• In a TikTok video that went viral final fall, 15-year-old Maya and her youthful brother have been seen screaming as they have been taken from their father.
• Their mom had gained custody from a decide regardless of the kids’s allegations of abuse.
• The decide relied on a controversial concept known as “parental alienation,” which holds that when youngsters accuse a guardian of abuse, it is actually because they have been brainwashed by their different guardian.

This story was reported in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Sort Investigations.

A video that went viral on TikTok final fall confirmed 15-year-old Maya and 11-year-old Sebastian, siblings from Santa Cruz, California, pleading and screaming in protest as three strangers cornered them in a storage, picked them up, and compelled them right into a black SUV. “You are kidnapping me!” Maya cried as she struggled in useless to get away.

However this wasn’t an unlawful kidnapping. The truth is, it had been ordered by a decide.

Hours earlier, a household court docket decide had put Maya and Sebastian within the sole custody of their mom, regardless that they’d each accused her of abuse and wished to stick with their father. The decide had additionally ordered the kids right into a therapy program for “parental alienation” and licensed an intervention firm to take them there. 

The video was considered hundreds of thousands of occasions and ignited a nationwide motion to help Maya, Sebastian, and different kids who’ve been pressured into the custody of a guardian they’ve accused of abuse. However Maya and Sebastian primarily vanished that night time. They by no means returned to their faculties in Santa Cruz, and family and friends did not know the place they have been.

The youngsters weren’t heard from publicly for seven months — till Monday morning, once they emerged in a web-based video saying that they’d run away from their mother. And in an unique interview with Insider and Sort Investigations that occurred whereas they have been nonetheless residing with their mom, the kids described every little thing that occurred after they have been seized.

Maya and Sebastian’s ordeal started on October 20, 2022, when California Superior Courtroom Decide Rebecca Connolly ordered them into the custody of their estranged mom, Jessica, and right into a reunification program known as One Household at a Time. This system is grounded within the concept of parental alienation, which was developed within the Nineteen Eighties by the psychiatrist Dr. Richard Gardner, who thought that divorcing moms typically brainwash kids into falsely accusing their fathers of abuse. In extreme instances, Gardner wrote, kids affected by “parental alienation syndrome” have to be reduce off from the guardian they like, transferred to the care of the guardian they declare to concern, and subjected to “risk remedy.”

Parental alienation has by no means been accepted as a psychiatric dysfunction by the medical institution. But in the present day, mental-health suppliers throughout the USA purport to deal with it, often beneath an order from a decide. Just lately, a collaborative investigation by Insider and Sort discovered that since 2000, judges have despatched greater than 600 kids to reunification applications that advocate the momentary exile of their trusted guardian. One such program is One Household at a Time, which is run by therapist Lynn Steinberg, who says it has handled 50 households over the previous eight years.

Ruling from the bench final October, Connolly mentioned that whereas Maya and Sebastian had accused Jessica of abuse, and Maya had testified to this alleged abuse, the kids’s statements have been “ever-changing” and never credible. As an alternative, Connolly blamed the kids’s rejection of their mom on their father, Justin, who’d divorced Jessica in 2019. (Insider is figuring out family members by their first names solely to guard the privateness of minors.) Connolly barred Justin and everybody related to him from contact with the kids for not less than 90 days. The youngsters have been to journey instantly to Steinberg’s workplace in Los Angeles, the place they might endure a four-day workshop with Jessica.

Instantly after the workshop, Jessica mentioned in a court docket submitting that her relationship with the kids had “totally modified for the higher.” Likewise, in an interview with Insider and Sort in April, Steinberg described the household’s workshop as successful. Steinberg mentioned that nearly all the kids her program enrolls have falsely accused a guardian of abuse and that she doesn’t settle for kids into her program whose abuse claims have been substantiated. Whereas Maya “hung onto” her perception that she’d been abused for longer than most youngsters would, Steinberg mentioned, Maya ultimately apologized to Jessica, and each kids sat on their mom’s lap and cried.

“And so they have been simply re-bonding with their mother — a mother that they in all probability desperately wished to see, desperately wished to be near,” Steinberg mentioned.

However on Monday, Maya and Sebastian, now 16 and 12, introduced in a video posted by an activist that they’d fled their mom, who had moved them to Olympia, Washington. In a cellphone interview that occurred earlier than they left, each kids mentioned they stood by their allegations and have been complying with Steinberg’s program and with their mom out of concern. They mentioned they wished to return to Santa Cruz and to their father, whom they hadn’t seen since October, and that they wished their story advised.

“I do not ever wish to reside with my mother or see my mother once more,” Maya mentioned. “I am terrified of her. I wish to be with my dad and with my dad’s household. And what occurred was not OK.”

The youngsters did not disclose their location within the video. However later within the week, they posted eight movies to Maya’s Instagram account. In a single, Maya says she and her brother are secure and thanks “all of the individuals in Santa Cruz who made it doable for us to get away and motivated us to get out of there.”

In court docket testimony final October, Jessica denied abusing the kids. Final summer season, an investigation into among the kids’s allegations by the Santa Cruz County little one welfare company was “inconclusive,” court docket data present. The Santa Cruz Police Division additionally investigated Jessica final summer season and filed no fees, in accordance with court docket data.

