Retreat for child abuse survivors faces investigation calls
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Reporter: Rebecca Baillie
Former guests and volunteers of a retreat for survivors of childhod sexual abuse are calling for a full and independent investigation of claims into risky and damaging practices there.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Disturbing accusations are being made about a foundation called Heal For Life that runs retreats for child sexual abuse victims in four states of Australia. It was founded by the high-profile former TV and movie casting agent Liz Mullinar. It runs programs for children as young as seven years old, as well as teenagers and adults. Many abuse victims who attend its week-long healing sessions report positive results.
But the problem is that some of those survivors are then recruited as carers themselves, and after just a few daysā training, are responsible for looking after others whoāve been severely traumatised by abuse.
Some of those carers have now come forward to 7.30. They complain of inadequate training, routine self-harm, bizarre allegations of a satanic cult and false recovered memories of ritual abuse.
Rebecca Baillie has this exclusive report.
REBECCA BAILLIE, REPORTER: Thousands of child abuse survivors have made this journey over the past 14 years. They come to Heal For Life in the New South Wales Hunter Valley to recover from trauma they suffered as children.
LIZ MULLINAR, CEO, HEAL FOR LIFE FOUNDATION (Promotional video): A healing week here involves giving yourself the space and the time to allow oneself to remember the things that were painful and hurt in childhood and to allow that child part of oneself to grieve or cry or be angry that it happened and then let it go.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Heal For Life advertises a 90 per cent success rate. But some former staff and volunteers have told 7.30 theyāve left here feeling more damaged than when they arrived.
ANNIE NOTHNAGEL, HEAL FOR LIFE GUEST AND CARER, 2011-2012: I went there to heal and they only caused me more trauma.
LEE-ANNE WEIN, HEAL FOR LIFE EMPLOYEE, 2011-2012: For the first time in my life, I, um, am medically unable to work and itās been about eight months now.
KIRA TIMEWELL, HEAL FOR LIFE EMPLOYEE, 2102: You need to feel safe to heal. It wasnāt a safe place.
REBECCA BAILLIE: The Heal For Life retreatās near Cessnock, 150 kilometres north of Sydney. There are also centres in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. Heal For Life was set up in 1999 by former high-profile film casting agent Liz Mullinar and her husband Rod Phillips.
LIZ MULLINAR (TEDx Talk, 2011): The young women I work with at Heal For Life, they have one common complaint when they go to hospital having tried to kill themselves. Nobody ever asks why. And if they did, they would get the same answer from all those young people: because of my internal pain from my childhood.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Liz Mullinar was inspired by her own childhood ordeal. As an adult, she recovered memories of being abused as a child. She sold up everything, and the Hunter Valley retreat became her mission.
LIZ MULLINAR (Lateline, 1998): People would say to me, āAre you sure your memories are real, Liz?,ā and that is deeply hurting.
REBECCA BAILLIE: The 7.30 Report visited Heal For Lifeās NSW centre, known as Mayumarri, 12 years ago.
LIZ MULLINAR (7.30 Report, 2001): Weāre about healing. Rather than healing the effects, we say heal the cause - that sense that youāre dirty, guilty, extra fear, and we try to get people to learn that they can heal themselves.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Child abuse survivors aged from seven years to adult attend five-day live-in sessions at Heal For Life. Some guests are then recruited to become carers after just six daysā in-house training. Carers can do more training to become facilitators and then go on to run the so-called āhealing weeksā, where participants are encouraged to draw pictures to connect with their damaged inner child.
DRAGAN ZAN WRIGHT, HEAL FOR LIFE CARER & FACILITATOR, 2011: Youāre encouraged to, at another part of the process, to take that deeper and to then go to a place of trauma in your childhood, with the child, basically. Um, and thatās the place where people get very distressed.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Child abuse survivor Dragan Zan Wright is a tertiary-qualified psychotherapist who attended a healing week as a guest and then became a carer and facilitator.
DRAGAN ZAN WRIGHT: I just got completely burnt out after a year. I was a wreck when I left that place. Absolutely - absolutely traumatised by the experience.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Kira Timewell was sexually abused as a child. Like the majority of guests, she says her healing week was a positive experience, but problems began once she became a volunteer carer after only two and a half daysā training.
