Care farm accused of exposing autistic kids to religious manipulation, exorcism

The Salvation Army has ignored reports of abuses at the care farm United Souls in the Gelderland settlement of Wekerom since 2021. Reports include employees exposing autistic kids in their care to religious manipulation and exorcism. There were also reports of physical abuse, Omroep Gelderland reports.

Mothers Daniela Titocci and Indra Roesink’s autistic children went to United Souls for years for therapy and daycare. Instead, they got religious manipulation and exorcisms, physical abuse, and stained bedding, the mothers said.

Mother Angelique’s 8-year-old daughter Lize lives at the care farm under the guardianship of the Salvation Army. Angelique has been trying to get her moved to another facility almost from the moment she was placed at United Souls in 2019.

Angelique has clashed with the very religious owner of United Souls from the start. Angelique is not religious and does not like that the owner is forcing her extreme beliefs on her daughter. “Lize once said: ‘Soon our dear lord will come to get us. Then I will go to heaven and you will go to hell. Then we won’t see each other. So do you actually love me?’ How am I supposed to answer that?” she told Omroep Gelderland.

Because Lize was placed out of her mother’s home and is under the Salvation Army’s guardianship, the charity organization decides where Lize stays. According to Angelique, the Salvation Army has been ignoring her reports and complaints for years. In 2021, she reported that the United Souls owner hit Lize in the face after the girl spat on her. Nothing happened with that report. In 2022, she raised her concerns to Veilig Thuis, who concluded that the care farm wasn’t giving Lize adequate care. The Salvation Army did nothing with that report either.

In August 2022, a 15-year-old boy who also lived at United Souls wrote a letter to his guardian, the Salvation Army, asking to be moved. He said that the care farm does not allow him to form his own opinion about religious matters, tracks his phone, reads his messages, and won’t let him meet with his friends. He is lonely and depressed, the boy wrote. “I would like to go to another, better place.” The boy’s guardian said they’d find another place for him, but nothing happened. He was eventually moved when he ran away from United Souls a month later.

Lize is now the only child living at United Souls 24/7. The care farms other clients come during the day or over weekends. Angelique does not know how to get her daughter out of there. “I have been standing on the sidelines for five years watching what happens there. My hands are tied. It is terrible. My heart just breaks.”

According to Omroep Brabant, the Salvation Army and United Souls did not respond to its requests for comment.