Talk:Mercy Ministries

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Contents

[edit] Allegations?

In light of the recent allegations SMH 17/3/2008, it may be worthwhile setting up a new section following the progress of the investigation as it develops. The current article is quite uncritical of Mercy Ministries. Orthabok (talk) 20:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be a good idea, actually. Some of the information about the allegations made by the SMH is currently under the "Use of funds" heading, which seems a little confusing, and isn't really relevant to that heading. I'm also a little concerned about the tone of the article. It seems a little weasel-wordy. I think it needs to be made clearer that the only investigation into the matter as yet (as far as I'm aware) has been carried out by the SMH. I don't think that the article should jump from being uncritical of Mercy Ministries to being uncritical of the SMH's allegations. Landithy (talk) 02:06, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I've added a new section called "Controversy", and added a POV tag for that section too, as some of the information is probably covered by the original tag in the "use of funds" section. Although I think that a POV tag could safely be applied to the whole article, given that information has been added to the overview which has clearly been cut and pasted directly from Mercy's own promotional material.
I also updated the "Controversy" information a little, to include the reactions of some of Mercy's other corporate sponsors. Will try to dig up some information on Mercy's reaction to the allegations when I've a little more time. Landithy (talk) 06:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV edits re. "Controversy" section (28/04/08)

I've made the following changes to the "Controversy" section:

Deleted however interviews with several young women who have been in the Mercy Ministries program in Australia indicate that Peter Irvine's claims are unfounded. - There is nothing in the source cited to support this statement, and it appears to be a conclusion drawn by the contributor who added the comment. The statement seems rather biased, since there is no obvious logical link between the allegations of a small number individuals and the statement that Irvine's claims are unfounded.
Deleted This is hardly surprising, as Peter Irvine is a director of Mercy Ministries and a co-founder of Gloria Jean's Coffees. - This statement is unreferenced and appears to be a personal opinion of the contributor, which I believe compromises the neutrality of the article. Plus, Peter Irvine's involvement with both Gloria Jeans and Mercy Ministries is mentioned elsewhere. If some specific allegation of conflict of interest has been made, I'm all for reporting it, but with appropriate references and mention of the accuser.
Edited the paragraph dealing with the ACCC investigation to make it clear that the allegations have not been proven yet. Since the Australian Democrats are the ones making the allegations, they could be considered to be a biased source. To state the allegations as though they were established fact would be misleading. Since this section is about controversy, I think it is important to specify who is making any allegations, and whether those allegations have been proved.

As always, I'm happy to discuss the matter if somebody takes issue with it. Landithy (talk) 03:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other Organisations With This Name

A quick Google search shows that the name "Mercy Ministries" is also used by the catholic Sisters of Mercy to describe a shelter in Laredo Texas and by Youth With A Mission (YWAM) to describe their overseas charitable and social work. Both of these are clearly quite different from the organisation described in this article. Should we put something in to this effect to avoid confusion?Majurawombat (talk) 13:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fair. I actually did get confused the first time I saw a 'Mercy Ministries' pamphlet, because there's a Catholic-run charity in my suburb called the 'Mercy Centre'. The Sisters of Mercy in Australia have specifically stated that they aren't connected with the Mercy Ministries that this article is about. [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Landithy (talk • contribs) 21:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Overview

I've removed the overview section as it is a copyright violation of the Mercy Ministries site. As for the controversies section, I don't see why it needs the POV tag. It seems well referenced. Is anyone disputing the neutrality? Because otherwise it doesn't need the tag. Recurring dreams (talk) 07:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, as I said, I put it in because I'd moved material from another section that already had a POV tag, I wasn't sure exactly what the POV tag in that section applied to, and I didn't want to remove it purely on the basis of my own edits. I've no objection to it being removed. Landithy (talk) 08:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the tag for the reasons given above Majurawombat (talk) 13:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not that I'm really all that bothered, but the above discussion related specifically to the tag in the "Controversy" section.Landithy (talk) 21:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent IP edits

