Family Outreach and Response — Family Outreach and Response

$250 Bobbi Nahwegahbow Award Looking for Nominations

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:01:12 +0000

Bobbi Nahwegahbow was an active member of Psychiatric Survivor, Mad Pride, Women’s and Native rights communities in the city of Toronto. Psychiatric Survivor Archives Toronto, The Lakeshore Asylum Cemetery Project, Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, The Native Centre, The Friendly Spike Theatre Band, St. Francis Table, Toronto Rape Crisis Center, are but a few of the organizations which benefited from this energetic, passionate and righteous human being who was dedicated to equality rights for everyone.
Although Bobbi Nahwegahbow passed on November 4th, 2007 her tenacious example will always be remembered by the people she worked with.
In memory of Bobbi Nahwegahbow, The Mad Pride Organizing Committee has established a $250.00 award in her name, to be presented during Mad Pride Toronto celebrations in July 2010.

The committee requests suggestions from the community in the spirit of who best exemplifies the work which Bobbi so actively nourished. These nominations should be made in the form of a simple statement not more than one page in length, which highlights the person or group’s contributions to our community. Please send to either friendlyspike@primus.ca or Friendly Spike Theatre Band, #210, 2466 Dundas Street West, Toronto M6P 1W9
Suggestions will be reviewed and decided on by the Mad Pride Organizing Committee.

Deadline April 30th 2010

Call For Submissions!

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:54:00 +0000

University of Alberta Women’s Centre Collective has put out a call for submissions from people who identify with feminism and have lived experiences of a psychiatric diagnosis.

Their upcoming anthology, Feminists Navigate Mental Health (working title), will explore the complexities of navigating mental health and how a feminist identity may (or may not) shape those experiences.

Submissions are welcomed in the form of personal short stories.

The submissions received will shape the outcome of the book. The final manuscript will be submitted to relevant Canadian independent publishers. They are looking for contributions that explore the relationship between feminist identity and experiences, thoughts, and feelings related to mental health.

Possible themes may include (but are not limited to):

* Coping – what works and what doesn´t
* Any positive aspects of your mental health that are commonly considered deficits
* Treatment preferences and past experiences
* Medication
* Personal/lived understandings of your diagnosis (acceptance or rejection)
* Stigma/tension around mental health issues in the feminist community
* Feminism and well-being/strength/empowerment
* Feminism and distress

Guidelines:

* Remember to take care of yourself while writing about topics that may be distressing;
* Good writing skills are great, but not mandatory! We will work with you to edit your piece;
* Submissions should be saved in .doc or .rtf, size 12 font, Arial or Times New Roman, and double spaced;
* 500 to 3000 words
* Include contact information and a brief biography;
* Only email submissions will be accepted;
* Submission deadline is June 1st, 2010.

Comments, concerns, questions and submissions should be directed to:
fnmhsubmissions@gmail.com

Daniel Mackler Talks about Recovery

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:38:12 +0000

Take These Broken Wings, a feature-length documentary film by director and psychotherapist Daniel Mackler, shows that people can recover fully from schizophrenia without psychiatric medication. According to most of the mental health field, and of course the pharmaceutical industry, this is not possible. How little they know – or want to know! The film centers on the lives of two women – heroes of mine – who both recovered from severe schizophrenia. The film traces the roots of their schizophrenia to childhood trauma and details their successful psychotherapy with gifted clinicians.

The first woman is Joanne Greenberg (fully recovered for fifty years), the bestselling author of I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. The second is Catherine Penney (fully recovered for thirty years), a mental health nurse in California whose healing tale was chronicled by her therapist, Daniel Dorman, MD, in the book Dante’s Cure: A Journey Out of Madness.

Their accounts are interwoven with interviews with giants in the field of schizophrenia recovery. These include Peter Breggin, MD (author, Toxic Psychiatry), Robert Whitaker (journalist, author, Mad in America), and Bertram Karon, PhD (author, Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia: Treatment of Choice). Also featured throughout the film are over 100 interview clips of strangers filmed in New York City’s Washington Square Park who share their points of view on schizophrenia.

Here is Daniel Mackler talking about why he made this documentary:

For more information or to purchase the video, please visit here.

Dr. Dan Fisher Talks Recovery

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:25:23 +0000

New Groups Downtown!

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:59:59 +0000

There are three new groups to get involved in at the downtown location!

Families for Mental Health Recovery Committee
An ongoing group for families to advocate for changes to the mental health system. The group meets monthly on the second Monday of the month at 6:00pm at our 901 King Street West location. Please call 416-535-8501 ext. 2011 for next meeting time.

Fundraising and Events Committee
An ongoing group of families, board members and staff that work together to raise donations for the family and youth programs. The group meets monthly on the third Monday evening at 6:00pm at our 901 King Street West location.

Ongoing Family Support Group
This support group meets monthly to discuss ongoing recovery for their family members. This is for families who have already taken the Family Mental Health Recovery Course. The group meets monthly on the fourth Monday of the month at our 901 King Street West location.

Please call 535-8501 ext. 2011 to let us know you are coming.

A PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL GROUP FOR FAMILIES: COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY FOR PSYCHOSIS (CBTp)

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:03:42 +0000

This is an education program designed for families who are interested in learning about basic principles and techniques of CBT therapy for psychosis. It starts Wednesday, June 17th 2009 6:30 – 8:30. at the King Street Office. Facilitated by Maria Haarmans a CBT therapist. The course is full this time around, but if you are interested in attending please let us know, and we will try to offer it again.

Course Description

A 6-week psychoeducational course for families interested in learning about basic principles and techniques of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis. Through PowerPoint presentation, discussion, video, and group exercises participants will acquire an understanding of:

• how CBTp can help,
• the psychological and psychophysiological processes involved in psychotic experiences with a particular focus on hearing voices, and
• relapse prevention.

*This course does NOT equip participants with training to deliver CBTp but it does offer information that can help families make sense of what may sometimes seem bewildering or confusing. It can also increase understanding of how a cognitive approach can be helpful to both themselves and their relative.

Provisional Outline

Week One: Theme: Why Now? Understanding Vulnerability from a Cognitive Perspective
Introductions & what participants hope to get out of sessions. Stress-Vulnerability Model for Psychosis; The Subjective Experience of hearing voices: Content, Locus, Cues/Triggers, & Beliefs about Voices. Summary & Feedback of Session.

Week Two: Theme: The Normality of Unusual Experiences
Check-in; Bridge to previous session; Quiz, CBT and Normalizing psychotic experiences, Why is normalizing information helpful? BBC Radio Podcast: “Am I Normal?” Summary & Feedback of Session

Week Three: Theme: Making Sense of Unusual Experiences
Check-in; Bridge to previous session; Generic Cognitive Model—
Thought-mood-physiological-behaviour diagram—make own diagram; Cognitive Model for Psychosis–Understanding the development & maintenance of unusual experiences/‘symptoms’; Summary & Feedback of Session.

Week Four: Theme: Where’s the Evidence? Evaluating Thoughts & Beliefs
Check-in; Bridge to previous session, Levels of
Cognitions: Automatic Thoughts, Intermediate Beliefs & Core Beliefs; Cognitive Interventions, e.g. Thinking errors/‘Downer’ thoughts, delusional beliefs, paranoid thinking; Relation of Downer thoughts/Core Beliefs to voice content [E.g. When voices express person’s thoughts/beliefs; exploring thoughts/beliefs about voices]; Generating Alternative Explanations; Summary & Feedback of Session.

Week Five: Theme: Helpful & Unhelpful Ways of Coping
Check-in; Bridge to previous session; Behavioural Interventions;
Introduce coping strategies for voices/delusional beliefs: doing things, thinking things, feeling things; What is the Difference between Coping Behaviours & Safety Behaviours? Summary & Feedback of Session.

