Now, the main problem with the existence of things like Footsteps is not the fact that they exist, but the fact that people who are leaving their far-right homes have nowhere else to go. There is no moderate home where they can flee to where they will feel unpressured to keep Judaism, but wont mind being in an environment that is still run by mainstream Jews. There should be a place where they can talk to other, discuss Jewish philosophy, get a decent education, without automatically being served non-kosher and dating secular people. ALSO, THEY NEED JUSTIFICATIONS for the reasons they were brought up the way they were. The justifications may not be so justified, but there are relatively explainable reasons why the far-right chooses to nurture its young the way it does. There should be a place for a bais-yaakov girl who wakes up in a hotel room to flee to, without having to feel outcast, but also without having to completely change her lifestyle. I am not aware of such an organization. Then there is the problem of the straw on the camel's back. Almost all the stories (on, "un-pious," which i am not going to post a link to because i highly suggest NOT going there) of people going off the derech start out with, "i was your typical Jewish high school student with questions." but that never makes anyone go off the derech. Its appears to almost always be some sort of sex episode. In this sense, i sort of agree with Chareidim, for realizing that sexuality is the yetzer hara's strongest power, and they attempt to keep their children from being exposed to it as strongly as they can. However, this doesn't always help, and it also creates a lot of abuse, which is just as assur as being ba'al a penuyah. The getting married earlier should help, but when a girl isnt married at 23 and all her friends have 2 kids, and she desperately dates some more modern guy, who then gets offended that she keeps shomer negiah, but then they end up touching, and she gets all these weird feelings, it doesn't turn out too well. For the majority of kids at this stage, mussar doesn't usually do much. And I cant bring myself to say that there is no solution, for that would mean there is a un-passable nisayon out there, which is pretty much kefira, or at least not very encouraging. So there are organizations that get the girls to go to mikvahs, which does get rid of the niddah problem, but that just makes them think its muttar, which its not. The possibility of these organizations doing a  quick full jewish marriage with a "kesuba" and two "eidim" and with birth control heterim (i don't know if you actually could get one here i don't know how they work, but its better then the alternative)etc is appealing. This would pretty much just make them muttar sex partners... However,even if giving a "get" would only take a short period of time, there would still be plenty of "partner" swapping, which is a worse issur than premarital sex. The main problem with this is that it would attract plenty of kids who would otherwise control themselves ( i cant say that i myself wouldnt [have] attemp[ed] this) , and it would completely destroy the sense of kedusha of Jewish Marriage. But to suggest there is no solution shows a lack of emunah; and if we cannot prevent kids from getting themselves into these situations, there should at least be somewhere they can go if they feel bad about it afterwards, and an orthodox version of "footsteps" does not exist.    i just came across this: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/increase-in-otd-children-are-made-to-feel-like-second-class-citizens