Advocating for Others, With Attention to Young People

Speaker: Michaela I. Fissel

 

This webinar will provide a basic overview of what it means to engage in advocacy when delivering peer services, approaches that enhance confidence, self-efficacy, and personal agency; along with self-care strategies to reduce burnout.  Attendees will gain skills for advocating with young adults who experience mental health challenges. (more…)

Strengths Based Peer Support

Speaker: Garry Lewis

Substance use and mental illness rob us of our belief in our own strengths. Peers help us realize we still carry those strengths in us. This work shop is about how supporting from a strengths-based perspective fosters wellness and recovery for mental health and substance use.

Tools for Learning and Teaching

Garry Lewis

Garry Lewis is a Holding the Hope speaker for 2018 Webinar.Garry D. Lewis considers himself a peer in recovery of Mental Health and Substance use. He has overcome his own personal challenges of Bi-Polar and Substance use by remaining positive and productive, “living life on life’s terms,” and celebrates his [almost] eight years of recovery. His wellness has led him to work in the Mental health field as Director of a Peer Run Drop-In-Center for the Spindletop Center in Beaumont, Texas. There, individuals in recovery find support, encouragement and hope. Gary is a Certified Peer Specialist (CPS), Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) facilitator, Advanced WRAP Facilitator, Recovery Coach Trainer, Co-Occurring Disorder Facilitator as well an Emotional CPR (ECPR) Apprentice. Gary advocates for himself as well as his peers and understands that recovery can help improve quality of life.

Ethics and Boundaries for Peer Specialists

Speaker:  Beth Gould

Experience a solid overview of Ethics and Boundaries for Peer Specialists using real scenarios. This lively workshop was created using the ethical guidelines created by the International Association of Peer Supporters (iNaps), which were developed along with working peer specialists.

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Culturally Informed Peer Support

Speaker: Julianne Gale

As peer counselors, we can be strong advocates for culturally specific recovery. This workshop will explore some ways to draw upon cultural strengths, increase cross-cultural understanding, and move towards healing justice in order to improve outcomes with participants, coworkers, and supervisors.

 

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Suicide Safer Peer Support

Speaker:  Mary Jadwisiak

The peers we work with are at increased risk of suicide.  This workshop will provide you with the skills you need to identify when a person may be at risk of suicide and how to respond.  You will learn how to C.A.R.E.  Connect, Ask, Refer, Encourage all within the bounds of your agency’s protocols. (more…)

Advocating for Yourself at Work

Speaker:  Maggie Taylor 

Self-advocacy is vital to this relatively new field; providers within the clinical setting may struggle to incorporate peers in a meaningful way. It is the responsibility of the RSS to educate and raise awareness, as to not only the importance of RSS’s but to what is/ not acceptable expectations.

Recover Support Specialist are unique and effective contributors to traditional services, but only when they are able to share their wisdom and expertise freely… the goal of this webinar is to provide RSS’s with real life examples, and advice to aide them in initiating constructive conversations that will allow them to establish trust and understanding with co-workers and staff within the working environment.

Maggie Taylor

Maggie Taylor is a Holding the Hope speaker for 2018 Webinar.Maggie Taylor is a Recovery Support Specialist, who has a Bachelor’s in Human Services with a minor in Psychology. She is the Advocacy and Education Program Manager, at Advocacy Unlimited, and has formerly served in the field as a Community Bridger. Maggie feels that it was an act of faith that brought her to the peer movement; she was working as a Nutrition Educator when she received an email with an invitation to a CT Hearing Voices Network training. At that training Maggie met peers from Focus on Recovery, and instantly knew that she had found “her tribe” and started working there shortly after. “I could not imagine working with people in any other capacity outside of the peer role; my hope is that I am able to combine both, my education and lived experience to communicate issues that broaden the perspectives of both, people living with diagnoses, and their communities.

Documentation

Speaker:  Ann Rider

The guidelines are specific to Medicaid-funded programs and are still applicable to any kind of documentation. In addition to a discussion of Medicaid guidelines, we will present a simple format that works well for peer support in any setting. Bring your questions!

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Work Life Balance and Wellness

Speaker:  Mia Cox

As a parent partner in community mental health, being a working professional and single mom, I have learned the importance of having tools to create appropriate work/life balance and maintaining wellness. In this brief introduction to Work -Life Balance and Wellness, we will explore solutions to common challenges such as; taking work home with you, carving out time for self-care, organization, time management, boundaries, prioritizing and maintaining healthy relationships.

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