Peninsula Village

[Fire Swamp]

...

[Anonymous]

My version.

This DAMAGE and the Damage in other threads about PV brought To You By Peninsula Village, a member of the Peninsula Behavioral Health Branch of Parkwest Medical Center of Knoxville Tennessee.
A Member Of The Covenant Health Family of Health Service Providers.

Peninsula Village-Covenant Health's dark little secret.
Don't Let This Happen To Your Child.

[ZenAgent]

This was posted on MySpace by the Peninsula Village counselor who called herself "Wife of Hades" and used her blog to push her photography business, "Underworld Images" which had a bunch of Goth girls restrained, one looking hog-tied, one laying on a bed topless with her wrists slashed and a Stanley knife close to her hand.  Not the sort of sideline that's going to build parents' trust in the PV staff. Settle For Nothing has stockpiled a big collection, some I hadn't seen before.  Anyway, I'm bringing this back up because of the Maia Szalavitz quote in Ginger's sig - "What makes these 'tough love' programs uniquely dangerous is that they are led by amateurs who believe they are experts." -- Maia Szalavitz

The first blog I read by the B+D counselor is what really disturbed me, and that quote reminded me of it -

Bored out of my mind....
Current mood: bored
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

I'm at work and just came out of a parent conference with one of my kid's parents. I did it alone - with her therapist - and now I feel drained. I never want to say anything to make the parents feel like they don't know their own child or to make them feel like they don't know what's best,but we are experts on this shit.

And here's her curriculum vitae...four years in a Comm College made her an "expert on this shit".

Walters State Community College,  1996 to 2000
Morristown,Tennessee
Graduated: 2000
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Associate's Degree
Major: Psychology

After my step daughter got out of PV, the counselor decided to have a go at me, for unknown reasons.  I had quit checking the blog, and since she had been forced by PV to remove the other blogs and bondage pictures, I thought it was a done deal.  She obviously doesn't know that those old blogs of hers were saved by my wife and I, and that's what makes her last rant all the more deranged - I don't know who she was writing this for, but she knew I would spot the cover-ups.  A really good example of why parents should ask to meet and get background on the people who will spend the most time with their kids...
 
To the people who come from Fornits

Current mood: creative
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

I've never felt the need to explain myself when it comes to certain situations, but I do defend myself when someone is trying to drag my name through the mud.

Some time ago, on a place called Fornits, a man we'll call "Z" decided to lurk around the internet in search of staff and anything he thought to be incriminating against them. I won't go into any detail about his life on here, but his step-daughter was where I work. He hated the place for certain reasons, reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with me.

He found my photography myspace page.

I just want to inform you, "Z", along with your possee that there never was or has been nude "girls" - plural - on my site, but a nude woman - singular - and she was well over the legal limit. She is 24. If you'd like to see for yourself, she is Kiss me Deadly, or Sorayah. She and I have done a lot of work together, if you haven't noticed. I love creating artistic photography. The fetish themed pics were for an event that I attended.

No, quite a few of those looches were naked,she had to fuzz the nipples and naughty bits to keep Tom from axing them from MySpace.  The "What is Fetish" event is the one she attended, and she must have been gearing up for a year - SettleForNothing has a ton of the wretched restraint and B+D pics.


Another thing, I never discussed the "financial woes" of where I work. I do believe that a lot of what has been said has been false. And as far as talking about my bosses, most everyone hates their boss for a day, then gets over it the next. It's part of the relationship. And I haven't said anything that I haven't already or would say to them. And I know they can handle it. Any good boss would. It's part of teamwork and they're the leader for a reason.

No, that's a lie as well - she even calls the psychologist by name...here's what she posted:

On the other hand, work has still been uptight for me. We had a meeting Thursday in which we discussed our staffing situation and what we are going to do about it. I knew there would be some switching, but the news was a little different.

They decided to close down one of our cabins (the girls). We have four and because of our staffing issue, we are going to close down The Eagles and spread out the kids and the staff amongst the other 3 groups. This will help tremendously! Of course, Adam (our psychologist), is upset about closing it down (because of money loss I'm sure). It will probably be closed for 3-4 months or so.

 
Taking bits and pieces of a whole and trying to make it into a solid piece will not work. You can keep trying until your heart is content, but I never had anything to do with your daughter. I never talked to her or laid a finger on her, as you so claim. I was pregnant the entire time she was there, so if you think I'd be dumb enough to jump into a physical incident, you are sorely mistaken.