Week Six: Theme: Staying Well
Check-in; Bridge to previous session; Relaxation techniques &
Practice in session; Relapse Prevention; Evaluation & Recommendations

2003-2007 Presentations

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:46:23 +0000

The Family Outreach and Response Program is often asked to speak to different groups on mental health recovery and the important role that families play in recovery. On this page you will find Adobe pdf versions of the slides used in some of the presentations that the FOR Program has given in the past. If you would like to have someone from the Family Outreach and Response Program come and talk to your group about the Family Outreach and Response Program and its work or mental health recovery please contact us!

Presentations given during 2005 and earlier

Presentations given during 2006

Presentations given during 2007

Suspecting psychosis – finding support, spring 2007This presentation was given at a forum sponsored by the Scarborough Early Intervention Partnership Initiative. There are 2 files for this presentation. The first file is the slides from the presentation. The second file are the notes from the break out group.

View the slides from this presentation

View the break out group discussion notes from this presentation

Presentations given during 2006

An Evening of Hope in Chatham, October 2006
This presentation was given at a forum sponsored by the Mental Illness Awareness Committee of Chatham-Kent…

View the slides from this presentation

CMHA-Chatham Kent Annual General Meeting, June 2006
This presentation was given at the Annual General Meeting of the Chatham-Kent branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

View the slides from this presentation

Working with Families Using a Recovery Approach, June 2006
This presentation was given at the Eastern Ontario Summer Institute in Mental Health and Addictions in Kingston.

View the slides from this presentation

Hope, Help and Healing – Positive Approaches to Mental Health, March 2006
This presentation was given at the Recovery – The Role of Families and the Power of Hope conference in Kitchener.

View the slides from this presentation

Mental Health Recovery: What is the Role for Families?, March 2006
This presentation was given in Owen Sound with Paddy McGowan from Ireland.

View the slides from this presentation

Presentations given during 2005 and earlier

Recovery and the Role of Social Workers, November 2005
This presentation was given to social workers at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health.

View the slides from this presentation

Toronto East Counselling Support Services Annual General Meeting, November 2005, given with Ann Thompson
This presentation was the keynote speech at the 2005 Annual General Meeting of Toronto East Counselling Support Services.

View the slides from this presentation

The Family Experience, June 2005, given with Wayne Skinner of CAMH
This presentation was part of the forum Covering Addiction and Mental Healthhosted by the Institute of Addiction and Mental Health Studies for Journalists .

View the slides from this presentation

Family Mental Health Recovery
Bringing Families and Recovery Together Through Education and Support, May 2005
This presentation was given at the recovery conference organized by the Thunder Bay branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

View the slides from this presentation

Why Work with Families Anyway? May, 2005
This presentation was done at the Family Matters conference held in Niagara Falls, Ontario in May, 2005.

View the slides from this presentation

The Role of the Family in Mental Health Recovery, October 2004
This presentation was given at the annual conference of the Ontario Case Management Association in Toronto.

View the slides from this presentation

Building a Recovery Community: The Role of Family, October 2003
This presentation was given at the first Making Gains conference in 2003.

View the slides from this presentation

2008 Demystifying the Justice and Mental Health System: A Conference for Families

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:28:54 +0000

Organized by the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario.

download all presentations in a .zip file

Conference Materials:

2006 International Recovery Perspectives Conference

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:17:51 +0000

About the International Recovery Perspectives Conference

Download the conference program here.

Key Contributors and Sponsors:

The International RECOVERY Perspectives conference is sponsored by the following agencies. We thank them for their support.

ALTERNATIVES – East York Mental Health Counselling Services Agency is a community-based program for individuals with serious mental health problems living in East York / East Toronto.

COMMUNITY RESOURCE CONNECTIONS OF TORONTO (CRCT) provides direct service to adults who struggle with day-to-day living as a result of severe and persistent mental health issues as well as health promotion/community development support to consumer/survivors, families and groups in Toronto.

FAMILY OUTREACH AND RESPONSE (F.O.R.) is a program that provides support services to families and friends of people who are recovering from a serious mental health problem.

The Leadership Project also thanks Licien Valverde, Peter MacDonald and all of the volunteers for their hard work and assistance.

The Leadership Project Conference Planning Group

Karyn Baker - Family Outreach and Response Program
Heinz Klein - Consumer/Survivor Activist
Brian McKinnon – Alternatives – East York Mental Health Counselling Services
Leslie Morris – Community Resource Connections of Toronto
Mel Starkman – Consumer/Survivor Activist
Ann Thompson – Family Outreach and Response Program

About The Leadership Project
The Leadership Project’s goal is the promotion and the enhancement of a ‘Recovery’ vision for the mental health system in Ontario. We do this by organizing educational events with an advocacy message/agenda. All of our events are facilitated in partnership with consumer/survivors, families and service providers.

2006 Presenter’s Biographies

(to view workshop information, click on the workshop number in the workshop area of each presenters biography)

Anita Aenishaenslin Membership Facilitator, Workman Arts, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 12
Anita Aenishaenslin became a member of Workman Arts in 1998. Over time she volunteered at various events and started to work for the company part time in the year 2000. She has now been working full-time as the Membership Coordinator for almost 4 years. Anita is also a visual artist and is currently studying creative writing at York University.

Laurie Ahern Washington D.C., USA

Workshops Plenary Session, 2, 15
Laurie Ahern was hospitalized and labelled with mental illness at the age of 19. She recovered and went on to become the managing editor of four newspapers and a freelance writer for the Associated Press , The Boston Globe , and several other national publications. She has won national awards for her investigative and editorial writing. In addition to being Co-Director of the National Empowerment Center, Inc. , Laurie is the vice-president of the National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy(NARPA) .

Lionel Berger Family Member, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 13
Lionel Berger is a family member, and a lawyer (retired). He and his wife attended the Family Outreach & Response Program 8-week Recovery Series 2 years ago. Lionel has spoken before a number of groups as a family member and also served for 2 years as Vice-Chair and Treasurer of Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere .

Marian Dalal Early Intervention Family Worker, Family Outreach & Response Program, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 13
Marian Dalal is an Early Intervention Family Worker at the Family Outreach and Response Program in Toronto, Canada. She mainly works with ethnoracial families in the Scarborough area. Marian is committed to help, support, and empower families who have relatives with mental health issues.

Marian immigrated to Canada in late 1980s with her brother. Shortly after their arrival in Toronto, her brother became unwell and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, an illness about which Marian had little knowledge of. Apart from adversely effecting her brother’s normal youth life, the illness had seriously impacted on Marian’s social and psychological well-being for a number of years due to the stigma that is often associated with mental health issues as well as lack of personal and professional help and support.

In the midst of so many limitations and barriers faced by new immigrations, Marian however, courageously took up the challenge and empowered herself with education and skills that further enhance her ability to advocate for her brother and to also help him recover. Notwithstanding her brother’s illness and other social barriers, Marian enrolled herself into Centennial College and graduated with a Diploma and later completed a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from York University.
Paul Denison Family Member, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 13
Paul Denison is a facilitator of the Family Mental Health Recovery Series. He has both a partner and a mother recovering from mental health issues. Paul has worked in the social services field at both PARC and the Parkdale Legal Clinic. His passion is music!

Anne Marie DiGiacomo Clinical Director, Windhorse Associates, USA

Workshops 8, 14
Anne Marie DiGiacomo has been working in human services since 1977 in non-profit and community mental health arenas, receiving her Masters of Social Work in 1986. During the first 18 years of her career, she worked with children, adolescents and families in both residential and day treatment settings and private practice. Since 1996 to the present, Anne Marie has worked at Windhorse Associates and Windhorse Community Services; both contemplative therapeutic communities that provide compassionate care for adults living with severe distress. She has held the positions of Clinical Director, Co-Executive Director, Admissions Manger and Senior Therapist at Windhorse Associates. Anne Marie is a practicing Buddhist and brings a contemplative perspective to her therapeutic work.

