Alternatives 2022 Conference Presentations
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Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Youth Leader Panel: “The Future We Want to See”
Recording of the speakers available now.
● Felicity Krueger, Kentucky Youth MOVE
● Mark Saint Amour, CEO, Youth MOVE National
● Martin Rafferty, founder and CEO, Youth Era
Felicity Therese Krueger (she/her) is a 19-year-old youth leader. She is a Board member of Kentucky Youth MOVE and Youth MOVE National, the youngest Emotional CPR (eCPR) trainer with the National Empowerment Center, and a Kentucky youth ambassador. She has worked in the advocacy realm since she was 11 years old, starting with accompanying her mom to the Kentucky state capital. She is currently working on several projects to better help youth struggling with mental health and/or who are in the foster care/adoption system. Her life’s motto is “Be the me the younger me needed.” Her passion is working to educate young people in leadership and empowerment. Her Instagram handle is @felicityisnotok and you can find her on Linktree at https://linktr.ee/Felicityisnotok.
Mark Saint Amour (they/them) is a neurodivergent, queer and trans, gender non-conforming person of Mexican Indigenous descent, and a childhood victim/survivor of trauma who deeply believes in listening to youth voices and the power of holistic affirmation and self-agency.
Mark spent over 10 years in the national for-profit industry as an upper-level manager/director and business developer, opening start-ups and working with established organizations to expand into new territories all over the U.S. Following this, Mark spent another 10 years active in the non-profit field, working with organizations throughout Chicago, New York, Vermont, California, and Michigan, centering Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) practices and using trauma-informed and intersectionality-based frameworks.
Mark is more than just their career and identities. Mark is vegan and practices Indigenous Animism and Unitarian Universalism. They are deeply passionate about all genres of music, documentaries, hiking and other outdoor adventures (in which they are infamous for achieving minor injuries and the loss of shoes); hanging with their partner, three kids, and their two pets (Jeffrey the Pug and Rue the Ragdoll Rescue Cat); and absolutely refusing to be anyone other than Princess Peach in Mario Kart or Mario Party. They consider themselves to be within the top 100 of all-time high-context ramblers who have an opinion on just about anything and everything.
Martin Rafferty, an international speaker and youth engagement strategist, is the founder and CEO of Youth Era, a celebrated international nonprofit that aims to revolutionize current thinking about youth participation in social change. For more than a decade, Youth Era has served hundreds of thousands of young people through its drop-in centers, online peer-to-peer support services, and postvention for crises, including responding to school shootings. Among the achievements of Youth Era is the creation of a peer-to-peer course provided to high schoolers from four different countries as a joint research project with the University of Oxford.
Martin grew up in poverty, in a home marked by domestic violence and trauma. At age 12, he learned he was homeless after finding a note from his mother: “This isn’t your home anymore.” In 2017, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Recovery Center honored Martin’s inspirational life journey and named him one of eight global changemakers. In 2018, Eugene (Oregon) Young Professionals named him one of their 20 Rising Business Stars under 40.
“History of the Peer Self-Help and Advocacy Movement”
The recording of this session is available now.
● Joseph Rogers, founder and Executive Director, National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse
● Celia Brown, President, MindFreedom International
● Amey Dettmer, Program Manager, Doors to Wellbeing National Consumer Technical Assistance Center
Joseph Rogers will speak about the history and values of the peer self-help and advocacy movement in the U.S., from its beginnings in church basements in the 1970s, through its years of struggle for a seat at the table, to its hard-won accomplishments. He will also provide an overview of Action Group 1: "Nothing About Us Without Us: Advocacy at the Federal and State Levels."
Joseph Rogers is the founder and executive director of the National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse, the first peer-run national technical assistance center serving the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement. From 1997 to 2007, he was president and CEO of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (since renamed Mental Health Partnerships), which he grew from a small regional advocacy agency into one of the largest mental health associations in the country.