No one ever said she did.  This counselor was in the cabin area, my step daughter never made it out there

Yeah, I've made some dumb decisions in my life and having my photography business and where I work listed together was one of them. I am just proud of where I work and what I do. I love what I do. And I wish the best for any kid who comes in and out of there, including your step-daughter. Some kids are tougher than others, but I hope the best for them all. There are some great people who work there. Everything I've done is perfectly legal...especially the photos.

Dumb, yes. Very dumb when people are entrusting their kids to someone like this..  Yeah, the photos are legal...unethical and professionally dumb as hell to post them next to your job working with kids in a treatment program with an already shit reputation.

As far as my history....if you were to have surgery, would you pick the doctor with 7 years of experience plus some book knowledge, or the doctor who's really good on paper, with only a year experience? Maybe it's just me, but I think I'd rather have someone who's been there, done that - so to speak.

If I were actually going to pay close to $9,000 a month for treatment, I'd expect experience and "book knowledge".  Jesus Christ.


Just for a bit of information, the blogs that "Z" likes to refer to were posted as "friends only" which means that he had to befriend me on myspace so that he could read up on my stuff. Kind of stalkerish, wouldn't you say??

No they weren't - they were all connected to pushing "Underworld Images" as a business.  My wife googled PV and this counselor's blog was at the top of the pile.  Tom at MySpace can verify that.

Oh and on a final note. I never almost lost my job because of this. I chose to delete my accounts on my own. I was never made to by my company. I chose to make a fresh start.

Again, I have to call bullshit on that.  In her own words:

August 23, 2006 - Wednesday
   
I had to delete my other profiles...
Current mood: irate
Category: Blogging[/color]

..because of a work related issue (which I'll discuss later).

I'm adding back my best friends. There will only be a small amount of you; no ridiculousness...at least not for a while!!!

This is Baby Lou Tattoo, BTW...incase you didn't already pick up on who I am. I will add to my profile later. Right now I'm too steamed to do anything.

I need to go out.[/color]

Three days later...

August 26, 2006 - Saturday
   

Say anything.
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Blogging

I feel so exhausted. Emotionally.

This shit is really wearing me out, but I'm trying not to worry because that won't solve anything. But whenever I feel like spending a little dough, I'm hesitant because I wonder if I should hold onto that money until I find out if I have a job next week.
______________________________________________________


My whole purpose in this blog is to defend my name. I'm a good person and I practice the golden rule. Now if you mess with me, I don't take it lightly...or at all. I do not plan to retaliate in any way; I could care less what you do in your own time.

I don't have to say anything else, all of my friends and people I encounter will tell you  how awesome I am!

And my blogs are available for everyone to post on, so feel free to speak your minds. If you say where I work or give out any other personal info, I may choose to delete your comment.


Yeah, that didn't really do it for me, and I also wouldn't give her the satisfaction of sending the "posse" to post on her damn blog.  Instead, I emailed it to the rather clueless administrator of PV, asking if he approved of his staff discussing former patients on a public MySpace account, and cc'd it to HIPAA.  Her site went to private with a quickness.

Here's the mentality Maia was talking about:  unqualified, uneducated, unethical and unprofessional staff who consider themselves "experts on this shit".  Fucking scary.

[Anonymous]

emailed it to the rather clueless administrator of PV

Zen, you fucking moron!! Done properly they are ALWAYS the LAST to know! You never tell them SHIT! If you had done it right you would have informed news organizations, authorities HIGH HIGH on the food chain, and saved SCREENSHOTS to use them as a weapon when PV finally got a clue how badly they were getting hammered by the outrage. Fool!

[hanzomon4]

Is that recent Zen?

[ZenAgent]

No, it's not recent, that shit started over a year ago.  No one gave a shit then when I posted it, so I wonder why my balls are being busted now?

It ain't illegal for the counselor to be dumb, really dumb I guess for not being aware of the non-disclosure agreement she has with PV.  I have the cached pages, they're all here, but I wanted that noise shut down.

I was pointing out that program staff can be kinda evil, dumb, and vindictive, and still think they're fucking experts.  Not the kind of people you want running therapy groups with your kids.

[Anonymous]

Did this staff hurt your child?

[ZenAgent]

Never went near her, my step daughter never got out of lockdown.

[Anonymous]

No one gave a shit then when I posted it, so I wonder why my balls are being busted now?

Not everyone paid attention or was even here a year ago, Zen. I just call 'em as I see 'em.

