As she began to unearth and process the abuse she'd endured at a Christian, all-girl, locked-down facility decades earlier, an Orange County woman saw a void and filled it — she founded Survivors of Institutional Abuse.
Jodi Hobbs was sent to Victory Christian Academy (VCA) when she was 17. The school, which was located in Ramona and founded by Michael Palmer, was eventually shut down.
Hobbs spent a year at the school, which she described as “very aggressive.” Not only were the girls forbidden from forming relationships, aside from with their assigned “buddy,” but they were also forced to read the Bible three times a day and attend chapel twice, Hobbs says. “Basically, you're getting brainwashed. You start to believe that the world is bad and the only good thing is here.”
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If they broke any rules, which often changed, Hobbs says, they were sent to the “get right” room, a closet with a light, where they could “get right with Jesus.” Hobbs was sent to the “get right” room three times, she says. Once, she forgot to bring a pencil to class and had to spend two weeks in the room.
Soon after leaving the school, Hobbs got married, had kids and tried to move on with her life. “I went through bouts of depression and I couldn't figure out where all this was coming from.”
One day, a reporter called and asked her about her time at VCA. “I was terrified,” Hobbs says. The call triggered her curiosity and she started to scour the Internet searching for information on the school and for online support groups. “I started deprogramming myself. Being made to eat your own vomit, that's not okay. I had to go through a series of my convictions versus what Victory says.”
Thanks to Facebook, Hobbs connected with Christie Niznik, who also went to VCA years ago, and now lives near Hobbs. “I went to look for anything out there for survivors and there was nothing and that's when I started talking to different girls about developing this organization. We need help, we need to unite, that's kinda how SIA was born,” Hobbs says. “It's about healing and moving forward so it doesn't happen again. I want to raise awareness so nobody has to go through what I went through and what Christie went through.”
At SIA's convention in Long Beach this February, the group is going to promote United With One Voice — a compilation of stories from people who lived in VCA and similar lockdown facilities.
In the book, Niznik shares recollections from her time at VCA, as well as noting that her parents heard about the school from Calvary Chapel. Similarly, Hobbs says her parents heard about the school from a parenting group called “Tough Love,” which she described as “an offshoot of Calvary,” adding that “a lot of the students that were in Victory got put there through that group.”
I was at this school – It was the worst time of my life! I ran across this article and many others this morning because I’m visiting San Diego and some repressed memories surfaced. I am so happy to have found this and other articles and YouTube from other girls who survived. I plan on reaching out to all of you Thank tmyoi for taking the time to write this.
I too attended this “school” in 1989 for 6 months and it was also the worst time in my life. I still deal with the effects of the abuse I suffered at the hands of Mike Palmer (narcissist sociopath) and his staff.. it was the most cruel environment I have ever been forced to live in. I feel for anyone who has spent any time there as no doubt any problems they had prior to entering were most certainly compounded by the daily abuse and torture that we all suffered during our time there. I hope that man is rotting somewhere… and hope someday he actually has to be accountable for his fraud and abuse. This is why licensing is crucial to help to ensure the physical and metal safety of children in their care. I’m 50 now and rarely a day goes by a memory doesn’t pop in my head. I have anxiety and other issues directly relating with being abandoned at a school
run by religious zealots and uneducated sociopaths. Im thankful for a community that has had the courage to speak out and help facilitate healing.
