I first want to say, the clinical staff at Evolutions are great, they are compassionate, empathetic…read moreand genuinely care about there clients. From the Therapists, to the Nurses and Pysch, they take a heartfelt interest in their clients wellbeing.
As for the rest of the staff, there is a lot left to be desired. Aside from a few shining stars the majority of the administrative and tech staff behave as if they don't want to be there and its just a paycheck to them, to outright treating the Clients like inmates, cussing at them, threating them ("if you don't like it, pack your shit and get out") ignoring them by not following up on requests and grievances to total and utter disrespect. I've heard it said "you don't pay for this your insurance company does". I for one take great exception to that as I worked for over 45 years and paid into the system to be able to take advantage of programs I paid for (How dare they say that).
Also, when asking a question I was often told "that's not my department or its above my pay grade)??? I would then asked to whom do I need to speak with to get my answer, their response was mostly "I don't know" How do you work somewhere that you don't know? The buck gets passed so much you can't recognize the bill any longer.
Which brings me to ownership, The Husband and wife team of Mr. and Mrs. Gedale Fenster, a self proclaimed, "successful podcaster" and "motivational speaker" expounding his wisdom as if he were the next Ghandi, throwing out concepts that have been around for hundreds If not thousands of years. I for one found the man to be boastful, arrogant and disingenuous. They don't have any compassion or empathy for their clients, their entrepreneurial opportunity in this business is their primary reason for entering into this field. Complaints of living conditions go unaddressed, from inoperable washers and dryers to basic maintenance items. They hire drug addicts, exconvicts and alcoholics whom have little to no management experience, other than they were clients, in a field where that should be a priority. They allow clients to "Audition" for jobs instead of going to group to work on themselves or maybe its their way of getting cheap labor. They think by putting "Lipstick on a pig", by purchasing new furniture and putting a fresh coat of paint on it will solve a lot of the issues, think again. Just last weekend one of the units on the second floor of the IOP residence water lines broke and flooded that unit. When the client staying in that unit offered to go buy the necessary parts to fix it and have one of the clients whom are auditioning for a job, fix it the client was told no because the director of facilities said "I'm not going to allow a client to fix a repair, it will be taken care of Monday, and to have the Clients living in that unit put a bucket under it and dump the bucket when it was full, well you can imagine what happened, the downstairs unit got flooded and did a lot more damage than was necessary, if the director would have just let the Clients fix it. That's what you get when you hire incompetentence to run your facilities. Then there's the human care aspect of this, or the lack thereof. They treat clients as insurance payments. I was directly affected by this. I was told this past week that unbeknownst to me I was automatically enrolled in Medicare as I turn 65 on November 11th and Medicare trumps my current insurance "Florida Blue" and was unceremoniously discharged, with no resolution from Evolutions other than "No Dice" you have till Thursday latest Friday to pack up and get out. An unconscionable way to run a Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment center. Also, when I was leaving yesterday, I had to leave my bags there for a period until I got settled into a hotel, when I retrieved my bags one of the bags was missing that had all my toiletries and medication in it, after I informed a tech he went room to room looking for it, then my bag suddenly appeared, however, when I got to my destination and opened the bag one of my medications , and some of my toiletries were missing. After calling back to the IOP residence and informing them that some of my things were missing, they did nothing about it.
They market themselves as "South Florida's Premier Treatment Center", it's nowhere near that, it's a run of the mill treatment center.
I would like to caution anyone, if you are contemplating Mental Health or Substance Abuse Treatment, to do your due diligence and find a more suitable Treatment Center. I would not even rate this with a star, that would be saying they have a glimmer of hope. They also have a sober living facility in Fort Lauderdale where they let former male and female clients live together in the same apartment as couples all the while discouraging coupling, and whom also happen to work for Evolutions in supposedly high ranking decision making positions. Ownership holds no one accountable. What do you expect.