I have the cached pages, they're all here, but I wanted that noise shut down.

See, this is a simple logical mistake. You think "Get rid of this!" the moment you see something like this, which is understandable- but still foolhardy. It can result in a lot more damage to your target if it's left UP for too long, while other people take a look at it and THEY have stark reactions of "Get rid of this!". What could be a quiet close-down (of the staffer's page, not the program or even the staffer's career) instead forms the core of a total fucking meltdown.

Well, yeah, but this is Fornits. We know that.

[ZenAgent]

No one gave a shit then when I posted it, so I wonder why my balls are being busted now?

Not everyone paid attention or was even here a year ago, Zen. I just call 'em as I see 'em.

I have the cached pages, they're all here, but I wanted that noise shut down.

See, this is a simple logical mistake. You think "Get rid of this!" the moment you see something like this, which is understandable- but still foolhardy. It can result in a lot more damage to your target if it's left UP for too long, while other people take a look at it and THEY have stark reactions of "Get rid of this!". What could be a quiet close-down (of the staffer's page, not the program or even the staffer's career) instead forms the core of a total fucking meltdown.

[quote author=""ZenAgent"I was pointing out that program staff can be kinda evil, dumb, and vindictive, and still think they're fucking experts.  Not the kind of people you want running therapy groups with your kids.[/quote"]

Well, yeah, but this is Fornits. We know that.

[/quote]

She's gone already, to the best of my knowledge.  I sent all the information to people who should have given a shit - it got a half-assed investigation from TN Dep't of Mental Health, and Mental Health pros, the real kind, said it wasn't illegal, just unethical.  NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN NOW, LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED THEN.

[Anonymous]

I keep forgetting how badly people can get used to rug-sweeping. I'll yield the point. I still say informing PV of *anything* was a bad idea, though.

BTW, you ever going to post those pictures in public? I wanna see that shit on the news. With the GAO hearings just over and reporters sensitized the time would be now.

[Anonymous]

Never went near her, my step daughter never got out of lockdown.

What is the point of cyber-stalking a counselor who never hurt your daughter?

[Kreflo]

Never went near her, my step daughter never got out of lockdown.

What is the point of cyber-stalking a counselor who never hurt your daughter?

Cyber-stalking? Ooo weee thats cold. Dum-dum, this story has been told over and over. Think of it more like a little cyber-investigating. How else someone gonna get to the center of a tootsie pop?
Get your ciggament smokin ass down to the pier and have a nicotine fix whitey white boy and take your muffin topping, jungle fever havin booty bottom babe down with you. Staff AND patients be getting REAL tired of her.

[ZenAgent]

Never went near her, my step daughter never got out of lockdown.

What is the point of cyber-stalking a counselor who never hurt your daughter?

We asked for curriculum vitae on the PV program staff and were denied.  My wife Googled "Peninsula Village" and this staffer's blog was at the top of the returns.  The bondage pictures got our attention, then the blog entries describing events at PV were enlightening.  It was one of the few resources available to get info on staff backgrounds, and what we found was disturbing.  Through this counselors "friends" we found a lot of PV counselors, also lacking educational backgrounds that we were told by PV they had.

"Cyber-stalking" on a public MySpace blog?  Please...you abuse the term.  If you work with kids in a treatment facility and like bondage and restraint photography, have enough knowledge of professional ethics to separate the two.  I'm sure I'm not the only parent disturbed by the connections, or the apparent lack of judgment shown by this program staff.

[ZenAgent]

Media Pulse, the free weekly in Knoxville, ran a cover story on PV in 1/97, and it's been a bit difficult to find.  All searches came up with nothing, even Metro Pulse archives.  Makes one wonder if a Reputation Defender is at work for PV.

Thanks to archive.org's Wayback machine, here it is.  Keep in mind this was Jan. 1997.


http://web.archive.org/web/199707042000 ... nsula.html



went and saw the cabins. It was like camp, with log cabins. They didn't tell us anything about the STU. That was a big shock. Things started to go down when they put me in a straitjacket. It's called a burrito...I would be in the middle of the floor where everybody could watch me..."

Elizabeth was diagnosed with bipolar disorder--commonly known as manic depression--when she was 7 years old. This diagnosis is somewhat controversial in some segments of the world of mental health care, where some psychiatrists--albeit a dwindling number--insist there is no such thing as bipolar disorder in children. Elizabeth, her family, and her psychiatrist have no doubts about her diagnosis.

