal with the fallout, and for government officials - and all the rest of us - who clearly need to take a more active role in curbing the abuses that are so commonplace in these facilities.
- Linden Gross, Author and Writing Coach

Michele Ulriksen's first person account of her experience inside an unregulated reform school is important because is shows the public what really goes on behind closed doors that outsiders to these programs don't see. Reading a book like Reform At Victory may be the only way a parent, who is considering placement of their toubled teen in a facility such as this one, will see what life is like inside a locked-down unlicensed alternative treatment facility.
- Mollye Barrows, Anchor/Reporter of SECRETS IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE, WEAR-TV, Pensacola, Florida

Additional acclaim for Michele Ulriksen's Reform at Victory:

Note: Some names have been withheld for privacy requests (some of these comments are from women who were at VCA with the author).

Michele Ulriksen's story is a compelling personal story that also contains a pointed political message. Ms. Ulriksen exposes the damage that can be done by those whose religious mantles cover up abusive ideologies and anti-therapeutic methods. I hope this account will impel parents who want help for 'troubled teens' to learn much more about their options and compel legislators to carefully examine all requests for funding of 'faith based' childrens' services before doling out tax dollars to support them.
- Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church & State

I read the excerpts from the book......so accurate. Unbelievable.....I told my husband that I think I may have blocked some of this part of my life out, it was a traumatic, life changing experience and there are so many things I can't remember.....anyway. Thanks for writing this book. I will definitely buy, read and cherish.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I got it. I read it. Right now I'm paralyzed with emotion, emotions that are hauntingly familiar. I have so much to say but need a few days to collect myself. I knew my vca diploma was a joke but I never really wanted to do the research. I can't imagine how painful it was for you to write this but I'm so grateful that you did. Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I just found out about your book by scouring the web for information about VCA.I was a student there from 1998-1999. While browsing through your site, I could barely read the information in the 'about book' section without holding back tears. I am looking forward to reading your book and am hopeful that this book will educate as many people as possible about what goes on at these horrible facilities. The laws allowing these schools to operate without being state licensed need to be changed, and I feel books like yours are stepping stones that pave the path that will lead to stricter laws protecting youth in America. Thank you for writing this book!
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

First I would like to say THANK YOU for writing this book. As of yet I have not been able to read it but, my wife of almost 11 years was at Victory the same year as you I believe. She was taken out 1 month before the Sheriffs closed the school down. I have heard so many of the stories and read all the letters that her parents would send here every week. I don't know how you, my wife, or any of the other girls survived that hell. The stories I have heard of the GR room, the dorms, the electrified fences, is like listening to some one that was in an internment camp. God bless you and all that survived Victory and other places like that.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I just wanted to start by telling you thank you for coming and reading your book to us at LBCC. I found your book to be of high interest to me and though I did not have cash on me during the reading, I just recently purchased the book at Grassroots. I cannot wait to read it more and am so thankful that I got to hear you speak! Thank you.
- A fan that attended a reading.

I have been a member of the VCA Yahoo Group for about a year, but barely look at it. I went on today to scroll through old posted messages. I came upon the info about your book and the Reform at Victory website. I read the excerpt from your book and almost cried at my desk at work. Thank you for writing this. It represents all of us.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I have to say, you are a woman after my own heart. I have thought for years about writing a book about my experience. I wanted to be a huge advocate for the "anti-reform school movement" but life just took me in so many different directions. I always end up coming back to this thought though. The seven months I spent in that place have had the hugest impact of any experience in my life. I have spent the last eight years of my life trying to get over those horrific seven months.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I read on zoom info about your background and accomplishments. You are truly a hero to me. It is wonderful to see a "girl" come out of that mess, dust herself off, and become a success. Part of the reason I don't keep up with the former VCA & GBS girls is because it's just too damn sad. I feel that the good majority have not done much with their lives, especially the GBS girls that were my peers. I hope that doesn't sound too judgmental, it's just something that's hard not to notice.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I just want to actually thank you for writing this book. It was funny, sad and brought back most of my memories of the school that I have suppressed.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I just wanted to say how much your interview on KBOO this morning moved me. While I'm sort of new-agey-humanist, my two brothers are hardcore fundamentalist Christians, so the subject really hit home for me. I was impressed with how tolerant and accepting you seem able to be, even after what you've been through.
- KBOO listener, following Michele's radio appearance in 2008.

Great job! Everyone was excited about your book and your presentation. Thanks much. Look forward to seeing you when you move to the area.
- Attendee of a reading.

