Minnesota Autism Center’s Page Berland Fails to prevent child abuse and fails to report abuse which is required per Minn Statute
idilabdull |
August 3rd, 2016
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Alright – so, if you know me or read my blog then you know I am not a fan of Minnesota Autism Center (MAC). There are many reasons why and in fact, I am one of probably hundreds in the autism community that feel the same way about MAC. One of the main reasons is how MAC bullies families, silences employees and gets away with doing so many wrong things.
One of MAC’s previous employees BW stated that two children were involved in an abuse situation under the care of Page Berland who is a licensed professional clinical counselor. According to this employee, Page was notified of this incident by the lead therapist in their Woodbury location. Page then informed Kathryn Marshall the director there who said to burry it and not even tell the kid’s parents. Let’s think about that for a minute. Let’s say you are an autism parent and your child goes to MAC and something horrible happens to your child who can’t tell you what happened. Then imagine the adults in charge of your child’s care not only allow abuse, but fail to tell the parents and fail to report it to the authorities. MAC’s horrible actions under the direction of Kathryn Marshall and Ron Carey are reprehensible.
I met this therapist and what she has said in how families and children are treated are simply cruel, wrong and unethical. Below are some of her words to me.
” I still felt very uncomfortable with the fact that the parents had not been informed about the situation. I knew that I was going to be conducting family skills with my client’s parents later in the day and I felt sick about looking them in the eyes and essentially lying by omission. I knew that if I wrote out in detail about what happened I may be more likely to get a response from my supervisors so I sent an email to Camille, Paige and I believe I cc’ed Kathryn as well. I voiced my concerns and wanted to know what I should say to his parents at family skills that day. Within 5 minutes I got a phone call from Camille. She was irate that I had put everything in writing and reprimanded me for not “letting it go”. Camille repeated many times over the phone, “it is done. I thought you understood. This conversation is over.”
BW also said the following which sickens me deeply.
“In addition to this event, during my time at the Minnesota Autism Center I witnessed many other events that were also disturbing.
While working as a behavior therapist with a 12 year old girl who had aggressive behaviors, I watched her behavior plan change on a day to day basis. Her behavior plan called for 2-3 person holds on a large bean bag. She would be put in holds for aggression to herself and to others. During sessions behavior therapists, myself included, would ask about specific behaviors this girl would do such as self stimulation (waving her hands and sometimes hitting her own head, slapping her own thighs while sitting) and during a casual conversation with the lead supervisor, who at the time was Camille Heyman, that these things were determined to be aggressive and she should be placed in a hold for them as well, especially if she was upset at the time. What is worse is that sometimes the girl would get upset and slap a table or rip a piece of paper and the therapists working with her were not sure how to handle these behaviors. The Camille made the decision in the moment to place the girl in a hold in order to “teach her that she can’t do that stuff.” I pointed out that the hold seemed more aggressive than the behaviors and asked if we were sure this was the correct reaction but was made to feel that I should listen to my supervisor and respect their position and their decisions.
It was after I was promoted to a lead therapist that I realized how deep the disrespect for the family ran at the Minnesota Autism Center. The people who interacted with the parents and families of our children daily were respectful and kind to their faces but behind closed doors there is a culture of disrespect and judgment. Parent’s who are deemed “needy” or have “ridiculous requests” are made fun of and not taken seriously. After many ITP meeting I was horrified to see the way my clinical supervisor would talk about parents and my clients families. A common expression was “You can see why their kid turned out they way he has…” implying that the parents are responsible for their child’s disability. Many of the parents that we interacted with were under extreme stress but there was virtually no genuine empathy for these families; if a parent so much as questioned any of their child’s programs they were met with hostility and after they left the meetings their character and ability to parent their children were frequently under attack. This sort of attitude of superiority started at the very top of the Minnesota Autism Center with Kathryn Marshal and trickled through many of the program supervisors, through the lead therapists and then finally to the behavior therapists who were working directly with the children.”
Shame on Kathryn Marshall, Shame on Page Berland, Shame on Camille Heyman and Shame on Ron Carey. How could you all be so cruel to children with autism and their families. This was reported to Minnesota Department of Human Services to the city of Woodbury police.
Above words do not represent any candidate, agency or committee.