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Artists Without Limits
art exhibit:
Life in Anne Arundel County
The Arundel Center
Apr. 21 - Jun. 30
Opening reception Thursday, Apr. 21st
5-6:30 p.m.
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"Walk in My Shoes" Raising Mental Health Awareness Through Art
American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
Thursday, May 19
1-5 p.m.
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Volunteer Opportunities
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Art Program needs volunteers to help
re-organize and beautify the art studio
To sign up call:
Lindsey Aumick
443-433-5914
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call 443-433-5906
to sign up or to learn more about upcoming
volunteer opportunities.
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Monthly Meetings and Groups
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Open Eye Gallery
Committee Meeting
All are welcome. Email Katerina Evans or call her at (443) 433-5961 with any questions.
NAMI Family Support Group
Thurs., May 12th
7 to 8:30 p.m.
At Arundel Lodge.
For more information, email NAMI Anne Arundel.
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Marcus Youth and Family Center
The Marcus Youth and Family Center at Arundel Lodge, for children 4-17 years of age, opened in November 2015. Arundel Lodge is already serving about 80 children, adolescents and their families!
The Center's first Youth Advisory Committee meeting was held on April 12th. Participants included Christa Bellanca, Family Outreach Specialist Infants and Toddlers Program of Anne Arundel County, Taylor Pyles, Detective with Annapolis Police and Executive Director of The Blue Ribbon Project, Pam Brown, Executive Director, Anne Arundel County Partnership for Children Youth and Families, Beverly Marcus, community member and donor who has given her family name to the Center, Lillie Hinkelman, Arundel Lodge Chief of Clinical Operations, Leigh Ragan, Arundel Lodge Clinic Director, Mike Drummond, Executive Director of Arundel Lodge, and Marcus Youth and Family Center staff.
Mr. Drummond said about the meeting, "Arundel Lodge is excited about how the Youth Advisory Committee is already working to identify the many needs of youth and families that we can affect. The group is developing strategies to partner with other child and family agencies so we can serve holistically. We also look forward to identifying transitional-age youth who have experienced mental health and substance use services to serve along side us and help design the best programs possible."
If you know a transitional-age youth, 18-25 years of age who would be interested in sharing their knowledge and experience to help Arundel Lodge shape its programs and services for children and adolescents and their families, please email Marcus Youth and Family Therapists, Carrie Johnson or Lara Peters.
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America's Largest Mental Health Care Institutions...Prisons and Jails
In the U.S., prisons and jails are the largest institutions housing adults with serious mental health and/or substance use disorders. Individuals with severe mental health disorders occupy at least 1 in 5 of America's prison and jail beds.
America is caught in a vicious cycle. We have returned to colonial era modalities, using jails and prisons to warehouse individuals with mental illness. A report published in 2014 by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a Virginia based non-profit group that promotes access to mental health care, chronicles America's history of the problem. In summary, as early as the 1700's, "voices of protest in the colonies, claiming that confining mentally ill persons to prisons and jails was inhumane," led to the nation's first psychiatric ward at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia in 1752 and the nation's first psychiatric hospital in Williamsburg, VA in 1773. In the 1800's movements exposing pervasive and appalling treatment and conditions in the nation's state prisons and county jails led to a widespread acceptance that individuals with mental illness belonged in hospitals. By 1880, 75 public psychiatric hospitals existed in our young nation. An 1880 census concluded that less than 1% of individuals contained in prisons and jails were "insane."