Mary Lou Eaton Family Member, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 13
Mary Lou is a mother and corporate educator. She attended the Family Outreach and Response Program and is now co-facilitating in the Early Intervention Recovery Program. Her experience and learning in the F.O.R.’s support program have made a dramatic, positive change in the relationship she has with her daughter.

Erick Fabris Psychiatric Survivor Activist and Teacher, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 2
Erick Fabris is a psychiatric survivor activist involved with organizing the original Survivor Pride Day of 1993 with West End Psychiatric Survivors. He also helped found the No Force Coalition, 1999 – 2001, and worked for the Queen Street Patients Council/Outreach Society until 2002, as well as a housing worker, and teacher. Erick has since written his graduate research thesis on psychiatric survivor experiences under Community Treatment Orders.

Lana Frado Executive Director, Sound Times Support Service, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 7
Lana Frado is the Executive Director of Sound Times. Sound Times is a large, multi-service consumer/survivor initiative offering social support, educational activities, services for c/s at risk of coming into contact, or in conflict with the justice system, and harm reduction. Most recently, Sound Times has been funded to provide release from custody planning for consumers and survivors who are incarcerated. Lana has served on many planning and policy initiatives, as well having been involved in many survivor initiatives. She is currently the President of the Board of Directors of ARCH Centre for Disability Law.

Lucy Gudgeon Support Supervisor, Houselink Community Homes, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 8
Since 1989 Lucy has worked with homeless and marginalized people in inner city settings and is currently employed at Houselink Community Homes as a Support Supervisor. Lucy has participated in recovery at Houselink since its inception.

Helen Kirkpatrick Clinical Nurse Specialist, St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 1, 4
Helen Kirkpatrick is a Clinical Nurse Specialist and a Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner. She is currently the Co-ordinator of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Program, which is a collaborative specialty education program between St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton and McMaster University School of Nursing, where she is an Assistant Clinical Professor. Helen recently completed her PhD thesis, “Moving on from Homelessness: A Narrative Inquiry”. It is the stories of people with major mental illnesses who have been homeless and who get permanent housing with supports, and how their stories change. She has also been involved in research on Hope and Schizophrenia, and for ten years was Program Director of a PSR Program for people with schizophrenia(1900-2000).

Robert Mackay Psychiatric Survivor and Entrepreneur, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 10
Since 1997, Robert MacKay has been active in helping define the recovery movement for Canada. This started with improvement of “consumer-run” programs in New Brunswick, which eventually led him to Toronto in 2005, where Robert has been using his knowledge, passion and energy in association with the Ontario Recovers Campaign . His firm, Robert MacKay and Associates currently assists organizations to move ahead with peer support and recovery innovations.

Atsuko Matsuoka Associate Professor, School of Social Work, York University, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 1, 4
Atsuko Matsuoka is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, York University. Her current interest is integrating a mental health recovery approach into social work education. During her term as Graduate Program Director, she helped to launch a strengths-based mental health recovery course for York MSW students. Run by Ann Thompson, this was perhaps the first comprehensive graduate mental health recovery course in Canada given from a critical social work perspective. The course has been successfully run for the last three years. Atsuko hopes to develop mental health recovery based programs and research on aging and/or ethno-racial minorities.

Rufus May Clinical Psychologist, Bradford – England

Workshops 1, 6, 11, 14
Rufus May became interested in recovery from mental health problems after psychiatric treatment for psychosis when he was eighteen years old. His experience of psychiatry was that it seemed to create more problems than it solved. He trained as a psychologist and for the last 10 years has been seeking to promote more helpful approaches to states of confusion and distress. He currently works as a clinical psychologist in Bradford’s adult mental health services. He currently supports five self-help/recovery groups, including one hearing voices self help group and one unusual beliefs self help group called the ‘Believe it or not!’ group. He also co-chairs a monthly public meeting about alternative approaches to emotional distress and madness called Evolving Minds . He works within a broad range of frameworks including using Mindfulness, Taoist self help books, Voice dialogue, Marxism, recovery stories, herbal medicine, bodywork, self help group work and peace studies. He also works with others to campaign against coercive medical treatment and for more holistic approaches to mental health problems. Some of his writings are available at the Bradford Centre for Citizenship website.

Paddy McGowan Psychiatric Survivor Activist, Omagh, County Tyrone – Ireland

Workshops 2, 6, 11
Paddy McGowan from Omagh in County Tyrone recovered from Schizophrenia with the support of other survivors and professionals. He set up the first user group in Ireland in1994. He is a prominent proponent of the recovery model and actively engaged in creating alternatives to the medical or maintenance model. He facilitates training and consultancy for professionals, government and families as an independent service user consultant. Paddy also lectures on mental health matters in many universities and colleges to health care professionals and has been involved in developing peer advocacy training to an accredited level and is involved in developing staff awareness training in user empowerment and advocacy. He is also a member of the International Network of Treatments Alternatives for Recovery(INTAR) and has received the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Award .

Shery Mead Consultant and Peer Provider, New Hampshire, USA

Workshops 3, 4, 9, 10, Closing Panel
Shery Mead is the past director of three New Hampshire Peer Support Programs including a peer run hospital alternative. She has done extensive speaking and training, nationally and internationally, on the topics of alternative approaches to crisis, trauma informed peer services, systems change, and the development and implementation of peer operated services. Her publications include academic articles, training manuals and a new book co-authored with Mary Ellen Copeland , Wellness Recovery Action Planning and Peer Support . Shery is currently the project director for the Evidence Based Practice, Consumer Operated Programs Toolkit funded by SAMHSA .

BJ North Consultant, San Francisco Bay Area, USA

Workshops Plenary Session, 5
BJ North has worked in the fields of mental health and drug and alcohol for more than a decade. She continues to enhance her knowledge in these areas through education, self-help teachings and various projects including her current work as a consultant with various community agencies. She builds bridges across uncommon grounds such as, businesses to community, individuals to community resources and agencies to consumers. She teaches the importance and effectiveness of communicating with one another in the spirit of mutual respect.

Mary O’Hagan, Keynote Speaker Mental Health Commissioner – New Zealand

Workshops 2, 5, 7, 10, Closing Panel
Mary O’Hagan experienced severe mental health problems and used mental health services for several years as a young woman. She slowly realized that, like herself, many people were not helped or understood in the mental health system and some were deeply harmed by it. Society, in collusion with the mental health system, had also failed to uphold the rights and participation of some of its most marginalized citizens. In response to this, Mary initiated the user/survivor movement in New Zealand in the mid 1980s. From 1991 to 1995 she was the first chair of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. Mary has been a mental health commissioner in New Zealand since 2000. Over the last two decades she has occupied many roles in many types of agencies, always with an overriding commitment to promote service user expectations of services as well as their full participation in society.

Steve Onken Assistant Professor, University of Hawai’I at Manoa, USA

Workshops 3, 8, 10, Closing Panel
Steven J. Onken is an assistant professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa . He is the principal investigator for the U.S. National Mental Health Recovery Research Project for the Development of Recovery Facilitating System Performance Indicators , a multi-site, multi-phase examination of the concepts and dimensions of recovery and the various factors that inhibit and facilitate people’s recovery from long-term psychiatric disabilities. Dr. Onken’s work also focuses on sustainable development of consumer/survivor operated programs, of consumers/survivors as staff within traditional mental health services, and of consumers/survivors within the general workforce. Dr. Onken has direct practice experience in the areas of mental health and disability; civil and legal rights protection and advocacy; sexual orientation, gender expression and strategies addressing hate violence; as well as in community organizing and development and organizational design and management.