Michele,
Even though I don't know you personally, I am so proud of you! Fantastic! As a former fundamentalist Baptist myself, I am doubly proud. Your ordeal and strength are amazing. I will spread the word.
- Greg Jurls, Creative Director, Hero Video Productions, Hewitt, Texas

Dear Michele,
Hi! It's great to hear from you! I plan to order a copy of your book as soon as I can afford it. I'm between paying gigs at the moment. But, HEAL's still going strong! I'm going to link your book anywhere/everywhere VCA is mentioned on our site in the next 24 hours. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I've been hectically busy. Good job! I look forward to reading it!
In Solidarity,
Angela S.
HEAL Coordinator

This is such an important topic and I hope that awareness of your story and others leads to a crackdown on this type of abuse and those who inflicted it. I applaud your courage in revisiting such an awful experience to share it and help prevent it from happening again.
- A reader.

I was just on your website looking to see when your book comes out. Since you mentioned it I've been anxiously awaiting its debut. I read the books excerpts and I cried. As much as I think sometimes that it's all in the past it's shocking to me how easily the emotions flow when it comes to Victory. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to reading the whole book...when will it be available for all of us?
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

I cried when I read your excerpts and quotes from the other girls. None of you should have ever been subjected to that awful place...I commend you for having the courage and strength to write that book. I hope the process gave you some peace. You've done a good thing that will surely help others.

I know that nothing should surprise me, but WOW, what a horrific tale. It took some guts to get the story out there, so I want to commend your courage and chutzpah. I'm on the International Survivor's Action Committee Web site now; thanks for making us aware of it. I'll educate myself and get letters out to my congress members (we have some great ones in Minnesota!). Looking forward to reading your book. In the meantime, know that one courage act inspires many others.

Read your piece in Freethought Today. When I think I have heard of everything, up pops another despicable Christian program. I hope you put my email address on your mailing list for your book. I want to read it and keep it for documentation of Inquisition-minded Christians in the 21st century. It is shocking what these cults will do to their members.

Congratulations on writing a fascinating account and keep up your efforts. No young person should ever have to endure what you went through.
- A reader.

Hello Michele,
Congratulations on the publication of your book! I hope you will be sure to send a review copy of the book to CALYX Journal for review.
Margarita Donnelly, Director
CALYX, Inc.
www.calyxpress.org

I finished the book today. I'm proud of you for writing the book. We had different experiences, hung out with different girls and yet many were enduring the same. You spent much more quality time then I had with Carey-I was really especially glad to read your tribute to the essence of who she was throughout the book.
- A VCA Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

Hello Michele,
I just got done reading your book today! I could not put it down because it was so good. I just want to first off tell you that you did an amazing job writing this book and putting out the information that you did it your book. I know that this was probably one of the hardest things you have done in your whole life but it is an incredible achievement. I was really able to relate to your book when you talked about Christianity; I was 'saved' my junior year of high school. I had faith but I struggled with the understanding of the Bible and how things were possible just like you did. I went to church at Calvary Church in California until my parents made me move to Oregon. I lived in Cottage Grove, Oregon my senior year of high school and was miserable. I attending a four square church where they just like Brother P told girls that being gay was wrong and if you had sex you were a whore. Forcing girls to tell that they had sex or that the lord would not save them. With seeing this in that church, it really turned me against being a Christian. I still do not understand religion to this day and probably never will; it just does not make sense. Thank you again for writing this book. I really enjoyed every minute of it!

You really did accomplish something great. As I said, you've put it out there and it has eternal momentum. Even years from now, people will always have the opportunity to take your writing into their consciousness, which is just a precious, priceless kind of thing. It would be cool to get your books in libraries and in used book stores in hip places. You articulated so many of my questions on religion throughout the book, and like the girl said, for her as well. It's an eternal question we'll always ask, and your point of view was good to consider and add to my understanding.
- A reader.

Hello Michele,
Thank you so much for your kind email. I am sorry that it has taken me so long to reply. I've just been reading and re-reading every word on your website. Even though I have survived a home very similar to Victory, it is still shocking to read the testimonies of other survivors! I know you have visited my website, and I would love to include a link from my page to yours if that is okay with you.

