Absence of Courage: Anti-trafficking charity defends itself against regulatory violations, says state would force it to accept Satan

Standing before a partisan congregation and the live-stream audience she hoped was donating at home, Courage Worldwide Inc. CEO Jenny Williamson did her best to Christsplain the troubling accusations blemishing her chances for sainthood.

It was August 28, just days after a raft of state regulatory violations against her six-bed group home for sexually trafficked girls had come to light in the pages of The Sacramento Bee. More than two months before the Bee story ran, however, internal turmoil had prompted the group home to quietly suspend operations until Williamson could put her so-called Courage House in order.

That has yet to happen.

Now entering the sixth month of what was supposed to be a six-week “pause,” SN&R has learned of two additional complaints regarding poor medical care, including one that resulted in a girl’s medical emergency.

Fundraisers like the one in Elk Grove, meanwhile, never stopped. Standing on Living Water Church’s warmly lit stage, for an 11-year anniversary “gala,” Williamson framed the crisis in religious terms.

“It’s just really interesting to me that a year ago … we had the same celebration,” Williamson told the gathering, referring to an event where she reiterated plans to expand Courage House’s capacity tenfold. “And ever since we said ’expand,’ it seems like all hell has broken loose. It makes sense from biblical proportions, right?”

Williamson has shown an aptitude for playing the martyr. On one side, it’s “Mama Jenny,” as she likes to be called, the children and her dream of 1,000 Courage homes in 100 countries. On the other side, the media that elevated her and the state regulators she’s accused of forcing her organization to accept Satan-worshipers and policies that could boomerang kids back into trafficking.

But if anyone seems to be making money off of exploited children, it’s Williamson.

Not long ago, if you asked anyone in the Sacramento region about the problem of child sex trafficking, odds were pretty good you’d be referred to Williamson. Cop, prosecutor, FBI official—they all deferred to the Granite Bay life coach who built an international empire out of her Christianity-infused mission to rescue kids conscripted to sexual slavery.

It’s an effective story, one that Williamson first promoted in a Bee profile eight years ago and has been retelling ever since. For at least four years, the story has included an appeal for money that will finance new cottages here as well as a “national expansion plan” slated to begin in her home state of Mississippi and in Texas. Funding poured in from both private and government sources, but those additional homes were never built.

The organization’s former campus development director, Andy Cude, said the plan to expand has faced years of delays because a needed use permit was being sought by a “team of architects, engineers, land use attorneys, environmental engineers, planners and specialists” donating their time to a cause in which they believed. In an emailed statement, Cude added that county planning requirements to install a water well and community septic and disposal system have dragged things out further.

Some of Courage’s young clients and former employees, meanwhile, feel they’ve been forgotten.

According to records from the California Department of Social Services’ Community Care Licensing division, the licensed group home has been cited 36 times since February 2012. That’s almost one regulatory violation for each of the approximately 40 girls who have come through Courage House since it opened August 2011 in an undisclosed part of Northern California.

(Courage’s website says its group home has actually served more than 40 girls, while Williamson herself said “almost 40 girls” at the anniversary celebration. An SN&R calculation based on previous statements puts the number at 39.)

That’s also more than other group homes of its size, an SN&R review of state regulatory data found. By comparison, Summitview Child & Family Services, which serves a similar population, has tallied 17 citations at four 6-bed group homes in El Dorado County since 1993, and none since 2008.

Taken as a whole, Courage House’s regulatory demerits portray an organization that puts the care of its trafficked clients second to the financial goals and reputation of its ambitious founder, who advertises her motivational speaking brand and book on the Courage Worldwide website.

Williamson has characterized the problems as overblown (or, alternately, biblically important), and she and her board have vowed to contest state regulatory actions they claim will put their vulnerable charges in danger.

“As long as there are children being sold for sex, we will move forward until we cannot move anymore,” Williamson told the anniversary gathering. “That is the vow that we made.”

The strain began showing this spring.

The state received word on June 6 that Courage House was planning to temporarily shut down its group home due to a staffing shortage that could no longer “meet the needs of the clients in care,” according to a facility evaluation report dated that same day. According to the report, Courage House’s then-program director, Melissa Herrmann, told a state licensing investigator that several employees had left for medical, personal and other reasons, leaving the facility understaffed and without a certified administrator. The group home stopped accepting new residents and began transitioning existing ones to other facilities a week later, on June 13.

But the organization’s internal problems didn’t become known until the media forced Williamson’s hand several weeks later. Today, her attempts to reshape the narrative have included telling the public that the state began citing her facility after it announced its intent to “pause” operations—hinting at some sort of bureaucratic backlash after years of hands-off government aid.

“We didn’t close because of those citations. They came after we made the decision to pause,” she told attendees in Elk Grove. “Everything changed for us after that happened, because now, the state has drawn a line in the sand that we believe are safety issues.”

That first part, at least, is inaccurate.