Zarsanga Popal Health Promoter, Community Resource Connections of Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 5
Zarsanga Popal is a Health Promoter with Community Resource Connections of Toronto . She has a Master’s in Social Work. Zarsanga is working with various community groups and organizations around issues of access and equity as they relate to mental health.

Judith Rosenberg Founder of The Spark of Brilliance Support Association

Workshops 12
Judith Rosenberg, Founder of The Spark of Brilliance Support Association, is a former nurse(1963) and a graduate of the Applied Counselling Program(2003) at Conestoga College. Rosenberg is a mental health advocate, and has acted as co-chair of the Front-Line Sub-Committee for the Southwest Ontario Task Force for Mental Health Reform in 2000 – 2001. She is a member of the Family Mental Health Network, an association of family allies who lobby for mental health awareness and the establishment of ACT/PACT Teams in Wellington-Dufferin. She is on the Advisory Board of Spark of Brilliance. In collaboration with Homewood Health Centre and ArteVida Cuba, Rosenberg established the first Healing And Recovery Through The Arts International Conference in Cuba in 2005, and is the founder of ART-Based Recovery Therapies International (ARTS International), an organization to promote healing art therapies in communities across the globe.

Adele Rosenbloom Survivor Provider, ‘Compass’, Toronto East General Hospital, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 6
Adele Rosenbloom is a mental health professional and a ’second generation’ psychiatric survivor. She has been very active in the psychiatric survivor movement: she was a founding member of the Ontario Psychiatric Survivors Alliance (OPSA), helped organize a national survivor conference in Montreal (Our Turn, 1988), and co-produced three educational videos on survivor and mental health issues. Since 1999 Adele has worked for an Assertive Community Treatment Team (Compass, Toronto East General Hospital). Adele applies the recovery model to all aspects of her work. She lives in Toronto with her partner, their two sons and her dog.

Peter Sackaney Traditional Counsellor, Anishnawbe Health Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 14
Peter Sackaney is a former residential school attendee and a survivor. Those negative experiences that impacted the earlier years led him to become a professional counsellor over the last 20 years. His work is focused on working with and for Aboriginal People. He has worked in various native communities addressing issues such as substance and solvent abuse, anger, family and domestic violence, and residential school trauma. Peter believes that a holistic approach is the most important component to healing by using traditional teachings and ceremonies to address self-care and wellbeing.

Susan Schellenberg Psychiatric Survivor, Artist and Writer, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 12
Artist, writer, Susan Schellenberg committed to healing from a 1969 psychosis and ten year course of anti-psychotic drugs in 1980. Since that time she has kept an art and written record of her dreams and inner journey as her mind healed. Susan’s Shedding Skins dream art and text is on permanent exhibit at the Centre For Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Peter Smith Artist in Residence, Workman Arts, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 12
Peter Smith struggled for many years before being diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Now more or less recovered he works as a visual artist. He teaches and is Artist in Residence at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto for the Jean Simpson Studio .

David Stark Peer Support Coordinator, Windhorse Associates, Northampton, Mass. – USA

Workshops 4
David Stark has been Peer Support Coordinator at Windhorse Associates in Northampton, Massachusetts since 1999 and a Peer Counselor since 2000. He has served on the board of directors since 1997, holding the offices of secretary, treasurer and vice-president. David is trained in Boston University Recovery Workshop, WRAP, Peer Advocacy, Clubhouse, Clinical Mentoring and has attended the Massachusetts Leadership Academy. He has published an account of his Windhorse treatment in the chapter “Sanity Recovered” in Housecalls: Psychosocial Interventions in the Home . David has led the Windhorse Peer Counselor Training Course three times since 2001 and facilitates various ongoing groups. He also serves on the Western Massachusetts area board of the Department of Mental Health. David holds a B.A. in psychology and linguistics from Princeton University.

Mel Starkman Psychiatric Survivor Activist, Toronto, Ontario – Canada

Workshops 6
Mel Starkman is a Torontonian native born, bred and educated in this city. He has an Honours B. A. from the University of Toronto, and after a short spell as a teacher he became an archivist at the Ontario Archives and his alma mater. A published poet and author he is multi-disciplinary in his interests and reading. Particularly interested in the plight of the marginalized in our midst he is active in self-help organizations that invite participation, personal responsibility and peer support. He is the Chairperson of Sound Times Support Services , Co-chairperson of the Edmond Yu Safe House Project and archivist of the Psychiatric Survivor Archives, Toronto . Mel carries on in his retirement oblivious of any difference from his working days, in fact ever busier. In his spare time he does some acting with the Friendly Spike Theatre Band .

Phillip Thomas Writer and Senior Lecturer, University of Bradford – England

Workshops Plenary Session, 1, 5, 7, 11
Philip Thomas is a writer and Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Citizenship and Community Mental Health, in the School of Health Studies, University of Bradford . He is also chair of Sharing Voices Bradford , a community development project working with Bradford’s Black and Minority Ethnic communities. After working as a full-time consultant psychiatrist in the National Health Service for over twenty years, he gave up clinical practice in 2004 to focus on writing and academic work. His academic interests include critical social and cultural psychiatry and philosophy. He has developed alliances with survivors of psychiatry and service users, locally, nationally and internationally, and is well known for the column he wrote with his colleague Pat Bracken in Open Mind magazine , called Postpsychiatry . He is a founder member and co-chair of the Critical Psychiatry Network in Britain. He has published well over 100 papers and articles, both in peer reviewed and in popular journals. His books are Dialectics of Schizophrenia(1997) ; Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity written with Ivan Leudar (2000); and, Postpsychiatry , co-authored with Pat Bracken (2005). His next project is a collection of short stories about madness.

Ann Thompson Survivor Provider, Family Outreach and Response Program, Toronto – Canada

Workshops 4, 8
Ann Thompson is a survivor provider, living in Toronto, who has recently completed an MSW in critical social work at York University. Her area of concentration is mental health recovery. Ann’s major research paper explored a framework for critical social work practice in mental health recovery, using a strengths perspective in a family setting. She has been working with Karyn Baker at the Family Outreach & Response Program to develop curriculum for mental health recovery education. In addition, Ann has received training as a Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) Facilitator and has developed curriculum to teach a course in Critical Perspectives in Mental Health in the graduate social work program at York University. She is presently employed by Family Outreach & Response Program as a Family Recovery Resource Worker.

Elise White Peer Counsellor, Windhorse Associates, Northampton, Mass. – USA

Workshops 4
Elise White completed the Boston University Recovery Workshop and was trained in Peer Counseling at Windhorse Associates in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was hired as a Peer Counselor in 2005 and recently received additional training as a Clinical Mentor. She has served on numerous teams at Windhorse as well as co-facilitating the groups the Art of Eating Well(2006) and Peer Counselor Training(2006). In addition she is currently the staff liason to the Administrative Steering Committee and has served on the Outcome Evaluation Project Committee at Windhorse. Elise graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a B.A. in psychology.

Download all the handouts from the conference in a zipped folder
Click here

Download all the handouts from the workshops on November 16th in a zipped folder
Click here

Download all the handouts from the workshops on November 17th in a zipped folder
Click here

Download all the additional recovery articles in a zipped folder
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All handouts below, unless identified as a website, will open in Adobe Reader. To save a copy of an individual handout on the hard drive of your computer click on the Save a copy button in Adobe Reader.

Plenary Session – Critical Perspectives on Recovery
Presenters
Laurie Ahern, Rufus May, BJ North, Phillip Thomas

Handouts

No handouts

Workshop 1: Critical Challenges for Helping Professions

Over the past several years the focus of mental health recovery literature and research has begun to shift from what recovery looks like to how to practice with a recovery approach. Providers from within their own professions are, increasingly challenging traditional ideas about the nature of knowledge and expertise, and such things as diagnosis, treatment and “best interests” of the client. A panel representing the fields of nursing, psychiatry, psychology, and social work will address these issues from a critical perspective.