The process of remembering and dealing with my time at Hephzibah House, is still relatively new. It has been about 18 years since I left there, but I've only started "doing something about it" in the past year. Sadly, I've lived all these years feeling that I somehow allowed myself to be mistreated and abused. As if there was something I could have done there to prevent it from happening. That has kept me silent for all these years. I have always felt a sort of stigma attached to having been through a rehabilitative boarding school for troubled teens, as Hephzibah House had been billed. My focus now is on the fact that this home is still open, and they are still housing young girls. While Hephz. House now claims to be a Christian boarding school, I don't believe for one second that their tactics have changed.

I read the excerpts of your book, and I look forward to buying a copy to read the rest of the story. Thank you again for the email, and for what you are doing to raise awareness.
- A Hephzibah House Survivor (name withheld for privacy reasons)

Throughout Reform at Victory, our guide takes us from one scenario to another while providing pertinent background information and the occasional follow-up story of girls that come and go throughout the book. We get a nice touch of the author's often humorous, sometimes sarcastic point of view of this cult-like madness she came to know as reality, for an entire year. We empathize with her and the others living under a legalistic cloud of authority, rules, rules and more rules. It's as though we must; we too are cooped up in this prison...Whether you're a parent wondering what to do with your troubled teen, a survivor of brainwashing and spiritual abuse or just someone looking for an interesting and riveting story, Reform at Victory offers one survivor's perspective. It raises larger questions of our beliefs, and circumstances that exist within religious context, as it must.
- Dan Crall, writer/editor/producer/Oregon Public Broadcasting Radio

Reform at Victory reads like a prison memoir, filled with dangerous secrets, informers, late night escape attempts and heartwarming friendships formed against the backdrop of an incredibly harsh and oppressive environment. At its core, it is about a confused teenage girl who is confronted with questions many of us fail to answer until we are well into middle age, if ever. Michele wants to believe in a higher power and live a Christian life, but God is intangible, invisible. Like many sixteen-year-old girls, things like tanning, boys and dreams of MTV rock singers are much more real and immediate. As you read, you are inspired to ask the same wrenching, unanswerable questions of yourself that Michele wrestles with inside her head. She could never utter them aloud, the intercoms are listening.
- The Alchemist, October 28, 2008. Corvallis, Oregon

Ulriksen's harrowing story brings to light the mentally and physically abusive treatment used in many fundamentalist reform schools, operating under the guise of Christian values and a rehabilitative environment.
- The Commuter, October 29, 2008. Albany, Oregon

Reform at Victory is author, Michele Ulrickson's, first hand account of her incarceration in an evangelical Christian reform school as a teenager. Her story is a powerful indictment of the anti freedom, ultra conservative Christian faction in this country. Yet Michele's harrowing account also reveals that, even under the onslaught of religious nonsense, propaganda and emotional abuse, one can still find hope and light through free thought and reason.

Michele's book reads almost like a diary as she details her shock and disbelief that her own parents would place her under the complete control of this Christian reform school; a fenced, isolated compound, completely outside the scrutiny of law enforcement and governmental oversight. Here girls like Michele are stripped of their dignity, individuality and self esteem at an age when young women are their most vulnerable.

Michele's coping shows a remarkable level of maturity for someone her age. The rooms are bugged so the staff can eavesdrop on private conversations, confidences are betrayed, and there is no privacy; not even in the bathrooms. Yet Michele reveals to the reader the only vestige of freedom available to her - her personal thoughts. Often she wrestles with herself, praying to God, asking Him to help her learn to conform. Yet she thinks, how can a just and merciful God allow such cruelty to be perpetrated? Forced to read the Bible for hours upon end, Michele finds the words tortuously in contradiction to the conditions she and the other girls are forced to endure.

The frightening truth is that other such Christian reform schools still exist, something that true Christians and non-believes should both deeply fear and condemn.
- Robert Neary, Corvallis, Oregon

This was a great read. I'd expected more of a dry account, but it was an engaging and living narrative journey through the experience of a Christian reform school. I really connected with Michele and her confusion, pain, anger, and dwindling hope. If anyone ever wondered what it was like to be brainwashed by an abusive cult, read this book. Locked in closets, drugs, suicides, fear mongering, psychological torture... it's all there... and sadly in the name of God and Jesus. No wonder the place has electric fences with barbed wire. If you are a Christian parent with an unruly child, read this book. Reform schools like this are not a solution.
- Parabola K.

Reform at Victory: A Survivor's Story is the gripping true story of a sixteen year old girl's incarceration in a locked-down all-girl fundamentalist Christian reform school. Author Michele Ulriksen was a fairly typical mildly-rebellious southern California adolescent (cool clothes, partying, experimenting with alcohol) in 1986. And she didn't want to go to church. Her parents had difficult adolescences themselves, and they converted to fundamentalist Christianity when the author was a young girl.