Recent IP edits from 70.148.121.218 have, amongst other things, removed the "Controversy" section, leading to the edits being reverted. That IP address is in fact registered to "Mercy Ministries of America". I have left a "welcome" message for the IP, including reference to WP:COI, but I did also wonder whether the article was over-dominated by the controversy section and whether it needed to be that long in comparison to the rest of the article. It may be that the balance of the article needs to be looked at. I've asked the IP to discuss matters here before editing the article further. BencherliteTalk 07:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the page, because the edits are being noted on some news websites. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 11:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The Controversy part is definitely too long. Especially in light of the fact that the articles are all Australian and the fact is that Mercy Ministries is an International organisation. Wrinkleintime123 (talk) 23:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Admittedly there are probably some worldwide view issues with the article, because Mercy Ministries seems to have risen to greater prominence in Australia, due to the afore-mentioned controversy, and its connections to the Hillsong and Gloria Jeans Coffees, which are both large and to varying degrees, controversial organisations. There is also more readily accessible information about the Australian perspective for similar reasons. However while perhaps the 'Controversy' could be trimmed down a bit, I think some of the other sections could do with expanding. In particular, they could do with more detail about MM outside Australia.Landithy (talk) 00:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Update: Cut down the article a bit. I've tried to focus on the most serious/concrete of the allegations.Landithy (talk) 01:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

How come the controversy section has been cut down so much? I think the controversy section is more relevant than what it has been cut down to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarahmkelly (talk • contribs) 05:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The article was cut down following the above discussion. No mention was made of the USA allegations (mentioned here[2]) in the original version. If you have verifiable information regarding any such allegations, by all means, include it. Was there some part of the original version which you think should be kept? Landithy (talk) 05:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC) (edited Landithy (talk) 06:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC))
Mercy Ministries is a rather small international organization with only a handful of homes worldwide catering to a small number of women at each home. From what I've read on the websites there are 3 homes in the US, 2 homes in Australia, 1 home in New Zealand and 1 home in the UK. They serve no more than 200 young women in all of the homes combinedat any given time. This would give the allegations greater relevance given the relatively small amount of young women cared for by the organisations. This isn't like the Teen Challenge or the Salvation Army which are much larger and serve many more people in comparison. CelticLabyrinth (talk) 18:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)CelticLabyrinth (talk) 18:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The controversy section did say: Controversy On 17 March 2008, an article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, containing allegations of mistreatment by several former clients of Mercy Ministries in Australia. They claim the organisation has made false claims about its services, and that instead of receiving counselling from qualified professionals, they were placed in the care of Bible studies students who treated them with techniques including exorcisms and prayer readings. [7] Australian Government agencies such as Centrelink have also been drawn into the controversy, as residents are required to transfer their benefits to Mercy Ministries. There are also allegations that the group receives a carers payment to look after the young women. Mercy Ministries says 96 young women have "graduated" from its program since its inception in 2001. But many have apparently been expelled without warning and with no follow up or support. ("They sought help, but got exorcism and the Bible", Sydney Morning Herald, March 17, 2008) Peter Irvine, a director of Mercy Ministries and co-founder of Gloria Jean's Coffees, has stated, in response to the allegations, that Mercy Ministries had received "overwhelming positive feedback from graduates, their families and the community" and that clients were made aware of the details of the programs before they joined.[8] Since the allegations were first made public, several other former clients have come forward, reporting negative experiences and abuse at the hands of Mercy Ministries.[9] Gloria Jean's Coffees, a major sponsor of Mercy Ministries, has stated that, despite the allegations, it does not intend to change its funding arrangements for Mercy Ministries. Several other corporate sponsors have announced that they will be severing their connection with Mercy Ministries.[10][11] On 16th April 2008, the Australian Democrats announced that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) would be investigating Mercy Ministries Australia over their alleged misrepresentation. The Democrats claim that Mercy Ministries advertised that their program provided professional medical and psychiatric care for their patients, however the young women were placed in the care of Bible College students who were unqualified to treat mental illness. It is also alleged that Mercy Ministries advertised that they did not charge young women to be part of their program, however the ministry did require payment from young women in the form of their Centrelink benefits. [12] In 2006 it was revealed that Nancy Alcorn, founder of Mercy Ministries, earned $178,583.00 from the charity for the financial year.[13] The wages paid to other directors of Mercy Ministries are unknown.

