The National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery is excited to announce the 36th annual Alternatives Conference, will be held virtually: November 2, 3, and 4, 2022.
We look forward to connecting nationally and internationally with old friends and colleagues, and to making new connections. We invite all of you to join us from wherever you are. We’re excited about having a virtual conference this year so that everyone from anywhere can attend! Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, the conference is free of charge to attend.
All times are listed in EDT. Follow this link for time zone convertor.
Additional Events and Activities at Alternatives 2022
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Networking Opportunities on wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. EDT Choose the group you would like to attend
1. Transforming Grief: Fundamentals of Grief Recovery:
In this interactive learning activity, participants will receive a brief summary of the basic information and best practices for responding to an experience of grief and loss. This innovative session will give participants some useful tools to help us deal with grief and to help others do the same. Shanti Vani is an End-of-Life Doula (Death Doula) and Grief Recovery Specialist who has lived in Gainesville, Florida, since 1979. In 1978 at the age of 27, she was forced into a Massachusetts state mental hospital as a result of certain misunderstood behaviors. She came to learn that the cause of her distress was an accumulation of unresolved grief and trauma. Presently, Shanti enjoys helping others through her business, Transforming Grief, LLC.
Click here for the recording.
2. Meet and greet at Kim’s coffee house
Join NCMHR Board member Kimberly Ewing for an opportunity to meet and hang out with others in an informal gathering with Kim. Network with others on topics of your choice.
3. Zumba
Greg Parnell will represent Zumba® as one of Crestwood Behavioral Health's Corporate Foundational Wellness Tools. Spend some time to shake it out, laugh, sing, and be inspired with inspirational music from across the globe. You can stand; you can even do it seated; but the important thing is to have some fun and be inspired. See how Zumba® can make an Impact in your Wellness Toolbox.
4. So You Want to Start a Peer Respite or soteria house?
Welcome to anyone who has run a Peer Respite or Soteria house, who is in the midst of launching one, or who is just starting to dream about it. Join Kathy Laws of the Ferns Peer Respite Council, SE Pennsylvania, and learn about an opportunity to join an ongoing group of those interested in Peer Respites or Soteria houses.
5. Explore & Share your wisdom
Let us create a safe space together to listen deeply and explore the relationship between creative expression and Individual, Collective, and Ancestral trauma healing. Share your wisdom… Lauren Spiro co-founded two non-profit mental health corporations and Emotional CPR, is a multi-media artist, and served as the first Director for the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery. Her new global project is Honoring Circle: Deep Listening, Self-Awareness and Growing at www.globalcommunityhub.com
6. Network with Leaders of Small Agencies, Including Independent Living Centers (ILCs) and Centers for Independent Living (CILs)
Please join Alex and other leaders of small agencies including ILCs and CILs, to discuss the challenges of leading programs that advocate for people with disabilities to have full access to all aspects of life in their communities. Alexandra Mikowski is a social worker who recently became the Executive Director of Access to Independence of Cortland County, Inc. in New York State. She has been working in the human services field for 20 years, and has been a strong supporter of Cortland County and all of its programs for more than a decade. She is passionate about systems change and helping individuals navigate resources to build on their independence.
Thursday, November 3, 2022
NCMHR ANNUAL MEETING
1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. EDT Annual NCMHR Meeting; all are welcome!
● Report on NCMHR advocacy, including national groups that NCMHR participates in; Share your victories and your plans for future advocacy!
Networking Opportunities on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. EDT Choose the group you would like to attend
1. Alternative Maps of Lived Experience:
Join a networking discussion with South African Josh Roberts, who loves exploring the world and the multi-dimensionality of the human mind. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he combines his lived experience with his education (BA in Psychology and MA in Theology) in his work with NAMI to map out the terrain of the new frontier: neurodiverse modes of consciousness. Join him as he facilitates a roundtable discussion where we chart new maps of possibility together.
2. Keys Not Handcuffs, California Care Court Discussion
With the reality of the housing crisis in California, Care Court aims itself at people who are precariously housed and are on a mental health journey, forcing them into treatment, which is wrong. We should be working with local agencies and grassroots organizations to solve the problem in each community. Join the discussion and let your voice be heard. Your ideas are very welcome. This session will be recorded and a link given to each participant to view at a later time.
Imari S. Nuyen-Kariotis, an activist of color, is a multiply disabled woman (with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities). She has grassroots organizing experience on the local, state, and national levels, and works to help ensure that those in marginalized communities–especially those who are multiply marginalized–are heard. Imari has dedicated her life to advocating to end institutional bias, and to making systems change that allows all people with disabilities to have the right to live in the community with the services and supports needed to live independently–just as her daughter Caurel has been able to for the past 29+ years. Caurel is autistic, epileptic, apraxic (she does not speak), and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
3. Networking for Aging-Services Professionals and Older Adults
We are older adults and/or people who serve older adults through Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) or other aging-service providers. Let's network and chat! Kathryn Carroll, the networking session leader, is the Disability and Program Coordinator at the Association on Aging in New York. The Association is a membership nonprofit providing education and advocacy for AAAs and those interested in aging services.
4. Join Art for Social Justice
for an opportunity to network and to advocate using social media messaging. This session will be led by Jen Padron, CPS, MSW, a co-founder of Surviving Race and a principal at JMP m and Digital Health Integration Innovation. Padron will share how utilizing decisive, fast-response creative apps boosts education and immediate public messaging (e.g., Canva and/or Adobe Express). In 60 minutes or less, take away your Creative Social Justice messaging on a current initiative. No experience necessary.
Click here for the recording and here for the PowerPoint slides.
5. Networking for Warm Line Counselors, Supervisors, and Administrators
Please join us for a discussion of how Warm Lines provide preventative care and resources for people seeking mental health support. This will be an opportunity to discuss Warm Line services, and also the challenges for counselors and staff in serving individuals in need. Peter Murphy is the Outreach Manager at the Mental Health Association of San Francisco (MHASF), and formerly a Warm Line Coordinator on the California Peer-Run Warm Line. Raina Daniels is Associate Director of Partnerships and Outreach at MHASF and former Program Manager of the CalHope Peer-Run Warm Line (www.calhope.org). They will be joined by a representative from the leadership team of the statewide California Peer-Run Warm Line.
6. Bringing Madness into Paradigm Shift
Lynne Stewart will speak about her struggle to survive the depths of despair and misery of childhood and five decades of behavioral health diagnosis and treatment and how she has come to be able to cherish and value life with the gratitude of the fortunate. Andrew Phelps is speaking to engaging the direct expression of truth and knowledge by maintaining a caring attitude that embraces madness better. They are each, also, involved with the Social Accountability Work Group that started 2001, and involves client/survivors in paradigm shift in a behavioral context.