An electronic mail despatched to Jessica was answered by her legal professional Heidi Simonson, who mentioned that state legislation enforcement and the FBI have been investigating the “prison act of luring the kids away, and concealing them from their custodial guardian.” Simonson defended parental alienation however declined to reply written questions, citing a gag order imposed by Connolly.

Although Steinberg spoke with Insider and Sort at size earlier this yr, she did not reply to a request for one more interview this week, nor to an inventory of questions.

Justin mentioned he’d seen the preliminary video posted on Monday and was praying that the kids have been secure, however aside from that, he could not remark.

Within the cellphone interview and in certainly one of her new Instagram movies, Maya mentioned that each she and Sebastian cried the entire approach to Los Angeles after being seized by brokers from Assisted Interventions. At first, Maya mentioned, the transporters pinned her to the automobile ground in a “full physique lock.” She mentioned her again harm and her lip was bleeding. Assisted Interventions did not reply to requests for remark.

Once they arrived at Steinberg’s workplace, Maya began hyperventilating with concern, she mentioned, partly as a result of she knew her mom can be becoming a member of them. However Steinberg advised Maya to “cease pretending,” she mentioned.

In her April interview, Steinberg mentioned she does not use coercion or threats. However Maya mentioned that when she and Sebastian raised their abuse allegations with Steinberg and a clinician who was helping her, the psychologist Regina Marshall, the therapists known as them liars and threatened them. Maya mentioned they have been advised that in the event that they did not begin telling the reality, they’d need to go “some place else” the place requirements like blankets and meals might be withheld. Maya mentioned they have been additionally warned that they might be separated from one another and saved from their father for years.

Their mom was current for this dialogue however did not say a lot, Maya mentioned. Marshall, who is predicated in Monterey, California, and was appointed by the court docket in 2021 to assist the kids reconcile with Jessica, declined to reply written questions. In an electronic mail, Marshall mentioned that for authorized and moral causes, she will be able to’t disclose who her sufferers are.

Regardless of the strain, Maya mentioned, she and Sebastian by no means recanted. However seeing no different choice, they agreed to attempt to get together with their mom. The youngsters mentioned they did present her bodily affection, as Steinberg claimed, however solely as a result of Steinberg demanded it. And so they mentioned they solely cried as a result of they have been scared.

For the rest of the workshop, Maya mentioned, Steinberg and Marshall centered on how the kids had harm their mother, how pathological this conduct was, and the way they may make amends. The clinicians tried to get the kids responsible their father, Maya mentioned, however they refused.

Maya was 12 and Sebastian was 8 when their dad and mom divorced. The dad and mom shared custody, however the kids quickly started resisting their time with Jessica, court docket data present. In filings in late 2020 and early 2021, Justin mentioned this was as a result of the kids did not really feel secure at Jessica’s, whereas Jessica blamed Justin and his new spouse, saying the kids have been “hewing to what they’ve been advised (or threatened) to do or not do.” Within the fall of 2021, Jessica advised the court docket that Justin had “efficiently alienated” the kids from her.

Jessica’s alienation declare was ultimately buttressed by Marshall, who filed a report with Connolly final September criticizing Justin for supporting the kids’s abuse allegations. Saying that Justin could also be “delusional,” Marshall urged instant motion. “Within the bigger scheme of issues,” she wrote, “there’s valuable little time left to intervene with these kids to assist them heal and provides them the most effective likelihood at a psychologically wholesome life.”

A number of weeks later, Connolly granted Jessica sole custody and ordered the kids into Steinberg’s program. A request for remark from Connolly was answered by a Santa Cruz County court docket administrator, who mentioned judges could not focus on “pending and lively” instances.

All through the workshop, Maya mentioned, she and Sebastian stayed at a condominium with their mom and Marshall. For prices associated to the workshop, Marshall billed the household greater than $10,000, whereas Steinberg charged greater than $13,000, court docket data present. Assisted Interventions, which transported and monitored the kids for seven days, charged greater than $33,000. By court docket order, Justin was chargeable for these prices.

As soon as the kids have been settled in Olympia with Jessica, they continued to superficially comply, they mentioned. However at one level, Maya advised her court-appointed legal professional that she wished a chance to testify, she mentioned. After Jessica realized this, she introduced the kids to Steinberg once more, Maya mentioned. Steinberg was offended, Maya mentioned, saying she should not be speaking together with her lawyer with out permission and that she could not testify.

Steinberg additionally advised Insider and Sort that the incident sparked a return go to to her workplace. It was inappropriate, she mentioned, for Maya to hunt to talk to the decide. “What kids do is that they discuss to their dad and mom about what they wish to do, and get permission from their dad and mom,” Steinberg mentioned.

Marshall and Steinberg are working to oppose Piqui’s Legislation, a California invoice that may bar state judges from ordering kids into therapies that reduce them off from the guardian they like. An attenuated model of the laws has handed the state senate and is being weighed by the meeting, the place the invoice’s proponents are hoping to strengthen it. The same legislation was signed by Colorado’s governor final week.

In a video she made final October, two days earlier than the court docket order, Maya expressed help for Piqui’s Legislation. For now, nonetheless, her focus is extra instant.

“I have not been in a position to discuss to my pals or my grandparents or my stepsiblings or my dad or my stepmom or any of these people who find themselves really supportive household in like seven months now,” she mentioned. The adults she is allowed to talk with have not helped, she mentioned. “We have been telling them that our highest precedence is speaking to these individuals and being round these individuals and being again with these individuals. And so they’re like, ‘No, no, no.’”