Mercy Ministries has been repeatedly criticised for the claims in bold below:
Mercy Ministries is a structured residential based program that provides professional support from psychologists, dietitians, general practitioners, social workers, career counsellors and daily education from program staff to support the young women in our care.
We provide a holistic program that addresses all aspects of a young woman’s well being; physical, spiritual and emotional. Mercy Ministries is a faith based organisation dedicated to the support of young women in crisis.
Recently they amended their site to read
We provide a structured residential-based program addressing multiple aspects of a young woman’s wellbeing: physical, spiritual and emotional.
We do not provide professional health or psychiatric care, neither are we a detox or crisis centre. If you believe you or your loved one needs help in these areas, click here to view some alternate organisations that may be able to provide help.
The link to other organisations is quite good.
But a question still bugs me, if you say you do not provide professional health or psychiatric care, what is point of the first paragraph ?
…dedicated to providing hope for young women affected by life-controlling issues such as eating disorders, self-harm, physical and sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addictions, depression and unplanned pregnancy.
What the hell do you provide and are you still able to cash in client’s Centrelink cheques?
Do you provide unprofessional counselling?
Provide hope ? How ? Through Jesus?
Really this smacks of an attempt to wriggle out of any legal issues. In short Mercy provides:
- residential accommodation
- program that provides “hope”
I argue that Mercy still present themselves as a service that can help with
- eating disorders,
- self-harm,
- physical and sexual abuse,
- drug and alcohol addictions,
- depression
- unplanned pregnancy
and they are not health care professionals. Honest, I don’t think so. The words have changed but Mercy still reeks of a Christian madrassa for the down and out.
Related posts:
- Mercy Ministries Australia Closes This text was posted on the Mercy Ministries Australia site...
- Mercy Ministries engaged in misleading conduct, directors forced to pay $118,154 The ACCC (The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has released...
- The Evangelical back scratching network – Gloria Jeans, Compassion and Mercy Ministries Now while Gloria Jeans has pulled their funding and...
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So many of the issues they describe – which are quite common for women – are related to past emotional trauma and self-issue issues. How on earth is a non-professional supposed to help someone constructively work through past trauma? And since religion is pretty much self-esteem destroying (give up your own life for the deity's, your personality, your money, your will, desires, and sexuality) this doesn't look good.
What help can they possibly be providing?
The average life expectancy for a woman with anorexia is 25 years less. This isn't something to just screw around with. People need real help, not "hope". And soon.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18612251
I have their previous treatment manual Restoring the Foundations which they stopped using last year (why they would do this when it has a claimed success rate of 95%?) It can only be described as an evil and insidious brainwashing text, other Christians I have shown it to have been horrified.
So in short Mercy is really a recovery and recruitment centre for susceptible young women
Who can provide the love of Jesus and connect with community? Not many places do that.
In the love incarnate in Jesus, despite the world's sufferings and evils, we honour the deep connections within our human family and seek to awaken a new spirit of community, by working for: * Abatement of hunger and poverty, and enactment of policies benefiting the most vulnerable. * High quality public education for all and universal, affordable and accessible healthcare. * An effective program of social security during sickness, disability and old age. * Tax and budget policies that reduce disparities between rich and poor, strengthen democracy and provide greater opportunity for everyone within the common good. * Just immigration policies that protect family unity, safeguard workers' rights, require employer accountability and foster international cooperation. * Sustainable communities marked by affordable housing, access to good jobs and public safety. * Public service as a high vocation, with real limits on the power of private interests in politics. In hope sustained by the Holy Spirit, we pledge to be peacemakers in the world and stewards of God's good creation, by working for: * Adoption of simpler lifestyles for those who have enough; grace over greed in economic life. * Access for all to clean air and water and healthy food, through wise care of land and technology. * Sustainable use of earth's resources, promoting alternative energy sources and public transportation with binding covenants to reduce global warming and protect populations most affected. * Equitable global trade and aid that protects local economies, cultures and livelihoods. * Peacemaking through multilateral diplomacy rather than unilateral force, the abolition of torture and a strengthening of the United Nations and the rule of international law. * Nuclear disarmament and redirection of military spending to more peaceful and productive uses. * Cooperation and dialogue for peace and environmental justice among the world's religions.