Presenters
Helen Kirkpatrick, Atsuko Matsuoka, Rufus May, Phillip Thomas

Handouts

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Workshop 2: Human Rights, Advocacy, Activism and Recovery

The matter of human rights and activism are key components of the recovery model. In the recovery approach, individual and civil rights are upheld and respected. This poses a direct ethical challenge to society and the entire mental health system. Meantime, a more coercive approach (i.e. community treatment orders) has asserted itself in professional practice. How do we address this conflict of interests and directions, and more broadly, what is our responsibility to those enduring egregious human rights violations in psychiatric institutions in Eastern Europe, South Asia and around the world?

Presenters
Laurie Ahern, Erick Fabris, Paddy McGowan, Mary O’Hagan

Handouts

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Workshop 3: Peer Support and Recovery: Research, Evidence and Best Practice

Peer support and Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) programs yield positive outcomes in people’s recovery, and are now considered by many as ‘best practices’. In this workshop we shall examine their effectiveness in terms of the evidence, as well as the progress that has resulted as peer support and WRAP programs are more widely applied, moving from the margins into the mainstream. Also, the workshop shall explore the extent to which the recovery model is been researched and applied in university and college programs and by professional associations.

Presenters
Shery Mead, Steve Onken

Handouts

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Workshop 4: Emerging Recovery Curriculum and Training

As more and more programs and agencies choose to adopt recovery values and concepts, the need for additional training in mental health recovery competencies has emerged. This workshop will explore recovery competencies and present some models of educational curriculum that provide this training.

Presenters
Helen Kirkpatrick, Shery Mead, David Stark, Ann Thompson, Elise White

Handouts

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Workshop 5: Diversity, Culture, Community Development and Recovery

Recovery is a model of liberation for personal and social change so it necessarily attends to issues of race, class and poverty. This workshop will explore the recovery model in the context of diversity, community development, anti-racism, civil rights, economic justice and social change. The presenters will address the value of incorporating community development, anti-racism and cultural sensitivity into peer support and mental health services. The presenters will also address the barriers to change, strategies for representation, and the challenge to government, service providers, recovery advocates, family members, and the survivor movement to be inclusive and pro-active in the areas of race and culture.

Presenters
BJ North, Mary O’Hagan, Zarsanga Popal, Phillip Thomas

Handouts

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Workshop 6: Hearing Voices: A different message

People are pathologized for a widespread phenomenon, the hearing of voices. Fear of the unknown informs this reaction; people get labelled and are treated differently. We need a different response, starting by listening to and learning from those who do hear voices. Many do have a different message, one that rejects or at least qualifies pathology, and considers issues like trauma and alienation in its stead. The workshop presenters will also address the practical dimensions of managing and adapting to the experience of hearing voices.

Presenters
Rufus May, Paddy McGowan, Adele Rosenbloom, Mel Starkman

Handouts

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Friday, November 17 to view biographical information on a presenter, click on the presenter’s name

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Workshop 7: Recovery: Challenging the Power of Psychiatry

The consumer/survivor movement and recovery advocates have started a dynamic process that is taking people and the mental health system beyond maintenance and coping. Survivors now have a voice within the system, and with recovery, a platform for change. Providers of service and human service academics see the inherent value of the recovery model and are taking steps to work in accord with the model, in partnership with consumers/survivors. Psychiatry, however, seems unmoved by the paradigm shift that is underway. Will psychiatry move beyond defensiveness, examine its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, acknowledge its intellectual isolation and take steps to learn from, and share power with the people in its care? Recovery is about having choices and making healthy decisions; this is true for all parties involved in the mental health system, including psychiatry.

Presenters
Lana Frado, Mary O’Hagan, Phillip Thomas

Handouts

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Workshop 8: Changing Service Culture for Recovery

This workshop will be helpful for organizations and providers who are aiming to implement recovery concepts within their service setting. You will be encouraged to explore what you do well, where you could improve and ways to develop a plan to implement recovery values and principles throughout your organization. Evidence-based recovery programs will be introduced as well.

Presenters
Anne Marie DiGiacomo, Lucy Gudgeon, Steve Onken, Ann Thompson

Handouts

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Workshop 9: Trauma, Peer Support and Recovery

“In trauma-informed peer support we come together around many shared experiences that may also include some negative mental health treatment issues”.

(Shery Mead)

This workshop will explore how peer support can provide opportunities to help us think about these experiences in new ways, as individuals, and collectively as advocates. As we unite in sharing our experiences, a collective healing begins to take place, opening the doors to real change in our lives.

Presenter
Shery Mead

Handouts

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Workshop 10: Recovery: System-Wide Implementation

Recovery is being implemented as the lead policy in certain state/national mental health systems. New Zealand, Ohio, Connecticut and others are leading the way. The presenters will offer their perspectives on the sweeping changes underway, addressing state-wide recovery implementation as it relates to innovation, as it affects what services are offered, enhanced and created, whether empowerment principles are being applied, and overall, whether it is leading to positive recovery outcomes.

Presenters
Robert MacKay, Shery Mead, Mary O’Hagan, Steve Onken

Handouts

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Workshop 11: Medication: Informed Choices and Challenges

The recovery path is about choices, and that includes the difficult choices and issues attached to medication. Some of the questions to consider: do the medications help or hinder wellness/recovery? Are people making informed choices? Can people access the medication/treatment of choice? Is there help to withdraw from psychotropic medications? The presenters will address these and other issues to stimulate discussion about how these substances help and/or hinder the recovery process. The discussion will also address the problem of the pharmaceutical industry in respect of its huge profits, its exponential growth and the endemic medicalization of societal problems.

Presenters
Rufus May, Paddy McGowan, Phillip Thomas

Handouts

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Workshop 12: Creative Expression and Recovery

Creativity is frequently the hallmark of madness, and recovery. Many people with mental health challenges describe how artistic and creative expression is their way of expressing and sharing their inner life and vision. Creativity offers an interpretative path, and potentially the road to recovery. The presentations and discussions will provide for a better appreciation of the role and relationship between creativity and recovery.

Presenters
Anita Aenishaenslin, Judith Rosenberg, Susan Schellenberg, Peter Smith

Handouts

No handouts

Workshop 13: Families: A Critical Role in Recovery

Families and friends help to create an environment in which recovery happens. They can play key roles in terms of ‘holding the hope’ and promoting choice and self-determination. However, families are usually encouraged by psychiatry to adhere to the traditional treatment approach at home. This often creates power struggles and misunderstanding in the family. Education approaches that go beyond the medical model are crucial so that families learn about recovery from a critical perspective and understand the impact of their role in recovery. Presenters will share these innovative approaches.

Presenters
Lionel Berger, Marian Dalal, Paul Denison, Mary Lou Eaton

Handouts

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Workshop 14: Working Through Extreme States of Distress

Mental health workers and peer support workers frequently respond to people who are in extreme states of distress (commonly described as ‘psychosis’). This workshop will address some of the ways that workers can help people who are hearing voices that are dominating their lives, or who are in states of dissociation? It will also address how we help people spiritually when they are in great turbulence; or, how we assist people to make peace with their ‘demons; and, how to really listen to people when they are sharing their unusual beliefs with us.

Presenters
Anne Marie DiGiacomo, Rufus May, Peter Sackaney

Handouts

Workshop 14 Resisting the diagnostic gaze 2 Rufus May

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Workshop 15: Recovery is a Human Right

Mental health recovery is a concept that is unheard of in many parts of the world. This is problematic because it is a person’s human right to have the opportunity to recover. The presenter, Laurie Ahern , will speak to this topic from her perspective as the associate director of Mental Disabilities Rights International, and among other topics and issues she will address her work bringing the PACE (Personal Assistance in Community Existence) model and the message of survivor empowerment and self-determination to international mental health communities.