In 1994, amid a bout of severe depression, she was having great difficulty relating to her peers, who teased her unmercifully. So the school system, with her mother's consent, made what is called an "educational placement" and enrolled Elizabeth for long-term treatment at Peninsula Village.

The results were disastrous. She spent a little less than two months in the locked building that is the first stop for new patients, who are required to stay there for an extended period before they can move out into the mainstream of the Village's wilderness program. The length of stay in STU varies according to each patient's responsiveness to the rigorous STU regimen.

Patients in the STU have their clothes taken from them, and although they are allowed to write letters home, they cannot receive mail or talk on the telephone with their parents. They are dressed in hospital gowns if they are deemed "elopement risks" or violent. Otherwise, they wear hospital scrub suits until they earn back their street clothes.

Less serious outbursts are handled by attendants who take offenders down to the ground and hold them there. More serious episodes may land patients in a "burrito" (straitjacket) or in five-point restraint--bound limb and torso with leather straps to a bed. Doors are locked, windows are covered, and lights are on 24 hours a day. Patients are escorted to the bathroom.

To prevent kids from forming "anti-therapeutic cliques," patients are not allowed to talk to one another or to make eye contact. Every move is monitored, and they must ask for permission to speak to attendants.

Sherwood believes he knows who Elizabeth is and says he made a mistake admitting her in the first place; that he gave in to the importuning of her mother to allow her into the program. Elizabeth's mother denies this claim, saying her daughter was placed there by the school system.

He says the STU is designed to force patients to work on their own problems and to work together as a group--to become responsible to their peers.

"We offer intense treatment you don't get anywhere else in this nation. This program is for people whose lives are messed up in a major way, on their way to ruining their lives or someone else's. Most of these kids are multiple treatment failures, and when they fail at the Village, they don't have many options left."
Elizabeth never progressed past STU, and was released (actually thrown out of the program) in far worse condition than when she was admitted.

Elizabeth was, and still is, under a psychiatrist's care and was taking medication to control her symptoms. Both she and her mother believe that her downward spiral began when the Village staff (against the advice of her psychiatrist, John Robertson) cut down on her Trilafon, an anti-psychotic drug she had been taking for some time. Journals that Elizabeth's mother kept of conversations with the Village social worker (whose job it was to serve as a liaison to the family because STU patients are not allowed to speak with their parents) show that the Trilafon dosage was cut in half.

Elizabeth, who was threatening to kill herself, was discharged from the Village in handcuffs and transported into town, where Dr. Robertson found a bed for her in the Children and Adolescents Psychiatric Services (CAPS) unit at St. Mary's. She was there for six weeks for treatment-resistant psychotic mania. It is hard for her to remember everything that happened, but she insists she wrote letters home that her mother never received, and that an attendant "busted" her lip during one of her manic episodes.

Marilyn, the mother of a boy who is a successful Village alumnus, says she is glad she didn't know about the STU. Her son was deeply involved with marijuana and alcohol, suffered from depression, and was confrontational with his family. Like Elizabeth, he was placed at the Village by the Knox County School System.

"Most of our good fortune is because we didn't investigate. We didn't know what STU was. He was there for three and a half months--he was rebelling. He hit the carpet a lot. If a child was acting up, they'd push an alarm button and take the child down to the carpet for a count of ten. If that didn't stop it, a doctor would be called in to administer a shot in the buttocks, and they'd be taken to bed to sleep it off for 8 to 10 hours. That blew my daughter away [when she heard about it afterward]. She said 'What are you doing to my brother?'

"But we had been down that road so many times...Finally, he earned a place in a cabin."

Marilyn is so grateful to the staff at the Village that she does volunteer work there. She did art work illustrating Native American themes and gave this interview. She says one of the most important things she has learned is that "If our child happens to relapse, we don't have to relapse with him...And what the Village did was help us re-establish trust."

One former Village employee who worked on the STU says he disapproves of the methods used there.

"I wouldn't want my kid to go there. I would want my child to be in a structure that is more caring. This seems more like prison, or a prisoner of war camp."

This former employee says he was not successful at the Village because his personality was "unsuited" for their program.

"They wanted me to be stern, to use a military-type approach. My approach is more caring, to help the patients along. I didn't have that in me...One thing that really bothered me was that the patients were not allowed to speak. They've got to raise their hand, got to be acknowledged by staff, and a lot of times staff would just ignore them. There was a guy who left when I first started--a nice guy. The caring type, didn't last long. They said that doesn't belong here. They want their type of structure..."