There were a lot of references in there to support it. I'm disappointed that a lot has been edited out, and as the other person said, Mercy Ministries is a very small organisation compared to TC, Salvos etc, and the fact that so many from Australia and some from the USA have come forward, is a very big deal.

I don't want to argue about it though - I'm fine with the majority on here making a decision about the section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarahmkelly (talk • contribs) 02:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not looking to start a row either. However I do think that it's good to discuss these things. I particularly welcome constructive criticism of my own edits, since it's easy to lose objectivity when looking at one's own contributions, and obviously I'm not omniscient.  :-)
I honestly can't find anything in the referenced articles which refers to the allegations from outside Australia. Also, much of the information I removed was vague or of questionable relevance. Otherwise, I've tried to make the article as concise as possible while still covering the main points. I've also tried to avoid the emotive tone of many of the articles referenced in the interests of providing a NPOV.
I would also like to reiterate my view that I think that while Mercy Ministries may be a small organisation, it is affiliated with two very large and prominent organisations and has a high media profile (at least in Australia). While obviously it doesn't merit an article as large as an organisation so old and widespread as the Salvation Army, I think that it does warrant a slightly larger article than it has at present. I would argue that the fact that it is more prominent in Australia than in other countries does not necessarily mean that it is not worthy of more attention. In this respect, it could be likened to the Magdalene Asylums, which existed around the world, but became particularly notorious in Ireland. Landithy (talk) 01:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Links

I cleaned up the links removing all but the links to the mercy ministries websites and the mercy survivors website. These links were to various christian publications as well as to youtube and myspace. I did not see the relevance of any of them being included. Here are the links I removed for anyone to review and add their input.

Mercy Ministries on MySpace Nancy Alcorn SpeaksLittle Big Town Touchs on Baby shower that supports Mercy MinistriesNancy Alcorn Founder of Mercy Ministries talks to Life Today about Mercy Ministries Have Mercy Woman of Mercy A Survivor Story: Meet Laura Schultz… Treatment or Death Mercy Ministries Promo video Another Article on Mercy Ministries A fan visits Mercy Ministries Career Minded - Mercy Ministry President, Nancy Alcorn Help for Women with Eating Disorders CelticLabyrinth (talk) 15:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minor edits during protection

I have a new account and want to make a few minor edits that do not change content, should I just wait or post suggestions here?(Victoria Lucas (talk) 06:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC))

If you want to make edits such as rewording or grammar checks, or you want to add cited information to improve the article then please go ahead. Just don't outright delete sections of cited information or rewrite the article without discussing it here first. If you're new to wikipedia then I would suggest using a sandbox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox first. CelticLabyrinth (talk) 18:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It is not letting me make even minor edits and I think I have to submit something on this page to request specific override of protection in order to make minor edits, so honestly I think I am just going to wait until it's unprotected, since some of the problems I have with it are as simple as correcting the names of the various locations of the organization (Mercy Ministries of America/ Mercy Ministries Australia instead of "in the US" or "in Australia".
However, I would like to admit my bias regarding the article as I am a former resident. In my defense, I have a library science and literary research background and am trained in technical writing, so I am familiar with the necessity of references, and believe in the case of Wikipedia it is particularly important to be as impartial as possible, to list out facts for people who are looking for information on a subject, and not attempt to remove information, or make an argument defending my view on the recent controversy.
I think both the overview and the controversy sections need clarification, and can be more concise, while adding more detailed information, so I'm hoping to do that once the article is unprotected.Victoria Lucas (talk) 06:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing the Overview Section

I am not finding the quote "... to provide opportunities for young women to experience on teaching young women aged 16-28 about Jesus Christ" in the referenced interview with Darlene Zschech. Where is it exactly? I can't find any sort of quote that references MM's mission. The quote itself is also not grammatically correct as "to experience on teaching" should either be "to experience teaching" or "to teach", but neither of those makes sense for what I understand their mission to be as the residents to not actually teach anything to other young women. You could change the statement to "to provide opportunities for young women aged 16-28 to experience Jesus Christ," or alternately "to learn about Jesus Christ". But again, there is nothing in that interview that references the mission statement of MM, that I can see. I think we should find a better mission statement, maybe from their site?Victoria Lucas (talk) 00:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I personally have no objection to using a (properly referenced) a mission-statement from the official site. It's possible that some of the references got pushed around a bit when a whole bunch of copyrighted material (cut & pasted wholesale from MM's website) was removed out a little while ago. Landithy (talk) 03:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial Overview Edits