Formal complaints brought state investigators to Courage House’s bucolic grounds eight times before its administrators stopped accepting new girls. And most violations were uncovered well before the announcement—and as far back as August 2015, when the state determined that Courage House lacked a social worker and wasn’t appraising the needs of its residents, as required, records show.

On March 30, more than two months before the “pause,” state investigators substantiated a resident’s complaints that staff had confiscated and searched her cellphone without reasonable cause, resulting in two citations. Two months earlier, state investigators determined that Courage House was posting photos of its clients on its Facebook page, including one that identified a client by the tattoo across her face.

While operations behind the scenes grew problematic, Williamson and her organization projected a stable public image, and continued to solicit donations from the public by appealing to its sympathy for the very girls whose treatment was at issue.

Historically, that strategy has proven effective.

Courage Worldwide reported more than $1.7 million in 2015 revenue—67 percent higher than in 2012—according to partial tax-exempt filings posted on the organization’s website. Nearly $990,000—or 57 percent of reported revenue—went to paying employee salaries and benefits.

According to the organization’s full tax-exempt filing from 2014, made available by the Foundation Center, president and CEO Jennifer Williamson earned $109,896 in total compensation that year—almost as much as the $117,627 the nonprofit spent on its safe house residents. Occupancy and travel expenses accounted for another $62,201 in 2014, while $23,358 was spent on promoting the Courage Worldwide brand.

Williamson defended the compensation she and other staff received during the summer anniversary gala. “It’s not bad to get paid to do what we did. The liability and the responsibility of 24/7 care—there’s no holiday, there’s no Christmas, there’s no day off,” she told attendees.

In an emailed response to a list of questions, Courage House says its spending practices have been cleared by an outside financial audit from the Sacramento public accounting firm Fechter & Co., and pointed to gold-star ratings from charity evaluators like GuideStar and Charity Navigator. Both scores were based on self-reported financials from 2014, before the current troubles. Charity Navigator gave Courage Worldwide three out of four stars.

Williamson also described the girls as far more challenging than she anticipated. “It’s very, very difficult to love someone that does not love themself. I tell you that because living with our girls 24 hours a day, seven days a week is very, very difficult for our staff,” she said. “I don’t work at Courage House. Sometimes people think I do. Honestly, I couldn’t.”

Living there can be trying as well.

Former employees told the Bee that their requests to spend some of the organization’s revenues on healthier food, clothing and new furniture for the children were denied.

Meanwhile, in September of last year, state investigators flagged numerous deficiencies that had to do with Courage House brass using the safe house to conduct business, displacing the kids living there, records show. According to the September 25, 2015, facility evaluation report, residents either had their daily activities disrupted or were forced to relocate while Williamson and others hosted business meetings, church luncheons and tours at the 52-acre campus. And during overnight visitations at the homes of Courage House volunteers and staff, residents were sometimes forced to share beds, bunk on couches or sleep on floors. “This practice must cease immediately,” the report warned.

State investigators also found that staff refused to grant clients’ request for court documentation regarding their cases.

Since Courage House’s closure, still other deficiencies—from staff intimidation to enforcing a blanket ban on cellphones—have been tallied. While those violations have been reported, two recently publicized complaints have not.

According to a complaint investigation report released September 16, one of the safe house’s residents suffered an unspecified medical emergency in May, when staff failed to provide her with the medication she had been taking prior to her April 20 arrival at Courage House. The medical emergency happened less than 30 days after she was admitted to the licensed group home. (While the resident’s age and gender are not listed in the state’s report, Courage House only admits female sex trafficking victims between the ages of 11 and 17.) According to the report, the medication lapse occurred because Courage House personnel failed to adequately review the resident’s medical history, contained in a 59-page document provided to Courage House by the girl’s placement agent.

The state was unable to substantiate the second complaint, received June 10, that Courage House’s underage clients were being coerced to take prescribed medications as a condition of admission, despite hearing similar accounts from numerous sources.

According to the report documenting those allegations, also dated September 16, interviews with previous staff, residents and family members indicated that Courage House employees told some residents their safety couldn’t be guaranteed unless they took prescribed medications. Under California’s Foster Child Bill of Rights, children have the right to refuse medication prescribed to them. But because there was “no documentation” to support the accounts of the various sources, the state determined the allegations to be “inconclusive.”

In its emailed response, Courage House says no medical emergency took place and contended that state investigators didn’t interview staff with direct knowledge of the situation. The organization also argued it was being penalized for programs the state had previously approved, but provided no documentation to support that claim after a public relations representative initially offered to do so.

In a November 21 Facebook post, Courage House Community Relations and Resource Director Stephanie Midthun shared an unpublished letter to the Bee defending her boss. “The girls have never been exploited by her or by our organization. Jenny is very protective of them—even turning down national media requests for interviews of our girls,” she wrote. “Have we been perfect? No. But like I recently told one of the first girls who came to Courage House, You were loved like family.”

Courage Worldwide has officially contested nine of the state’s citations, received between April 4 and June 9.

