CORNERSTONE
MONTGOMERY VIOLATIONS
From
the Wilderness
February
2016 Grievance
Valleywood
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes
I think St. Lukes/Cornerstone is a Stanford University experiment. I
think esp. of the experiment dividing volunteers into prisoners and
prison guards.
With
all the exploitation and verbal abuse and mockery of
patients/consumers at St. Lukes, there really does need to be a
yearly inspection by THE LICENSING BOARD OF MARYLAND since Core
Services won't do anything, of how patients are being treated.
Jeannie,
one of my housemates,
again told
me of the
staff at Bel Pre continuing
to make fun of clients esp. those who are most sick and talking to
themselves when they come for morning and evening medication or
attend events in the apartment that is the office of Bel Pre. The
Bel Pre office is an apartment and clients living in the other
apartments surrounding the office have to come in for morning and
evening medication and there are also planned activities.
Both
Debbie Davis, former housemate and current housemate Jeannie C. have
spoken about their
distress and disgust by Keith Ellis, the Bel Pre supervisor and staff
member making fun of very sick clients. I
am sure they are not the only ones and both have complained to their
psychiatrists, Dr. Claytor in the case of Jeannie and I believe
Debbie's psychiatrist was with the agency on Braddock Road where she
was transferred to Bel Pre and both Debbie's psychiatrist and
therapist promised to help Debbie get out and away from Bel Pre and
Leah, therapist at Cornerstone about Keith and this outrage and
others he commits.
Jeannie
spoke of how bad she felt when so many of the sicker clients had
tears in their eyes and would be talking to themselves. Even if they
are not able to verbalize, they
must be devastated as I have been and Jeannie by Keith's bullying and
encouraging staff to mock Betty Levy, myself and other even sicker
clients.
If
an attorney from Boston Advocacy group got in here the evidence
against Keith Ellis and his supervisor Nicole Burke for allowing
Keith to continue his malign neglect, most recently Linda Reif, and
bullying abuse of clients, there would be so much evidence from
clients who can speak some and maybe, who, like myself have attempted
to inform Nicole Burke, Administration, Grievance person Susan
Wilkoff and were forced to go to officials outside the agency by
Keith relentless and continued and increased harrassment after
complaints have made me and possibly other clients at Bel Pre too
sick to follow up on initial complaints.
Jeannie
said the staff at Bel Pre were like many people in the world, not
understanding the sickness and suffering of patients. Debbie
Davis used
to be outraged first at the staff making fun of clients, then
she witnessed staff making fun of clients IN FRONT OF PATIENTS,
Debbie was especially distressed by the mockery of a heavy-set very
tall young man with blond hair who often when I saw him looked very
angry, and from her discriptions, Keith
Ellis, Bel Pre SUPERVISOR, was
making fun of Linda, the elderly, tiny woman with Alzheimers and
mobility problems, bent over, I never saw her with a cane, Keith will
not allow "his" staff to help clients with the simpliest
things.
I
am thankful that Congressman Van Hollen's office helped to get Linda
into the 24 hour facility next to Southport since she was constantly
wandering for long periods of time, including going out in socks in
the winter and at night, who could not prepare food for herself, I
hope that Cornerstone Admin continues to provide real care for Linda
since Jeannie her housemate for several months was concerned about
her and would just get blown off with "the
police have a grey hair alert and always bring her back" or
"don't
worry about it."
I
think Linda was so underweight and with the wandering would have died
if Congressman Van Hollen hadn't intervened to get her into
Cornerstone's 24 hour staffed facility instead of alone in an
apartment with staff that didn't see walls covered in roaches if they
visited her at all.
Debbie
Davis said Keith,
in
a way,
was trying to help Linda walk, but over her head was making faces and
encouraging staff to laugh at her.
Debbie
would say again and again if
they don't want to work around people like us,
why are they here? And
that it was one thing to laugh behind patients back when they weren't
there but Keith had led his gang in making fun of the tall blond guy
who was usually very angry when I saw him but not articulate enough
to defend himself. Not that anything is ever done about Keith's
outrageous actions.
Keith
Ellis cross-examines Jeannie and did to Debbie Davis, whenever he is
called on the carpet, as to what they
had been saying about him to their therapists and
both tell him that what THEY say to THEIR psychiatrist/therapists is
none of his damned business but he continues on.
It
is shameful that Keith Ellis continues to be employed as supervisor
of Bel Pre Cluster.
------------------------------
The
Compliance Officer's contact information MUST BE POSTED WHERE ALL
CLIENTS CAN SEE IT. What is the point of having a Compliance Officer
at Connerstone with AN EMAIL FOR ANONYMOUS COMPLAINTS if this
information is not posted.
At
Family Service Agency a flyer with contacts of phone and email was
posted above water coolers, bathroom doors and bulletin boards for
all clients to see and use as needed.
Is
Cornerstone in violation of Comar or other Laws by not posting the
Compliance Officer contacts including, ANONYMOUS REPORTING OF
WRONGDOING? Would anything be done?
Keith
told me on the phone Feb. 10, 2016 that
Anna could not give me a copy of the email asking for a meeting with
Marissa the Compliance Officer, Anna B. had called me initially and
said that I could not contact Marissa directly but had to go through
channels and file a grievance first.
At
first Anna said she could not give me Marissa's email but on a flyer,
never distributed to clients, that I was given in July 2015 after a
written complaint about Keith to Congressman Van Hollen, the paper
with contact information said that clients
could email Marissa, anonymously if they preferred and
only after that did Anna say that she would give me the flyer with
the email address for Compliance. Keith got on the phone and
stonewalled and said I could not call the COO or the CEO when I asked
for their last names though the grievance policy states that you can
skip over.
----------------------------------------
Margaret
Moeller,
Vocational
Rehabilitation Specialist,
when I went in January 2016 to gain permission for a year with my Job
Coach, Vanessa
Martinez,
said 3 times she strongly recommended that I speak with a
Benefits Specialist regarding
possible sales of my artwork which is my main goal for voc rehab but
in Sept. 2015 the COO , Elizabeth "Lisa" pressured me to
get a retail job, I
am 62 years old and have very bad hearing, COPD and bad back trouble
walking and arthritis.
Ms.
Moeller always gives me a lot of paperwork, this strange secret,
hidden job program of the Art Group, Studio Insight does not even
have a mission statement so clients forced to be in the program don't
have a clue and are verbally abused until they realize this is a job
program.
The
Art Therapy Association and Licensing Board have
a few things to say about artists who are exploited by Mental Health
Agencies.
I
had to pause in Voc Rehab in early 2015 and told Margaret about the
harrassment that I was experiencing from Keith Ellis made it
impossible to do my part in selling and creating art and Vanessa
Martinez heard week by week the very dirty things Keith was doing to
smash me down after I complained to Congressman Murphy about being
forced into Eric Gordon's art group and the violent and despicable
things he did to me.
Eric
was fired 3 months later, there was more than 5 years of evidence
from other clients of Eric's extreme abuse, but only learned off the
cuff from Nicole Burke, 3 months later because the person
who was tasked to do Grievances Susan Wilkoff, in
blatant violation of Comar
Law,
refused to get back with me in 30 days of what would be done and this
was after she was contacted by Congressman
Murphy's office,
I was too ill by Eric's then Keith's abuse when he saw the contempt
Ms. Wilkoff had for the law and Keith told me it would be in
violation of Eric Gordon's privacy to tell me about any disciplinary
procedure but the Comar Law is clear on not keeping a client who has
risked herself dangling and clearly states that clients must be told
in writing within 30 days this was and has never been done not in 30
days until now.
I
was very antsy waiting for the meeting with Erika, Property Mgr, of
the "Permanent"
apartment
program with Keith and supposedly his boss Nicole Burke, who
cancelled, they did not tell me until after I was there, though I did
not want to meet with Keith in the room, Anna said Nicole would be
there, even though even Margaret knew why I was nervous and said "you
will have witnesses." Anna
Bikakis',
my
RC, salary depends on Keith and being blind to some of the things he
does and Erika did not seem to have much respect for clients or her
job and had obviously never visited the Lionsgate apartment and
initially gave Anna the key to an apartment that was already occupied
by a client. There are only 20 units in the "Permanent"
housing but Anna said it was easy to get confused with all the keys.
----------------------------------------
I
am still begging for my treatment plans, have given up last treatment
plan 2 months ago, as ususal, Anna Bikakis promised to have staff
bring me a copy of my treatment plan, have to sign on the computer
then they supposedly print from laptop and I have to remind them
again and again and even then usually don't receive my treatment
plan, what are they writing that they don't want me to see? I keep
saying that I am going to refuse to sign if they don't give me a copy
of my plan first but it is so wearing to have to fight for every
little thing when there are larger gross violations of patient rights
and gross negligance.
Keisha
Johnson was
a thoroughly decent person, a former RC who came from Threshold,
after Betty
Levy had
fallen down the concrete stairs outside the townhouse and had a black
eye and bad bruise/cut on her forehead Keisha was very kind to her,
she was the only one who showed any concern, Shatara continued
screaming at Betty to clean which she could not do, she could not
bend down, but I
was shocked to see and hear Keisha making fun of and saying nasty
things about Betty in the Bel Pre office.
But
at least this was not in front of Betty.
Ana
used to try to get me to join her in making fun of Betty when she
would come for medications and yell at Betty for the many tissues on
the table and floor which Betty used to dab her oozing eye that was
swollen shut month after month. They would scream at Betty to call
911 for her badly swollen feet and eye, once I pointed it out, Betty
would just keep her head down and say nothing, pathetically awful to
witness a very ill 67 year old woman being treated that way by
"Rehabilitation" Coordinators - used to be called
Counselors but the definition of Coordinator means "do it
yourself" but although Betty did call 911 many times, the RCs
would not wait with her until the ambulance arrived, Betty had some
trouble communicating and Montgomery
General would
send her home without help in most cases, once they gave her a shoe
and a walker, and once they flushed her eye but it soon became even
more hugely swollen and was always shut and tears flowed out of that
one eye constantly and Betty would finally say repeatedly that she
was afraid of losing her eye. Anna B. was the only one who was
sympathetic and would listen to Betty after Nikki and Keisha quit,
but Anna would just shake her head and say there was nothing she
could you.
The
ER would give her eyedrops as would her eye doctor, but she would say
she would forget to tell the eye doctor the things she told me and
early on stopped going to the doctor about her eye and foot and
though I asked repeatedly for her RC, or some RC to go with her, they
would only repeat, "She
can do it herself."
What
government agency allowed St. Lukes and Threshold to merge?
It
has been so bad and going steadily downhill and is at a point where I
will start a blogspot and post information including some of the long
letters/reports that I have sent to Congressman Murphy and
Congressman Van Hollen, often the
retribution in the form of unspeakable mental and emotional abuse
from
Keith
Ellis, Shatara and Ana prevented
my
writing on the ongoing and worsening abuse after I complained inside
or outside the AGENCY--
on the abuse of me and other patients over a 6 year period prevent my
recovery and my working at my art and computer graphics, trying to
get Boston Advocacy or some advocacy group in here with strong legal
discovery and action against administration for violating Comar Law
esp. re: Grievances for year after year allowing this endangerment
and gross abuse of me and other clients year after year after year.
Thank
Congressman
Van Hollen and
his staff, I think they saved Linda's life, she was transferred to a
24 hour facility next to Southport, I hope she is still there because
she could not care for herself.
My
life was saved for a while by Congressman Van Hollen's intercession
with Keith Ellis finally being forbidden to come into the house where
I am now and personally harrass me.
At
a meeting in the Spring
of 2015 in
Dr.
Parveen's office with
my therapist, Paula
Weiss,
also present, I was supposed to have a chance to talk about some of
the terrible things that Keith had been doing, he was present as was
Nicole
Burke, his supervisor,
as in most of the meetings, as usual at these meetings I
am given very little chance to talk,
Nicole started angrily berating me from the beginning of the meeting,
Paula walked in a minute and a half after the meeting supposedly to
talk about Keith's extreme harrassment and abuse of me for more than
a year, Nicole if not screaming was close to it and kept interrupting
me again and again and saying "It's
you and Paula against the world."
Paula
would just lift her eyebrows and said nothing.
Paula
my therapist and I am the patient.
Nicole
was acting like an adolescent on a playground with hand to hip, "It's
you and Paula against the world." She also reminded me of
someone who was fighting with someone, a collegue upstairs.
I
am the patient, Paula is my therapist.
There
is much lipservice about TEAMWORK, but it is a team in name only.
Paula
Weiss and Dr. Parveen are professional and care about clients, Nicole
Burke does not and in this meeting showed she is interested in office
politics and her career and not
being bothered with important portions of her job to insure the
safety and well-being of patients,
and doesn't even seem to have an awareness of client rights or decent
behavior in handling a complaint meeting.
"It's
you and Paula against the world."
Why
do the licenced professionals on the ground trying to help patients
get so much disrespect from Administration even those with licenses
upstairs in Ms. Wilkoff's ivory tower who
never see the immense suffering their decisions and refusal to act
against
even the most blatant abuse of clients?
That
is so inane but typical of Keithisms and of much of my attempt to
communicate with the brass at Cornerstone.
