#nancy+alcorn

Apparently, none of the complaints by Mercy Ministry survivors have been heard by anyone from this organization. I don’t know where Nancy Alcorn is but she ought to attend to these complaints. Nancy Alcorn is the CEO of Mercy Ministries. Every leader I know is willing to hear and attend to the people they serve. When we’re interested in serving to the best of our abilities, we listen to both praise and complaints.

 Why do we do this? We do this because the core of our intention is to both serve and improve our programs and services. Yet, Mercy Ministries refuses to even post a social media response to those complaining. How odd for a group that claims to love people. How odd! I caught up with another Mercy Ministries survivor. I asked them what it was like living in a “ Christian “ treatment center for those suffering from mental illness.

As you listen to their survivor story, you’ll see that Mercy Ministries Treatment centers are run like juvenile prison homes . What’s the connection? Why is a residential treatment center for people suffering from mental illness run like a juvenile prison home? Why is this important? It’s important because Nancy Alcorn the CEO of Mercy Ministries once worked in a juvenile prison home. She apparently picked up some of the rougher and  more loveless techniques for handling broken people. When you listen to all the Mercy Ministries Survivor stories, you’ll understand what I mean. I think it’s time for Mercy Ministries to be investigated, don’t you?

Do people with mental illness have a criminal mentality? Are people with mental illness liars, thieves, robbers and murderers? Are all mentally ill people law breakers with a history of gang membership?

Before you read the testimony from a Mercy Ministry survivor, I’ll let Nancy herself tell you about her job with the government, working with girls in juvenile prison homes. Listen as she tells you how she came up with her programs for the mentally ill. Please see the video below:

Did you listen? Obviously, Nancy Alcorn’s juvenile prison home model for helping people with mental illness can’t work. After all, having a mental illness is not a crime. Read the survivor testimonies including the one below. You’ll see that Nancy Alcorn and her Mercy Ministry staff are behaving like prison wardens in their treatment of the mentally ill. Mercy Survivors have been complaining since 2008 about being prevented from taking their medication because some staff member wants to force them to trust God. Mercy Ministries Survivors have been complaining for years about the punishments they receive for breaking “ rules”.

 Plus, more and more complaints from Mercy Survivors paint a story of abuse and all types of forced actions against them. We simply can not force anyone to trust God while forgoing medications. Mode of treatment is and should be left to freedom of choice. It is not a crime to have a mental illness. We can not punish people for having symptoms or relying on medications. People with mental illness should NOT be treated like criminals. IT’S JUST THAT SIMPLE!

Please continue and read the following testimony from a Mercy Ministries Survivor about her disturbing experiences at Mercy Ministries:

What was it like for you at Mercy Ministries? Did your condition become worst? What else can you tell me about the questionable activities and abuses of Mercy Ministries Multiplied?

FULL TESTIMONY from a Mercy Ministries Survivor Continued...

Absolutely 110%. Not only did my existing condition become worse, but I also developed new issues, and grappled with further layers of trauma and the impact of that. It's been 10 years since I graduated. It was not an easy road. I had a major breakdown in that time which took me a long time to recover from. I would not attribute that entirely to Mercy trauma but certainly a portion of it. I was less well adjusted coming out than when I went in, and less able to cope with the curve-balls of life.

10 years on, my life is in a fairly good place. I have been married 8 years, I have a baby now, I have a house, a well paid job. I am still impacted by my mental illness (bipolar disorder) which can mess with my ability to self care, but that is not something I attribute to Mercy Ministries.

Mercy Ministries did not give me bipolar disorder. But when an illness is poorly managed or not managed for a period of time, it can make things worse in the long run and worsen one's prognosis.

But again, I still would have had this illness with or without Mercy Ministries.

I’m still very affected by the trauma of the power dynamics and the different abuses I went through at Mercy Ministries. It's not an every day thing, but two or three times a year, something comes up in life, the sh*t that i guess happens to most people from time to time, people who are abusive or bullying or controlling or when I am a victim of an institution, I tend not to cope with it very well at all, it hits me pretty badly. I had a bad experience with a psychiatrist last year and am still pretty messed up over it. I think i would have coped less poorly had I had not gone through a similar kind of abuse at Mercy Ministries Multiplied.

Examples of punishments and discipline...

Punishments at Mercy Ministries could include writing scriptures that aligned with whatever staff told you. We could be forced to write a report along the same lines with supporting scriptures and often were. We were give extra chores (depending on severity of the offense, the chore could be quite a big one). We could be punished and put on a separation contract with another resident. We could be denied shopping trips, weekend leave and put on probation. We were being screamed into submission by program staff, counselors and program director’s. Lastly, punishment also included dismissal from Mercy Ministries.

And when you I say "rules". some were cut and dry and easily understood, and others could seem to be made up on the spot depending on the staff member, her mood, and whether or not she liked you. I remember a girl being reprimanded for coughing during class for example.

I was issued two written reports and i think a chore (scrubbing tiles around pool) for being "un-submissive", "unteachable" and having a "spirit of rebellion" for letting a new night staff member know that we normally went to bed half an hour later on weekends. The reason for me being in trouble kept changing between 3 different things - the way I said it was rude, the fact i said it at all was rude, or that I said "just to let you know" is rude.

