黑料正能量 Note: This week鈥檚 annual Alternatives Conference has announced this year鈥檚 award winners: see below.
鈥淔or 36 years, the Alternatives Conference has been planned and implemented for and by people in the peer recovery/liberation movement to come together and share their lived experience with one another. It is a place where peers come together to share our wisdom, strength and hope; where we make room for all the ways we experience and express life; where we turn our experience into fuel for our truth-telling.
We are aware that the right we have to make these choices hasn鈥檛 just been handed to us, but was fought for by this movement鈥檚 pioneers who were a small but fervent group of activists focused on human rights and liberation. They had the courage to stand against psychiatric oppression by taking political and social action. They created solidarity by forming mutual support groups, drop in centers and gathering in parks and universities to create what grew into this Alternatives Conference. We honor the shoulders on which we stand and know that part of what makes Alternatives so special is this history. For many of us, attending the Alternatives Conference has been like coming home. To learn more about our history go here: 鈥&苍产蝉辫;&苍产蝉辫;&苍产蝉辫;&苍产蝉辫;&苍产蝉辫;&苍产蝉辫;&苍产蝉辫;
Alternatives is pleased to announce the 2022 awards
SALLY ZINMAN LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
The lifetime achievement award is given to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the peer recovery/liberation movement throughout the course of their career.
HARVEY ROSENTHAL
Harvey Rosenthal has dedicated the last 45 years to the promotion of public mental health policies, programs, and practices that advance the recovery, rights, community inclusion, and liberation of people with mental health, addiction, and trauma-related challenges. His commitment to his work is personal, dating back to a lengthy psychiatric hospitalization at age 19.
He has served as CEO of the 黑料正能量 Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services since 1993. Under his leadership, 黑料正能量鈥檚 advocacy has helped to shape state and national public policies and mental health systems to advance informed choice, self-determination and self-direction; oppose all forms of coercion; increase access to recovery-centered and peer support services; promote a focus on the social determinants of health and racial equity; and help to win several landmark criminal justice-related reforms.
Harvey helped to create and promote the nationally acclaimed Peer Bridger model, alternatives to coercion like the peer-led INSET initiative (an alternative to outpatient commitment), as well as several state and national recovery- and rehabilitation-focused technical assistance programs.
His efforts have earned him the highest honors from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, National Association of Peer Supporters, The College for Behavioral Health Leadership, Mental Health America, and the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association.
AMY JO YOUNG
Amy Jo Young, BS, PSS, THW, and QMHA 1, considers founding (Learning, Living & Loving after/along with Programs) her 鈥渕ost fantastic achievement.鈥 In May 2021, she and her husband decided to create a non-profit to bridge the “lapse” in services in order to support and encourage others to seek what they need to stay in recovery while they await other services. Among Amy鈥檚 employers are Lifeways, Inc., Eastern Oregon Recovery Center (EORC), and her current employer, Maple Star Oregon. She has a firsthand understanding of addiction, behavioral health, the judicial system, surviving cancer, family problems, houselessness, and child welfare.
Award Acceptance
ALPHONSO THOMAS
Alphonso Thomas is a National Certified Peer Specialist (NCPS) with a forensic enhancement, and a WRAP Trainer and Facilitator. The author of two books鈥”The Blackout Life Plan” and “Blueprint to Wellness鈥濃揾e has worked on countless forums and committees that help individuals improve their lives and create the reality they desire.
Mr. Thomas has used his personal experience and the study of human behavior to promote self-help and self-advocacy as well as other sustainable skills of daily living. He teaches a 96-hour hybrid Peer Support course at Durham Technical Community College in North Carolina, and works as a Peer Support Specialist for the Stepping Up Initiative, whose goal is to decrease recidivism. In this role, he assists detainees, including the high-risk population, at the Forsyth County Detention Center with the tools and resources essential to helping them get acclimated back into society.
Award Acceptance
JUDI CHAMBERLIN JOY IN ADVOCACY AWARDS
Judi was a tireless advocate for mental health systems change and fought to make 鈥淣othing About Us Without Us!鈥 a reality. This award is joyfully dedicated to recognizing an individual who has made enormous achievements in bringing hope into the lives of persons with lived experience and advancing the field of disability rights advocacy.
NEV JONES
Nev Jones, PhD is a service user/survivor researcher, activist-scholar and Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh. Inspired by personal experiences of intensive service involvement (for psychosis) and associated social and structural discrimination, Nev has focused her work on challenging status quo responses to individuals experiencing distress, altered states, and non-consensual realities through a combination of community organizing and mutual aid, critical pedagogy, mentoring, and change-oriented research. She leads the informal coalition Transform Mental Health Research, centered on building capacity, and supporting networking and collective advocacy, among service user/survivors invested in democratizing research. Earlier in her career, she co-founded Chicago Hearing Voices and the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network, and has collaborated with numerous peer-run and cross-disability organizations on advocacy and research projects. Recent areas of focus include documentation of the impact of poverty and structural racism on service users’ experiences in and outside the mental health system, and the development of policy aimed at better supporting students with psychiatric disabilities in higher education.
Award Acceptance
LESLIE NAPPER
Leslie Napper, a proud native of Sacramento, is a Peer Senior Advocate for Disability Rights California (DRC) and a former Patients鈥 Rights Advocate in Sacramento, Yolo, Napa, and San Joaquin counties. Leslie has served as Chair of the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) Advisory Council, Disability Rights California鈥檚 Board of Directors, and CalMHSA Advisory Council, as well as serving on Sacramento County’s Mental Health Board. She currently serves on Sacramento County’s MHSA Steering Committee, representing adult mental health consumers.
As a consultant to the California Institute for Mental Health (CIMH), Leslie developed and led a statewide African American Mental Health Consumer Leadership training, as well as facilitated and assisted in the development of trainings providing technical assistance to California’s Local Mental Health Boards/Commissions.
Lead plaintiff in Napper vs. County of Sacramento, she worked closely with DRC’s legal team in litigation and settlement of the case. She is passionate about empowering others to advocate for themselves, to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness, and to effect change. Leslie identifies as a person living with a mental health disability, and has been a respected mental health advocate for more than 15 years. She is a very proud grandmother of an autistic child.
STEFANIE LYNN KAUFMAN-MTHIMKHULU
Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (they/she) is a white, queer and non-binary, Disabled, neurodivergent survivor of the medical and psychiatric system. They show up for their communities as a Disability Justice educator and organizer, parent, doula, peer supporter, writer, conflict intervention facilitator, and as the Founding Director of. Their work specializes in building non-carceral, peer-led mental health care systems that exist outside of the state, reimagining everything we鈥檝e come to learn about madness, and intervening in systems that oppress, disappear, and kill Disabled and mad folks. Stefanie is the editor of and the author of They also have experience consulting and strategizing with folks around curriculum development, anti-ableist leadership, mental health and Disability policy, and access-centered practices.
Stefanie is also Access Cohort Coach with, Director on鈥檚 Board, Childbirth and Full-Spectrum Doula Core Educator with, Lead Educator for (Continuing Education), Radical, a community/survivor-led researcher, and Co-lead of a research project with Dr. Nev Jones and Kelly Davis:.