Building Resilience Through Trauma Informed Communities: How Do We Get Started?

Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Time: 1 - 2:30 p.m. ET

Location:
Dorothy I. Height/Benning Neighborhood Library
3935 Benning Rd. NE
Washington, D.C. 20019

A movement to create Trauma-Informed Communities is well underway across the United States and Canada. A Community Resilience Cookbook was recently created to highlight these initiatives and offer interested communities some resources and suggested ways to move forward. Continue the conversation about Community Resilience in the DC Metro Area.

Meeting Handouts and Resources:

Reflections on Ferguson: How a Trauma-Informed Lens Can Make A Difference

Date: Friday, December 19, 2014
Time: 2 - 3:30 p.m. ET

Description:

The recent tragic events in Ferguson, MO and across the country have brought the issues of community safety, health, dignity, and wellbeing to the forefront. Tragic events in the community can lead to reactions of grief, anger, and continuing trauma that are similar to the traumatic experiences shared by consumers and peers with diverse backgrounds who have experienced prejudice and discrimination in their communities. During these challenging times, what do consumers and peers have to offer to help communities heal? Is the trauma-informed lens that we use to understand our personal experiences effective in supporting others going through similar experiences when tragic events occur? What do trauma-informed communities look like and how might we get started?

Presenters:

Leah Harris, M.A., Director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery

Leah is a mother, storyteller, and activist. She has been a nationally-recognized leader in the mental health consumer/survivor movement for over a decade. Leah is the daughter of two parents who were diagnosed with mental illness, both of whom died young as a result of their disabilities. This depth of her personal experience fuels Leah's commitment to ensuring human rights and recovery for all people who experience emotional distress and crisis.

Chacku Mathai, CPRP, Director, STAR Center;

Chacku Mathai is an Indian-American, born in Kuwait, who has over twenty-eight years of experience in mental health and addiction community based services in a wide variety of roles in local, state and national initiatives. He currently serves as the Director for the NAMI STAR Center, one of five National Technical Assistance Centers funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The purpose of the overall program is to provide technical assistance to facilitate the restructuring of the mental health system by promoting recovery and consumer directed approaches. Chacku's personal experiences as a youth and young adult in mental health and addiction recovery in New York launched Chacku and his family towards a number of efforts to advocate for improved services and alternative supports in the community.

Keris Jän Myrick, MBA, MS, Director of the Office of Consumer Affairs, Center for Mental Health Services, SAMHSA

Keris is a national mental health leader and non-profit executive, known for her innovative and inclusive approach to mental health reform and the public disclosure of her personal story of lived experience with serious mental illness. Most recently, she has been President and CEO of Project Return Peer Support Network, a Los Angeles-based, peer-run nonprofit, which manages more than 100 self-help groups in Los Angeles County, a peer-staffed Warm Line, a Spanish-language community peer and family center and Peer Run Crises Respite Home. In addition, she has been the President of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and an advisor to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Office of Minority and National Affairs (OMNA), providing assistance with the psychiatry component of the SAMHSA/CMHS Recovery to Practice project. Ms. Myrick has a Master of Science degree in organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology of Alliant International University. Her Master of Business Administration degree, with an emphasis on marketing, is from Case Western Reserve University.

Cathy Cave, Training Director, Mental Health Empowerment Project

Cathy Cave, Training Director, Mental Health Empowerment Project, has more than 25 years' experience as an administrator, facilitator, and consultant specializing in cultural competence and disparities elimination, trauma-informed services and supports, and leadership within child welfare, juvenile justice, disaster response, mental health, and substance abuse services. She currently provides technical assistance to the National Center for Trauma-Informed Care. She is the former Director for Cultural Competence for New York State Office of Mental Health. As a consultant, she uses her survivor, family, community and provider perspectives to facilitate organizational change to improve service quality at local, state and national levels.

STAR Center Community of Practice on Collaborative Leadership: Featuring an Interview with Lauren Spiro

Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Time: 2 - 3:30 p.m. ET

Every day we are faced with opportunities to make a real difference in our communities. Do we offer our unique contribution or just keep it to ourselves?

Lauren's Dialogues of Discovery model is a testament to the power of dialogue to transform consciousness and an invitation to explore topics such as: How to redefine who you are, how to fill the emptiness in your soul, and how to learn to forgive - ourselves as well as others who have harmed us. Lauren will discuss how to discover your vision of how you want the community or the world to be and what specific steps you can begin taking towards that vision.

This month's Community of Practice features an interview with Lauren Spiro. Fueled by a vision of an America where every individual is respected and included as a valued member of the community, Lauren's work focuses on developing our capacity for compassion, appreciating the vast creativity of the human mind, and building pathways so everyone may come home. She is the co-founder and co-director of Emotional CPR. She co-founded two non-profit corporations and is the associate director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery. She consults on several Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's contracts and her memoir, Living for Two: A Daughter's Journey From Grief and Madness to Forgiveness and Peace was published in 2014. She has an M.A. in Clinical/Community Psychology. For more information see www.Laurenspiro.com

Join the STAR Center Community of Practice on Collaborative Leadership and Action for a featured interview with Lauren Spiro to hear more about Lauren's view of her own leadership style, her personal standards for leadership and how we can best support and develop leadership with each other.

Intentional Peer Support as a Framework for Building Diverse Communities

Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Time: 2 - 3:30 p.m. ET

Presenters:

Eva Dech, Training Manager

Eva has been involved in human rights and social justice activism and advocacy for over two decades. After years of developing and working within peer support, she came to believe the path to healing and recovery was through relationships, creating opportunities for empowerment, and building connected, inclusive, and supportive communities.

Steven Morgan, Operations Manager

Steven Morgan has worked in peer support services for the past decade, during which time he has helped create and manage several peer-run and alternative mental health programs. Steven has a passion for creating instruments of social change, a love of organizational development, and a belief in the transformative power of community.

Description:

Please join us for an overview and discussion of Intentional Peer Support as a framework for building community and embracing diversity. IPS is a way of thinking about and inviting powerfully transformative relationships among people. By focusing on the tasks and principles of mutual support, practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.

For over ten years, IPS has been training people working in human services all over the world on why and how to build mutual relationships that are energizing, co-creative, and explorative. It is a trauma-informed approach that focuses on staying connected, paying attention to worldview, shifting from helping to learning, and above all, creating relationships that open up new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing.

Promoting Family Wellness using WRAP®

Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Time: 2 - 3:30 p.m. ET

Presenter:

Matthew Federici

Description: Through this webinar, Matthew will discuss his recovery experience personally, professionally and as a family member despite challenges in the mental health system care. He will be supported by speakers in his own family from the experiential perspectives of the wellness journey in the family during difficult times and beyond. A key resource in his presentation is how the evidenced based Wellness Recovery Action Plan applies in the context of the individual's and the family's journey of recovery. Through this webinar participants will be able to:

• Understand the key concepts and action plans of WRAP
• Describe how WRAP may benefit a families wellness
• Identify next steps to learning and sharing WRAP with other families