The National Council for Mental Wellbeing (NCMW) has received repeated complaints about one of its board members, who also serves as CEO of VIP Community Services, yet has failed to investigate. Over the past three months, I contacted the Council’s leadership and communications office multiple times to request accountability—without response. This silence is particularly alarming for an organization devoted to mental health and psychological safety.
Here’s my story:
Shortly before the pandemic, I accepted a mid-level role at VIP Community Services, a Bronx community health center. I wanted meaningful work, a sense of belonging, and to serve a community that had shaped me. The organization’s staff and patients were overwhelmingly Black and Latino, and many senior leaders were from the African and Latin diaspora. For the first time in my career, I felt I belonged.
But within weeks, cracks began to show. While the organization overall was diverse, my immediate team—and the PR firm we worked with—were overwhelmingly white. I found myself navigating the same dynamics I had experienced in predominantly white professional spaces. Meetings intended to engage Black and Latino patients were dominated by white voices, and my supervisor, who also served as both head of strategy and human resources, repeatedly undermined my work.
Three months in, my supervisor reclassified my position as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act—a determination I dispute. As a result, I lost eligibility for overtime. I calculated the annual loss at roughly $7,000 and requested a salary adjustment. Rather than engage in a good-faith discussion, my supervisor accused me of challenging her authority, criticized my tone, and warned that she feared I was “building a case against her.” The meeting ended abruptly with her throwing up her hands and yelling, “I can’t manage you!”
Later that afternoon, my supervisor strategically scheduled a meeting with our CEO, leveraging her longstanding relationship and dual authority to maintain the upper hand. The meeting was framed to scrutinize me and my “tone of voice,” rather than address her management failures. During that meeting, I disclosed that I had already filed a complaint against my supervisor with the Compliance division. At that point, my supervisor began to cry—a familiar dynamic in which white emotional distress is weaponized to elicit sympathy, deflect accountability, and recast a Black employee raising legitimate concerns as the aggressor.
Her tears shifted the power in the room, redirecting attention away from my wage and discrimination complaint and toward her emotional comfort. Instead of stopping the meeting or recusing my supervisor, the conversation continued in a way that protected her and left me exposed. That abuse of power paved the way for a cover-up and the retaliation that followed.
Rather than protecting me, the CEO urged me to withdraw the complaint, telling me, “You don’t need to do that,” and emphasizing that my supervisor “brings a lot of value” to the organization—an implicit warning that pursuing the complaint could jeopardize my job while shielding hers. I ultimately withdrew the complaint to protect my position and avoid further financial hardship.
For the remainder of my time at the organization, I was subjected to heightened scrutiny, interrogation, and constant surveillance by my supervisor. Once a Black employee names inequity, they are often treated as a threat. Hypervigilance follows—every word, gesture, and breath scrutinized. My mental health deteriorated as I was increasingly excluded from projects, diminished in meetings, had my ideas taken and credited to white colleagues, and endured microaggressions from leadership that went unchecked by the CEO.
Financial inequities compounded the harm. Public filings show generous executive compensation during a period when staff were told raises were impossible due to the pandemic. At the same time, the CEO approved thousands in organizational funds to promote herself through paid vanity recognitions, including City & State “Power Lists” and the Bronx “Power Women” Award, while claiming she was powerless to increase my salary by even a few thousand dollars.
Eventually, I left VIP Community Services to preserve my wellbeing. With years of reflection, I now see clearly how both my supervisor, who also served as head of human resources, and the CEO abused their power. The after-hours meeting in the CEO’s office, without a neutral party present, coerced me into silence. That silence denied accountability—and it cost me my mental health.
Although the window to file an EEOC complaint has closed, that administrative deadline does not define the truth of what happened. Nor does it limit my right to speak plainly about abuse of power, or to share my story. The timeframe for telling the truth will never expire.
Today, my former CEO serves on the board of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. I was deeply disturbed to learn that she is helping guide mental health initiatives on a national level when her actions at VIP Community Services worsened my own emotional wellbeing. She protected an executive she deemed “valuable,” while silencing me as a mid-level employee she appeared to view as expendable.
I reached out to NCMW repeatedly to share my experience and request an investigation, but my efforts have gone unanswered. For an organization devoted to mental wellbeing, this silence is profoundly disheartening. Leadership in mental health requires modeling accountability, equity, and psychological safety. Discouraging protected complaints, tolerating retaliation, and ignoring harm are fundamentally incompatible with those values.
I am sharing my story not only for myself, but for others navigating similar experiences. Know your worth. Silence protects systems—not people.
I urge NCMW to thoroughly vet its board members and leadership to ensure those shaping national mental health priorities are practicing those values within their own organizations, and to promptly respond to and investigate credible allegations when they arise.
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