Agenda

1:15 - 2:00 pm: Keynote Presentation  

Power in Community: Advancing Peer Support and Coalition Building in a Shifting Mental Health Landscape   *Live Stream*

Presented by Luke Sikinyi, Director of Public Policy and Public Engagement, The Alliance for Rights and Recovery

As calls for increased institutionalization grow louder, New York’s peer support and mental health advocacy communities are pushing back with a bold, unified vision: one grounded in rights, recovery, and community-based alternatives. This keynote will highlight the urgent work underway to expand peer-led services, build strategic alliances with providers, strengthen government relationships for real policy change, and grow a statewide base ready to mobilize. Learn how organizers, peers, and advocates are coming together to resist regression and create a future where peer support is the foundation of mental health services.

2:25 - 3:40 pm: Workshop Session 1 (Choice of 5)

• Workshop 1A 

The WRAP Voyage:  Past, Present, and Future *Live Stream*

Presented by Lynn Miller, Director for the Wellness Recovery Action Plan, Advocates for Human Potential;

Lee Horton, Dennis Horton, lead advanced level WRAP facilitators;

Mary Ellen Copeland, Creator of WRAP 

This workshop will explore the history and evolution of WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) as an evidence-based practice for improving wellness and recovery, from its origins to its future direction. Participants will examine the diverse ways WRAP is applied across settings such as prisons, schools, agriculture, peer support programs, veteran services, and more. The session will emphasize the importance of maintaining fidelity to the WRAP model, and the ongoing roles of Advocates for Human Potential and creator Mary Ellen Copeland.  

• Workshop 2A 

Getting What You Need (and have a right to) from Health Insurance

Presented by Ruth Getachew, Director of Consumer Health Coverage Assistance, Maryland Insurance Administration; 

Diane Stollenwerk, Special Assistant for Behavioral Health, Maryland Insurance Administration

This workshop will explore common questions or barriers to finding and using health coverage for behavioral health (mental health, substance use) treatment. Staff from the Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA) Health Coverage Assistance Team (H-CAT) will explain the mental health and substance use coverage, services, and support that you have a right to under federal and state law. You’ll learn steps to take on your own to get what you need from your insurance coverage, and how to connect with H-CAT if you want a helpful and knowledgeable partner in the process. At the workshop, you’ll also get to share ideas about how H-CAT could reach even more Marylanders to support everyone who needs

help getting the most from their health coverage.

• Workshop 3A 

Using Restorative Practices Circles for Connection, Collaboration, & Community

Presented by Beth Shekinah Terrence, Holistic Recovery Pathways, LLC

In this experiential workshop, participants will:

• Discuss and practice restorative principles and tools that help to cultivate connection, community and well-being.

• Share in the experience of using circles and other restorative tools to learn and understand how they can integrate these practices into life, work and relationships.

• Review how restorative practices and listening circles support peers and peer communities in cultivating self-awareness, empathy, respect and appreciation for diversity as well as community building, visioning and peacemaking.

• Workshop 4A 

Motivational v Manipulative Interviewing: Keeping Boundaries Real

Presented by Sal Corbin, Training Coordinator, Maryland Harm Reduction Institute

Motivational Interviewing is a collaborative, person-centered counseling style to elicit and strengthen motivation for behavioral change and resolve ambivalence about that change. Often our attempts to support others can cross the line from motivational to manipulative. In other words, as supporters, sometimes our objectives for their recovery can taint or even replace theirs (clients/participants). Cultural considerations are often overlooked or unnoticed in these exchanges. Clients/participants are often encouraged to change according to systemic expectations without cultural considerations. In this workshop, we will explore the intended foundation of Motivational Interviewing techniques that can be used in interacting with participants of your program to achieve these goals in a non-manipulative and culturally supportive way.

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• Workshop 5A 

Right-sizing Anticipated Stigma:  Self Protection without Self Limiting

Presented by Alicia Lucksted, PhD, Clinical-Community Research Psychologist, University of Maryland and VA Maryland Healthcare System

This interactive workshop will offer attendees perspectives and tools for reducing the limits that stigma can cause in one’s life. Specifically, we will look at how anticipating stigma (in certain situations or from certain people) can help us make decisions to protect ourselves, AND, at the same time, how avoiding stigma-worry can easily get over-generalized and lead us to do things in the name of self-protection that work against our own values, needs, and goals. Therefore, we will walk through several steps and tools in a simple process for crafting and right-sizing our anticipated stigma responses to maximize empowerment and wellness and minimize over generalization and unhelpful avoidance. Each person will have the opportunity to personalize the workshop by applying the workshop ideas to a situation of their choosing during the session, and the  option of sharing aspects of their work with others to benefit each other.