Larry Gibney, chief juvenile probation officer of Knox County, says the Village is OK by him.

"I don't have anything bad to say about those folks. They have been a consistent, stable care provider. There have been a dozen other care providers who've come and gone, but they've been there..."

Joshua Williams is the president of the Tennessee Psychological Association as well as former director of Children's Hospital Integrated Psychiatric Services (CHIPS), that shut down last year. He says Peninsula Village "is viewed with ambivalence by mental health professionals. I've been privy to outcomes both positive and not positive."

He says that Sherwood "is licensed, inspected, and accountable to the licensing board for health care facilities. The physicians are accountable and the hospital is accountable. That doesn't make it [treatment in the STU] less repugnant. I work under the premise that civil rights are inviolate. Food, shelter, basic safety--humiliation is not therapeutic, in my view. If you describe those conditions to me, I would say that's sadistic."

Sherwood reacts sharply:

"I'll tell you what's sadistic--to take someone whose life is going down the toilet and let them go."
Amy and her friend Claire are a little older than Elizabeth and do not share Elizabeth's negative feelings about Peninsula Village. It's the first week after the holidays, and they have returned for a visit. Amy is attending a community college back home in North Carolina; Claire, who says she was pregnant and addicted to crack cocaine when she became a patient at the Village, is preparing to go off for her freshman year at the University of Maine. They are both glad to be back.

Amy fingers the silver buffalo medallion around her neck, signifying her great progress and her contributions to the other girls at the Village.

Claire wants to work here as a counselor one day. She, too, thinks the Village salvaged her life.

"I was into some deep stuff," she says.

The two Village alums are joined for a walk in the woods on this unseasonably warm January day by two soon-to-be-discharged Village residents, Emily and Jennifer. As they crunch through the dead leaves, all four point out things they built--a porch on the Village schoolhouse, a greenhouse.

They are proud. Emily and Jennifer say they're a little scared to be thinking about leaving, but like Claire and Amy, they are looking forward to the future. Jennifer wants to be a doctor; Claire a civil engineer; Amy a landscape designer; Emily an architect (it is probably not a coincidence that the program at the Village includes lots of digging, hammering, and sawing). They are all clear-eyed and friendly.

Jennifer gets teased, in a friendly way, for her sharp New Jersey accent. She says she has been in eight prior treatment programs and that she is at the Village because of her mother.

"My mom is very dedicated to me. She was going to send me to a treatment program in California, but then she found out about this one. This is the best in the country."

When the girls hear about Elizabeth's experiences in the STU, they recall their own stays there.

"STU gets you back to earth because when you come here, you're so stuck up," says Amy.

"I spent four and a half months there, but at the end, I didn't want to leave STU," Claire chimes in.

Jennifer, who spent a relatively brief six weeks in STU, has mixed feelings.

"When I first came here, I was absolutely defiant. I showed up at STU with a cigarette."

But she goes on to elaborate: "STU wasn't all good," she tells her friends. "There was a lot of not hearing what I had to say. I'd had surgery, and they didn't believe me when I said there were calisthenics I couldn't do. In a way, I don't blame them, because I lied so much. But I wouldn't be where I am now without STU."

She says she misses her family, "But I'm really afraid I'll mess up when I leave."

As the girls talk about their lives, a group of patients from a boys' group troop by, steadfastly staring at the ground.

The contrast between Elizabeth's story and those of the other four girls couldn't be starker.

One observation is, however, easy to make. Amy, Claire, Emily, Jennifer, and the unnamed boy were all serious substance abusers with problems that, though severe, were not uncommon to similarly situated young people. They, and probably their families, obviously believe they have benefited from the rigorous discipline and the 12-step philosophy at the Village.

Elizabeth was not a user of alcohol or illegal drugs. Her problems stemmed from a medical condition over which she had little control, and it broke her when her medication was reduced at the same time she was placed in a tough new environment and separated from her mother.

Sherwood says Elizabeth's is an isolated case.

"The Village really changes the lives of these kids. It's great to be able to say our program really works, because it does. The thing that makes most of us view it as Camelot is we take these horribly twisted, destroyed people and make them start again. We do something here that's precious."[/i]


Camelot?  I don't remember Arthur puking and defecating from E. Coli, or Lancelot getting a spike of Thorazine before being wrapped-up in the "burrito"...

[/i]