Announcements
Moving Toward a Human Rights Approach to Mental Health, published in Community Mental Health Journal, by Jim Probert
Article Abstract: The University of Florida Counseling and Wellness Center (UFCWC) has implemented peer support and professional training programs to address human rights identified within advocacy groups comprised of individuals who have, themselves, been diagnosed with mental illness. These programs are moving the UFCWC toward fulfilling a 2017 United Nations report emphasizing rights-based professional training, provision of genuine informed consent, and availability of non-compromised peer support alternatives. Collaborating with student peers, four UFCWC faculty members have facilitated forms of peer support developed within service-user movements, while openly identifying experiences of reclaiming their own lives from the impacts of adversity, intense mental distress, and traumatizing responses of others to their distress. In the wake of the current pervasive health, economic, and social justice crises, professionals have a collective opportunity to recognize the human experience and rights of those suffering mental distress. These UFCWC programs offer one example of steps taken toward that goal.
Click here to read the article.
Free Upcoming Webinar: New Frontiers for Activism: Art-making as an Alternative Philosophy of Care During Emotional Crisis
Presenter: Karin Jervert
Thursday, December 9th, 4:00 – 5:30pm ET
Webinar Description:
In this workshop, we will explore several conditions and intentions in art-making practice which can create spaces that support healing for ourselves and for those in emotional crisis. We will talk about art-making as a container for suffering, anger, altered states and other experiences; how to facilitate flow within this space; and what obstacles can appear like fear, judgement, shame and paralysis. We will talk also a bit about lowering stakes in self-expression by encouraging and incorporating play and mistakes as powerful learning experiences. I will offer tools and ideas that together use art-making practices and concepts as a framework for a philosophy of care and compassion in the presence of our own and other’s suffering, and create portability of these practices so that we can bring these ideas and intentions into our lives and relationships day to day to create positive change within our selves and our larger communities.
Click here to register.
Webinar Recording Now Available: New Frontiers for Activism: Youth Involvement & Leadership in Research
Presenters: Kristin Thorp, Kelly Davis, Ben Ballman, and Shannon Padgon
Moderator: Nev Jones
Webinar Description:
This webinar will showcase different ways in which youth leaders are influencing research and using research in order to challenge existing ideas and practices and to further advocacy for systems change. Projects conducted both within and outside traditional academic settings will be featured. Although a still under-developed area in other communities, youth activist research and scholarship have played a powerful role in systems transformation. We hope that this webinar will help inspire more discussion and interest in the strategic use of research within the youth and adult peer communities, and among academic allies.
Click here for the recording.
“Meet Daniel Fisher of NEC in Lawrence”
NEC’s Daniel Fisher was recently profiled in Boston Voyager. Click here to read about Daniel Fisher and his work with the National Empowerment Center, Emotional CPR, and National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery.
Webinar Recording Now Available: Year One Lessons as a Youth Mental Health Non-Profit Leader at The Jed Foundation
Presenter: Henry Zhu
Webinar Description:
Henry Zhu will share some key insights from his first year working at The Jed Foundation (JED), a national mental health non-profit focused on protecting the emotional health and preventing suicide for teens and young adults. He will highlight ways in which his perspective as a recent college graduate has advanced JED’s mission and impact, several youth-focused initiatives that he has contributed to or led within JED, and offer practical recommendations for those hoping to contribute to youth-focused mental health programming, support, and/or advocacy efforts. He will also introduce a project he will initiate focused on peer mentorship for Asian-American, male-identifying teens and young adults.
Hudson to Launch Emotional CPR Program
The Hudson Health Department received a grant to offer NEC’s Emotional CPR training to multiple sectors of the Hudson community, such as the business community, first responders, town department, school staff, and the library. Hudson will be the first community in the country to have multiple sectors trained in eCPR. For more information, click here.
New Research Evaluates Feasibility and Effectiveness of Emotional CPR
A research study evaluating the feasibility and effectiveness of the National Empowerment Center’s peer-led training program, Emotional CPR (eCPR), has been published in the Journal of Participatory Medicine. The researchers write: “Findings indicate that it is feasible for people with a lived experience of a mental health condition to develop a program and train people to deliver eCPR with fidelity…Promising evidence indicates that eCPR, a peer-developed and peer-delivered program, may increase feelings of belonging while increasing supportive behaviors toward individuals with mental health problems and improving clinical outcomes related to positive and negative affect and feelings of loneliness.” For the full article, click here. For additional information about eCPR: https://emotional-cpr.org/
New Resource: The Advocates’ Guide 2020
The Advocates’ Guide: An Educational Primer on Federal Programs and Resources Related to Affordable Housing andCommunity Development is, as the title suggests, a guide to affordable housing. But on many levels it is much more than that. The guide comprises hundreds of pages of useful resources and practical knowhow, written by leading experts in the affordable housing and community development field with a common purpose: to educate advocates and affordable housing providers of all kinds about the programs and policies that make housing affordable and accessible to low-income people across America.
Click here for the guidebook.
Recent Work
Webinar: Emotional CPR Brings Hope, Life and Community to a Sad World
British Columbia Psychosocial Rehabilitation | Advanced Practice is very pleased to announce a webinar with Dr. Daniel Fisher CEO of The National Empowerment Center, and Shontelle Prokipcak from Mental Health and Addiction Services of Ottawa! Click here for the webinar overview
Recent Interview with NEC’s Dan Fisher on Polish Radio Station
Daniel Fisher was recently interviewed in Katowice,Poland by a TV station. There is an introduction in Polish, but rest of interview is in English with translation into Polish. See below for the interview.
Updated Hearing Voices Curriculum Now Available!
Originally developed by Dr. Pat Deegan, the NEC Hearing Voices Curriculum now includes updates developed by Dr. Dan Fisher, Oryx Cohen, and Digital Eyes Film. In addition to the original simulation exercises, the updates include a new DVD featuring one of the co-founders of the Hearing Voices Network, Dr. Marius Romme, as well as testimony from voice hearers themselves. The updated curriculum includes new discussion questions that will help participants better understand how they can support voice hearers after the training.
For more information about the curriculum click here.
Learn more about the updated Hearing Voices Curriculum in the video below.
Resource of the Week
Measuring the Promise: A Compendium of Recovery Measures
One of a series of materials produced by the Evaluation [email protected] This compendium provides a resource of current recovery and recovery-related instruments for adult mental health system stakeholders to use in research and evaluation particularly towards the end of identifying evidence-based practices. [Click to view Measuring the Promise (PDF – 7,917KB, 254 pages)]
Learn More about Emotional CPR
Emotional CPR is a training offered by the National Empowerment Center that teaches people how to assist others through an emotional crisis. It was developed by and for people with lived experience of mental health recovery. Click here to learn more.
New Study on Emotional CPR
A new study indicates that eCPR may increase feelings of belonging while increasing supportive behaviors toward individuals with mental health problems and improving clinical outcomes related to positive and negative affect and feelings of loneliness. To access the full-text publication, visit: https://jopm.jmir.org/2021/1/e25867
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Featured Video
An Introduction to Emotional CPR (eCPR)
Finding Our Voice
Finding Our Voice is a program for training emerging c/s/x leaders in advocacy skills and ways of being.
The following video was produced by one our graduates, Miriam Israel using the skills that she learned in our training.