I was at VCA in 1987. I never saw any kind of sexual abuse or emotional abuse. The rules were strict, but consistent, and students broke rules all of the time behind the staffs backs. We were not perfect angels and for some of us, this school provided safety from what some of us experienced in our own home life. I know plenty of graduates like me that embraced the program and have zero complaints. And for some others, the opposite. So how is this possible? Some of us actually worked on ourselves while others fought with nothing but a bad attitude. In Romona, we even had an adult who joined our program because she saw something different in her own sister who was in attendance. The younger one left the school and was murdered a short time after by a boyfriend that she decided to go back with, while her adult sister graduated and had a successful life after exit. It’s all about choices. Some of us made the program work for us, while others chose to fight and rebel. I was barely 13 when I entered the program and spent 1 year and 9 months at the academy. Not once did I ever see any of the pastors engage in any kind of sexual abuse or even sexual language with any of us girls. The food was good and healthy, but e never were without heat or air conditioning. What some girls may reference as manual labor, was simply chores. We were never given a task that we could not handle. As far as the “lack of education”, I tested 4 years behind when I entered the academy and when I left, I was beyond my grade level. I made up 4 years of education in 1 year of time. Today I sit as a successful paralegal with zero criminal history, I’m 48. Don’t believe everything you hear about this school being a torture chamber. Some students chose to remain with no empathy and no integrity. Their choice. Mike Palmer saved my life by giving me a solid foundation that I could build off of when exiting back into the “real world “. Shame on all of these women who never grabbed a true success story for themselves, but instead chose to lie and ruin things for the rest of us. And the GR room was plain and bare for a reason. It was a room where you couldn’t hang yourself or participate in self harm, not a torture chamber. To the women that lie about VCA, maybe you were just to much in denial to the destructive lifestyle that brought you there. God does know what happened to the hearts of a lot of us and God also knows the liars. Good luck with all of that. Thank you Mike Palmer for caring about our struggling youth. Some of us came from parents with severe mental illness who should have never had kids in the first place. Victory was home for me and I did gain the victory.
Hi, I just came across this. I was there as well. I don’t remember the names of the girls. I still have my Bible from Brother McElvain after he lead me to the Lord. ❤️🙏🏼
I was at VCA in 1987. I never saw any kind of sexual abuse or emotional abuse. The rules were strict, but consistent, and students broke rules all of the time behind the staffs backs. We were not perfect angels and for some of us, this school provided safety from what some of us experienced in our own home life. I know plenty of graduates like me that embraced the program and have zero complaints. And for some others, the opposite. So how is this possible? Some of us actually worked on ourselves while others fought with nothing but a bad attitude. In Romona, we even had an adult who joined our program because she saw something different in her own sister who was in attendance. The younger one left the school and was murdered a short time after by a boyfriend that she decided to go back with, while her adult sister graduated and had a successful life after exit. It’s all about choices. Some of us made the program work for us, while others chose to fight and rebel. I was barely 13 when I entered the program and spent 1 year and 9 months at the academy. Not once did I ever see any of the pastors engage in any kind of sexual abuse or even sexual language with any of us girls. The food was good and healthy, but e never were without heat or air conditioning. What some girls may reference as manual labor, was simply chores. We were never given a task that we could not handle. As far as the “lack of education”, I tested 4 years behind when I entered the academy and when I left, I was beyond my grade level. I made up 4 years of education in 1 year of time. Today I sit as a successful paralegal with zero criminal history, I’m 48. Don’t believe everything you hear about this school being a torture chamber. Some students chose to remain with no empathy and no integrity. Their choice. Mike Palmer saved my life by giving me a solid foundation that I could build off of when exiting back into the “real world “. Shame on all of these women who never grabbed a true success story for themselves, but instead chose to lie and ruin things for the rest of us. And the GR room was plain and bare for a reason. It was a room where you couldn’t hang yourself or participate in self harm, not a torture chamber. To the women that lie about VCA, maybe you were just to much in denial to the destructive lifestyle that brought you there. God does know what happened to the hearts of a lot of us and God also knows the liars. Good luck with all of that. Thank you Mike Palmer for caring about our struggling youth. Some of us came from parents with severe mental illness who should have never had kids in the first place. Victory was home for me and I did gain the victory.
Omg finally. I’m – Survivor. I must have more information. I’ve waited my whole life to find you. I need to connect with some of the girls who were there with me. Wish I could leave my name. This may help heal my heart. I was 14 years old
I am looking for a friend I was there with. Her name is Tricia Durham. I lost contact. I was there in 1986. Can anyone help me out?
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