This
much repeated statement of Nicole Burke is typical of the lack of
concern, the complete forgetting of why Keith and Nicole have a job,
to help patients not to try to destroy them or work out their severe
emotional issues on patient/consumers. I
am supposed to be the client and Paula is my therapist. Keith
repeatedly defied my therapist's emails to stop harrassing me.
At
that time my RC was supposed to be helping me find alternate housing
because I
was feeling so sick I was delirious from Keith's constant
harrassment, month after month accelerating.
Jeannie
said Keith would show up late at night in the apartment she shared
with Linda, sometimes Keith would show up there at midnight. Keith
has keys to all of the residences at Bel Pre and misuses this as well
as any bit of power he has to the detriment of clients.
Jeannie
has stated being afraid of Keith as I am, his behavior is the
complete opposite of anything that people paying for caring for the
mentally ill would expect. To call him unprofessional would be a
compliment.
In
the 2015 Spring meeting, despite his presence, I stated that Keith
should be fired to protect patients, Nicole Burke went into a fury
stating that it was her decision to make but she never listen to any
specifics and constantly interrupted me after a sentence or two. How
can she make a decision based on information only from Keith???
4
years of Keith Ellis harrassing his experienced staff when he became
supervisor after a year as assistant supervisor there was no
assistant until the very, for patients, ill-fated
merger with Threshold when
Keith came on board, I could see him harrassing staff who stood up
for patients until they left, many newer staff also left and clients
have been deprived of experienced staff who know their jobs and who
care to help them in their recovery instead of being beaten down and
the mostly newbie staff that is left is so terrified of Keith that
since he did not want them to spend the required 15 minutes morning
and evening doing medications and seeing that clients are okay, they
would pound on my door in this small house, like a police raid every
day, and when I would tell them I felt like I would have a heart
attack when they pounded and ran around and screamed and they would
just respond yelling for me to hurry because they had more houses,
the fear of Keith makes even the good RCs useless because they can't
reach out to patients and talk as they used to and and learn.
Mitch,
Linda Reif's boyfriends said when she was in the hospital that at
least at Halpine Linda had SEASONED staff to help her.
Anna
Bikakis, my
RC, was not there at the Spring 2015 meeting but although we looked
at Senior
Citizen Housing and
she said she tried to contact some of the housing including Rebecca
House and
several others, she said she did not receive a response both at the
time and when I asked her a week ago. Nicole kept almost yelling as
was her voice throughout this meeting and repeatedly stated in a
snobbish adolescent voice
that if I left the Agency they could not help me move and that I
would be responsible for moving.
The
sudden forced move was very traumatic in July 2015 when I called the
Washington Post and Congressman Van Hollen that we had been given 3
weeks notice to move but despite the fact that there were boxes in
the Bel Pre office, Keith refused to allow staff to bring us the
boxes though there were promises by the RCs day after day and I only
called outside Cornerstone to get help when THREE DAYS BEFORE THE
MOVE boxes still had not been given to us and I could not get the
address to where they were moving us.
Only
1/3 of my art supplies, computer and other things needed for my work
was moved after two weeks and as ususal Keith kept saying tomorrow,
tomorrow and then finally, not my job. Finally after help from
Congressman Van Hollen's office my most important things minus some
large paintings and things lost like my surge protector were moved by
RCs.
and
when I had to quickly move about 3 1/2 years ago Gerda started
spraying lysol in my food and telling the RCs about it I had to move
quickly into another townhouse and was given no help packing and
little help moving until I called Mr. Abramson, the then CEO and he
said that Barrie had come to him saying there was a gap in the system
because the RCs had to help clients move, the gap has never been
filled -- in the forced, sudden move last Summer, maintenance had to
do most of the move, Gus had said he was going to hire day laborers
but on the day of the move he said that he could only find one.
Keith
says he has a bad back though has little sympathy or concern for
clients with physical disabilities and required me to clean the whole
3 story townhouse in October 2014 after Betty Levy was finally helped
into a hospital and Melissa Willard my other housemate refused to do
any work because she said she was not going to do Betty's job. I was
very ill and have arthritis problems and Ana and Keith after I worked
weeks essentially alone, after the townhouse passed inspection Ana
the next day and Keith a day or two after that kept saying the place
was a mess and ordering me to clean and I said where and they would
say there are two glasses in the sink.
My
job coach saw how ill and exhausted I was from scrubbing and
cleaning, October 2014 and
Gus who brought supplies a day before when Keith said that Melissa
Willard and I should buy them though in the past one thing Melissa
Jacobs was good at was organizing inspection and giving us supplies
and air freshener, Keith refused and when I refused to use the broken
mop which left pieces of rubber on the floor, after weeks of asking
for a mop, I know there is money for extra supplies for yearly
inspection, Keith brought a string mop, no bucket to squeeze the
water and I am 62 years old with a very bad back. Gus said under his
breath as he helped me a little "Remember when all those guys
Nicole (a former RC) and others would help" because he saw how
ill and exhausted I was at Keith's badgering.
There
was a second HUD inspection in the spring and I refused to again
clean the townhouse by myself because Melissa again would not help
and David and Keith would come at night waking me up and in Keith's
case dancing around my bed but I was too sick physically and
emotionally from Keith's strange and constant harrassment which could
be easily verified if the Compliance Officer's contact information
were placed in view for clients because he has done this to so many
clients and anyone staff
or consumers with any kind of a heart who see very ill patients
mocked and treated like garbage by Keith Ellis and
some of "his" staff would be willing to testify despite the
fact that Cornerstone administration and CSA immediately threatens
clients who complain with loss of their housing.
Dr.
Claytor and Leah, Debbie Davis and Jeannie's therapist knows about
Keith's over-the-top harrassment, and when Shatara and Keith were
giving Debbie the run-around for 3 months about giving her the
paperwork so she could move out, from the first day Debbie said she
didn't like the townhouse and wanted possession of her money back,
Keith and Shatara said she owed $1,000 from her first month Leah
said, "I'm
going to put a stop to this." and
Keith did give Debbie the paperwork to get control of her SSI back.
Paula
and Dr. Claytor have apparently backed off of trying to get Nicole
Burke to
act responsibly, the therapists and psychiatrists who are concerned
for client welfare for years have had little influence with
Administration and the harrassment and negligance continue. If there
were a real investigation by the Maryland Board of Licensure, I
believe they could also easily have testimony from therapists.
Debbie told me Leah said she had heard bad things about Keith and
Jeannie recently said she didn't even have to mention Keith's name
and her psychiatrist knew who she was talking about.
Most
of the mentally ill have been abused and to have abusive staff
continue year after year is despicable and I hope that by creating a
blogspot with 6 years of mismanagement and abuse by staff esp. Eric
Gordon has done to me and my ability to function and create and will
ask the Maryland Board of Licensure, Boston Advocacy, Congressmen Van
Hollen and Congressman Murphy and the Art Therapist Board of
Licensure and others to help me find an attorney so that I can find
housing free of the gross mismanagement and abuse at St.
Lukes/Threshold/Cornerstone Montgomery.
------------------------------------------------
Some
of the RCs would pound on my bedroom door for meds there was no where
else to wait and they expressed fear of Keith if they took enough
time and for a long time at both Valleywood and Banquo the new RCs
would pound on my door and say they were behind in med monitoring -
they are leagally required to spend 15 minutes with clients but Keith
resents anytime his staff spends with clients.
Because
Admin and Keith have been trying to push me out of the program after
my last complaint to Congressman Van Hollenand Anna Bikakis had been
meeting me every week and helping in going to doctors but she
also pushed the Permanent Housing, no
one would do anything about Linda
Rief's destructive
behavior and Tessa the art "teacher" has no background in
art therapy only a veneer of charm no interest in clients' work
outside of the use she can make of it which includes arm twisting
clients to change their way of working, Vickie
like me was pushed over the edge she was shouting she could no longer
do artwork after what Tessa did to her and Tessa went into over the
top verbal abuse about my using cheap paper even though during those
4 sessions of Tessa's abuse I was working on a 50 inch masonite board
of the 50 figures of one gymnast and her family that I had asked
Congressman Van Hollen's staff to help me transport to the new house,
Tessa promised to transport it in a van but took several months and
then started a strange game with my other very large paintings that
she also transported.
Cornerstone
Montgomery - St. Lukes - Threshold by any other name needs to get
some people with integrity and common sense in administration.
There
was some shakeup and some of the upstairs admin like Barrie Friedman
left, but in my meeting with the COO there was no attempt to try to
find out what Keith Ellis was doing to damage clients or Susan
Wilkoff years of violating Comar Law regarding Client Grievances -
but only a push to get me into the Permanent Housing, which was not
specified at that time in a meeting in September but only a push to
get a job not just work with job coach in selling my paintings, I had
to quit the Job coach program and told Margaret Moeller, Voc Rehab,
that Keith's harrassment was so persistant and horrible I could not
concentrate, in retribution for my complaint to Congressman Van
Hollen about the very strange sudden moving about of a number of
clients and about the endangerment of myself, Betty Levy and a woman
my new housemate Jeannie was concerned about, Linda who had
alzheheimers and would go wandering in her socks in winter and Keith
Ellis and the other RCs telling Jeannie when she expressed concern
about Linda that the police had a grey hair alert on Linda and
therefore Keith and the RCs did not need to do anything to help
Linda.
The
new COO showed no interest at all in my complaints to Congressman Van
Hollen and though denied her policy of only saying positive things
was positive thinking, told me to say only positive things and when
I tried to object that the
deep systemic problems endangering clients were
not going to get better on their own --
the COO just making a statement that she was trying to change Agency
Culture and then her only explanation of what she was going to do was
her positive sayings only permitted she told me I could write things
that were not positive but only speak positive things.
Most
of the meeting in Sept. 2015 regarding the COO talking of my working
at retail -- I
am 62 years old and
the Voc Rehab person, Margaret Moeller told me in January 2016 that
when
I turned 64 in two years that I would no longer be eligible for
the
Ticket to Work --
my job coach Vanessa
Martinez,
is a rarity at Cornerstone, she is professional and focussed and I
want to work with her for the two years that I still have to sell my
artwork at gymnastics studios and online - the
working out of Tessa's and Erics emotional issues on me has done
tremendous damage and I do not want to be pressured into that very
messy Studio Insight----,
I think that the Compliance Officer was supposed to be there at the
meeting but Anna said she had an emergency so would not attend - the
COO, Lisa,
I thought she was talking of
Housing Unlimited,
HUI, the context of her speaking of my getting a retail job was
unclear to me, the COO said that if I could work one hour a week I
could retain my Medical Assistance, I asked where I could find a one
hour a week job and Lisa said that they could be very creative, she
mentioned working retail at Michaels and said
it was like an actress working as a waitress until they succeed in
acting but because of my age and hearing problem working in retail
would be difficult.
I
have spent decades on my artwork in between temporary jobs and want
to use what limited concentration and emotional and physical
resources on my paintings and working with my job coach to make an
interesting website for the many people worldwide who are interested
in the more poignant dance on the floor exercises of the Soviet
choreographers and gymnasts of the 1980s - there are numerous
montages of these gymnasts and many discussions of the beautiful
dance and meaning in the 1980s and the fact that the Code of Points
no longer allows for floor exercises with storyline in mime and
dance. It is similar to the audience for silent films which locally
may not have numerous fans but worldwide does.
I
have at least a hundred computer graphic images of photos that I have
taken of gymnasts of the early and mid 1980s and most look like
paintings with unusual effects. The quality of the videos of the
1980s is generally not good but through distance photos and working
with Adobe Photoshop, I think I have a chance to sell some prints
online and my
real goal is to do large paintings of sequences of gymnasts doing the
same exercise from different angles which the YouTube videos from
this period allows.
When
I asked Tessa, the art "teacher" for help with composition
in sketches that I was doing on brown wrapping paper she would walk
away, once
made sarcastic comments on my use of the phrase mirror images telling
me that was not original, that art itself was a mirror image of life
and
finally beginning to scream at me not to use cheap paper any longer
that
she could have sold my studies if they had been on better paper.
It defeats the purpose of a study if you have a mindset that it will
be for sale then it is a painting. No one told me that all of my
time Studio Insight, 3 1/2 hours a week, MUST be spent on working on
something saleable.
I
doubt she could have sold that particular sketch or the other large
sketches even if they were not on wrapping paper, only two or three
of my paintings can be selected for the gallery shows she has
contacts with every two months or so and it is not my targeted market
and although Tessa said at the beginning that she would be glad to
help me hang some of my paintings at gymnastic studios she changed
her mind, and when my psychiatrist came in and asked how I expected
to sell such a large painting, I said that from past experience I
would get offers from parents to paint their kids and that I hoped to
use the money to offer posters on my website of the more complex
sequences of gymnasts.
--------------------
I
have many finished paintings in oil and pastel of gymnasts, horses,
and dancers some on masonite board, some on canvas or paper. I began
selling my art in Reston through gymnastic studios but my father who
was helping me wrote poetry and had a problem with jealousy and said
some negative things to one of the owners after he had helped in
transporting and hanging them and I gave up trying to sell my work.