KIRA TIMEWELL: I donāt believe itās right that I am in charge of other adolescents or children. There were times on the program where another carer, for example, decided to cut herself and I was the only responsible person there, and I had, you know, six guests to look after who were all in a really bad place as well as having this carer cut herself. ā¦ I donāt have First Aid training, I am not a counsellor, Iām not a psychiatrist, Iām not a psychologist. What I am is a - like, a victim whoās learning how to deal with my life.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Many of the people 7.30 spoke to claims self-harming is common amongst young women at Heal For Life and seemed to be condoned by some carers.
DIANNE OāDELL, FORMER HEAL FOR LIFE GUEST: The thing about self-harm was that it got much worse when I was at Mayumarri. Iāve got scars on my arm now, like, that I feel are a direct cause by them, because I didnāt do it beforehand. That was something I learnt from them. That was something that was encouraged.
REBECCA BAILLIE: They encouraged you to self-harm?
DIANNE OāDELL: Well I feel indirectly, because they suggested it, they talked about it, they asked me about it as if it was something I should be doing.
JO WRIGHT, HEAL FOR LIFE CARER AND FACILITATOR, 2007-2012: I think itās very common, whether itās through - like, even though itās not encouraged to do it, itās accepted that thatās one form of coping mechanism for survivors. All carers have First Aid training, but thatās it, basic First Aid training. Iāve cared for several people where Iāve had to tend to their wounds, and as a self-harmer - a former self-harmer myself, that itās - I found it very challenging to deal with other peopleās wounds.
ANNIE NOTHNAGEL: I came out of my healing week self-harming quite regularly again and in different ways than Iād ever done before. I went on to doing things like burning myself with scalding water or, um, pulling my hair out., just walking into doors on purpose.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Dragan Zan Wright says the six-day carer training was inadequate preparation for the job and the only professional psychologist at Heal For Life was part-time and not readily available.
DRAGAN ZAN WRIGHT: You need that support. Youāre dealing with extreme situations. I mean, I came across stuff Iād never come across as a therapist.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Like what?
DRAGAN ZAN WRIGHT: Um, extreme self-harm, psychosis, dissociative identity. You know, those sorts of people that come from a satanic ritual abuse background. I mean, thatās extreme.
JO WRIGHT: By the end of my five years there, I had uncovered satanic ritual memories, which I now know are false because I was never involved in that.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Once Heal For Life devotees and all childhood trauma survivors, these former guests, volunteers and employees are now speaking out about their time at the Hunter Valley retreat. Theyāve told 7.30 that the CEO, Liz Mullinar, has recovered memories of satanic ritual abuse, or SRA, in her own past, and they say she often suggested that others were also victims of satanic abuse.
BIRDIE, HEAL FOR LIFE EMPLOYEE, 2009-2013: Liz suggests that satanic cult is part of a lot of peopleās story, childhood story, mine included.
KIRA TIMEWELL: The amount of crazy and horrific stories I heard directly from Lizās mouth about cult activities within the Hunter ā¦ For example, apparently the Hunter is one of the points on the star or it could be the centre of the star.
HARRY CALLAGHAN, HEAL FOR LIFE CARER & FACILITATOR, 2002-2012: I went there as a guest to deal with my childhood issues around sexual and physical and spiritual abuse.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Harry Callaghan was a guest, carer and facilitator at Heal For Life for 12 years. Over that time, he became very close to Liz Mullinar, describing himself as her right-hand man.
HARRY CALLAGHAN: And I became mesmerised by her and believed everything that came out of her mouth.
REBECCA BAILLIE: He was sacked early last year after admitting heād had consensual sex with two adult women who had been guests at the retreat. After he left, Harry Callaghan claims Liz Mullinar spread rumours that he was involved in a satanic cult and that he had been sexually abusing women at Heal For Life.
HARRY CALLAGHAN: It was torture for me - you know, Iāve done lots of silly things in my life and Iāve owned up to each of them. But this stuff, itās madness.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Two women 7.30 has interviewed say that Liz Mullinar told them directly that Harry Callaghan was a satanic cult member who had abused them.
KIRA TIMEWELL: She said to me, āIām so glad, Kira, that you now recognise that you have parts implanted in you by Harry and that youāve been accessed.ā
BIRDIE: Liz was suggesting that I had been, um, accessed by Harry and taken to the cult, that I had been abused by Harry and taken back to the cult.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Di Frost was the education and training coordinator at Heal For Life until she resigned in April this year.
DI FROST, EDUCATION AND TRAINING OFFICER, HEAL FOR LIFE, 2012-ā13: Itās almost like a focus, a intense focus on the cult and a bit of - and I do think thereās a bit of paranoia around the cult attacking, so even me speaking now is because Iām being accessed by the cult, or, you know, that will be the reasoning behind, um, anything thatās happening thatās against Heal For Life.