I disagreed with all and that made me rebellious apparently. I was hauled into four different meetings with program staff where i was interrogated broken down, and screamed at by the program manager until I made a false confession of guilt.

Medications...

I was not on medications at the time. The only medications I remember taking at Mercy Ministries residential treatment was an occasional Panadol (which I did not pay for), and a Ventolin for asthma which I did pay for.

Tips for improving service to the mentally ill for churches and Mercy Ministries...

I think the church can sometimes be either ignorant of mental illness altogether and lack interest in what it is or in their understanding of Mental Illness. This can create a culture of disinterest or a culture of not talking about mental illness or acknowledging it is an important issue. Some churches and church leaders have over simplistic ideas (often well meaning) about mental illness and its causes (eg, this idea about some singular root cause that goes back to some traumatic childhood event. And of some church leaders and Christians believe that mental illness is the byproduct of somehow letting demons into your life. 

Some churches think if you truly have Jesus or are truly filled with the Holy Spirit then should be no room for mental illness. Some churches and church leadership get filled  o with hostility and judgment, or they can hear about a program like Mercy Ministries and not pay attention to critical information, or first-hand testimonies available on the subject. They think it is somehow an attack on God's work if we critique a ministry.

I think the church could do better by discussing issues more openly and acknowledging mental illness from the pulpit. Leaders need to make direct and responsible statements on the matter, to correct poor attitudes and judgments toward the mentally ill in their congregation. Christian leaders need to attempt to understand the complexity of mental illness and medications. They need to dispel unhelpful and un-biblical myths, and  do their due diligence before supporting/endorsing organisations like Mercy Ministries

Spiritually, I’m still a Christian, but my view of my faith has taken on a much different flavour.  I feel less naive and more cynical than before Mercy Ministries. I’m still Christian but many Mercy Survivors are not. I can definitely understand why. It's a very difficult thing to salvage and separate from lies after an experience like Mercy Ministries.

if you asked me about my faith when I first left the program, I was still heavily brainwashed, very heavily conflicted. I felt like I was in two different minds and living two different realities that could not integrate with each other. One was what I knew at my gut and heart level, the whole time, the other is what had been imposed on me by Mercy Ministries and the fear and control and silence that was over me like a thick blanket, suffocating the other "me".

If i was asked at the time, I would have said there were no problems and   no abuse. I would have said that I was the problem for rebelling. I would have also said that I deserved what I got, that it was the hand of God, that staff spoke and acted for God and they were my God ordained authority for that season of my life.

A while after, when I finally "came out" about all that happened and got some healing and perspective, I would have said the problem lied within the behavior of "a few bad eggs" (staff members) at the Sydney home.

When the articles came out in 2008 about the Australian abuse scandals, I realized that I was not the only one, it affected the other homes too. I would have told you the problem lied within the Australian off shoot of Mercy. I would have told you that this could never happen in the US homes. If it did, surely it would have been an exception.

Then I saw The Nashville Scene article about even more extreme things happening, including a psychotic girl who jumped two stories onto concrete and Nancy Alcorn(CEO) of Mercy Ministries tried to cover up and monitor phone calls. I almost didn't believe it, and I would not have, except that other things in their stories were so strikingly similar to the Australian homes. It was uncanny, down to the words staff used, that it could not be a mere coincidence.

Then I took over Mercy Survivors six years ago, and came across so many more stories. There were dozens of stories, particularly from the US homes, some stories going back to Mercy's early days in the 80s, and some stories involving direct personal involvement of Nancy Alcorn (CEO).

http://www.MercySurvivors.com

I was some what skeptical at first because i was programmed to think the best of Mercy Ministries and that anything that happened that i knew of must have been isolated events and a diversion from the true core of Mercy and what Nancy would have wanted.

And now... i know the truth. I know that Mercy is and always has been a corrupt organisation, and that the dysfunctional, authoritarian and abusive culture among staff (that filters down to the residents ultimately) stems from Nancy Alcorn.

Commentary: My name is Marlene Taylor. I have experience working and volunteering for an organization called NAMI, The National Alliance on Mental Illness. I know good and well that a treatment center for anyone with a mental illness should NOT be run like a juvenile prison home. The testimonies I share from Mercy Ministry Survivors literally break my heart. I have nothing to go by other then the tragic testimonies of those who’ve fortunately made their way out of Mercy Ministries. Nancy Alcorn (CEO) is not responding.

So, please tell me, what are we to do other than side with the survivors. Mercy Ministries and their supposed homes for the mentally ill need to be examined under a microscope and investigated. Surely this organization is not afraid to listen to the cries and complaints of those speaking out. After all, a leaders goal and intent of the heart always includes making room for improvement. By the mouths of many witnesses, Mercy Ministries stands accused? When will they answer? When? At this point, all I can do is recant the cries of those who survived. Shut down Mercy Ministries!

Signed,

Marlene Taylor

Church Folk Revolution