Creating a Space for Diverse Voices to Be Heard and Grow Leadership:
A Webinar for Black History Month by Surviving Race: The Intersection of Injustice, Disability, and Human Rights
Wednesday, February 26, 2020: 1:00 – 2:30 PM Eastern,
12 - 1:30 pm Central, 11 am - 12:30 pm Mountain,
10 am - 11:30 am Pacific
hosted by the
National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery
National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery |
Presenters: Celia Brown, Lauren Tenney, Jen Padron, Allilsa Fernandez, Braunwynn Franklin, and Jonathan P. Edwards
Celia and Lauren will speak about their work and activities with Surviving Race. Jen will speak about alternatives to calling 911 for “psychiatric/mental health reasons.” Allilsa will cover the impact of discriminatory campus medical leave policies on marginalized communities. Braunwynn writes that her journey has led her “to move forward in social and system change for people who experience mental health challenges, incarceration, and gender-based violence.” Jonathan will discuss “how pursuing dreams may be a coping mechanism, but not a blinder!” He writes: “We can hide behind achievements, or we can acknowledge the struggle that drove us beyond the labels society has created for us…”
Surviving Race: The Intersection of Injustice, Disability, and Human Rights
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Celia Brown is a psychiatric survivor who was instrumental in developing the first peer specialist civil service title in the country and the first peer specialist in New York. A long time activist in the movement, she served as the main representative to the United Nations for MindFreedom International and collaborated with other Disability organizations on the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Celia is a founding member of Surviving Race: The Intersection of Injustice, Disability, and Human Rights. She is a certified peer specialist in New York State and supports others to use their voice.
Celia is a Co-Founder of Surviving Race. She engages and motivates the US and global recovery community as a leader who resides and works in New York City. |
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Celia Brown
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Jen Padron
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Jen Padron, M.Ed, CHW, CPS, QMHP is a Georgia educator, painter, and an entrepreneurial innovative and emergent social justice change agent. She consults privately and publically as VP and Principal System Consultant at SmartSafeHealthy LLC.
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Lauren J. Tenney, PhD, MPhil, MPA, BPS is a psychiatric survivor, advocate, activist, author, and artist, and abolitionist first involuntarily committed in 1988, at age 15. Tenney’s work aims to expose historical and modern institutional corruption, a source of profit for organized psychiatry. Tenney calls for the end of state sponsored human rights violations carried out through organized psychiatry, including murder, torture, slavery, and eugenics.
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Lauren J. Tenney
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Allilsa Fernandez
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Allilsa Fernandez graduated magna cum laude from Stony Brook University in December 2018 with a B.A. in psychology, despite being told she would never be able to attend school because of her struggles with psychosis. Allilsa is a legal intern at the Anti-Violence Project in New York and a Peer Specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital. She founded Peer Mental Health Alliance, an organization that provides resources, peer-to-peer support, and creative arts programming, and which aims to end the prejudice and discrimination associated with mental health conditions. Through her activism, Allilsa fought for and assured American with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance at Stony Brook.
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Jonathan Edwards is a native New Yorker who loves jazz, travel, and good conversation. He currently works for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and also serves on the New York Peer Specialist Certification Board and the boards of interNational Association of Peer Supporters and Mental Health News Education. Jonathan consults nationally and internationally on peer workforce implementation and supervision. He states that hope and peer support continue to shape his worldview during his ongoing recovery from both substance use and mental health issues; and hope and peer support also gave him the fortitude to complete his Bachelor’s degree at the age of almost 40, earn a Master of Social Work degree, become a licensed clinician, and, with the exception of his dissertation--which he will soon defend--complete all of the requirements for his PhD.
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Jonathan P. Edwards
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Braunwynn Franklin
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Braunwynn Franklin is a black woman with lived experience in regard to mental health, incarceration, and gender-based violence; and she is a nationally known advocate and trainer in the peer mental health and prison reform communities. She is dedicated to making a difference in these communities by supporting people to gain a better quality of life mentally, spiritually, and physically. She sits on the boards of directors of many service agencies and is on the Oregon Consumer Advisory Council.
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National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery
Email: info@ncmhr.org
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