LEE-ANNE WEIN: We were led to believe that there were groups of people out to destroy Heal For Life and we were told people were baddies, a lot of psychiatrists are baddies.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Lee-Anne Wein is a former nun. Suffering depression, she went on a Heal For Life healing week three years ago before becoming a paid office employee.
LEE-ANNE WEIN: Liz said to me that, you know, āI think youāre probably under spiritual attack,ā and I was quite frightened of that. I felt sickened. And as a Christian, I found that very hard, a very difficult, fearful, dark environment to be in.
REBECCA BAILLIE: In December last year, Lee-Anne Wein was made redundant. Then she says another staff member claimed that sheād recovered memories that Leanne was leading a satanic cult.
LEE-ANNE WEIN: Oh, there was a whole lot of things she said: that Iād been accessing people, accessing meaning making contact with people to get them involved in the cult, I think. And I laughed. When Birdie told me, I laughed, initially, because itās so ridiculous.
BIRDIE: And I said to Liz, āDo you believe this?,ā and - about Leanne being part of a satanic cult and she said, āYes, I do believe it.ā And Liz also said that my life was in danger. Liz had said that she believes that Lee-Anne is high up in the cult, a āhigh priestessā is what she said.
REBECCA BAILLIE: 7.30 approached Liz Mullinar and Rod Phillips, her husband and chairman of the Heal For Life board, for on-camera interviews. They declined. Mr Phillips gave a written response.
ROD PHILLIPS, CHAIRMAN, HEAL FOR LIFE BOARD (male voiceover): āā¦ certain comments about Ms Wein were made as a private view of a staff member to a small group of other staff members at HFL. The CEO was not present so cannot comment.ā
REBECCA BAILLIE: As for the claims about Harry Callaghan ā¦
ROD PHILLIPS (male voiceover): āThe HFL board and management have not accused Mr Callaghan of anything.ā
REBECCA BAILLIE: And on the subject of self-harm ā¦
ROD PHILLIPS (male voiceover): āHFL neither accepts nor tolerates self-harm. ā¦ Guests or volunteers are generally asked to leave a program if they breach the rule against self-harm.ā
GRAHAM OBORN, HEAL FOR LIFE BOARD MEMBER, 2006-2009: I feel very let down. I feel angry. I want to see a solution to it.
REBECCA BAILLIE: One of Heal For Lifeās biggest supporters, property developer and champion sailor Graham Oborn, is disgusted by the allegations by the former carers. He donated half a million dollars in memory of his mother, Eva, who had spent her life caring for children. The money funded Eva House, the young womenās centre where many of the incidents of self-harm are alleged to have occurred.
GRAHAM OBORN: My initial reaction was: āDo I take my motherās picture down, take her citation, tell Heal For Life not to call it Eva House anymore and walk off? Or, set about trying to rectify the wrongs?ā
REBECCA BAILLIE: A Heal For Life board member for three years until 2009, Graham Oborn took his and 10 other complaints from former guests and staff to the board in January this year.
GRAHAM OBORN: Youāve got the CEO and the chair of the board is husband and wife and one of the board members is the son of the husband and wife. I donāt think you can get impartiality in making very, very critical decisions in those circumstances.
REBECCA BAILLIE: Liz Mullinarās husband, Rod Phillips, says a board subcommittee conducted a thorough review of those complaints and appointed an external health accreditation company ā¦
ROD PHILLIPS (male voiceover): āā¦ to conduct an independent review of HFLās practices, policies, procedures and staff perceptions. That review was very positive ā¦ This report does not identify lack of supervision as an issue ā¦ and a counsellor has been employed to better support volunteers ā¦ā.
LIZ MULLINAR (TEDx Talk, 2011): I wonder what wouldāve happened to this world if someone had healed Adolf Hitler from his much-acknowledged child abuse?
REBECCA BAILLIE: While some of the board members have changed since these complaints were raised, Liz Mullinar remains CEO and her husband Rod Phillips remains chairman of the board.
DI FROST: An investigation needs to be done into the running of the place. I think Liz should probably step aside for a while and just let that happen and let someone look into it and maybe Liz needs some support or something too because really this stuff shouldnāt be happening.
LEIGH SALES: Rebecca Baillie with that report, produced by Jacquelyn Hole.