But Tessa like Eric wants artwork that I have done in Studio Insight,
its hard to tell when the "teacher" only acts mad and you
have to try to mindread what they are angry about. I don't mind the
30% they take from sales or any percent but I do not want to be
verbally abused.
-------------------------
My
psychiatrist made a thumbs up and it was very strange I don't think
Dr. Parveen would have thought of the size and sales and Tessa has
been pressuring the people upstairs about taking over the whole
lunchroom and having the other meetings find some place else and she
said that after she said she had asked the people upstairs to buy
better quality paper for me which would have been fine but that was
the point when she started berating me and I had been trying to think
of how to tell her that I appreciated her telling the people upstairs
my work was good but that I did not want her speaking to me like that
but for four weeks Tessa became more and more irrational and verbally
abusive and I heard her berating a guy on and on telling him to take
his work home, he had worked for years with Eric, he said nothing but
it was like an abusive stage parent but not as abusive as she was
speaking to me in that same time period. Vickie also said she
couldn't work any longer and was very upset, Vickie also had been
working with Eric for a number of years and like me Tessa was strong
arming us to produce work that would be good for her career. She
wanted me to work smaller and Vickie to work larger and Vickie said
she was quitting the art group for at least a few weeks.
I
think Tessa was also misusing her access to my therapist to convince
her to pressure me to stop in the middle of a large project half done
to work smaller and at Tessa's direction for Tessa's career not mine.
After the nightmare of the things eric did to many many people
though like Tessa he had an inner circle which seems highly unethical
to me in a mental health clinic art program which is undefined, i
have been reading the Art Therapists Association Site and they
comment on unethical and exploitative practices in art therapy.
Cornerstone
deliberately does not call it art therapy and its purpose is very
murky or not since it seems like a
hidden job program that it is unethical to hide this fact until the
"teacher" begins verbally abusing patients and trying to
DICTATE how consumers should do their artwork especially when I bring
my own supplies.
Margaret
Moeller said Studio
Insight has
no connection whatever
with
Voc Rehab and there needs to be an HONEST mission statement.
The
Board that certifies Art Therapists begins its mission statement, "TO
PROTECT THE PUBLIC....and promote ETHICAL practices" the
Cornerstone administration needs to think about the purpose of this
group and if Tessa like Eric is so embittered and angry and abusive
to clients because they are being pressured to sell more client
artwork than there is a market for and both have been very worried
about supplies --- I will suggest in the meeting on February 11, 2016
that Tessa's new boss Anne Peyer and others upstairs should look at
the Art Therapy websites and think about the statements re: unethical
and exploitative actions by an Agency that is purportedly for the
benefit of the mentally ill.
Jeannie
said every new leader of FDA would talk about changing agency
culture. From what I have experienced since my meeting with the COO
in September 2015 it is a case of meet the new boss same as the old
boss.
Anna
Bikakis, my Rehab Coordinator, they used to be called Counselors,
less and less work, clients last week Paula Weiss my therapist told
me last week are responsible for calling 911 if a housemate becomes
violent but in the case of Linda Rief's throwing things and hurting
herself it went on for at least two months with contusions of her
hurting herself and the RCs just said unless they heard or saw Linda
knocking over furniture and hitting herself with magazines causing
cuts and contusions and bruises they could do nothing.
The
policeman who came at Christmas said at first to Linda how did you
get all these cuts then said oh they are superficial. Why was Linda
allowed to go on so long in agony, and Jeannie who has a room next to
her spent much of her day complaining to me and trying to get the RCs
to come out and hear Linda slapping herself and knocking over heavy
furniture.
The
guy at the emergency number is rarely there and if he is is not much
help when Beth Vonieff was constantly calling the police about an
imaginary man with a gun or imaginary little girl crying all he did
was spend 2 minutes telling beth it was in her imagination and though
his voicemail says to have fenton contact him by his cellphone Fenton
said that they did not know if they were allowed to call him and
would not listen to his voicemail.
Pretty
useless to have a Compliance Officer if they are hidden away and the
only one (s) to know about it are client/consumers who contact
Congresspersons.
Keith
Ellis has stayed away from our house and Jeannie said he always asks
if I am there before coming to the house. Jeannie is extremely angry
at Keith for not doing anything about Linda Reif's throwing things
and hurting herself and she told her therapist Leah and her
psychiatrist Dr. Claytor and seemed to think Dr. Claytor would
finally do something about Keith since Dr. Claytor is the head
psychiatrist.
For
the second time Keith badgered Jeannie about what she said to her
Leah and Dr. Claytor and Jeannie tells Keith it is none of his
business what she says to her therapist and psychiatrist. Both have
either said they have heard bad things about Keith or knew who
Jeannie was talking about even before she mentioned Keith's name. If
Keith responds to Nicole Burke his boss telling him to stop certain
behaviors that her psychiatrist and therapist try to protect Jeannie
and this is Keith's response why does it continue.
My
therapist in July and autumn of 2014 said she was going to nip in the
bud Keith's harrassment of me first the ongoing pressure to go to
Eric Gordon's art group then Keith's harrassment in general but Keith
is confident of his job and hold over Nicole Burke and their joint
bogus excuses for Keith's negligance and overwhelming abuse of
clients and Keith continues on. He is creeping back in my life by
coming to the house and Anna Bikakis out of the blue stated that
Keith must do his job and come by ignoring the fact that Keith
appeared and pounded on my door the day after the meeting with many
in administration including CSA's Ken and the Compliance officer in
attendance. I immediately called Ken and he stated Keith had to do
his job by coming by the house ignoring my complaint - I received a
copy of the summary of the meeting where the written charge against
Keith was severe emotional abuse.
I
called Congressman Van Hollen's office and told his staff that CSA's
Ken had said that maybe I don't belong in the residential program and
that Cornerstone Montgomery was by no means required to help me find
housing after suffering years of abuse and Congressman Van Hollen
helped in getting Keith to stay away for awhile but the Sept. 2015
meeting with the COO was to pressure me into working at a retail job
so that I could retain my Medical Assistance though nothing was said
specifically at that time about Permanent or any other housing, that
came in November when I was offered an apartment of my own but Anna
said she could not answer my questions on the lease or what would be
required of me and after showing me the wrong apartment and saying
the property manager Erika first said she would come with us, then
that she couldn't, then that Erika did not respond to Anna's emails
with my request for a copy of the lease to read and study before I
agreed to the permanent housing and hard information about what my
responsibilities would be.
Anna
first said in November 2015 that Nicole Burke had said I didn't have
to but if I wanted to I could look at a single person apartment at
Symphony near Strathmore, then it changed to another apartment, I was
strung along from November to January 2016 before I could meet with
Erika the
property manager, Anna kept saying things like everyone is busy for
the holidays after she asked me to view the apartment and could not
obtain any information on my responsibilities if I accepted, Nicole
Burke was supposed to be at the meeting but she was sick and Keith
would not let Erika answer my questions but gave flowery speeches
pressuring me to accept saying they would help me fill my medication
tray and that he and Anna would support me as well as the RC and new
job coach but I was concerned about losing my MA in which case the
portion of Cornerstone that has the new RC and the job coach is under
Cornerstone if you are not in one of the programs actually
administered by Voc Rehab so I would lose both my job coach and RC
support if I did not have a job which was not told to me until this
meeting and they wanted me to move before I had a job and Keith would
not let Erika answer Anna's question then restated by me of how long
was the grace period before I had to get a job to avoid losing MA.
Keith
also sat across from me in a long school lunchroom type table and
pounded on the table, several times, as if knocking on a door very
hard saying I would not have to deal with that when I moved to the
apartment, since I have stated repeatedly that my heart hurts all day
long when the RCs pound on my door for meds, the house is small and
there is no place else to wait, I requested that the RCs just call my
name since I set my alarm and most of the time I am awake. To try to
pressure me and to throw me from asking the questions for hard and
reliable information from the property manager after waiting more
than two months.
Anna
told me a few days ago after my questioning her after reading about
the permanent housing program from the Cornerstone website which does
not have the
specific information
I need that if Cornerstone only wanted the property manager to handle
the property not the program who was in charge of the program and
Anna said Alex George and that it was a missing piece that they -
Nicole and Alex did not schedule Alex for the meeting with Erika
which was supposed to
answer my questions - Anna for two months would only say "NEXT
WEEK" I would meet with erika and have my questions answered
which took 2 months
and I was prevented by Keith from asking most of the questions I had.
Anna
looked stricken at the end of the meeting with Erika when I told them
both that a week previous when Erika had finally given Anna the right
key to the apartment that was available to me, (the previous time we
had come to Lionsgate, another client was living there, though no one
was in the apartment at the time when we went a second time Anna kept
saying to the man at the desk that this time we were going to an
empty non-occupied apartment) -after agreeing to move to the
apartment at Lionsgate, Anna said "Now
comes the hard part, getting you a job" (so I wouldn't lose MA)
and
I took back my agreement and again
asked for hard information on what would be required of me if I
agreed to move to "Permanent" Housing.
Anna
is usually cool and calm during these meetings so her face falling
like that was unusual and due to Keith's being there and obviously
not wanting me to have hard information on how the program was run.
I include Nicole Burke and Alex
George in
their not wanting me to have this information and I will request the
Maryland Board of Licensure to
look into how
many of the clients pushed into "Permanent"
housing
have not had any support or honest information on what it would
entail, lost their MA and support from Cornerstone altogether and how
many lost their "Permanent" housing or ANY HOUSING due to
lack of support and honest dealing in getting them into this
Cornerstone program sounds
like a way to bypass CSA's requirements that clients be packing their
meds for several months, have the finance department return the use
of the SSDI money and have clients paying rent to Cornerstone instead
of Cornerstone taking the whole check and alloting a portion back to
clients, the fact that Jeannie and Linda Rief have had terrible
problems with having no money because the "finance department
made a mistake." as stated to them when they first came into the
program - Erika did say that non-payment of rent would be grounds for
evicting clients and if the finance department is now making all
these mistakes for two months, how is a client pressured into moving
before becoming a repayee going to pay the rent and from bitter
experience, many Cornerstone employees most particularly Keith and
Nicole Burke are masters at passing the buck pointing the blame to
clients and leaving out their complicity and clients not receiving
basic, basic service or even freedom from abuse by Keith Ellis.
-------
Alex
George has been in a supervisory position for many years, when did
Alex become head of the "Permanent" Housing program and why
was I only informed in the past few days, February 2016 that she is
head of this program and why
didn't Anna email Alex George to answer the question I have posed to
Anna for over 2 and 1/2 months while
Anna was pushing me to agree to move??? And why was Alex George not
at the meeting with Erika, not even scheduled to be there, Nicole was
and was sick and could not make it.
Why
are subordinates like Anna Bikakis put in a position like this to
deceive clients. Anna said Nicole Burke was the one who wanted me to
look at the single apartment beginning in mid-November and I doubt if
Alex George did not know -- why did it take so long and so much
probing on my part to get even half of the basic information on this
program, why wasn't it volunteered at the beginning of the pressure
to move???
I
had an appointment with Margaret Moeller earlier in the day of the
meeting with Keith and supposedly Nicole and Erika and Ms. Moeller
kept telling me not to worry that I would have witnesses. I had
asked for time off last year of the Job Coach program because Keith's
intense harrassment made it impossible for me to work at my art or to
do the work I needed online to promote my work.
----
The
deceit goes on and on - Keith lying to Dr. Parveen after I complained
to Congressman Murphey about the horrendous things that Eric Gordon
did to me, saying I was not making my 17 visits a month - calendar
which I trusted Keith to take at the end of each month.....
Keith
Ellis should have been fired anytime within the last 4 years for his
incredible abuse and negligance but Nicole Burke his supervisor, she
has been at Cornerstone for about 3 years, continues to support him
despite anger from therapists about the things well known about Keith
and the lies and excuses for gross negligance and endanger client
lives goes on and on and on and on.
They
keep trying year after year to force me into that art group with
abusive leaders - Eric Gordon for 5 years, he started the program and
was there approximately 8 years he had no art therapy background and
even when I first started was abusive beyond belief.
what
is written on the American Art Therapy Website and their close
association with the Art Therapy Board of Credentials they speak of
exploitation of clients and ethical practices and even in the Art
Group which administration apparently believes since they have an
iffy name not including the word therapy that the art teacher or
leader can verbally abuse clients in an attempt to make them perform
and to work on things that Tessa THINKS will be more marketable.
Tessa and Eric were, I believe, grossly abused by admin in pressure
to sell work so that they could get more money with Evidence Based
from what I have experience that phrase Evidence Based means that
clients will be abused and harrassed so badly that they become
totally non-functional.
FAILED
PERMANENT HOUSING
ERIKA
very unsympathetic and not taking any responsibility when I asked
what had happened to the previous resident of the apartment at
Lionsgate and Erika said she, the resident, didn't abide by the rules
and regulations. I asked if I could have a copy of the Rules and
Regulations before deciding to move and Erika said that they were
part of the lease not a separate sheet and I asked as I had asked
Anna Bikakis throughout the ordeal from November to January of being
unable to get any hard information that I needed to make an INFORMED
decision to move, Erika said she couldn't give me a copy but could
email a copy to Anna or Keith Ellis and they could give me a copy. I
received a copy of the Cornerstone website information but was not
very specific and still have not received a copy of the lease for
permanent housing to study.