Her parents took her for a drive when she was 16, supposedly to visit the San Diego Wild Animal Park. In fact, they drove out into the desert, to an isolated compound surrounded by a high, barbed wire-topped fence. They had taken her to the Victory Christian Academy (VCA), an unregulated, unlicensed Christian reform school, and left her there for a year. Imagine how terrifying this was to a 16-year-old! Worse, she was dragged to the "Get Right Room," a small windowless unfurnished room that was pitch black when the door was closed and locked from the outside. She was in solitary confinement! Loud Christian music, and later recorded preaching by Jerry Falwell, was played just outside the door. The desert temperature was in the triple digits. The brainwashing had begun!

The rules were endless! For 30 days, new girls could not make eye contact, or speak with, anyone but the staff and an assigned "buddy" who would monitor her and teach her the routine. No phone calls for 90 days (and then only a brief call from their families), no talking about boys or secular music. A long list of words (like "cool" and "tubular") that they could not utter, no pants to be worn or even mentioned, 3-minute bathing, no privacy even when going to the toilet, no tampons, and on and on. "Brother Patrick," the preacher-owner of VCA, said it best: "Teens have no rights here."

The girls received no medical care from professionals, and their "education" was middle-school level work, with such classes as "Biblical Science and Creation" and "Bible Studies." The facility was not state licensed; the teachers were not licensed to teach.

The purpose of VCA was fundamentalist Christian indoctrination. Bible studies, Bible reading, Bible verse memorizing, praying, and listening to preaching were part of the daily schedule. A relentless hatred of Atheists, homosexuals, liberals, and women was preached. By the time the girls left, they may not have believed in heaven, but they surely believed in hell!

The horrible treatment that is only hinted at above left the author with severe depression, subject to panic attacks, and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, among other things. The author eventually picked herself up and moved on, but it wasn't easy. She showed great courage and fortitude in writing this deeply-personal narrative. It is very readable, yet a very powerful, story.

Our society must not tolerate the physical, psychological, sexual, medical, and religious abuse of children. Unregulated religious "reform" schools need to be closed. Michele Ulriksen has shown what treatment teens can be subject to in these "theocratic bastions."

Truly, as Blaise Pascal wrote, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
- John Dearing, President, Corvallis Secular Society

Hi Michele,
I loved it! It's well written, a very compelling story. I read it logarhythmically - meaning each time I read (before going to sleep at night) I read longer and later into the night, couldn't put it down.

I was particularly moved by how you were able to describe all the people in the scenario with a remarkable degree of compassion - not just your family, but even the people who were the worst players in the game, even Brother P. You did this without ever getting sappy or without losing the double lenses with which you were seeing this time in your life - as you experienced it then, and as you are able to reassess it now. You clearly and "believably" expressed your doubts and your attempts to believe, and the multiple pressures to believe, and the need to pretend to believe, all happening simultaneously. You come off as a very typical teenager, maybe more level-headed than most despite the supposedly wild behavior that freaked out your parents at the time.

I got the sense that you have undergone an incredible degree of healing over the role of religion in this disaster, even since I met you. I got that sense when I saw you at the Grassroots reading, when your joy maybe could have been attributed to finishing a huge difficult project well, but it was so evident in your book. That makes it a much more powerful message, because people distrust vengeance as a motive, and anger repulses. For example, when you were describing one of Brother P's rants of a sermon on one of his obsessions about girl's behavior or sexuality, you say "I was later to learn that there were more than 2000 verses in the Bible discussing our responsibility to care for the poor and needy, but Brother P never talked about those." Nothing could condemn him more than those lines, but it makes us pity him as well as get pissed off at him.

I hope that your book gets spread far and wide. Your stories about all the other girls - even Kathy, the first one who seemed to genuinely have found her path through this place - give us a connection with all of them. I wish all of them well, what a nightmare, especially the ones who froze up like the one that drew pictures. (Art Saves Lives!!!) I hope your friends from that time share in your thrill of getting this out in the world. I would love to meet Barbara sometime, especially. I wonder if the >1% of good the place did could have been done a better way, or if there are better camps that kids who are truly endangering themselves might be able to go, and safely and sanely figure things out.

You are either a fine natural writer or you had an editor who was totally in sync with you. Or both! Well done!!!! Congratulations!!!! It was a thrill to read it, having known some of your story.
- A reader.

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