In the 1960's and 70's, deinstitutionalization, the government's movement to reduce the nation's state psychiatric hospital population, prompted a return to an era of prison "asylums." This policy cited as its impetus that it was inhumane to keep individuals locked up in hospitals, often times under unacceptable, even abusive conditions, and that people would be better served and experience a better quality of life living in the community, receiving services through special programs. While the concept was well-intended and indeed research has proven that many individuals with behavioral health disorders fair better, and even thrive while receiving treatment in community settings and with the support of family and friends, this policy lacked an important ingredient-knowledge about how programs and services could evolve and be funded in order to meet and keep up with the need. Retired executive director of the community Behavioral Health Association (CBH) of Maryland, Herb Cromwell, says in a Mental Health Weekly Article from September 2015, "We've seen the evolution of a thriving family support movement [in Maryland] and nationally, and a vibrant consumer movement. Stakeholders are very much at the policy making table, as they should be...For the last 25 years, I've worked directly with mission-driven community providers who've made services more comprehensive, accessible and effective." He admits however, "Obviously there's much more work to be done," noting that too many people with mental illness and addictions are in jails and prisons. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center's 2014 report, "In 2012, there were estimated to be 356,268 inmates with severe mental illness in prisons and jails." That translates to 20% of inmates in jails and 15% of inmates in state prisons.
Mr. Cromwell also explains that,
"Public-sector budget support lags far behind the need. Private insurance reimbursement for mental health treatment, despite new parity laws, is still so poor that it discourages provider participation in plans and reduces consumer access to care." Compounding the problem today is the fact that many inmates with mental health disorders also have a co-occurring substance use disorder. A 2010 report, published by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, also found that "of the 2.3 million inmates crowding our nation's prisons and jails, 1.5 million meet the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) medical criteria for substance abuse or addiction. Another 458,000 inmates, while not meeting the strict DSM-IV criteria, had histories of substance abuse; were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs at the time of their crime; committed their offense to get money to buy drugs; were incarcerated for an alcohol or drug law violation; or share some combination of these characteristics."
Some of the major problems associated with the incarceration of individuals with behavioral health disorders include: - Worsening of psychiatric symptoms: often behavioral health disorders go undiagnosed and/or untreated in correctional systems
- Substance use disorders are not addressed: inmates don't often receive treatment for substance use disorders and are more likely to use again once released
- Abuse by corrections staff: many of the correctional officers do not understand, and have little or no training in how to work with inmates who have mental health disorders and resort to disciplinary measures such as pepper spray, physical force or solitary confinement which can exacerbate symptoms, and do little to correct behavior
- High rates of recidivism: inmates leaving jails and prisons often receive little, if any, psychiatric aftercare leading to continued criminal behaviors and re-incarceration
- Jail and prison overcrowding: not only have jail and prison overcrowding become human rights and constitutional issues, but they have an impact on the levels of inmate violence and can stretch resources such as staff too thin
In Anne Arundel County, the Department of Detention Facilities has taken steps to address the increasing number of persons with mental health and substance use disorders entering ORDD (Ordnance Road Correctional Center) and JRDC (Jennifer Road Detention Center) by partnering with the county's Mental Health Agency to provide behavioral health services to inmates.
At Arundel Lodge,
many individuals receiving treatment in
First Step Recovery Program are from the jail and prison system, or are court ordered for substance use treatment. Behavioral health treatment programs such as First Step Recovery Program, dedicated to improving the lives of individuals with substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, can help reduce incarceration and recidivism among offenders with and without mental illness. For more information about F irst Step Recovery Program, please email Leigh Ragan, Outpatient Behavioral Health Clinic Director, or call (410) 280-2333. You can also visit our program website page: First Step Recovery Program
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"Question Marked Innocence"
Poem by a First Step Recovery Program Client
I crept in for just a moment to watch his chest rise and smell his sweet breath, I gently kissed his forehead and prayed a silent prayer, thanking God for my perfect gift.
I knew as I left for the streets to make ends meet, I was already forgiven for the sins that awaited me.
See, desperate times call for desperate measures and where I'm from there are two lives one must live: One that is socially acceptable of lies and deceit and one that is real and lived on the streets.
With hoody and sweats for warmth and my boots laced up tight in case the police decide to score, Mary J. Blige and Method Man echo in my mind, "You're all I need to Get By," for music helps to soothe the soul and clear the conscience and is my only friend on these lonely strips.
I was not brought up to sell drugs, it was never even addressed.