Edna
Jeannie Collition and Linda Reif two months mix up at different times
and not received their checks when first moved in Jeannie said she
had no food and was starving for weeks and was put off by Bel Pre
office who told her she was upset about not having money to buy food
was part of her illness and she told them repeatedly what her dx was
and said no I am hungry. It would cause you to lose your MA and the
promised support from an RC 6 times a month and a job coach and I'm
sure would be a violation of Rules and Regs if could not pay rent for
two months - I know how they blame clients for their own mistakes --
Nicole Burke reminds me of an absentee landlord and so is Erika.
Most
memorable statement in all the troubles of 6 years at St. Luke's
Cornerstone - in a meeting with Nicole Burke and Keith Ellis in Dr.
Parveen's office with my therapist also Paula, Nicole sounded like a
junior high school student and repeatedly said It's
you and Paula against the world.
Paula
said nothing, just raised her eyebrows, when Nicole tried to prevent
me from stating specifics about what Keith had done to me. This
meeting was before the sudden move, ostensibly to have the sicker
clients near the office but Linda Reif should certainly be near the
office with her history and being sent for several weeks to a
hospital one week after she moved into Dunsinane and the previous
history told us by Linda's boyfriend when she finally called the
police after 2 months of throwing furniture in her room and told the
police that she wanted to destroy things and had cuts on her arms and
face and for over two months Keith and the RCs refused to do anything
to help her and keith let most of the RCs go on vacation around
Christmas and packed us out for a day or two and Linda told the
police that she had not been taking her meds --- clients have a hard
time around the holidays so why did Keith have so many RCs on
vacation. Linda threw away her religious statues just before
Christmas and her boyfriend said Linda had torn up his Christmas card
to her. Linda called the police on herself just after Christmas but
their were two months when she should have beend receiving help.
There are very few seasoned RCs because Keith keeps chasing them away
but Linda Rief was assigned the youngest and newest Joette who did
not have the experience or training to deal with Linda Rief's severe
decomposition over 2 month period --- clients who are trying to
recover and in the jobs program should not have to do Nicole Burke's
and Keith's job and be housemother or on-site staff and they say to
ignore someone in crises but if they are throwing things and hurting
themselves or in Beth's case repeatedly calling the police for bogus
reasons and the police need answers from housemate client consumers -
that particular excuse of hundreds for RCs and Keith being
responsible for nothing at all can only be compared to the outrageous
excuses of the Bush admin.
Paula
is my therapist I am the client/consumer and the reason why Nicole
and Keith get paid and the alternating between ignoring clients'
needs and creating off the wall Bushism type excuses why they are not
responsible for anything at all and Keith Ellis over the top
emotional abuse not just to me but Debbie Davis and Jeannie Collition
told me they have made numerous outraged complaints about the things
that Keith has done to them to Leah their therapist and in Jeannie's
case to Dr. Claytor but nothing is ever done to stop keith serious
abuse of clients to the point of making us non-functional.
The
RCs are constantly in training what is the training for if terrible
situations with clients build for months and they are ordered to
ignore the signs which are pretty terrible to begin with. Really
interested in what the training consists of it is not listening
skills I have asked for years even prior to Keith's reign and all I
have ever managed to find out is that it does not consist of
listening skills, Keith laughed when I asked him about a recent
training at that time as if like his laughing along with Ana when I
would point to the material THAT USED TO BE POSTED ON THE IN HOUSE
BULLETIN BOARD LISTING PATIENT RIGHTS. THRESHOLD AND ST. LUKES AND
CORNERSTONE HAVE SHOWED KEITH AND OTHERS THAT CLIENTS HAVE NO RIGHTS
WHATEVER -- IT IS EASY TO POST PATIENT RIGHTS BUT WHO WILL ENFORCE
THEM AND COMAR LAW NOT CORE SERVICES AGENCY MONT. COUNTY.
just
changing the name from halfway houses to residences will not do
anything about the bad reputation of halfway houses and group homes
if the administration is so criminally negligant.
Linda
Rief is a very sweet person when she comes out of her room, even
Jeannie has said so many times. But someone who is knocking over
heavy furniture and slapping herself with her hand and a magazine,
maybe the cuts came from a magazine and tells the police she wants to
destroy things has been demonstrating extreme distress and rage for
over two months. Jeannie, whose room is next to her, would complain
to me all day long and I would encourage her to call the Compliance
Officer telling her that from her experience and mine the Bel Pre
office run by Keith Ellis would do nothing and Jeannie said she was
afraid to call the Compliance office that she would be put in Fenton
House as I was when I complained about the sudden move and no boxes
to pack to Congressman Van Hollen's office.
February
4th why can't Anne Peyers and/or Nicole write a simple email of
their agenda and the subjects to be covered at the Feb 11th Provider
Meeting this type of meeting is very serious and after I requested
help last week from Paula my therapist she called me and said it was
about Tessa the art teacher then said she, Paula, did not have a lot
of clarity about what the meeting was to be about and they keep
making the excuse for delaying and rescheduling this meeting because
of coordinating the schedules of so many professional, fine, why
can't they put a few paragraphs in writing and have my RC give me an
email of the subject(s) of this meeting so I can prepare??? Nothing
is ever done for the client's benefit, our needs and rights are never
even on the table.
Someone
once said in a work situation that it is unfortunate but some people
take kindness for weakness. Tessa kept briefly telling me her
problems with the long commute time, staying til 9 pm I tried to show
her a lot of compassion by making few if any demands on her time and
after attempting to get some help with composition gave up and just
tried to work quietly by myself and brought my own art supplies.
Many red flags before Tessa's 4 session screaming at me for using
cheap paper, saying she could of sold that flinging her arm at one
sketch, that even studies I should work on better paper, that the
paper would disintegrate, I have paintings that are decades old done
on brown wrapping paper both in oils and pastels and the paper did
not disintegrate -- the cheap paper tirades were only an excuse she
wanted someone to scream at and seemed to think that everytime I put
a brush or pastel to paper that it had to be saleable, no one said at
the beginning that this class was a hidden employment scheme
exclusively I thought it was an art class for the benefit of
client/consumers and experimentation with techniques would not be a
cause for outrageous screaming, berating, etc.
Hiring
saleperson types for the art group is like hiring a nurse or nurses
aide which I'm sure Cornerstone admin would do to save money if it
were not illegal - the same mess as hiring a nurse's aide to
prescribe medication is what has gone on for 6 years in the Studio
Insight. The Wash Post had an article years ago that a
HypnoTherapist can hang out a shingle calling themselves a therapist
with no training or creditials whatever, don't know if that had
change but having an art group that is primary for money by an
aggressive, irresponsible salesperson with art background but no
vocation or interest in the suffering some clients are going through
and saying that someone like me or JoAnne should wait to talk to our
therapists is unrealistic and Tessa's boss needs to contact both the
Art Therapy Assn. and Art Therapy creditialing board OR AT LEAST TO
LOOK AT THEIR WEBSITE to get some idea of what constitutes UNETHICAL
AND EXPLOITATIVE behavior on the part of a Mental Health CARE Agency
that exploits in the public mind and in the minds of those financing
Cornerstone Montgomery that consumers are getting art therapy which
can help people but it is a VERY sensitive area and an Agressive and
sarcastic and abusive art "teacher" who doesn't teach and
can't stand to listen to people and does not even remotely have the
temperment to listen to consumers but only wants to exploit the years
they have spent developing their art for Tessa's very ambitious plans
for HER career.
Tessa
has not had the time to destroy all the consumers that Eric Gordon
did, maybe this destructive behavior on the part of untrained
personnel put in charge of a group with unwarrented pressure to sell
clients art from the people upstairs and the fact that both Eric and
Tessa are constantly worried about the lack of supplies - the art
group should be shut down if admin is not willing to provide art
supplies and if the art "teacher" is abused they are going
to violently abuse clients.
I
refuse for the last time to try to survive very, very embittered art
"teachers" at Cornerstone montgomery/St. Luke's Studio
Insight, I have suffered enough emotional damage and will be putting
up a blogspot with 50 pages that I sent to Congressman Patrick
Murphey on Eric Gordon's violent threats to me, the all out emotional
warfare of Keith Ellis, supervisor of Bel Pre after making this
complaint and calling Dept. of Aging to save Betty Levy's life, Keith
Ellis filthy junior high school abuse along with Ana made it
impossible to even make another complaint to Congressman Murphy or to
try to obtain legal help from the Boston Advocacy Group started by
Sen. Kennedy to gain protection from the ongoing abuse by Keith Ellis
which would be more than coroborate by his other victims if the
Compliance office contact information were posted at Southport,
Lamberton and Bel Pre offices since Susan Wilkoff has been in gross
violation of Comar Law regarding Grievances for so many years,
refusing to call clients back who are trying to make a complaint,
refusing to abide by the timeframe given for notifying clients what
action would be taken against Eric I was told by Keith Ellis that
Susan Wilkoff had decided in violation of the requirement of Comar
Law to notify clients making a complaint in 30 days of complaint
because Ms. Wilkoff had to protect Eric Gordon's "privacy".
I only learned accidently from Nicole Burke that Mr. Gordon was no
longer with the agency 4 months after my complaint and many requests
for notification in writing from Ms. Wilkoff about what would be done
about Mr. Gordon's abuse of me.
Tessa
kept pushing and pushing to see how much she could get away with
false promises amounting to a kind of ponzi scheme, promises I mostly
didn't need, various kinds of sarcasm, insults telling me my idea
about mirror images which was only a passing remark about the
sequences of 80s gymnasts from different angles which is important
and the basic work that I want to do and have prepared to do, and
have markets in mind for but which Tessa thinks will not gain her
immediate success since a foundation needs to be laid I don't mind if
Studio Insight takes 30% or however much perceents but I do care
about being lied to that tessa would help me hang my work at a
gymnastics studio but since the work on the 50 inch board with 50
figures probably wouldn't sell but if what has happened in the past
continues parents seeing it will ask me to do commissions of their
kids which would be hard for Tessa to claim 30% though I wouldn't
have minded giving a percentage and Tessa could have gained more
contacts but she is so disorganized and angry with a very thin
veneer of charm like many sales people and certainly like eric that I
would rather just work with my job coach who is organized and
professional and has never tried to work out her personal issues on
me but is again professional which is a rarity at Cornerstone -
thinking esp of the many ways Keith has damaged me and Nicole Burke,
his boss and absentee landlord, again and agains saying in a nasty
Junior High School voice when trying to testify about the destructive
things Keith was doing -- It's you and Paula against the world. --
The Mickey Mouse Club - The
Maryland Board of Licensure needs
to do a very serious investigation esp about the end-run
around the rules for Core Service Agency for the so-called Permanent
housing where
clients are not prepared even to packing out meds or being a repayee
and therefore many clients are losing their Medical Assistance and
therefore the support promised from 6 meetings a month with RC and a
job coach and then losing their housing.
There
seem to be several of the 20
"permanent" housing units available
and like the person who had the apartment they offered me without
telling me any of the requirements or hard information, Erika
contemptuously said of the previous occupant that she was not
following the rules and regulations and when I asked what had
happened to this woman was she thrown out on the streets Keith Ellis
interrupted and said that was private information and when I tried to
ask Erika what would happen hypothetically to a client in the
Permanent Housing that was unable to keep their MA and therefore
would be completely without support what happens to them when they
lose their housing. This seems like a scheme of getting rid of
clients and the lack of support or even hard information for two
months and the pressure from Keith and somewhat from Anna Bikakis
should be looked into - clients losing everything by entering into
the Permanent housing then losing that so-called Permanent Housing
because of lack of preparation for the past few years needs to be
investigated by the Maryland Board of Licensure and I hope that the
media will also take an interest in investigating this Cornerstone
Montgomery PERMANENT HOUSE THAT IS NOT PERMANENT FOR A VERY HIGH
NUMBER OF FORMER CLIENT are they now on the street??? what happened
to them????
keith
the lamest excuses accepted by nicole and now by therapists and
sewgist for not getting involved. Betty would have had more
compassion from someone she stopped on the street with her hugely
swollen eye and feet it would be better to be that ill alone in an
apartment than with RCs getting paid to see how you are doing twice a
day screaming at you to do heavy cleaning, at least stopping someone
on the street if they walked away at least would not be subject to
this abuse. The Compliance Officer contact information needs to be
posted where clients can see since Susan Wilcoff the ostensible
person in charge of Grievances has been in violation of Comar Law for
years.
MJ
was a protege of Barrie Friedman. My RC at the time was Amanda, she
said that the way that MJ and Barrie when she came to meetings was
for all the RCs to attack the client in the weekly meetings supposed
to help consumers and the consumer's RC had to defend their client.
Sounded like Barrie who did alot of "training" was running
star chambers. Gerda who had chased away and tormented many
housemates including our housemate Peggy and me was under full attack
of me which caused her to completely give up her writing to torment
me. My Treatment plans would say that I did not get along with my
housemates which wasn't true, Peggy is a gentle sweet person and we
always got along but I would request that several RCs change this
statement but they would not and I was so beaten down trying to
survive Gerda. It did not help even Gerda to let her do this and I
always wondered just what training the RCs were getting.