Presenter
Laurie Ahern

Handouts

No handouts

Closing Panel and Plenary Session: Strategies for Recovery System Transformation

Presenters
Shery Mead, Mary O’Hagan, Steve Onken

Handouts

No handouts

Conference Recovery Resources and Articles

All handouts below will open in Adobe Reader. To save a copy of an individual handout on the hard drive
of your computer click on the Save a copy button in Adobe Reader.

Download all the handouts from the conference in a zipped folder
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2008 International Recovery Perspectives Conference – Action On Alternatives

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:47:11 +0000

The 2008 International Recovery Perspectives Conference – Action On Alternatives - Critical and Creative Exploration of Leading Edge Approaches in Mental Health Recovery was held in Toronto Canada June 5-7 . The powerful event brought together more than 300 survivors, professionals, family members and others involved in helping people through extreme states of emotional distress.

Download conference program

See below for conference presenters biographies and handout materials.

Key Contributors and Sponsors

The International Recovery Perspectives conference was sponsored by the following agencies and organizations. We thank them for their support.

Alternatives – East York Mental Health Counselling Services Agency is a community-based program for individuals with serious mental health problems living in East York / East Toronto.

Community Resource Connections of Toronto (CRCT) provides direct service to adults who struggle with day-to-day living as a result of severe and persistent mental health issues as well as health promotion/community development support to consumer/survivors, families and groups in Toronto.

Family Outreach and Response (F.O.R.) is a program that provides support services to families and friends of people who are recovering from a serious mental health problem.

International Network Towards Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR)

We like to thank all organizers, planners and volunteers for their hard work and assistance!

“Why Alternatives?” – Conference Editorial

There is a low-level struggle against traditional psychiatry’s strict adherence to the bio-medical model. It is argued that the bio-medical mental health system is too mechanistic, too embedded with Big Pharma, and has too much authority over people’s lives; that this is inadvertently counter-recovery. We look to, and call for alternatives to the bio-medical approach, but what is meant by the term, alternatives?

Alternatives are generally conceived as actual, altruistic programs or services that operate in a spirited and cooperative fashion on the margins of the mainstream system. However, alternatives are not just under-funded, voluntaristic, user-friendly drop-ins, support groups and crisis centres. In the context of the International Recovery Perspectives conference we take a broader view of alternatives, one that includes a shift in thinking away from burdensome thoughts of diagnosis, chronicity and coping, to a more stimulating mental environment that fosters hope, connection and creativity.
Among various possibilities:

We want an alternative, and more hopeful, way of understanding and responding to psychosis and other mental challenges.

We want an alternative to the traditional, paternalistic service model wherein the professional knows best and the client lacks insight.

We want an alternative to ‘more of the same’ as it relates to government funding and policy decisions.

We want more critical thinking and less complacency with respect to the problems attached to the medical model.

We want access to psychological supports, and a re-integration of psychological training within psychiatry.

We want our young people in crisis to feel supported, to have choices, and services like trauma-informed peer programs and drop-ins.

And for alternative supports, we want the best that can be conceived – recovery-oriented services that are peer-driven, diverse, responsive, respectful of human rights and personal dignity, non-medical, non-coercive, with opportunities for growth and education, and the guarantee of safety, shelter and a fair income. We deserve them as an alternative to the fading status quo.

A caveat, however; alternative mental health supports are urged and hailed as empowering, user-friendly and effective, but this is not to say that we should succumb to magical thinking, that wands can be waved and peer support will wondrously uplift and transform. Not so simple we all know. Rather we acknowledge that this is challenging work for everyone involved, whether directly as a survivor, or as a family member, or as someone working in the field.

We understand that people struggle long and hard for personal recovery, that sometimes one can only bear witness to human suffering, that creating and sustaining alternative supports is an uphill battle, that much of the good work is underappreciated and unsupported by mainstream mental health. Yet, we also know alternatives do work, that people’s recovery is the message and the evidence, combined. We do know that this low-level social change movement for human rights and alternative supports is making progress.

Whether as survivor change agents or progressive clinicians, or both, people are doing extraordinary work in the fields of wellness, rights and recovery. This includes most or all of us assembled here for this conference, so as much as possible think of everyone around you as a fellow traveler, a co-equal, and as a believer in our shared resilience and our capacity for recovery, growth and transformation.

Talk to the people around you in these terms, and guaranteed, you will have contributed to a positive and memorable conference learning experience.

Participant Biographies and Presentation Materials/Handouts

Download all materials/handouts in a .zip archive (38meg)

Keynote speaker: Dr. Ronald Bassman PhD
At 25, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the second time in three years. Diagnosis: chronic schizophrenia; treatments: electro-shock, insulin comas and massive doses of Thorazine. After I recovered from my “treatments” and addressed the identity issues that triggered my excursion into madness, I earned my doctorate and became a licensed psychologist. My current work includes psychotherapy, consultation and University teaching. Advocacy and activism fills the remainder of my non-family time. In June 2007 I published the book, A Fight to Be: A Psychologist’s Experience from Both Sides of the Locked Door.

Anne Marie DiGiacomo MSW
Anne Marie has been working in human services and community mental health since 1977, receiving her Masters of Social Work in 1986. Since 1996, she has worked at Windhorse Associates and Windhorse Community Services in the position of Clinical Director, Co-Executive Director, admissions Manager and Senior Clinician. Anne Marie is a practicing Buddhist and brings a contemplative perspective to her work as a psychotherapist and Sandplay Therapist.

Ann Thompson MSW
Ann is a Recovery Educator and “survivor/ provider” trained in critical social work at York University, who is exploring the implementation of recovery principles in programs/organizations supporting consumer/survivors and family members. Ann is a certified Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) Facilitator and developed a course in “Critical Perspectives in Mental Health” in the Masters Social Work program at York University.

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Bhargavi Davar
Bhargavi is a survivor of psychiatry from India, works as a researcher and writer, with books published from Sage Publications on women’s mental health. She is a Director of the Bapu Trust, India, which is devoted to national level advocacy on human rights in mental health. She has facilitated the development of alternative mental health thinking in services as well as policy. She is very serious about her own self recovery practices.

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Celia Brown
Celia is a psychiatric survivor who was instrumental in developing the first peer specialist civil service title in the country. A long-time activist and leader in the psychiatric survivor movement, sheserves on the board of the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA), and was a founding member of the National People of Color Consumer/Survivor Network. Celia is Board President of MindFreedom International and serves as the organization’s primary representative to the United Nations on the International Convention for the Human Rights of People with Disabilities. With other ex-patients and allies, she was a founder of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR), which held its first meeting of alternative practitioners and psychiatric survivors in 2004. Celia has presented nationally and internationally on topics such as self-help, peer counselling, crisis intervention, advocacy and human rights, trauma and cultural competency.

Céline Cyr
Céline from the province Quebec is a Master’s student at the School of Social Work at the Université de Montréal. She works as a Trainer, teacher, provider, and is an activist and service user. Her areas of expertise are: GAM (Gaining Autonomy with Medication), alternatives and recovery, crisis intervention and the effects of trauma, secondary victimization, psychiatric medications, electroshock, and salsa dancing (in progress!).

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Darby Penney
Currently a Senior Research Associate with Advocates for Human Potential, Inc., Darby was Director of Recipient Affairs at the New York State Office of Mental Health for nine years, where she brought the perspectives of people with psychiatric disabilities into the policy-making process. She was instrumental in creating the first peer specialist civil service positions in the US and in bringing people with psychiatric histories into the mental health workforce in a variety of roles. With Peter Stastny, she is co-author of ‘The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic’ (Bellevue Literary Press, 2008).