But a lengthy list of life's hard knocks deemed it my only quest.
Once a scholar dressed to impress, then came the façade of true love, a swollen belly, madness and stress.
Now my only awareness is my child doing without and me understanding it takes way more than a simple hand out.
Some quick to judge, refuse to comprehend that a hustler can be a poet, a teacher, a mother, a friend.
See, in my shoes you've never walked nor could you survive, it takes way more than a degree or with whom you socialize.
So as the $50 from the fiends hand passes to mine, I realized then it would be another or it's mine.
I didn't make the game nor its many rules, but sat back in silence...for once I couldn't lose.
I watched a many fool make a dollar outta fifteen cents, and I realized I too could do this for I had to pay rent.
I ask you this, have you ever had to stand in a social service line? To be told, "Sorry Miss, we can't help you at this time."
Have you lived off Oodles of Noodles and eggs for weeks and wiped tear stained cheeks off a child who deserves to eat?
Have you read to a child by flashlight because your electricity was cut off?
Have you contemplated suicide because you felt you played the game and lost?
Question Marked Innocence is how I label myself, there's no other way to deal with this hand I've been dealt.
It's not an easy profession or a simple cop out.
It's reality and what this world is about.
As dawn breaks, it's home again and my title changes back to mother slash friend, and as I quietly enter in...
I pray another prayer that the lifestyle I'm in will come to a swift end.
- Darla Lehnert
My name is Darla Lehnert and I have been coming to the First Step Recovery Program on and off for the past 3 years. It has saved my life! The staff are so compassionate and honest. I have been to other outpatient treatments but none has compared to the outstanding service I have received from First Step Recovery. I would recommend them to everyone who needs treatment.
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Arundel Lodge receives many recurring questions from community members wanting to know more about what we do, those we serve, and the programs and services we offer. We are pleased to provide the community with answers in this new section, "Arundel Lodge FAQs."
If you have questions, email them to I Have a Question and we will do our best to address them. You might even see your question answered in our newsletter!
Q: Does anyone reside at Arundel Lodge's main campus, 2600 Solomons Island Road, Edgewater?
A: No. Although Arundel Lodge has a Residential Program that serves up to 110 individuals at one time, in 32 homes around the community, no one resides at 2600 Solomons Island Rd. This location is where our program staff, case management and business offices are situated; where we provide Health Home care coordination services; where 100 individuals a day,
Monday - Thursday, enjoy Day Program; where the Open Eye Gallery and Studio Art Program shares beautiful artwork made by our artists; and where treatment is provided in our Outpatient Mental Health Clinic for adults, and Marcus Youth and Family Center, for children 4-17 years of age and their families. It is where community members come to receive a variety of quality, compassionate mental health treatment, supports, and services.
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Carol Fields
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Carol Fields, Administrative/
Clinical Assistant
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When Carol started her employment at Arundel Lodge seven months ago, she had no idea how much she would be appreciated by the folks we serve. In her role as Administrative/Clinical Assistant, Carol helps individuals obtain and renew their Medical Assistance Insurance so they can receive the services they need. She says, "Since I've been working here my job has been so rewarding. Just recently, I was helping a 56 year old man renew his Medical Assistance online. I noticed him staring at the computer screen and then he turned to me and asked 'Ms. Carol, can you please read this all to me...I can't read.' I said, 'Sure! We'll do this together, that's what I'm here for, is to help you.' At that moment, I felt like I wanted to cry. It felt great that I could offer my help, but I felt sad at the same time knowing he could not read. As we worked together through the insurance renewal process he became more comfortable. Before he left, he took my hand and said, 'Thank you, Ms. Carol.' Days like this allow me to help and understand the needs of persons served at Arundel Lodge."
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Carol is one of the many staff members at Arundel Lodge dedicated to providing compassionate care to help the persons we serve. In a short few weeks, Carol has helped over 65 individuals obtain or renew their Medical Assistance. She shares in the joy of others she has helped, "I love coming to work every day. I get so much gratification doing this for our community."