I rewrote the overview paragraph explaining the mission statement/objectives of MM. There are a couple of items that are probably going to be controversial, so I thought I would address them preemptively. I will have the citation up soon, but all of this information is paraphrased from either a recent radio interview by Nancy Alcorn found on the MM of America website or the other already referenced history pages, etc also found on the website. At this point, all that needs to be done in the first two paragraphs is clean up the references, but as a new Wikipedian I am still working on doing that without messing the whole page up, or deleting references by mistake.


I can most likely find more references for most of what I've written, but I think it is a good choice of reference because Nancy herself is describing the ministry. Here is the link to the interview I am basing the overview on (It can be found on the site under the Audio/Visual section of their press center.): http://www.mercyministries.org/shared/audio/public/Nancy_Radio.mp3

I wrote:

"Mercy Ministries is an international Christian charitable organization that offers a long-term residential Christian-based treatment program for girls and women aged 13-28 who struggle with life-controlling mental illnesses such as eating disorders and depression, as well as psychological issues that arise from sexual abuse and predispose girls and women to attempt suicide, self-injure, or abuse drugs and alcohol."

Paraphrased from interview. I phrased the "psychological issues that arise from sexual abuse and chemical dependency, etc." the way I did because sexual abuse is not an actual illness, and MM is not a detox facility, but instead works to treat the roots of the problems that they feel caused the residents to become dependent on drug and alcohol, self-injury or attempt suicide in the first place.

"In addition, Mercy Ministries is both an ex-gay program that offers conversion therapy to residents who struggle with their sexual identities, and a pro-life ministry that takes in girls and women who seek help with their unplanned pregnancies."

I stated this in as neutral a way as possible, and feel the pro-life and conversion therapy are equally valid parts of their program and should be included along with information on the psychological issues they treat. I made sure to stress that the pregnant girls and women who enter the program have in fact sought help of their own volition.

When I mentioned the gay conversion aspect of their program I also made sure to stress that the potential residents were again seeking help of their own accord because they feel they need help.

Nancy mentions both of these aspects of the program in her interview, and I made sure to refer to their ministry as pro-life and not "anti-choice" as some might view it because, again, residents make their own decisions to go there.(Victoria Lucas (talk) 10:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC))

Just wanting to clarify something. Does that list of programmes run by MM apply to all MM institutions worldwide, or just the ones in the USA? Only this article, says that MM "denies it runs an "ex-gay" program". I've no problem with the article stating that MM offers such a program if it can be verified, and the article I mentioned is admittedly from a secondary source, but perhaps the issue warrants further investigation in light of this anomaly. Landithy (talk) 08:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I am fairly certain that the programs are the same across the board. I do think it's fair do include the ex-gay part of the program (and to some extent a fact that should be included for a thorough overview) because the reference [3](that I need to add, sorry I've been on vacation) is a radio interview where Nancy, the founder mentions it herself. I agree, though, that the gay conversion part of the program has been denied, so I thought it might be something to include in the controversy section. Thoughts on that?(Victoria Lucas (talk) 08:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC))

Reference 16 should be April 16, not March 16, since you have editing rights Victoria could you please change it? Thanks

Done. I am going to try and figure out how to link the mp3 file to the end of the first and second paragraphs. I'm not sure if it's different than linking a webpage, and I think I need to put the "retrieved" date on there, but am figuring that out as well. If there is a tutorial specifically for references, can you lead me to it? I am also in the process of figuring out how not to repeat a reference without creating a second reference that is the same link because I see one link is repeated instead of just having the same number referenced in two locations. Does that even make sense? I can see there is a different code, but I'm still figuring it out.(Victoria Lucas (talk) 21:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC))

Have you tried this article, and some of the cross-referenced ones? Landithy (talk) 07:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, I've removed the reference/example for the fact that the Sisters of Mercy use the term 'Mercy Ministries' in reference to their work. On reflection and review of Wikipedia's referencing policies, I think that this point would fall within the category of general common knowledge and does not need a citation, and the reference was only an example, not a statement of a policy. Landithy (talk) 07:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)