Among Joseph’s numerous accomplishments is helping to facilitate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a landmark civil rights bill for individuals with disabilities, and helping to ensure that it covered individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Joseph served on the Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities, and – supported by Justin Dart (a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1998) – successfully advocated for coverage of individuals with psychiatric disabilities in the ADA.
A national leader of the movement for social justice of people with mental health diagnoses, he has received many awards, including the prestigious Heinz Award for the Human Condition in 2005, and SAMHSA’s 2013 Voice Lifetime Achievement Award.
Click here for Joseph’s slides.
Celia Brown will offer her perspective on the history of the peer movement for social justice through the lens of intersectionality–the interconnected nature of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, which creates overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. She will also give an overview of Action Group #2 on “Joining Our Struggle for Justice to the Hard-Fought Efforts of Diverse Marginalized Groups.”
Celia is a psychiatric survivor and long-time advocate for people with psychiatric disabilities. She was one of the first Peer Specialists in New York, and was instrumental in developing and implementing the Peer Specialist Civil Service title for the New York State Office of Mental Health. Celia is the President of MindFreedom International, and she is the founder of Surviving Race: The Intersection of Race, Disability and Human Rights Coalition. She currently works in the position of Regional Advocacy Specialist for the Bureau of Recipient Affairs at the New York City Field Office, New York State Office of Mental Health. Celia facilitates trainings on peer support, history of the movement, and wellness and recovery approaches in community mental health agencies.
Celia is a certified peer specialist and a field school graduate of the Center to Study Recovery in Social Contexts at the Nathan Kline Institute. She is on the Advisory Committee for the Center for Practice Innovations. Celia was a founder of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). She has presented nationally and internationally on topics such as self-help, peer counseling, advocacy, trauma, and cultural competency.Celia is a certified peer specialist and a field school graduate of the Center to Study Recovery in Social Contexts at the Nathan Kline Institute. She is on the Advisory Committee for the Center for Practice Innovations. Celia was a founder of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). She has presented nationally and internationally on topics such as self-help, peer counseling, advocacy, trauma, and cultural competency.
Amey Dettmer will speak about: Where the Recovery Movement History Meets the Current Day. With Amey's involvement in the peer and recovery movement during the last decade, she plans to shed light on her view of the movement today and the importance of preserving the movement's history as peer support expands to new spaces and systems. May our history not be forgotten as recovery and alternative approaches are embraced and more widely accepted by our communities at large.
Amey Dettmer graduated from a Peer Specialist Certification training in Pennsylvania in 2011. Since certification, Amey has worked as a Certified Peer Support Specialist in community-based settings and residential settings, and as a peer support supervisor. In 2016, she started working with the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery, providing peer support and wellness recovery education nationally. At the Copeland Center she is currently the Program Manager of the SAMHSA-funded National Consumer Technical Assistance Center of Doors to Wellbeing. Amey’s work focuses on peer specialists, youth leadership development, peer-led recovery education, and Psychiatric Advance Directives. In December 2018, her devoted efforts resulted in recognition by the National Association of Peer Supporters (N.A.P.S.) as she received the “Disruptive Innovator Award,” highlighting her work in youth peer leadership and honoring her as a young adult who has made a significant transformative contribution to the field of Peer Support through leadership, programming, and activism. Amey previously served as a N.A.P.S. Board member, supporting a mission of growing access to peer support. When Amey is not busy pursuing her passion for peer support, she enjoys spending time in nature, and with her children and pets.
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Thursday, November 3, 2022
“Alternatives to Coercion: How to Build Peer Support Ecosystems”
The recording of this session is available now.
Cherene’s presentation of the variety of Peer Services that followed in the Action Group is available here.