Carol has even been able to help individuals whose first language is not English by helping them connect with the Medical Assistance language line.
To get help starting your process for obtaining Medical Assistance or renewing, call Carol at 443-433-5974, Monday - Friday. If you are coming in to see Carol, please be sure to have the following items:
- Social Security Numbers or immigrant document numbers
- Birthdate
- Household income information, e.g. W-2, wage statements
- Current Health Insurance Policy numbers
- Job-related Health Insurance information
- Medical Assistance Password (if you have already had MA)
- Email address (if you don't have one, Carol can help!)
Enrolling takes about 30-60 minutes.
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Our vote goes to...
Congratulations to Employee of the Quarter, Jessica Stallings, R.N. in our Health Home Program. Read her feature story in "Staff Corner" next month.
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Community Volunteers Make Big Impact!
Volunteers are an integral part of daily life here at Arundel Lodge.
On Tuesday, April 12, over 15 volunteers participated in Arundel Lodge's Toiletry Toolkit and Spa Day, treating individuals served, through Arundel Lodge's Supportive Living and Day Programs, to a spa-like experience. Student Nurses from Anne Arundel Community College were on hand to help approximately 90 persons served build their own toiletry kits from a selection of scent-filled soaps, shampoos, body lotions and colorful toothbrushes. Volunteers from Temple Beth Shalom, Fran Kushner, Cookie Pollock, Anna Greenberg, Dee Stelzer and Kathy Watson provided relaxing hand massages and manicures. |
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Donna Delp donned clients with beautiful jewelry.
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Temple Beth Shalom volunteer, Anna Greenberg, massages Bernice Sear's Hands
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More than 500 toiletry items were generously donated by volunteer groups from Blacks in Government of Fort Meade and Woods Memorial Church in Arnold, helping to make this effort possible!
Adding to the success were volunteers from NAMI Maryland Chapter, who offered (free of charge!) persons served a selection of exciting costume jewelry designs and an array of fun ball caps, both a big hit among clients. Some even chose jewelry pieces for their mothers in anticipation of Mother's Day.
One person, showing off her lovely nails and bag of goodies declared, "this is the best day I've ever had," reminding us all how special and cared for kind attention can make a person feel.
Volunteers from Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church are also currently working on a major renovation project at an Arundel Lodge Residential Program home. They are replacing floors in several rooms, painting, and installing new kitchen cabinets. This is the second major project this group has tackled, each time bringing an exceptional combination of talent and love.
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Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church volunteers: Penny Moore (painting), Harold Laque, Mark Clayton and Fred Oaks
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Volunteers add another dimension to our mission that makes days brighter and fills hearts with hope.
When we say "we couldn't do it without our volunteers" - we really mean it!
To be part of the Arundel Lodge volunteer team contact:
Cindy Garmoe
(443) 433-5906
To make a financial donation, please click the button below:
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Homeless Resource Day
Arundel Lodge was proud to participate in Anne Arundel County's 9th Annual Homeless Resource Day which was held on Saturday, April 9th at Brooklyn Park Middle School.
The County Executive sponsors this "one-day, one stop" event where individuals and families experiencing homelessness can access benefits, medical care, substance abuse resources, mental health counseling, and a variety of social services which can ultimately lead to housing and self sufficiency. It is a way to offer short and long term services to homeless residents of Anne Arundel County in one central location. Adults benefit from transportation, haircuts, housing information, job assistance, MVA, veteran's benefits, credit counseling and other quality of life resources.
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Register now for NAMI's Family-to-Family Classes!
 What is the NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program?
NAMI Family-to-Family is a free, 12 session education program for family, partners, friends and significant others of adults living with mental illness. The course is designed to help all family members understand and support their loved one living with mental illness, while maintaining their own well-being. The course includes information on the biological, psychological and social aspects of illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression and other mental health conditions. Thousands of families described the program as life-changing. The program is taught by trained teachers who are also family members and know what it is like to have a loved one living with mental illness.
Pre-registration required:
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