Reminded
again and again of Stanford University experiments and Leo Straus.
When
Bonnie's friend commissioned me to do a painting of her granddaughter
and horse, Gerda would stand outside the basement door screaming and
I finally gave up the commission. Why take people who could be
functional and require that they act as 24 housemothers to those who
are much sicker, why is there no help from RCs for Gerda screaming so
badly would chase neighbors away and Linda
Rief who was self-destructive for months leading up to
Christmas--housemate Jeannie called again and again and mentioned at
the twice daily medication monitoring which is and esp around
Christmas we were packed out again and again because Keith despite
knowing clients often have emergencies around this holiday let most
of the staff take week long or longer vacations falling under the
heading of just being "short-staffed" and
never received any help from RCs and Nicole Burke and Keith Ellis
have even apparently convinced my therapist Paula that they have
different job to do but they don't do it, they just concentrate on
dirty office politics against clients and staff who do care and who
have some common sense. What are RCs being paid to do if not to
intervene in months or year long crises and to at least take an
interest in helping all Keith seems to do is come up with creative
excuses not to do anything to help and to torment clients as badly as
Gerda.
The
philosophy continues to be Straussian and there needs to be continued
investigation, I did not have the benefit of it saw the paper on the
door of Southport after I refused to go into so-called permanent
housing of a group for 8 weeks preparing clients to handle finances
in preparation to moving into more independent situations and I have
the strong feeling that this group was only called after
investigations into clients losing their MA and their housing by this
"Permanent" housing run exclusively by Cornerstone with no
oversight by CSA, 2 years ago Christina Taylor my RC wanted me to try
for a single apartment at The Gallery, I met with Ken Westin
residential handler of CSA and two volunteers from the community it
was very short meeting and Ken Westin told Christina they were afraid
I would get paint on the walls, Christina Taylor was dumbfounded and
Paula my therapist said I KNOW you wouldn't get paint on the walls.
Christina told Ken that they had never had that problem with me and
then Ken said that since I was not a repayee, they refused my
application.
Christina
apparently had not known of this requirement. When I met with keith
and erika last week Keith said that the Permanent housing had nothing
to do with CSA and I said that I thought it was a good idea to be
prepared BEFORE moving and jeopardizing MA which would mean that
Cornerstone could not provide either the promised 6 visits a month
from RC or job coach. They wanted me to move before I had a job and
would not tell me about the period of grace timeframe that Anna spoke
of when I said I was afraid of losing my housing if I went with the
single apartment.
Someone
outside of Cornerstone must have been aware of the destruction of
client lives with this "Permanent" housing which judging by
the number of units available that had been previously occupied is
not so permanent.
The
PROVIDER MEETING has once again been rescheduled from Feb 11 to Feb
25, this time because Nicole Burke suddenly has to leave town and
Nicole burke told Anna B. that she would give me something in writing
as to what the meeting will be about, but considering the hundreds of
broken promises from small to very large issues including Keith
taking down the Client Rights and refusing to put up the last names
of Bel Pre staff which was always up on the wall.
There
was no material on Grievance Policy not that just having a list of
Client Rights on the wall means anything. I used to take it down and
read to Keith about treating clients with dignity and he would give a
little laugh, like clients have no rights and it is true if Keith's
supervisor Nicole Burke continues to allow him to abuse clients and
the
new as of approx. 1 year ago COO, Lisa, believes everyone should
speak positively which is not the way to examine severe and systemic
abuse of clients --no
one wants to get involved and Keith is very clever at making excuses
why staff does not have to get involved in the most severe near
violent episodes that go on for month after month of clients in
distress so their housemates have to essentially be 24 hour staff for
the sicker clients with no support whatever from the terrified and
new staff since RCs get so disgusted at the way Keith treats them and
clients that they quit or move to another section of Cornerstone.
Linda
Rief never leaves her room except briefly to eat and there is no
attempt to get her to participate in any of the programs at Southport
or Lamberton or Bel Pre. She is no longer knocking over furniture in
her room or audibly hurting herself but she needs some care and
activity. The RCs pressure me whenever I make a complaint but I am
constantly at my computer working on graphics and I would like to
paint either in oils or pastels but am so upset by the 3 big things
that have happened since I last contacted Congressman Van Hollen that
never should have happened and which contain too many parts to do
justice to my experience with ongoing abuse and the corruption of the
Permanent Housing program which apparently is not permanent since so
many clients who agree to participate have been thrown out.
After
I met with Erika in january 2015, I saw a notice up at Southport for
an 8 week course for clients thinking of moving to help them with
financial independence at no time was this class mentioned to me
while they have been pressuring me to move through Anna and I kept
asking for hard information on the requirements of this program only
to be strung along week after week with Anna saying people were too
busy with the holidays so why did Nicole tell her to show me the
empty apartment that wasn't so empty and the wrong apartment.
Need
to write why I think Erika and Nicole Burke are absentee landlords.
------------------------------
Anonymous
said...
If
one can believe in the concept of good and evil and the
concept that good is superior to evil,
it then must follow that
knowledge
of the truth
is a power for good.
I
believe that the pure knowledge of truth is a cleansing act.
When
enough people see the truth the scales fall away.
The
fable of the
emperors new clothes has
not survived because it is a cute story- it
is there to show us that the balance shifts when truth is
acknowledged.
Keep
up the good work Jeff and someday we will all see that they are
naked.
------------------------------
Beginning
of Tessa Complaint-new art teacher for Studio Insight
The
COO will not be able to change the "corporate
culture" by
not allowing people to talk about things that are very wrong by
calling it positive something or other and denying that it is the
type of postive thinking where you refuse to see the train coming
even if you see it coming at you.
Gagging
clients and staff by requirements of only positive talk leads to
tremendous abuse and only allow administration to say they didn't
know.
How
long have they had a Compliance Office and why isn't her name and
contact info posted where clients can see it? I was given a single
sheet with this information after contacting Congressman Van Hollen
about the sudden move and no boxes or help 3 days before move, but
patients should not have to contact Congress to find out that
Cornerstone has a Compliance person on staff esp. since St.
Lukes/Cornerstone has been in gross violation of Comar Law on
Grievances for years.
Very
irresponsible to not have a trained art therapist to help JoAnn
Francis and others with the negative emotions that come up in an art
class with hard rock and other difficult noisy music and very cramped
conditions and which they dump on other clients since Tessa does not
have time or experience or training to listen to patients. And then
blames me for not working when I try to get away from other clients
non-stop dumping their emotional stuff on me a half hour at a time so
I can't work and feel dizzy from their anger and other emotions using
me as a therapist not to mention my own emotions that come up in
trying to work in this atmosphere with non-stop music that makes me
unable to think or plan or paint or right myself.
My
audience would be in gymnastic studios and internet where the 30%
would be hard to charge so both Eric and Tessa very, very resentful
of my request to help hang a large painting at gymnastic studio or to
take some photos of my newer style paintings to post on gymnastic
sites and my webblog tremendous abusive blowback on me from these
requests.
Would
have been better off just painting on my own instead of being smashed
down by abuse of this so called art group that goes on and on. For
client safety to at least hold back the worst power abuses need at
least a part time art therapist to hold back Tessa from her
irrational ideas, exploitation and abuse.
They
keep smashing me down year after year so that I can't do my artwork
by the conditions created by the vulture capitalists.
Barry
Friedman's star chamber
the
COO's positive thinking so never required to check back to see how
much damage is being done to clients by not having an art therapist
on staff instead of the most savage office environment that I have
ever been in called an art group misusing the fact that art therapy
used to help people but twisting it into squeezing the last drop of
anything they can from clients who have spent years developing
talent.
Like
the movie of the mafia taking over a restaurant that had a nice
business and selling off everything pots and pans for a quick profit
and destroying the business.
if
an adult's salary depends on a child, that child is going to be
abused. TV show 20 years ago on child actors damage done esp Jay
North, Dennis the Menace watching shows about serial killers nonstop
and Father Knows Best, Kitten and the knife welding, and gunshots of
the drug culture she got involved in.
----------------
I
want to resign from the art group other ways online to reach my
adudience shameful that I cannot get minimal use of a camera, one of
the outside agencies that voc rehab hired saying repeatedly in
meeting "The quality of YOUR work does NOT matter." run
like survivor island instead of grand prise of $5,000 a few hundred
for own business much more effective.
I
only need 2 things, not my job. Berating over using cheap paper.
list 4 or 5 reasons why need towork on cheap paper towork out ideas
which tessa is not interested in because of the pressure on her to
make the art group an immediate paying concern even if they don't
have the room til the new building is built in germantown next year
and really for the clients safety and well being the art group needs
to be run more along the lines of a traditional art therapy with some
sellling the art work on the side because clients get upset when they
are working and try to talk to me and tessa about the issues that
come up while working which tessa cannot do because to many things
are expected of her and I need to work and have spent so much time
listening to other people who never spend the care and time listening
to me.
Vicky
screaming though not ususal for her, tessa wanted me to paint upside
down not just turn the paper around to see what compositions might
come up but to draw upside down a suggestion would have been okay
which I also would have refused but Tessa more and more aggressive
and angry and bullying probably because of the flak she is getting
upstairs by giving her impossible circumstances and pressure to make
money off of clients' artwork.
It
would have been so much better for me for my recovery a laughable
concept when the basic thought of cornerstone/st lukes is to wack
clients around like golf balls.
I
will never again have any contact whatsoever with Tessa she has
already cost me too much in basic functioning like making a meal much
less doing my art work.
tired
of the abuse harranging, berating and berating me like a stage mother
and then berating some more - should have walked out long ago and you
can consider this my resignation from the mickey mouse club art group
or is it a stanford university experiment to see how much abuse you
can heap on a client until someone with the capability of functioning
becaomes catatonic and dies, especially useful in people over the age
of 50 years to get rid of for the twenty
somethings----inappropriately contacting my psychiatrist and
therapist to make me stop working on "cheap paper" and to
stop working at the size I need to work at for my dream for what I
have been working decades towards sequences of gymnasts.
the
place of pride when coming in the door of the Arundel
Lodge art show was
a pastel or light oil sketch on brown corrugated cardboard with the
edges torn off and not in an artistic way. I noticed it because it
was in the most prominent place but also because at that time two
weeks ago, i was trying to work on a waltz some of the figures in
sepia and some in burgundy, this painting was very nice, faint lines
with the background the color of the cardboard which I did not know
until looked at it closely, was realistically done of trees and
branches the only reason it makes me angry is Tessa for 4 weeks in a
row only coming to talk to me to berate me repeatedly for using
"cheap" paper and flinging her arm to a sketch of three
figures which she said repeatedly for 4 weeks that she could have
sold if it were not done on cheap paper. I doubt if she could have
sold it not out of modesty but because it is only 3 sketches which I
have been afraid to work up further because of tessa's irrational
harranging of me for using cheap paper. not every time i put a brush
to paper could it possibly always be saleable I have told tessa
repeatedly that I have much salable work not just the few old oil
paintings but she is more interested in having a scapegoat to
harrange and berate and to tell falsehoods to dr. Parveen and Paula
to get them on her side to stop me from working as any artist works
and on large paintings though i have said I would do smaller
paintings and brought in a good pastel not yellowed very realistic
but she just left it there did not put it in the locked closet to
keep it safe and I could have painted on the masonite board backing
it but tessa has a bee in her bonnet or as she sees it a moral right
to berate me and denigrate me to my psychiatrist and therapist.
tessa
is very ambitious and at war with some of the people upstairs and is
using me as a pawn for her emotional satisfaction and to help her
create her own fiefdom and has completely forgotten already that the
art group is supposed to be for clients not her ambitions and the
hardball vicious infighting she is doing upstairs done also on
vulnerable clients working on art which makes you vulnerable if you
are serious aobut what you are doing is very inappropriate and
dangerous for the well-being of clients who trust her and Cornerstone
and has shattered me and my ability to work or cope on a basic level
for the past 5 weeks. -
if
I can't get my freedom from this
oppression and betrayal of trust disguised as an art group I
will shortly end up like Linda Rife screaming and throwing things and
doing nothing else.
The
art group should be for consumer well being first,
run like art therapy which most need even those who are skilled like
Joanna
Francis has
tremendous need to talk about problems in an art group with others
and incessant rock music and very cramped conditions, and I wonder if
Tess is abusing Vicky the way she has me, in front of Jim when he
gave me the canvas provided by Phil
Radner of the Radner MuseumVicky
started screaming at me that I was preventing her from working, Vicky
has always been either friendly or at least ignored me and I was
shocked at her outbursts witnessed by Jim and i wonder if Tessa is
doing similar things to Vicky to get her to change her art style and
the fruit is someone who is screaming and upset and blaming a
scapegoat instead of the one who is messing her up by being concerned
with making the artgroup a paying concern while ignoring the emotions
that come up or the way clients want to work pressured by Tessa to do
things her way which she thinks, will generate more income and gain
her prestige and power with the people upstairs utterly ignoring the
wellbeing of clients, tessa said herself she did not have phd and I
wonder if she has any background in mental health.