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Dr David Cameron PhD
David is currently employed as Head of Research of Threshold a psycho-dynamically oriented Belfast-based voluntary Mental Health organization. He also works as an associate lecturer with Dublin City University School of Nursing, is published in the field of specialized psychotherapy research and clinical commentary, and a member of the International Society of the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias (ISPS) and an associate group member of the Association of Therapeutic Communities. As a mental-health professional his perspective is necessarily informed by theoretical presuppositions and the best available scientific evidence, but is also firmly grounded in the lived learned experience (professional-personal) of spending some ten years working in residential therapeutic communities with people whose voice hearing experiences and associated internal and external distress were synonymous with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. This lived learned experience of bearing witness to and tolerating each of the others full “biological” cycles of ordered and disordered behaviour, madness-sanity as well as the full gamut of related human emotions has had a powerful and lasting impact on his perspective and formulation of mental-health/illness.

Elise White
Elise White completed the Boston University Recovery Workshop and was trained in Peer Counseling at Windhorse Associates in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was hired as a Peer Counselor in 2005 and recently received additional training as a Clinical Mentor. She has served on numerous teams at Windhorse as well as co-facilitating the groups the Art of Eating Well (2006) and Peer Counselor Training (2006). In addition she is currently the staff liason to the Administrative Steering Committee and has served on the Outcome Evaluation Project Committee at Windhorse. Elise graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a B.A. in psychology

Eric Friedland-Kays MA
For the past 8 years, Eric Friedland-Kays has been a Senior Clinician with Windhorse Associates in Northampton, Massachusetts, working with clients, families, staff, and the states and depths of his own mind. He has practiced Vipassana meditation for nearly 15 years. He has a parent he loves very much who has struggled with extreme states of mind.

James B. (Jim) Gottstein Esq.
Jim is a psychiatric survivor and Harvard lawyer who has been practicing law in Alaska for 25 years, including representing or advocating for people diagnosed with serious mental illness, and establishing alternatives to the current coercive, “Medical Model” approach of psychiatry. Since founding the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) in 2002 to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging across the United States, he has won two cases, which have been described as landmarks. His and others’ efforts to create non-coercive, non-drug alternatives have yielded Soteria-Alaska, and CHOICES, Inc., two peer operated programs in Alaska. Mr. Gottstein is most known round the world for subpoenaing and releasing the Zyprexa Papers to the New York Times documenting Eli Lilly’s suppression of information regarding Zyprexa causing diabetes and other metabolic problems.

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Dr Jan Wallcraft PhD
Jan has been an activist in the mental health system survivor movement in the UK since the mid 1980s, and has become a mental health researcher and program manager, mainly in service user led projects within mental health voluntary sector and government agencies. Her particular research areas are holistic therapies, crisis alternatives, the survivor movement and survivor/service user involvement in research. She believes survivors need to create our own scientific research methods based on empowerment and self-definition.

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Jasna Russo
Jasna comes from former Yugoslavia, where she experienced psychiatry. She graduated in clinical psychology, lives in Berlin and works in the survivor-led organization ‘In Any Case’. She serves as a board member of European Network of (ex) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry and has published papers in Germany and UK. Her research reports include ‘Taking a Stand: Homelessness and Psychiatry from Survivors’ Perspective’ (together with T. Fink, Berlin 2003); ‘From One’s Own Perspective: Users’ Experiences of Person Centred Care’ (together with F. Scheibe and A. K. Lorenz, Berlin 2007). She currently works on research about informed consent for a clinical study as experienced by participants (for Service User Research Enterprise at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London).

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Jim Walsh
Jim used mental health services for approximately 14 years. During that time he became actively involved in various mental health initiatives set up with the specific aim to improve the status of people experiencing psychological and emotional distress within mental health care systems. He is involved in a number of local, national and international user and carer initiatives – Mental Health Ireland, the Irish Advocacy Network, the Institute for Mental Health Recovery the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery and the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership. He now works as a lecturer in mental health at the School of Nursing, Dublin City University.

Dr Johan Cullberg MD PhD
As a retired professor of Psychiatry, he is now active at the Ersta Sköndal University College in Stockholm. He was born 1934, has four children and received his psychoanalytic training in the 1960ies. He wrote in 1972 his doctoral thesis in psycho-endocrinology, and served as leader of several social-psychiatric research projects. In the 20 years he has worked with first episode psychosis projects, including “The Parachute Project”. He is the President of the 10th ISPS symposium in Stockholm in 1991 and chairman for the ISPS international 1990-1997. He has written several text-books, among which “Psychosis – an integrative view” was translated in English (Routledge 2006).

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Kate Storey RN
Kate is Chief of the Acute and Community Care Division at the Mental Health Centre
Penetanguishene. Her experience in mental health and addiction service includes direct service, education and administration in both hospital and community settings. She is a family member and was diagnosed with clinical depression in 1980 and describes herself as “in recovery”. Kate is a registered nurse; her undergraduate degree is in Psychology and her Masters degree is in Adult Education and Counseling Psychology. Currently she is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario with research interests in recovery education and empowerment. Kate is the co-lead for the “Culture of Recovery” project implemented by the Central East region, which is designed to build a strong framework of service philosophy and delivery that is recovery oriented and in which peer support and consumer/survivor empowerment will thrive.

Krista MacKinnon
Krista MacKinnon works for the Family Outreach and Response program. She is supporting families in understanding the many ways they can be helpful to someone they love when psychosis has affected the family. Her own experience of hospitalization and being labelled “Bipolar” as a young teen shaped her belief in recovery and her perspectives on mental health service delivery. She found and explored alternative forms of support for maintaining her wellness. Post-grad, she has studied Solution Focused Counselling, Psychosocial Rehabillitation, and Mindfulness Based Groups. She keeps herself busy by studying Ashtanga yoga, doing homeless relief work with the Street Outreach Van, designing websites, creating graphic art, photography, dreaming of extravagant knitting projects, and naturally, playing with her two boys.

Dr Kwame Julius McKenzie BM MRCPsych
Kwame is a psychiatrist, researcher, policy advisor and broadcaster. He has worked in the field for 19 years. He has set up award winning mental health services, has 100 academic publications and has published four books. His work spans basic science and applied policy research. He worked in Europe, the Caribbean, the UK and the United States of America. Until he came to Canada, Dr McKenzie sat on and an advisory group to the Secretary of State for Health Services of the British Government and was part of the team that drafted the current UK policy for improving mental health services for black and minority ethnic groups. He moved to Canada to take up a post at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health Toronto which spans research, policy and clinical work. He is a Professor at the University of Toronto. As a trained journalist, Dr McKenzie is an International Editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry and the International Editor of the Journal of Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, a contributor to the Guardian newspaper and before that wrote a column for the on line version of the Times. As a broadcaster he presented All in The Mind – a half hour program on BBC Radio 4.

Liam MacGabhann
In 1988 I qualified as a mental health nurse and headed off from Ireland with my new found insights to change the world. Spending most of my early career in England with some brief sojourns in Australia and the Middle East, I have pretty consistently worked with people whom some would classify as having a serious psychotic illness, and more specifically concentrating on acute mental health care. Roles have varied with the common grounding of practice at the centre of each one. As a nurse, researcher/ practitioner and in practice/service development. In 2001 I returned to Ireland with my family and now find myself somewhere between an ivory tower and lived experiences, as a lecturer in practice. I practice on an acute psychiatric admission ward and co-ordinate the Graduate Diploma/MSc in Health Care Practice/ Nursing Practice plus some interesting professional development courses at Dublin City University. My clinical research focus generally centre’s on the relationships and understandings of mental health professionals and service users in relation to mental health, illness and health care. I recognized earlier on that one way to push the boundaries of health care practice was to seek academic pursuits in other areas. Beginning with a grounding in Health Studies for my first degree and then going on to complete a Masters in Sociology of Health and Health Care. For my sins, returning to nursing and have just completed my taught Doctorate in Nursing Science. Thankfully I have found new insights, lost some along the way and am still trying to change the world.

