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CRAZYDIAMOND USA
EMOTIONAL WELLBEING AND TRAINING CONSULTANCY
Recovery & Thriving
Amy Smith - Director, crazydiamond USAHello, I am one of many Amy Smiths in the world. There are over a hundred of us in Denver alone! I have lived in Denver, Colorado, USA, all my life. Colorado is very beautiful, with 14,000 foot high mountains & so forth. The people who live here to be frontier types, stubborn, independant & headstrong. About 40 years ago, I was labeled with mental illness - I was 15 and a sad & lonely teenager I guess. ( Neither my sister or I remember our childhoods or our parents.) I was an artist and a lot of my odd behaviour was attributed to my being a "crazy artist". So, eventually the psychiatrists had their way with me, even though I resisted anything but talk therapy for many years. I ended up on 13 psychotropic drugs for years! Three mood levelers, 3 anti-depressants, 3 anti-psychotics, 3 benzodiazepines, and a muscle relaxer. Its a wonder I could even move! I certainly was a strange person during that period of time,hallucinating, violent, incontinent, balding & drooling! Wow! Well, about three years ago, I met a psychoanalyst who lives in New York City, an elderly, cranky, Jewish, Freudian psychoanalyst that I spoke with on the phone once a week. She helped me transition off the last two psychiatric medications, for which I will be forever grateful to her for. I had been working in the public behavioral healthcare service delivery system for the last ten years, and here my mind has suddenly changed- drastically- I was able to experience my emotions, relate to people, create art, etc. etc. Most importantly, though, I was no longer compliant and cooperative as I once was! I began to question what I heard and think about what I was told. Up until that point in time, I had been the primary dog & pony show in Colorado, constantly standing in front of vast crowds with a microphone in my hand, proclaiming for all the world to hear that the Consumers of Colorado are HAPPY with their services. Suddenly, I wasnt as sure of that, plus I was coming to realize we had no clue what was happening in other parts of the USA, not to mention the rest of the world! I had come to think of myself as quite the advocate & even activist, yet all I knew how to do was advocate for more services! This was a somewhat difficult period of time, not just for me as I re-learned how to manage emotions, feelings & dreams, but for those around me. My personality changed drastically and I was not nearly as pleasant as I used to be! So here come Mike & Marion from the United Kingdom. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the materials they brought with them- I was able to read a couple of their books, but not allowed to attend the trainings the first year they were here. I was wonderfully surprised to read about things I had previously only been able to vaguely wonder about. The next year, I was able to attend the trainings, and spent a lovely week, soaking them in! By this time, my responsibility at my job was running a large education program, with a peer-driven curriculum, things folks have told me they wanted to learn about. My intention was to bring the national-level voice to Colorado, and start introducing new concepts and ideas to the community. I developed an extensive history curriculum, and the more I worked on that, the more convinced I became that not knowing history is like being a leaf that doesnt know it is part of a plant. As I studied the history of psychiatric care, the fiscal, political & social reasons we have the system we do, it became more & more clear to me we are on a continuum, and where we are today is by no means the end of the road. And there are a couple very predictable routes we can take from this point forward, some of them being very uncomfortable & downright scary. And some truly wonderful & inspiring. I feel my role now is to support the wonderful choices we can make, and by supporting THRIVE, EleMental & the crazydiamond philosophy, I will be doing just that. I feel honored for being included in the Crazydiamond & EleMental community and am here to be of service! Much love & affection to you all! AMY SMITH - crazydiamondusa_gmail.com
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Marion Aslan, Paula Pettit, Mike Smith and Rowland Urey have worked extensively across America since 1994 and were at the forefront of introducing recovery practice into UK. Dr Mike Smith, in his role as Director of Nursing Birmingham introduced Crisis Family Placements across the Midlands based on the work of Russ Bennett and Paul Polak. Mike was instrumental in introducing the concept of Assertive Outreach Teams here in UK based on the work of Len Stein (PACT). He secured funding to set up the first UK Peer Run alternatives to hospital - Soteria Houses - Scallygrigg, Anam Cara and Selene which Marion went on to develop and run. As manager of an innovative Department of Health project, Changing Futures she was able to spread recovery knowledge gained from American visionaries such as Russ Bennett, David leConte,Jen Koberstein and Loren Mosher to organisations across England and to subsequently introduce Peer Specialist programmes in Europe, Africa and Australia.Marion and Rowland have worked on many occasions with Mental Health Centre of Denver and other organisations in Boston, California,Colorado, Washington and Wisconsin. Through knowledge gained working with a wide range of consumer groups, Rowland developed the User Controlled Evaluation on Recovery widely used now in UK, and was awarded a Better Lives Award for Excellence in the field of Recovery.Paula has trained mental health workers and University students in Madison, Wisconsin. Her interest in Crisis Family Placements has led to her setting up a Family Run Therapeutic Centre in Wales Our recent work in California, Colorado and Wisconsin has introduced innovative ways of working with Voices, Psychosis, Self Harm and Depression. The THRIVE Approach to recovery is being developed by a number of mental health organisations and providers. Amy Smith and Paulina Black are further developing training courses and THRIVE Recovery Approaches in the USA.SEE-www.colorado.gov - Colorado Mental Health Advocates Forum "Consensus Statement on Mental Health Resiliency"MHCD Training department www.bhicares.org/education.htm
Paulina Black - USA Lead, crazydiamondWe welcome Paulina Black to the organisation. Paulina has been an associate trainer with crazydiamond since 2009 and has recently taken on the Lead Trainer role with the organisation. She arranges conferences, training and consultancy on Recovery and Thriving, and innovative sessions on working with Voices, Psychosis, Self Harm and Depression in addition to Women's Mental Health and Disability Rights training. Paulina is based in Denver, Colorado but travels extensively across USA. For further details of training offered by Paulina and for dates of upcoming visits to USA by Marion, Mike, Rowland and Paula contact Paulina - paulina0271_aol.com
MHCD Conference 2010 - All Good People, Nerina Pallot
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