The
next time I saw Vickie she said that Tessa had tried to get her to
work larger and that she, Vickie could no longer do artwork, I feel
the same way after Tessa's arm twisting about my working smaller and
buying expensive paper. If you take an art course at a college or
even a community course, you are given information up front about the
supplies you need to buy and so you can decide to participate or not,
the Cornerstone Art Group, Keith and Nicole and now the COO,
force you
to participate then Tessa screams at you to buy art supplies you
cannot afford.
I
have for the most part brought in my own supplies and I was working
on a gessoed masonite board which I had also purchased so Tessa's
screaming was irrational and I had no idea how to respond but it
seemed overwhelmingly obvious, that most of Tessa's verbally abusing
clients comes from her being pressured by ivory tower administration
to sell more of consumers work than there is a market for at this
time.
Again,
clients are not informed that they are in a HIDDEN jobs program that
Ms. Moeller has told me Studio Insight has nothing
to do with the Maryland State Voc Rehab.
----------------
If
there are a
few bad people in key positions like Keith Ellis, neglecting clients
in crises saying they or their housemates should be responsible for
handling even long-standing building accelerating problems by calling
911 -- abusive in the way the worst bully in Junior High School is,
and Nicole Burke, Residential Program Manager, covers up evidence of
Keith's abuse and neglect which has endangered the lives of patients
and their housemates and
gives Keith the okay to do anything that comes into his head to make
excuses, abuse clients and staff and misuse any bit of power (and
responsibility he has) makes
even
the idea of Recovery a
joke, makes Evidence-Based
ANYTHING
IMPOSSIBLE, wastes tremendous amounts of the small amount alloted to
Mental Health PATIENTS, even the meetings are a waste of time and
money, since clients are shouted down or as in the case of the
meeting with the
COO that everyone including me had to speak positive things only,
which
is essentially
gagging clients
and staff the better to continue to cover up the violation of laws
meant to protect the mentally ill from abusive Agencies, I have
suggested that they be recorded if clients wave privacy but Ms.
Wilkoff and others have been outraged by the idea because if the
meetings were recorded or attended by someone whose salary is not
dependent on Cornerstone, the outrageous coverup of abuse and ongoing
retribution against clients who try to whistleblow about abuse they
have suffered and/or that other patients with no voice are suffering
would not be so prevalent.
For
the COO to say that she is trying to change Agency Culture and then
to say she is not
permitting me or
anyone to speak anything negative,
those are mutally exclusive goals and is indicative of the Mickey
Mouse, Mad Hatter, Bushian, Kafkaesque, Orwellian, Straussian, FUBAR
style of management that
has wasted 6 years of my life PREVENTING
me from
any recovery and I if even marginally well-run and peaceful could
have been painting and selling my artwork instead of beaten down
again and again and again and has cost some clients their lives and
has made
many tormented people suffer even more abuse in years of thier lives
by
people getting paid to help them.
----
Jane
Roberts,
a consumer artist, when I told her about the COO telling me that they
had eventually wanted to have a space in a different location where
artists could come to work from 9-5 like a regular job, she was
excited and asked if we would get paid, I said I hadn't thought of
that but I highly doubted it.
Jane
Roberts, now works with my job coach Vanessa Martinez, who has helped
her find a gallery who shows her minatures, Jane also works with
another group and is becoming successful, Jane does small landscapes,
my market would be more gymnastic and dance studios. Jane has the
great advantage of not living at Bel Pre and being constantly smashed
down by Keith Ellis, so badly that I can hardly prepare food,
everytime I pull myself together and begin painting, he does
something else to me or I witness something he does or doesn't do to
other vulnerable clients - for instance the ignoring of Jeannie's
constant 2 1/2 month pleas to Bel Pre to help Linda Rief who was
polite when outside of her room but knocking over furniture, sounds
of slapping herself with a magazine and what sounded like slapping
herself with her hand and some bruises and cuts until just after
Christmas, Joette only came out once despite Jeannies constant calls,
I
didn't call because I knew it would do no good, Jeannie
was told again and again, "Not
to worry." "It wasn't her problem." and
finally that unless
staff observed, heard it they could do nothing,
Anna
B. in early November 2015 heard her knock over furniture and what
sounded like slapping herself with a magazine, when Linda came out of
her room, she was talking to herself and Anna asked what she was
saying and if she was all right -- staff and Keith knew Linda Reif
was abusing herself and her boyfriend later told us she has a history
of self-abuse, Mitch called Keith with some information he thought
might help Linda of copies her violent writings, Keith told Mitch to
get out and stop bothering us.
Linda
finally called the police at Christmas and they saw many superficial
cuts and she told them she "wanted
to Destroy things." and
that
she had not been taking her meds.
Keith
Ellis very ill-advisedly let
most of his staff take week-long vacations and we were constantly
being packed out throughout December first for one whole day then for
two whole days, repeatedly, and then longer, despite the danger to
clients like Linda Reif,
which
is okay for Jeannie and I but Linda Reif OBVIOUSLY, since
for 2 month was physically abusing herself, needed someone to come by
at Christmastime to
check
to see if clients are okay -
ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT AROUND CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS FOR ALL CLIENTS - her
and for
TWICE
DAILY -
MEDICATION MONITORING which
is supposedly why RCs and Keith get PAID
Anna,
and others would calmly say they were short staffed but
THE REASON THEY WERE SHORT STAFFED WAS THAT KEITH ELLIS IS
DELIBERATELY INCOMPETENT WHEN HE IS NOT BEING ABUSIVE.
Keith
will do a song and dance and Nicole Burke will accept anything he
says but
an attorney could look at the paperwork regarding staff vacations
during December 2015.
Writing
this truth and taking this stand is very dangerous for me, Keith has
the key to my residence and this may be the reason why Nicole Burke
will do nothing, fear.
Ostenstibly
the reason for the strange sudden move last July, (I
never found out who was responsible for ordering this sudden, forced
move)
was
that the sicker clients would be near the Bel Pre office but
Linda
Reif went into the hospital a few days after she moved in, about
a month prior to the move, and stayed a few weeks and has a history
of self abuse so it would have made much more sense to have left her
at Banquo,
Peggy Wyss whom
I lived with for 2 years does not have the same kind of severe
problems and would have been a better choice as housemate for Jeannie
and I and would have meant a peaceful environment for all three of
us.
Peggy
had been living a block away from Banquo at Dunsinane for 8 years and
as long as I knew her she had the large bedroom, the one I had in
both places was the size of a toddlers room, and the other bedroom is
proportionately much, much smaller than the masters, Peggy had
suffered through 5 years of Gerda Sejour's traumatizing abuse so why
move them in together at Banquo? Peggy was no nearer the Bel Pre
office, in fact, slightly farther, and Keith took the master bedroom
away from her.
Gerda
had been living in one of the apartments at Bel Pre after she left
for either a single apartment without being prepare, HUD or
"Permanent" housing, Christina said she did not like it so
soon asked to be accepted into Cornerstone program again within less
than a year as did Roberta - why is Cornerstone not preparing clients
who move until two weeks ago no program for this.
Peggy
looked so happy when I first saw her in the art group and said she
was glad she no longer had to live with Gerda, when Peggy was moved
in July 2015 a half block away to Banquo, Peggy looked like she was
in shock and could barely talk. Melissa Willard was allowed to stay
at Banquo at the last moment while we were moving and retained the
master bedroom.
---------------------------------------
The
COO said we are not there yet but we are working towards it --- but
there is not enough room and the art group is only 3 1/2 hours a week
so for the unstated pressure against Tessa to sell and her pressure
that took me a while to realize until she started screaming at me for
4 weeks in a row that everytime I put a brush or pencil to paper or
canvas IT MUST BE SALEABLE. Also Tessa's pressure, berating on and on
against the tall, heavyset guy with a short dark beard and hair.
This
hidden
job
program especially
without enough money for supplies or space or time each week, needs
to be looked at by an attorney with and Advocacy group and I am going
to inform the Art
Therapist Licensing Board and
there affiliates that there is nothing in writing about this hidden
group and is leading to phenomenal abuse of staff, Tessa, and clients
who have been given NOTHING IN WRITING about the current requirements
for unpaid work with an abusive staff person who is really a Boss.
NOTHING
IN WRITING. Even if they call it an art group, unlimited abuse of
clients now using artwork which used to be healing until Cornerstone
found a way to pervert it, I don't think that by calling it an art
group Cornerstone is allowed to do this shady thing against
consumers.
Cornerstone
is run top down like the most destructive dysfunctional family,
abusive, secretive, hiding abuse which
as my friend Bonnie said is very ironic considering it is a Mental
Health Agency.
----------------------------------------
Why
didn't Alex George, the missing Alex George that I just found out is
in charge of "Permanent" housing during the 2 months from
November 2015 until January 2016 when Anna B. was ordered to pressure
me into moving without knowing I could lose my MA and my housing if I
did not have a job, and I did not have a job . Why didn't anyone
tell me about the group beginning the first week of February for 8
weeks to prepare clients financially to move? I only saw it posted
at Southport a few days after I finally spoke with Erika in january
2016.
And
Keith called today, February 10, 2016 to pressure me into this group,
had no answer when I asked why I was not informed of this group only
pressured, the planning for this group was taking place while they
were trying to get me to move without even adequate information, I
told Keith that I would have been happy to join this group but it had
already started and because of the severe emotional damage done by
being strung along for 2 1/2 months, plus the problems with Tessa and
the strange Art Group, plus the fact that Linda Reif received no help
despite very obvious self harm during this same time period that I
was working on a comprehensive complaint/report about my suffering
and trauma at Cornerstone Bel Pre Cluster and that was taking all the
strength I currently have.
---------------------------------
Benefits
Specialist - Terri Reid
Grievance
Proceedure skipping overy people in chain of command who have been
involved in retribution against me in the past for complaining about
severe emotional abuse and neglect - my complaints have been both
within and outside the agency when given the run around - I was too
sick to continue updating Congressman Murphy and Congressman Van
Hollen after the retribution.
What
powers does the Compliance Office rhave to insure compliance with the
laws meant to protect the mentally ill and protect clients who have
file grievance against retribution and blatant violations of Comar
Law regarding informing clients of outcome of their complaint.
Is
the Compliance Officer paid by Cornerstone - what then endures her
objectivity???
must
be filed no later than 60 days after the triggering event or incident
- too traumatized hard to know when Keith's abuse began but nothing
effectual done to protect clients after my written complaint to
Congressman Van Hollen in July 2015.
http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Appeals-and-Grievances/MMCAG/Grievances.html
I
was being set up for failure, both Linda Rief and Jeannie had to wait
two months before Accounting was able to give them their checks,
Jeannie is still very bitter and said she was starving and Gus bought
her a hotdog and she devoured it and Bel Pre which is now helping her
with Manna would not help her at that time - Jeanne had the money
from but accounting made a 2 month mistake with both Linda more
recently and Jeannie Jan. 2015, and if I was not able to pay the rent
for 2 months I would have been thrown out on the street as was the
former occupant of the apartment they wanted me to move into. Erika
was very cold and said that she did not live up to the Rules and
Regulations and Erika could not give me a copy of the Rules because
it was on the lease and she could not give me a copy of the lease but
would send it to Keith and he could give me a copy. I had been
requesting a copy of the lease to study before making my decision
whether or not to move from Anna and she kept saying when I talked to
Erika it would all be explained and week after week after week, Anna
kept saying "Next week" we will meet with the property
manager
montgomery
County Government's Licensure and Regulatory Services 240-777-3986.
Page
given me before August 2015 meeting.
REPORTING
COMPLIANCE VIOLATIONS
ALL
Cornerstone employees are REQUIRED to report any suspected incidents
of FRAUD, waste, abuse or misconduct within Cornerstone Montgomery,
Inc.
If
a staff member is aware of any violation or illegal conduct he or she
is expected to report that information to the appropriate personnel
WITHOUT FEAR OF RETALIATION if the report is made in good faith.
Marisa
Gillum
Chief
Compliance Officer
301-897-4363
If
you would like to report anonymously, we also have a compliance
Hotline. Hotline staff will take your report and pass it on to the
Chief Compliance Officer who will follow up as needed. The
Compliance Hotline is available to take your calls 24 hours a day, 7
days a week
Anonymous
Compliance Reporting
HOTLINE
(800)
398-1496
Report
by Email
Reports@lighthouse-services.com
Submit
a Report Online
http://www.lighthouse-services.com/cornerstonemontgomery
---------------------------------------------------
Nicole
Burke
Client
Grievance Procedure
1.
A document outlining the Grievance Procedure must be presented to
each client upon admission and MUST BE POSTED IN AREAS WHERE CLIENTS
MAY CONGREGATE IN COMMON AREAS.
it
used to be that there was a copy on the bulletin board in each
housing unit. I know that the HUD material is still required to be
posted and is not at 12902 Valleywood Drive. Nicole Burke visited
twice and did not notice the severe gutter problems nor did she
notice that the HUD information including Grievance policy was not
posted.
although
the police came just after Christmas on a very serious matter, Linda
Reif had called them in severe crises,
one of the police officers told Jeannie that we really needed to do
something about the gutters.
The
gutters as well as the house at 12902 Valleywood have
obviously not been cleaned for many years,
Jeannie gave up telling RCs about it, she was worried about when it
snowed and there were avalances but an equally severe problem is in a
heavy rain walking out the door is litterally like walking through a
waterfall. As of Feb. 10, 2016 the gutters have not been cleaned
though they are overflowing with debris.
Howard
at CSA has retired and was usually very nice but thorough and so I
wonder why this house had not been cleaned for years. Keith would
not tell me the address and just drove Jeannie past it, there was
literally an inch thick of grease above the stove and the cabinets
and on top of the refrigerator, you could not even touch the cabinets
without getting grease on your hands. When I called CSA they said
that Howard had retired and Ken Westin came out and told Ana who
stopped by after he ran his hand over the top of the refrigerator and
was wiping his hand on a paper towel that they HAD to come out when
they received a complaint like this and that I had called saying it
was nasty and he concurred. The bathrooms were unspeakable and there
were many spiderwebs which later Jeannie and I cleaned for inspection
in October. Jeannie said we shouldn't have to clean other people's
sh-t and when Ken came, he told Ana that the house should have been
cleaned before we moved in.
I
told Ken that the RCs were exhausted from the move and maybe should
hire a maid after 20 some houses being moved they were in very bad
moods. They did hire a maid but when I got back from Fenton had only
cleaned much of the grease but didn't touch under the stove hood and
I couldn't blame them and the worst of the toilet and bathtub but not
the floor.
The
house at Lionsgate that Anna B. showed me when we finally got the key
to the right empty apartment was very dirty, some of the lights were
out and there was no bed or any other furniture in the bedroom, Anna
said of course they would get me a bed but considering Keith's track
record though he said at the meeting with Erikia that of course they
wouldn't just dump me but would continue to support me including
packing out meds, and Erika, in response to my question about
maintenance and the missing small spotlights said I would be
responsible for changing the lightbulbs and I asked about a
stepladder.
Anna
said I would be responsible for buying dishes and pots and pans and
that people who got the amount of money i get have bought their own
kitchen utensils, there was nothing at all but onionskins and dust in
the cabinets. Paula Weiss told me about Circle of Friends that helps
people with kitchen and other utensils but Anna had not known about
it and I was not told that I would be responsible again for cleaning
other people's mess, Anna said the RCs would help clean but I have
been singing PROMISES, PROMISES for years and Jeannie has started.
I
was forced to go to Fenton House a week in after we moved, in
retaliation for contacting Congressman Van Hollen so could not get
used to the new place or find basic stuff for going to Fenton
supposedly because of the fumes from the cleaning but only a small
amount was done by the maidservice and no one was ever concerned
before when they pressured me to clean the whole 3 story townhouse
because Melissa wouldn't do Betty's work and stopped doing her own
and Betty was too ill to walk upstairs and Keith put a tremendous
amount of pressure on me to clean, esp. during the October 2014
inspection, I was very ill from cleaning and when David tried to push
me when I was sweating, shaking and face red from scrubbing the
kitchen walls, I told David in front of Megan that a number of people
my age get heart attacks from shoveling snow and I would not continue
until I rested. For about two weeks I would work, then rest, felt
very ill and needed a CT for a tumor in my liver and cyst in my right
kidney found by MRI for back problems, but Keith would call or stop
by and yell at me to work said if I were ill to call 911 otherwise to
get back to work. We passed inspection with howard in 2014 and the
next day Ana said the place was a mess, I said where, she said there
were two glasses in the sink, a day later for several days Keith
would tell me the place was a mess and order me to start cleaning.
which I refused to do, the place was clean.
Bel
Pre staff told Melissa Willard that we would not have to worry about
maintaining the yard because they had yardmen to do the work. They
came twice to rake the leaves but Ana told Jeannie just after the
blizzard that we would have to shovel the walk, Jeannie tried but she
is 56 years old and has had a kidney transplant, I am 62 with a very
bad back and arthritis and Linda Reif, in her 40s is still recovering
from her hospitalization for self-destructive behavior and even
taking out the trash has been too much for her. We can't get an
answer about the yard men.
After
we had lived at Valleywood for a month, the dishwasher overflowed and
we could not shut it off and there was a flood of steaming hot water
over the kitchen, we kept trying to mop and threw towels over the
kitchen all of our towels were soon sopping, Jeannie called Bel Pre
repeatedly they told her not to worry that it was a holiday and the
maintence people would not be able to get a replacement for
something, finally they said that maintenance would be there but they
did not show up at the time given, we waited about 2 hours. I called
the fire department who at first were not concerned but told them
that Jeannie said she was a plumbers daughter there was no way to
turn off the dishwasher under the sink or anywhere she could find and
the door with the machinery was locked and the floor was very hot and
steaming and the metal sink was very very hot.
When
3 firemen came they jimmied the door to the machinery, the
older fireman burned his hand on one of the pipes,
they tore up some of the wood flooring and finally were able to stop
the steam from the pipes beneath the floor after they pulled the
dishwasher completely out of the counter area. The older fireman
told us several times that the floor in the kitchen would need to be
replaced or there would be mold. I told Nicole about this at the
Sept. 2015 meeting with the COO, Nicole said Bel Pre had told her all
about it and said nothing when I told her the floor needed to be
replaced because of the mold. Maintenance just replaced a few of the
boards around the sink. The kitchen floor is very small.
Another
maintenance man, Gus, at Banquo, used to test the heat of the water
with a small machine with a light, the water was always very hot at
Banquo but it was so hot at Valleywood that
Jeannie told RCs again and again that the water coming out of the
kitchen sink was way too hot but they did nothing.
----------------------------------------
--
for evidence-based proof of effectiveness, one would think,
Cornerstone would prevent this well-known abuse.
----------------------------------------
Too
much abuse of staff as well to more than touch surfaces. like trying
to catch Niagra Falls in a paper cup. What it is really like to live
with years of abuse caused by those getting paid supposedly to help
you, that clients who have suffered tremendously in their lives being
ignored, or screamed at, or games played or the last drop of blood
squeezed out to try to benefit their "evidence-based"
success which is smashing patients ability to function at all and
lying to gain evidence based funding.
Keith
is an unlicensed social worker, he looks to be about 50 years old,
why did he never go for his license or was it taken away from him due
to extreme violations of client rights, games abuse.
How
did University House lose all their staff members at once? Did they
all walk off in protest of abuse of staff and/or clients. About a
month ago, Courtney who used to work at Bel Pre said to another
client that she did not know when she would be back, that it wasn't
her decision, that University house had no other staff at all.
Courtney seemed upset. Melissa Willard was at University House for
several years, sounded large said that all the staff ever did was
make them work until Melissa would just lay on the floor and they
would force her to get up and work some more. She said the same
thing with much passion about how she hated it over a period of three
years.
Like
stealing the children's bread. The Children's Bread is healing
Seeing
Paula either 45 minutes a month, or twice a month at 30 minutes each.
not enough time to talk about much or do any real depth therapy but
they cut back Paula's hours. At FSA saw a therapist for an hour a
week.
American
Art Therapy Association --AATA
Organization
of PROFESSIONALS dedicated to the belief that making art is healing
and life enhancing. Its mission is TO SERVE its members and the
general public by providing STANDARDS of professional
competence...promoting knowledge of the field of art therapy.
Collaborative
partnership
Mental
Health Liaison Group MHLG
How
are credentials approved and maintained?
Art
Therapy Credentials Board ATCB
proficiency
exam
sets
the parameters of the ETHICAL practice of Art Therapy.
What
consists of exploitation of clients?
The
ATCB Mission is " TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC by promoting the
competent and ETHICAL practice of art therapy through the
credentialing of art therapy PROFESSIONALS.
As
if Cornerstone montgomery decided to save money by hiring nurses or
nurses aides instead of psychiatrists to prescribe medication.
Federal
law prevents this and the same amount of damage is being done to
clients and on top of that not telling clients that the Studio
Insight art group is really a hidden and abusive job program.
Tessa
is being pressured and abused for not being able to sell enough art
work for the ivory tower people and she in turn is abusing clients.
In many ways being unable to listen, Tessa has not worked with the
mentally ill and is not trained and if Tessa won her job by saying
how much artwork she would sell, some of the people who hired hers
should have known of the problems under Eric Gordon another sales
type with masters in art but not much patience for people and that an
art therapist would be needed to handle the emotions that come up,
Cornerstone is trying to ride the coattails of Mental Health agencies
like Arundal that fulfill the letter and spirit of the law and who do
use art to help people not exclusively for profit in their art
groups.
If
Cornerstone won't even protect clients from this kind of abuse
witnessed by many, how can clients do their job of recovery and
working?
-------------------
The
only thing I want out of life is just to do my artwork. I have no
objection to selling my work, in fact have spent a number of years
reading about markets and thought once I had a computer I would be
able to contact people who have an interest in the same subject
matter. Why does the management at Bel Pre refuse to help clients
being bullied by housemates and in the case of Keith Ellis why do
they allow him to bully clients like an adolescent, he stirs up
trouble and plays very nastly loud games with clients.
I
am grateful for my religious education through 5th grade at Lutheran
schools so I have a love of learning, try to be a good Christian and
citizen, and have something interesting to do with my life rather
than bully others because I am bored. The bare minimum of a decent
environment, quiet and free from massive and very creative bullying
cannot be achieved by St. Luke's-Threshold-Cornerstone. The housing
itself has been great, my complaint is only ongoing years long
personal harrassment by housemates and then for four years by Keith
Ellis, asst. supervisor that we inherited in the very ill-fated for
clients merger with Threshold, nothing is ever done about Keith's
expecting clients to do the job of RCs in calming down clients in
crises and in fact stirs the pot tries to turn one housemate against
another -- I finally need to write down and publish on FACEBOOK the
outrageous mismanagement and gross negligance and harrassment of
St.Lukes House-Threshold-Cornerstone Montgomery. I hope to find an
attorney from Boston ADVOCACY to investigate the damage being done to
clients by continued mismanagement and out of touch administration.
I would also like to contact the Art Therapists Assn. and their
affiliate re licensing of Art Therapists and
protecting the public as
is stated in their mission statement from exploitation unethical
behavior and abuse of artists who are clients of misrun Mental Health
Agencies with hidden arts job programs, hidden even from clients
forced to participate. Margaret Moeller of Voc Rehab always gives me
much paperwork and describes the requirements and Voc Rehab duties to
me, the client. Nothing whatever was given to me in writing or
stated that I was in a job program about the abusive STUDIO INSIGHT
which I have been forced to attend.
I
would have been able and happy to have been functioning creating art
which I have been doing for more than 40 years on and off because of
time constraints and taking care of my mentally ill mother and
working as a temp. I have the time and most of the art supplies I
need what I don't have is peace of mind meaning beth pushing nail
clippers and other things in my eye, fear of losing eyesight, then
Melissa Willard who mostly I got along with but who sometimes thinks
she is Jeffrey Dahlmer, coming up behind me as I was working, stating
someone in the audience of a gymnastic vid I was watching in
preparation of painting looked like Jeffrey Dahlmer and she put both
index fingers in my hair behind my ears and started talking at length
about some part of the brain she is fascinated by. Keith Ellis took
a special interest in MW and, I believe, like Caryn with Gerda became
too fascinated by MW's delusions and would manipulate her this way
and that to my detriment. I lived with MW for 3 years and mostly got
along with her though often felt like the movie Playing For Time, was
too sick by being knocked down by Keith to get up and out and the
promised support for clients for Recovery does not exist anywhere
except in promotional material, false advertising.
Keith
after destroying me as a person keeps telling admin and my therapist
that I am a strong person I am so shattered not only by the things he
has done directly and indirectly like letting Linda Reid get sicker
and more self harming has now apparently gotten his boss Nicole Burke
who misues meetings to try to inform her of what Keith has done by
refusing to let me talk and repeating over and over again that it is
"You and Paula against the world." that is as inane and
stupid and destruction and wasting tax payers money as any Bushism,
both the COO and Nicole Burke only have one source of information and
that is Keith's dirty politics.
Paula
unfortunately has capitulated and perhaps Leah has as well to
repeating the party line:
IF
CLIENTS ARE IN CRISES THEY OR THEIR ROOMMATES SHOULD CALL 911.
Paula's
early Feb 2016 repeating this often heard words of Keith tore at my
heart like nothing else ever has, there are years of immense pain for
me behind those words disclaiming any responsibility for clients in
crises and essentially exploiting housemate clients as a 24 hour
crises services for sicker clients while expecting the clients that
either need to igonore clients who for months scream at imaginary
people so badly the neighbors move away or try to calm them down.
Jeff, at the purported Cornerstone Crises, line is never there. And
despite his recorded message, he does not call back and Fenon is
afraid to page him despite the instructions on Jeff's voicemail.
Another example of the Potemkin Village that is Cornerstone.
Latest
dirty trick stringing me along and not fulfilling their
responsibilities. A provider meeting very serious wont tell me what
is about, requested since they keep cancelling it keeping me on pins
and needles that Nicole Burke who is a program manager and should be
able to write a simple agenda, nothing fancy just the topics to be
covered and she won't do, did promise but week after week I am still
waiting for Anna B. to give me the email with topics for Provider
meeting. Similar to being strung along week after week, month after
month with no paperwork or hard information on my responsiblities if
I moved into Permanent housing. Erika is the property manager why did
I have to cross examine Anna B. to find out who the program manager
is, Alex George, why didn't they tell me that up front or when I was
looking at the apartments one already occupied, oops.
I
took making this decision seriously on pins and needles since
November 2015 but nothing but stonewalling or changing verbal
information from Anna B. If a client was looking at properties, Alex
George and Nicole Burke should have either written the requirements
in an email to Anna they should have been aware that I was looking at
properties and being pressured to make a decision without remotely
adequate information. Affects my ability to work so smashed down by
year after year of abuse that I am not the "Strong person"
that keith keeps telling my therapist and psychiatrist I am, the
short amount of time I get with them and the contempt upstairs for
therapists and psychiatrists who care about patients make doing
anything more than talking about the ongoing abuse and gross
mismanagement of Nicole Burke now Alex George et all impossible. 45
minutes a month is not much and now 30 minutes twice a month with my
therapist is not enough for much of anything. I could do without and
concentrate on healing through my art work if management would
fulfill their responsibilities to give me adequate information if
they want me to move, help clients like Linda Rief who are self
harming month after month which also affected Jeannie who would tell
me her nightmares about Linda even when Linda was in the hospital and
Jeanne got used to telling me her problems. A private apartment
would be heaven but at 62 years old, I don't think that I can do
retail and though the COO said it was for only one hour a week and
that they could be VERY creative about finding clients a one hour a
week job to keep my Medical Assistance from things Anna B. and Ms.
Moeller said it doesnt work out to be only one hour.
Had
three crises, not of my doing, going on at once since the move in
July 2015.
1.
Linda Reif's accelerating self harming with no support or help from
Bel Pre cluster manager Keith Ellis, Jeanne called them repeatedly
but was told unless staff saw or heard it, they could do nothing.
2.
The art "teacher" Tessa being to berate and serious
verbally abuse me for "using
cheap paper", she
seemed to have lost her mind from the pressure on her to sell more of
clients' work than is possible at this time. With red flags that I
tried to ignore because of pressure to be in this hidden job program
before the all out verbal abuse.
3.
The offer of my own apartment by Anna, my RC, in November 2015 but
refusal
week after week to give me hard information on
whether I would be risking my medical assistance which would mean
that I would NOT have the Cornerstone services of 6 meetings a month
with an RC and a new job coach since Vanessa Martinez does not work
that area. After they gave me some information, I refused until I
had more information which I could not obtain because after finally
getting a meeting with Erika, Nicole Burke bowed out of the meeting
and Keith Ellis kept interrupting my questions directed to Erika,
property mgr,
to get hard information on my future to
give me the hard sell on moving.
Arundal
Lodge's merger,
maybe
for-profit
would
be better, at least management might make intelligent
decisions and actually help clients to succeed instead
of the never ending mess at Cornerstone, it doesn't need to be this
bad, no matter what cutbacks etc it does not need to be this bad with
the office politics passing the buck including onto clients of their
responsiblities, the blaming, the round in circles, gagging,
stonewalling retributions, Duane on cellphone with personal calls
instead of teaching the Internet class, the flat out refusal to
offer the most basic services promised, the squeezing out of staff
that cares to do a good job and who have a sense of integrity and
concern for clients who are less than the dust, the flaunting of
Comar Law in the Grievance policy and patient rights even as Keith
and Ana would do laughing at them as
if clients
had any rights whatever.
I
believe Senator Kennedy, who worked with Roslyn Carter for four years
on the MENTAL CARE SYSTEMS ACT, knew about the massive waste of
taxpayer dollars when it is so hard to get funding for the mentally
ill and so Senator Kennedy started and left funding for the Boston
Advocacy Group so that whistleblowing consumers would have legal
protection and also that REAL investigations could be made into
mental health CARE agencies that abuse clients and massively waste
taxpayer, government and private donor money. I will contact
Congressman Murphy again who also is concerned about waste and who
Sen. Kennedy left in charge of the Boston Advocacy Group. I will
also contact members of the Kennedy family including the grandson who
was recently elected to the House of REPRESENTATIVES for help in
investigating and cleaning up the shameful mess and abuse, neglect
endangerment of the most helpless consumers and retribution that is
the CORPORATE CULTURE of St. Lukes-Threshold-Cornerstone Montgomery.
"IF
THERE IS A PROBLEM THE CLIENT OR HOUSEMATES NEED TO CALL 911"
At
least paid staff gets vacations and weekends time away not 24/7
expected to deal with problems that are the RC staff's
responsibility. and they get paid, for what if they will not help
housemates of a person self-harming and throwing things for 2
months??
It is too much for consumers who are housemates to patients who are
in crises as with Betty and Gerda are told week after week and month
after month and are told hundreds of times mostly by Keith Ellis,
sometimes by RCs and now Paula at the pressure of Nicole Burke is
ratifying this ongoing exploitation of consumers with no training in
handling severe mentally ill crises of their housemates.
I
like to help people when I can but this is too much over a period of
6 years plus Keith's coming in at will with his key and poking and
jabbing me until I scream and scream. Keith is telling admin that I
am a strong person but how would they know feel delirious from the
pressure and abuse. If you are strong when you come into the
residential program you will not be after years of this.
And
you are criticized if you are not working on your Recovery.
people
who grew up in a dysfuctional family come into a purported
rehabilitation program where it is mega-dysfunctional with the
infighting and snobbery of the ivory tower people and letting abusers
like Keith Ellis and Eric Gordon go on year after year destroying
clients ability to function much less achieve their hopes and dreams
or work and getting worse.
Kyrie
Eleison
Christi
Eleison
Kyrie
Eleison
I
am not trained as a lawyer which you need to be to get the slightest
bit of information. I am trained as a painter and need an attorney
just to stop the abuse so I can work.
The
COO will not be able to change the "corporate
culture" by
not allowing people to talk about things that are very wrong by
calling it positive something or other and denying that it is the
type of postive thinking where you refuse to see the train coming
even if you see it coming at you.
Gagging
clients and staff by requirements of only positive talk leads to
tremendous abuse and only allow administration to say they didn't
know.
Very
irresponsible to not have a trained art therapist to help JoAnn
Francis and others with the negative emotions that come up and which
they dump on other clients since Tessa does not have time or
experience or training to listen to patients. And then blames me for
not working when I try to get away from other clients non-stop
dumping their emotional stuff on me a half hour at a time so I can't
work and feel dizzy from their anger and other emotions using me as a
therapist not to mention my own emotions that come up in trying to
work in this atmosphere with non-stop music that makes me unable to
think or plan or paint or right myself.
Don't
think I can survive any more of this "help" tell Dr.
Parveen to stop forcing art staff to "help" me it only
leads to abuse. My audience would be in gymnastic studios and
internet where the 30% would be hard to charge so both Eric and Tessa
very, very resentful of my request to help hang a large painting at
gymn studio or to take some photos of my newer style paintings to
post on gymnastic sites and my webblog tremendous abusive blowback on
me from these requests. Would have been better off just painting on
my own instead of being smashed down by abuse of this so called art
group that goes on and on. For client safety to at least hold back
the worst power abuses need at least a part time art therapist to
hold back Tessa from her irrational ideas, exploitation and abuse.
They
keep smashing me down year after year so that I can't do my artwork
by the conditions created by the vulture capitalists.
Barry
Friedman's star chamber
the
COO's positive thinking so never required to check back to see how
much damage is being done to clients by not having an art therapist
on staff instead of the most savage office environment that I have
ever been in called an art group misusing the fact that art therapy
used to help people but twisting it into squeezing the last drop of
anything they can from clients who have spent years developing
talent.
Like
the movie of the mafia taking over a restaurant that had a nice
business and selling off everything pots and pans for a quick profit
and destroying the business.
if
an adult's salary depends on a child, that child is going to be
abused. TV show 20 years ago on child actors damage done esp Jay
North, Dennis the Menace watching shows about serial killers nonstop
and Father Knows Best, Kitten and the knife welding, and gunshots of
the drug culture she got involved in.
----------------
I
want to resign from the art group other ways online to reach my
adudience shameful that I cannot get minimal use of a camera, one of
the outside agencies that voc rehab hired saying repeatedly in
meeting "The quality of YOUR work does NOT matter." run
like survivor island instead of grand prise of $5,000 a few hundred
for own business much more effective.
I
only need 2 things, not my job. Berating over using cheap paper.
list 4 or 5 reasons why need towork on cheap paper towork out ideas
which tessa is not interested in because of the pressure on her to
make the art group an immediate paying concern even if they don't
have the room til the new building is built in germantown next year
and really for the clients safety and well being the art group needs
to be run more along the lines of a traditional art therapy with some
sellling the art work on the side because clients get upset when they
are working and try to talk to me and tessa about the issues that
come up while working which tessa cannot do because to many things
are expected of her and I need to work and have spent so much time
listening to other people who never spend the care and time listening
to me.
Vicky
screaming though not ususal for her, tessa wanted me to paint upside
down not just turn the paper around to see what compositions might
come up but to draw upside down a suggestion would have been okay
which I also would have refused but Tessa more and more aggressive
and angry and bullying probably because of the flak she is getting
upstairs by giving her impossible circumstances and pressure to make
money off of clients' artwork.
It
would have been so much better for me for my recovery a laughable
concept when the basic thought of cornerstone/st lukes is to wack
clients around like golf balls.
I
will never again have any contact whatsoever with Tessa she has
already cost me too much in basic functioning like making a meal much
less doing my art work.
tired
of the abuse harranging, berating and berating me like a stage mother
and then berating some more - should have walked out long ago and you
can consider this my resignation from the mickey mouse club art group
or is it a stanford university experiment to see how much abuse you
can heap on a client until someone with the capability of functioning
becaomes catatonic and dies, especially useful in people over the age
of 50 years to get rid of for the twenty
somethings----inappropriately contacting my psychiatrist and
therapist to make me stop working on "cheap paper" and to
stop working at the size I need to work at for my dream for what I
have been working decades towards sequences of gymnasts.
the
place of pride when coming in the door of the Arundel Lodge art show
was a pastel or light oil sketch on brown corrugated cardboard with
the edges torn off and not in an artistic way. I noticed it because
it was in the most prominent place but also because at that time two
weeks ago, i was trying to work on a waltz some of the figures in
sepia and some in burgundy, this painting was very nice, faint lines
with the background the color of the cardboard which I did not know
until looked at it closely, was realistically done of trees and
branches the only reason it makes me angry is Tessa for 4 weeks in a
row only coming to talk to me to berate me repeatedly for using
"cheap" paper and flinging her arm to a sketch of three
figures which she said repeatedly for 4 weeks that she could have
sold if it were not done on cheap paper. I doubt if she could have
sold it not out of modesty but because it is only 3 sketches which I
have been afraid to work up further because of tessa's irrational
harranging of me for using cheap paper. not every time i put a brush
to paper could it possibly always be saleable I have told tessa
repeatedly that I have much salable work not just the few old oil
paintings but she is more interested in having a scapegoat to
harrange and berate and to tell falsehoods to dr. Parveen and Paula
to get them on her side to stop me from working as any artist works
and on large paintings though i have said I would do smaller
paintings and brought in a good pastel not yellowed very realistic
but she just left it there did not put it in the locked closet to
keep it safe and I could have painted on the masonite board backing
it but tessa has a bee in her bonnet or as she sees it a moral right
to berate me and denigrate me to my psychiatrist and therapist.
tessa
is very ambitious and at war with some of the people upstairs and is
using me as a pawn for her emotional satisfaction and to help her
create her own fiefdom and has completely forgotten already that the
art group is supposed to be for clients not her ambitions and the
hardball vicious infighting she is doing upstairs done also on
vulnerable clients working on art which makes you vulnerable if you
are serious aobut what you are doing is very inappropriate and
dangerous for the well-being of clients who trust her and Cornerstone
and has shattered me and my ability to work or cope on a basic level
for the past 5 weeks. -
if
I can't get my freedom from this oppression and betrayal of trust
disguised as an art group I will shortly end up like Linda Rife
screaming and throwing things and doing nothing else.
The
art group should be for clients first, run like art therapy which
most need even those who are skilled like Joanna Francis and I wonder
if she is abusing Vicky the way she has me, in front of Jim when he
gave me the canvas provided by Phil Radner Vicky started screaming at
me that I was preventing her from working, Vicky has always been
either friendly or at least ignored me and I was shocked at her
outbursts witnessed by Jim and i wonder if Tessa is doing similar
things to Vicky to get her to change her art style and the fruit is
someone who is screaming and upset and blaming a scapegoat instead of
the one who is messing her up by being concerned with making the
artgroup a paying concern while ignoring the emotions that come up or
the way clients want to work pressured by Tessa to do things her way
which she thinks, will generate more income and gain her prestige and
power with the people upstairs utterly ignoring the wellbeing of
clients, tessa said herself she did not have phd and I wonder if she
has any background in mental health.
No comments:
Post a Comment