Chaya Grossberg
Chaya Grossberg is a Hampshire College graduate, psych survivor, and has worked as a Freedom Center Organizer in Northampton MA for the past 6 years. She is a writer, writing group leader, yoga and meditation teacher and has self published and sold 5 books. One of her books is an account of her experiences in the psych system, the others are poetry and fiction. Chaya teaches yoga, meditation and writing as healing alternatives to the mainstream system and has experienced their power in her own life as well as others lives. The Freedom Center and peer support she has experienced there have been a cornerstone in her moving out of the trauma caused by the system.

Dr Norma Friedman PhD
Norma Friedman has a degree in education and works as Professor of Business and Social Sciences at Indiana Tech. She is a Family member – “my brother was a consumer, but unfortunately not a survivor.” As former President of the Board of Windhorse Associates, Northampton, Massachusetts she represents the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery.

Oryx Cohen MPA
Oryx is a leader in the international consumer/survivor/ex-patient (c/s/x) movement. Currently he is the Co-Director of the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community. He has helped to spearhead an innovative peer-run approach focusing on recovery, healing, and community. Oryx is also the co-founder of Freedom Center, the Pioneer Valley’s only independent peer-run support/activist organization. He serves on several boards and committees internationally, nationally and regionally, including the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) and the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). Oryx volunteered for several years with MindFreedom International, directing its Oral History Project, which involved collecting and documenting c/s/x stories of abuse, empowerment, recovery, and resistance in the mental health system.

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Paddy McGowan
Paddy is currently working as lecturer for Dublin City University, School of Nursing but hails originally from Omagh in County Tyrone. He recovered from schizophrenia with the support of other survivors and professionals and can speak authoritatively and humanely from the inside out, relying not on the presuppositions of dubious and largely unproven scientific theories, but from reflecting sensitively, honestly and often painfully on the experience of “hearing voices” synonymous with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. He was involved in organizing the first “Voices” conference in Derry in November 1999. As a member of the Institute for Recovery in Mental Health and a prominent member of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR) he is committed to creating alternatives to the medical/maintenance model. Paddy set up the first user group in Ireland in1994 and was the founder and first Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Advocacy Network, which is heavily involved in developing peer advocacy training alongside staff awareness training in user empowerment and advocacy to an accredited degree level. He continues to lecture on mental-health advocacy and recovery-oriented approaches to severe psychiatric disability in Universities and Colleges locally, nationally and internationally, alongside facilitating training for mental-health and
allied professionals, families and carers.

Peter Lehmann
Peter is a publisher, survivor of psychiatry, and is living in Berlin. He serves as board-member of the European Network of (ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. His English publications include, ‘Coming off Psychiatric Drugs: Successful Withdrawal from Neuroleptics, Antidepressants, Lithium, Carbamazepine and Tranquilizers’, edited in 2004; ‘Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry’ edited in 2007 together with Peter Stastny. More at www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com.

TorontoRecovery08-PLehmann.pdf
TorontoRecovery08-PLehmannRevised.pdf

Dr Peter Stastny MD
Peter conducted research on the effects of long-term institutionalization, family influence, peer support, self-help, empowerment, and advance directives. He works as a consultant and is a founding member of several user-run organizations, providing advocacy and expert testimony in many cases dealing with psychiatric malpractice and forced treatment. He is a co-founder of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery and served on the Board of Windhorse Associates and the National Associations of Rights, Protection and Advocacy and is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

TorontoRecovery08-PStastnyINTARBook1.pdf
TorontoRecovery08-PStastnyINTARBook2.pdf

Dr Philip Thomas MD
Philip is Professor of Philosophy Diversity and Mental Health in the Centre for Ethnicity and Health in the University of Central Lancashire, and Chair of Sharing Voices Bradford a community development project working with Bradford’s diverse communities in the field of mental health. He worked in the National Health Service as a consultant psychiatrist for over 20 years, but in 2004 changed careers, stopping clinical work to focus on academic work and community development with SVB. He is committed to community development and critical approaches to diversity in responding to the mental health needs of all communities. His academic interests include post- structuralism and critical approaches to narrative.

TorontoRecovery08-PThomasAbstract.doc
TorontoRecovery08-PThomasDeconstructingPsychosisHandouts.ppt
TorontoRecovery08-PThomasSoteriaHandouts.ppt

Ron Unger LCSW
Ron is an activist promoting human rights in the mental health field, and also a therapist specializing in cognitive therapy for psychosis. He has given numerous workshops about cognitive therapy and other psychosocial approaches to psychosis, and on trauma and its relationship to psychosis. He has also both experienced and lectured on the connections between spirituality, creativity, and “madness,” and enjoys exploring the positive potential present in troublesome states of mind. His workshops emphasize simple, practical, and humanistic ways of understanding and relating to human difficulties that are all too often perceived as being “beyond understanding.”

Stephen Pocklington
Stephen is the executive director of the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery, which promotes personal wellness and community empowerment. As a person with lived experience with both mental health and substance challenges, Stephen has also been a leader in advocacy in North Carolina, bringing WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) to his state and helping to establish peer support and self-advocacy groups in his community and around the state. Stephen was a co-developer of North Carolina’s first peer support crisis alternative program and is still a peer advisor there. Stephen was formerly the deputy director of a public multi-county, multi-service human services agency that provided mental health, substance abuse and developmental disability services. As deputy director, Stephen led his agency’s transformation into being a leader in recovery education and a provider of recovery-oriented services in North Carolina. Stephen has provided keynote addresses and conducted workshops and institutes on WRAP™, Recovery and Peer Support across the US (20 states), as well as Canada, England, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and Scotland. Stephen is married to the woman of his dreams; he has three wonderful daughters, two gifted stepsons, and two amazing grandsons who are his favourite wellness tools.

Tanya Shute
Tanya is the Executive Director of the Krasman Centre and identifies as having personal experience with mental health challenges and addictions. She has a degree from York in Public Policy and Administration, and is currently working part-time on her MSW in social policy at Laurentian University.

Dr Thomas Bock PhD
Thomas was born 1954 and is married with three children. He is a Professor of clinical psychology and social psychiatry at the University Clinic of Hamburg. He is the leader of a big out-door-service, and is the cofounder of the “psychosis-seminar” and “trialogue movement” and is engaged in an anti-stigma-campaign. His scientific work includes many publications about trialogue, the subjective aspects of schizophrenia, psychotherapy of bipolar disorder, and untreated patients. He is an
author of child specialist books.

TorontoRecovery08-TBockPsychoseSeminarBockpriebeKopie.pdf
TorontoRecovery08-TBockTrialogue.ppt

Voyce Hendrix LCSW
Voyce is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Psychiatric Technician. He has worked as the Assistant Director with the Institute for Psychosocial Interaction. He was the Clinical Director with the Soteria Project (as part of the Mental Research Institute). He is the Director and Founder of the Soteria Alternative Family Education (SAFE) Project with the Mental Research Institute. He is also a producer and writer with WORT Radio, Madison, WI and a professional musician.

Conference Planning Group

Karyn Baker Family Outreach and Response Program and INTAR
Ronald Bassman International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery
Emily Collette Family Outreach and Response Program
Norma Friedman International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery
Heinz Klein Consumer/Survivor Activist and ILSD
Krista MacKinnon Family Outreach and Response Program and INTAR
Brian McKinnon Alternatives – East York Mental Health Counselling Services Agency
Leslie Morris Community Resource Connections of Toronto
Peter Stastny International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery