Last Year’s Alternatives 2021 Conference Keynote Presentations
THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2021
11 A.M. EASTERN (10 A.M. CENTRAL; 9 A.M. MOUNTAIN; 8 A.M. PACIFIC)
LAURA VAN TOSH – FROM MEANING TO PURPOSE: BASICS TO INFORM LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY
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The opening keynote address will illuminate three skills for successful legislative advocacy: identifying legislative champions, critical thinking, and organizing. Whether at the state or local level, successful legislative advocacy is possible within a long-range framework for change. Having broad and deep knowledge of an issue is crucial in developing advocacy strategies, while maintaining an eternal sense of optimism will attract both peers and other stakeholders to your cause. Recognizing that legislative advocacy and implementation of laws are part of a long, winding story lessens the pressure when the process is part of a bigger picture. This talk will weave these concepts together through examples from recent legislative advocacy efforts, and will prompt ideas for the three conference Action Groups: National and Statewide Advocacy, Crisis Prevention and Alternatives to Institutionalization, and Promoting Racial and Social Justice.
Laura Van Tosh is the convener of Washington Legislative and Policy Advocates (WLPA), a nonpartisan, all-volunteer educational venture focused on health and wellbeing. WLPA engages people in policy development and advocacy at the state, county, and city levels, and is an active member of statewide coalitions focused on housing, civil rights, human services, and police accountability. Laura has held policy positions at the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, State of Maryland, University of Maryland, and State of Oregon.
Laura has worked inside three state psychiatric hospitals, including one in which she was confined. She has written extensively about peer-run programs and has directed several peer-run services. She has provided national technical assistance at SAMHSA and peer-run clearinghouses. She is a proud member of ADAPT, Disability EmpowHer Network, and the Cross Disability Action Network.
Laura lives in the thriving Central District in Seattle and is active in local politics, serving as a precinct committee organizer. She is the recipient of the 1997 Isaiah Uliss Advocate Award from the International Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services; the 2001 Redbook Magazine Strength & Spirit Award for “consumer voice in healthcare”; and the 2002 Brendan Nugent Leadership Award from the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services.
THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2021
2:30 P.M. EASTERN (1:30 P.M. CENTRAL; 12:30 P.M. MOUNTAIN; 11:30 A.M. PACIFIC)
CHERENE ALLEN-CARACO – ORGANIZE, STRATEGIZE, MOBILIZE: GROWING A CONTEMPORARY RECOVERY MOVEMENT
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“We stand on the shoulders of our recovery pioneers, who gifted us with wisdom, struggle, and progress,” Cherene Allen-Caraco writes. “With gratitude, we are invited to continue their mission and apply their teachings to continue to grow a contemporary recovery movement.” During this conference, three priority action areas are a focus: Crisis prevention and Alternatives to Institutionalization, Promoting Racial and Social Justice, and National and Statewide Advocacy. “How do we use these priorities to determine what’s next?” she asks. “What direction do we take to accomplish our goals?”
This keynote will bring together the three action areas to explore ideas for organizing, strategizing, and mobilizing in an effort to grow our contemporary recovery movement. Led by Cherene Allen-Caraco — who calls herself a “system disruptor, agitator of the status quo, CEO extraordinaire, and student of the many activists who came before” — the presentation will challenge us to consider how best to build a powerful advocacy coalition and use our collective voice to makes the changes we need. Cherene writes: ‘When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ While our systems and services continue to build larger and stronger hammers, we are going to introduce them to new and different tools.”
Cherene is a national and international recovery consultant and works with professionals, systems, states, organizations, and peers to understand and facilitate recovery as well as elevate the profession of peer support to ensure that its integrity and authenticity are maintained.
She says, “It’s been 33 years since I received my first of 8 mental health diagnoses. Along with that introduction into mental health systems came the proclamation that I would be too sick to go to college and would likely spend the rest of my life in and out of hospitals. I was 13 years old and I believed them. They were wrong. It almost killed me. I have spent the past 27 years learning about recovery from labels of serious and severe and persistent mental illness. Having worked in many organizations, state governments, hospitals, and managed care organizations, in various roles, I learned a lot about mental illness. Being connected to other psychiatric survivors, however, I have learned about healing, wellness and recovery.
In 2016, I took all the years of personal and professional experience and started Promise Resource Network (PRN), an organization led and staffed by people who are in recovery from complex trauma, labels of mental illness, substance use challenges, homelessness, former incarceration, gang involvement, suicide attempts and domestic violence. Peer support remains the foundation of the agency, recovery and trauma-healing its blueprint, and social justice its mission.”
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 2021
11 A.M. EASTERN (10 A.M. CENTRAL; 9 A.M. MOUNTAIN; 8 A.M. PACIFIC)
SHERMAN GILLUMS JR. – TRUTH, RACIAL JUSTICE, AND HISTORY AT A CROSSROADS
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This keynote is an exploration into how the killing of George Floyd and a complicated multicultural history have shaped our conscience as a country, and what will determine our fate as we navigate the intersection of reparations, justice, and truth. Sherman will share his unsettling yet inspirational account of how his life has been influenced by the police shooting of his father 47 years ago and the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the opportunities that lie before us as a nation. Sherman makes the case that society’s problems can only be resolved through complete, honest — and costly — reconciliation that accounts for the historical inequities, injustices, and untruths that have impacted the potential and the self-determination of many who have lived the untold Black experience in America.
Sherman Gillums Jr. lost his father to a police shooting and was raised by a single mom. He survived childhood abuse and joined the Marines, serving 12 years until he was severely injured. He overcame physical and mental injury to become a national advocate for persons impacted by trauma. Sherman’s goal is to use his testimony to bring a message of hope and redemption in the face of trauma and tragedy. He holds a master’s degree from the University of San Diego’s School of Business Administration, and he completed his executive education at Harvard Business School. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Dayton.
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 2021
3:30 P.M. EASTERN (2:30 P.M. CENTRAL; 1:30 P.M. MOUNTAIN; 12:30 P.M. PACIFIC)
HELEN “SKIP” SKIPPER – CAUGHT UP IN THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF SYSTEMS: MOVING FROM RAGE TO FEARLESSNESS TO CHANGE
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Helen “Skip” Skipper writes: “How do you pull yourself off the hamster wheel that seems to be your destiny because of the color of your skin? How do you create the resilience and the ‘unapologetic-ness’ to see you through? What happens when you get mad at the world and at the situations that countless others have succumbed to, and you whisper to yourself, ‘No more’? How do you become brave enough to fight for yourself and those around you and behind you? How do you create space for them — and for you — for change? Come explore answers to those questions.”
Skip has been there, done that: “I’ve been involved in every system New York City and State have to offer. I've lived on the hamster wheel of not just recidivism through the criminal justice system, but cycling through substance abuse programs, mental health programs, and homelessness. The unaddressed core mental health issues led to substance use and a never-ending cycling through systems.”
Helen Skipper — “Skip” — has been working in peer support since her final release from multiple incarcerations in 2007. She is the Manager of Peer Services at the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, where she has created a program with 14 peers working solely in the New York City criminal justice space, the largest such program in New York City.
A Beyond-the Bars 2020/2021 Fellow, Skip is also a Columbia University Justice-in-Education scholar while maintaining a 3.9 GPA at St. Francis College — where she is a student representative and the first post-prison program participant to be invited to join the Honor classes. Skip is a budding researcher working on her Ph.D. She will use her lived experience to inform and reform as a “Convict Criminologist.”
The inaugural executive chair of the New York City Peer Workforce Coalition and an executive leadership team member of the New York City Justice Peer Initiative, Skip was also the first Peer Supervisor employed by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in her role in the groundbreaking, media-acclaimed Friendship Benches NYC. “I’ve been around the block a time or two on my tricycle,” she says, “and use those lived experiences to color my world while assisting, supporting, advocating, and navigating for those still on the oppressive and broken treadmill encompassing the intersectionality of multiple systems.”
THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2021
11 A.M. EASTERN (10 A.M. CENTRAL; 9 A.M. MOUNTAIN; 8 A.M. PACIFIC)
TIARA SPRINGER-LOVE – FINDING OUR VOICES BY CHANGING THE NARRATIVE OF YOUTH ENGAGEMENT
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Tiara Springer-Love—mental health advocate, community organizer, and a leader within the youth peer movement—will lead an interactive discussion on the power of youth engagement through the lens of recovery. This keynote aims to encourage the audience to evaluate the prejudices and misunderstandings that influence us, and the ways we engage with youth and young adults across child-serving systems. Tiara hopes the audience will leave with a new perspective on how we support, sustain, and grow the peer movement for years to come.
Tiara Springer-Love, LMSW (pronouns: she/her), is an ambitious leader, mental health advocate, and community organizer who is dedicated to ensuring that the voices of youth and young adults within underserved communities are not only heard but recognized and used as a driving force for change within all child-serving systems. Driven by her own lived experience with the foster care and mental health systems, Tiara says that her goal [MOU5] is to advocate for access to quality care for those within marginalized and oppressed communities. Tiara takes pride in her ability to provide skill development and to create spaces where youth and young adults can be empowered to take charge of their own lives. Tiara is the Director of Youth Power at Families Together in New York State (FTNYS), and is an alumna of the Silberman School of Social Work at the City University of New York’s Hunter College, where she obtained her Master of Social Work degree.
SATURDAY, JULY 17, 2021
11 A.M. EASTERN (10 A.M. CENTRAL; 9 A.M. MOUNTAIN; 8 A.M. PACIFIC)
ROSLIND HAYES – PEER-RUN RESPITES: AN EXAMPLE OF EFFECTIVE CRISIS ALTERNATIVES
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Roslind will speak about the effectiveness of peer-run respites as a crisis alternative. In addition to sharing insights she acquired in creating peer-run respites in Georgia, she will discuss how to be effective in gathering good data, establishing allies, and promoting the benefits of peer-run community supports rather than more extreme crisis responses to emotional distress.
Roslind D. Hayes, BS, CPS-MH, CARES, WHWC, is the Statewide Director of Peer Services and Training for the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network, where she has worked since 2010. Roslind oversees Georgia’s Peer Support, Wellness, and Respite Centers and directs the trainings for Georgia’s CPS-Mental Health workforce.