● Cherene Caraco, CEO, Promise Resource Network
● Vesper Moore, Chief Operating Officer, Kiva Centers
In 2005/2006, Cherene Caraco founded Promise Resource Network (PRN), a peer-operated and staffed non-profit organization serving uninsured people who experience complex combinations of mental health and substance use challenges, houselessness, and incarceration. The organization operates 16 programs, including 24/7 crisis alternatives (peer-run respite and warmline), jail and prison diversion and re-entry, and houselessness-to-homeownership programs. For its efforts, PRN has been ranked the 2021 Second Best Non-Profit in the Country to Work For by the NonProfit Times, and was featured by NBC in November 2021 for its work with peer-run hospital diversion, recovery-oriented policy, and trauma-informed crisis prevention and response.
In 2019, Cherene started Peer Voice NC, a statewide movement of North Carolinians who are directly impacted by mental health issues to organize and mobilize around legislative and practice change. During this legislative session, four bills with bipartisan support were introduced aimed at reducing the use of mental health-related confinement, establishing open-access peer-run alternatives to psychiatric commitment, and introducing non-police community response alternatives for people experiencing mental health, poverty-related, and/or substance use crises.
In 2021, Cherene was named the Innovator of the Year by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. She has served as a keynote speaker, trainer, and/or consultant to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Alternatives, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), Café TA Center, Council on Quality and Leadership (CQL), and the National Council for Mental Wellness, among other organizations.
Vesper Moore, Chief Operating Officer, Kiva Centers, is an American political activist, leader, organizer, public speaker, and educator in the psychiatric survivor and disability rights movements. Vesper concentrates on building social movements and public knowledge to facilitate and sustain systems change. They have supported the development of mental health peer-run organizations in different parts of the world. Vesper has brought the perspectives of disabled people and psychiatric survivors to national and international spaces with their advocacy. Working with both the U.S. government and the United Nations in shaping strategies around trauma, intersectionality, and disability rights, they have been at the forefront of legislative reform to shift the societal paradigm surrounding mental health.
Paolo del Vecchio, MSW, will address the Alternatives Conference
● Paolo del Vecchio, MSW, Director of Office of Management, Technology, and Operations (OMTO), Director of Office of Recovery (OR)
Paolo del Vecchio is the Director of SAMHSA’s Office of Recovery and the Director of the Office of Management, Technology, and Operations. Previously, he served as the Director of SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), and as the CMHS Associate Director for Consumer Affairs. Prior to joining SAMHSA, Paolo worked for the Philadelphia Office of Mental Health in the areas of policy formulation and the planning of a comprehensive system of community-based mental health services. A self-identified mental health consumer, trauma survivor, and person in recovery from addictions, Paolo has been involved for over 40 years in behavioral health as a consumer, family member, provider, advocate, and policy maker. He graduated summa cum laude with a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Temple University, has published widely, and is a highly sought-after national leader and speaker.
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Friday, November 4, 2022
Tribute to Sally Zinman
The recording of the Tribute to Sally Zinman is available now.
Join us to honor the memory of Sally Zinman, a long-time advocate, organizer, and leader of the peer movement in California and nationwide. Sally inspired many and was a leader of the c/s/x movement for over 40 years. She was persistent to the end in advocating for the end of forced treatment as she shared in this interview of 6 months ago. Several individuals who worked with Sally and who were significant in her life will speak at the tribute, including her daughter Rachel Harris.
Click here for a poem that Gayle Bluebird wrote in Sally Zinman’s honor.
Nikobi Petronelli, Oregon Health Authority Community Engagement Policy Analyst: “Intentional Re-Imagining Youth Advocacy and Community Engagement”
The recording of Nikobi and Grey’s presentation is available now.
● Nikobi Petronelli (she/they) is a subject matter expert on youth and young adult engagement, an advocate, a peer, and a person with lived experience. “I believe it is crucial to remember that we are not bystanders witnessing a rebirth of the past. We are empowered by our lived experience as individuals and in community to see beyond ‘what has been,’ speculate about ‘what could be,’ and utilize this knowledge to guide the process of re-imagining possibility–for we are the primary contributors to the larger narrative of what is past, present, and future. Our joy, our rest, our voices, our grief, our laughter, our stories–they represent sites of contestation, of resistance, as we so radically exist in our resilience.”
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