According to California Department of Social Services spokesman Michael Weston, three have been overturned and one was downgraded from a Type A violation to a less serious Type B violation. The state dismissed two citations concerning the health privacy rights of group home residents. One concerned a resident’s belief that her brain scan was used without her permission for training purposes, while the other involved the claim that disclosures made in therapy were being shared with other residents. Both were dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Courage House didn’t appeal the citation over the disputed medical emergency, its emailed statement said, “because there are no remaining staff at Courage House.”

Upheld was a finding that the CEO “repeatedly made clients uncomfortable by hugging, touching and grooming them without asking permission.” The state also upheld its finding that Courage House pushed its brand of Christianity onto at least one resident, which has led to one of the more bizarre claims by Williamson.

In both public statements and social media posts, Williamson has contended that the state’s insistence on honoring religious freedom would force her faith-based nonprofit to allow trafficking victims exposed to “satanic ritual abuse” to continue their dark practices at the group home—including human and animal sacrifices.

In a message posted to Courage Worldwide’s website, Williamson wrote that Courage House has taken in “multiple children” who were victims of satanic ritualistic abuse, including one girl who allegedly claimed to be a Satan worshiper. “We told her she could not practice rituals that harmed animals or humans,” Williamson wrote. “Our state analyst cited us for violating the child’s religious freedom.”

Williamson reiterated that message during August’s celebration.

“Many of the girls who have come to Courage House have suffered what is called ’ritualistic abuse.’ It kind of freaks a lot of people out. I didn’t know anything about it until I started serving in this world with these kids,” she said. “We’ve been told that is a religious freedom we have to allow. And that practice in satanism is human and animal sacrifice.”

Courage House stuck by these claims in its emailed response, but an appeals ruling found them to be as fictional as they sound.

Indeed, state investigators did cite Courage House on June 9 for not permitting clients “to worship or attend religious services of their own choosing when requested,” which the state says “poses a potential health and safety risk to clients in care.” Weston cited confidentiality laws in declining to comment on the specifics of the case. But according to the official appeals decision, written by Sacramento Children’s Residential Program interim regional manager Lenora Scott, the devil-red flag Williamson has been waving is based on one girl who drew satanist imagery, not because she worshiped the fallen angel, but because she was curious.

“In the investigation of this allegation, it was determined that the child did not threaten to perform sacrifice or define what she meant by wanting to practice Satanism,” Scott ruled. “She only made a general statement that she enjoyed drawing some of the images and was uncertain of her beliefs.”

Scott went on to write how Courage House employees responded to the girl’s curiosity: “staff placed oil upon the client’s forehead and recited a religious verse in response to this declaration.” Staff also “impressed upon the client that she had to be of Christian faith to be in placement.”

Williamson told the Elk Grove crowd that her employees have been “overzealous” about not pushing their Christian faith onto residents. Williamson also said she hopes to reopen Courage House by Christmastime. That can’t happen until the organization hires a new administrator, which it told SN&R it’s close to doing.

It doesn’t appear that Courage House’s dark period is greatly affecting the Sacramento region’s ability to care for trafficked kids. The safe house has hosted only seven Sacramento County children since opening in 2011, and none since 2015, when a local girl stayed at Courage House for five months, according to county spokeswoman Samantha Mott.

Yolo County placed only one girl at Courage House this past March, then promptly moved her to a Fresno group home three months later when Courage House suspended operations. El Dorado County placed one girl in 2014, and none since. Placer County has placed zero children in its care.

That’s not to say there aren’t capacity issues, Mott noted. In Sacramento County, Child Protective Services has identified 107 local children who have been commercially sexually exploited in the past year. Mott said group homes can be reluctant to accept these kids because their issues are complex and they run away often, which, in turn, attracts unwelcome scrutiny from state licensing inspectors.

While Sacramento County works with at least five other programs in California that are licensed to serve sexually-trafficked minors, Mott said in an email that the county prefers to place these kids in foster care, “ideally with a relative or someone who knows and loves the child.”

Places like Courage House are not the first resort, in other words, even though they soak up a greater share of the resources. Part of this has to do with priorities set through the availability of federal and state grant funding.

For instance, the California Office of Emergency Services funneled $15 million last year to organizations that say they help human trafficking victims, but just over a $1 million to those that treat sexually abused children, a much larger known population.

Meanwhile, Courage’s reputation was once so sterling that Cal OES developed a $60,808 grant this year to help young trafficking victims reintegrate into society that only Courage House could apply for—no one else. But Courage House was awarded less than $20,000 of that money after Cal OES learned the organization had closed its doors without notifying it.

“At this time, Cal OES is unaware of any other grant requirements that Courage House may have violated, however, all Cal OES grant recipients are subject to being audited,” OES spokeswoman Monica Vargas wrote in an email.

Now, Williamson and her board have decided the best defense is a good offense—painting both the state and the media as adversaries to their moral crusade, and ramping up fundraising efforts to reopen locally.

“Blessed when you go through trials. Blessed when you’re persecuted,” Williamson told the Elk Grove audience. “That’s when the church grew the fastest.”

And like the church, Williamson keeps promising to expand, one day, when she’s gotten enough money.