4:00 - 5:15 pm: Workshop Session 2 (Choice of 5)

• Workshop 1B 

Addressing Community Needs with Data and Peer Driven Leadership *Live Stream* 

Presented by Jon Gilgoff, PhD, MSW, Research Manager for Peer-Focused Education to Enhance Recovery (PEER) and Innovations in Recovery through Infrastructure Support (IRIS) University of MD, Baltimore; 

Stephanie Hutter-Thomas, PhD, CPH, RPS, Owner and Lead Consultant, Appalachian Recovery Concepts, LLC and Maverick Minds, LLC;

Victoria Barreira, BA, Clinical Research Specialist, Innovations in Recovery through Infrastructure Support (IRIS) University of MD, Baltimore

In this interactive workshop, participants will learn how to use practical research skills to effectively identify and meet needs for clients and communities, as well as to develop the workforce of peers and others with lived experience. With ever-expanding access to infinite knowledge sources, it’s important to determine which behavioral health resources are credible and should be used to inform practice and policy solutions. Developing greater ability to collect, analyze, and present information in convincing ways, including agency data, is integral for program evaluation, quality improvement, policy advocacy, and fund development. Possessing these skills supports peers and others with lived experience with career advancement into leadership and management roles.

• Workshop 2B (repeated)

Getting What You Need (and have a right to) from Health Insurance

Presented by Ruth Getachew, Director of Consumer Health Coverage Assistance, Maryland Insurance Administration; 

Diane Stollenwerk, Special Assistant for Behavioral Health, Maryland Insurance Administration

This workshop will explore common questions or barriers to finding and using health coverage for behavioral health (mental health, substance use) treatment. Staff from the Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA) Health Coverage Assistance Team (H-CAT) will explain the mental health and substance use coverage, services, and support that you have a right to under federal and state law. You’ll learn steps to take on your own to get what you need from your insurance coverage, and how to connect with H-CAT if you want a helpful and knowledgeable partner in the process. During the workshop, you’ll also get to share ideas about how H-CAT could reach even more Marylanders to support everyone who needs

help getting the most from their health coverage.

• Workshop 3B 

Creation and Implementation of Recreational Groups for Peers

Presented by Rachel England, Peer on the Cecil County ACT team

In this workshop, you will be taught the therapeutic benefits of recreational groups and outings as well as strategies to implement groups. Participants will create a piece of art that can be made by clients with a wide range of abilities/disabilities. Participants will receive instructional materials for expressive arts projects that can be implemented by an instructor with little to no experience in art. They will also receive resources for continued education on the topic and ideas to implement other types of therapeutic groups (e.g. Cooking Groups, Meditation Groups, Hiking/Nature Groups).

• Workshop 4B 

Integrative Health Approaches 

Presented by Paula Blackwell, MBA, MHA and Tiffany Scott, Central Maryland Area Health Education Center

Supporting resilience: when PEERS and CHWs work together, patients experience care that is   personalized, empowering, and    responsive to both immediate needs and long-term health goals. This workshop will explore the integrative health approaches addressing somatic, behavioral, and social determinants of health challenges experienced by PEERS and CHWs and highlight how these factors interconnect and contribute to health disparities. The workshop will emphasize the benefits of wraparound care and the importance of recognizing the needs of the whole person-mind, body and environment. It will compare and contrast the approaches that PEERS and CHW take to provide supportive care and the tools they utilize to help empower individuals toward health and wellness. It will illustrate how individuals have and can benefit from a collaborative approach linking PEER support and CHW efforts to achieve measurable outcomes.

• Workshop 5B 

Afraid of Ourselves: African American Men and Trauma in the Workplace

Presented by Donielle Davis, Peer Collaborator at DPP-Anne Arundel County

This workshop will address, assess, and work to eliminate the stigma of “the Angry Black Man” in the workplace. With data collected from articles, internal investigations, and self-reflection, this workshop will: 

• Address the possible origins of this terminology, and its widespread view.

• Assess how we, as members of the workplace, can see this problematic atmosphere this stigma creates.

• Work towards the elimination of this phrase that has entered our lexicon as “truth.”

9:15 - 10:00 am: The Voyage: Setting the Coordinates for Impactful Change *Live Stream*

Brandee Izquierdo, Director of Behavioral Health Programs, Pew Charitable Trusts

10:30 - 11:00 am: Break & Exhibit Hall (Lower Level)

Exhibitors & Hotel Check-Out

11:45 am - 12:30 pm:  Unapologetically Peer: From Lived Experiences to Professional Expertise *Live Stream*

Helen "Skip" Skipper, Executive Director, the NYC Justice Peer Initiative 

1:30-2:00 pm: Closing Remarks and Raffle Prizes *Live Stream*