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Date: June 3, 2020 @ 2:00 pm | Virtual Training Webinar
Presenters:Billy Bromage, Community Organizer
Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health; Co-chair, Structural Competency
Curriculum CommitteeYale Department of Psychiatry
&Bridgett Williamson, Co-Director
Citizens Project in New Haven, CTYale Program for Recovery
and Community Health
Collective Citizenship in Action:Peer to Peer Community Building
Housekeeping Information
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OUR TEAM
• Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health
in partnership with:
• C4 Innovations • Harvard University Department of Psychiatry • Center for Educational Improvement
New England MHTTC
Mission To use evidence-based means to disseminate evidence-based practices across the New England region.
Area of FocusRecovery-Oriented Practices, including Recovery Support Services, within the Context of Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care.
Ensuring Inclusion
New England MHTTC, 2020
To ensure the responsiveness of our work, we will actively develop and maintain a network of government officials, policy makers, system leaders, administrators, community stakeholders, providers, researchers, youth and adults, and family members from each of the six states to guide the New England MHTTC’s activities.
New England MHTTC, 2020
Meet our Presenters
Billy Bromage received his Master’s in Social Work degree, with a concentration in community organization, from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work in 2012. He has been working in the fields of community mental health and food assistance in New Haven, CT for over 15 years. He has been at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health since 2011. He works as a community organizer, developing projects with grassroots leaders, people with mental illnesses, DMHAS-funded programs, other nonprofit organizations, city and state government officials, and other civic leaders to promote mental health and inclusion in New Haven neighborhoods. As a central component of this work, he has also supported and helped to develop coalitions to sustain community-level inclusion and food security initiatives. He has served as a Co-chair of the Structural Competency Curriculum Committee in the Yale Department of Psychiatry since 2015.
Billy BromageCommunity Organizer
Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health; Co-
chair, Structural Competency Curriculum
CommitteeYale Department of
Psychiatry
Meet our Presenters
Bridgett Williamson is currently the Co-Director of the Citizens Project in New Haven, CT, for Yale’s Program for Recovery and Community Health (PRCH). She has worked in the field of Peer Support Services for approximately 11 years. Her work began as a peer mentor for Columbus House, Inc. in New Haven, CT. She has been with PRCH since 2007, starting first as a casual employee to becoming a Research Assistant in 2013. Her contribution to the work of citizens-oriented care, community organizing, and peer support has influenced the field nationally and internationally. Bridgett has presented in Montreal and Glasgow. According to Bridgett, “I love my work, I can be myself. I don’t have to pretend. When I’m working with my peers, I meet them where they’re at. I know that I’m not always going to connect with people right away, but in time, once they see that I’m not going anywhere, the walls come down.”
Bridgett WilliamsonCo-Director
Citizens Project in New Haven, CT
Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health
What We Hope to Cover
• Foundations of collective citizenship framework
• Ideas for putting collective citizenship into action, including a specific initiative in New Haven, CT
What are our Goals
• Review history and framework of recovering citizenship and collective citizenship
• Describe FACE and the work they do
• Explain how FACE operationalize the collective citizenship framework
• Discuss the role FACE plays during COVID-19
• Provide a platform to engage webinar participants in discussion about how collective citizenship might work in their organizations
Citizenship: Background and Overview• Supporting people in having a full life
in the community• Strong connection to the 5R’s
• Rights• Responsibilities• Roles• Resources• Relationships
• …and Belonging• Citizens Project has been main
intervention
Recovery and Citizenship…Recovering Citizenship (Rowe & Davidson, 2016)
Recovery: “living one’s life as best and fully as one can in the face of a mental illness that won’t go away”
Adapting environment and still providing supports
Inspired by Disability Rights movement
Fear of risk among practitioners (e.g., clients aiming to high)
People will make their choices anyway
Recovery has paid less attention to the societal conditions in which the process happens, like poverty and racism
“Two path” citizenship approaches of individual support andcommunity change
“Do it now” approach, aligned with Housing First and Supported Employment
“Systems of care are not equipped to support people’s valued community membership and participation”
Collective Citizenship –As applied to Mental Health Systems (Quinn, Bromage & Rowe, 2019)
• Response to individualizing tendency of mental health service systems
• Power rests within the group, rather than being possessed or portioned out by a paid professional
• Professionals can play important roles as common-cause partners, not as designated leaders
• A shift in power from social service providers to community members with lived experience of marginalization has to occur
• Does not replace individual’s personal rights, but rather provides relationships, mutual support to act collectively to secure rights
Focus Act Connect Everyday (FACE): How we started
• Started in April 2015 at social club, general facilitated discussion• Small groups at first – decided to move off site into community,
outside of mental health service system• Intentionally outside of the system: Remember: shift in power from
social service providers to community members with lived experience • Attended by people in recovery, staff, family members, community at
large, but not specifically focused on mental illness • Peer role in recruiting and supporting members
FACE: Role of the “Expert”
• Group is “leaderless” in decision-making• Leads to slow, sometimes wandering
group-building process – definitely notlinear
• Who has the answers?o Group members set agenda together
at each meetingo We create space for everyone to be
the expert on their own community experiences
o Flexible depending on situation• Staff roles: convener, reminder,
connector to community assets and networks, peer supporto …and sometimes expert, but not the
expert
Poll Question
Can a collective citizenship initiative like FACE exist within the mental heath system? Why or why not?
FACE: What we do in the community
• Began partnering with existing initiatives, rather than starting our own thing
• We pay attention to how we enter communities• Rely on community as asset, don’t recreate resources• We define our role within that context
• Mutual aid and support: We look after each other and the community at large
• Community murals• Annual grocery packing• Present regularly at IRCC symposium
o Teaching mental health professionals, in line with power shifting• Core members of Witnesses to Hunger New Haven
Research related to FACE
• 15 interviews with FACE members in 2017• Findings:
1. Decorating a home togethero Feeling comfortable and acceptedo Belonging
2. FACE is a bridgeo Venue for learning about communityo Members are compelled to act in
community3. More connected and more implicated
o Experiences as valuable rather than marginalizing
o Opportunity to give back
FACE in the time of COVID-19
• Peer to peer relationships not mediated by service systemo More easily maintained when system is stressed
• Oriented to mutual aido Both mental/emotional well-being and community resourceso Not focused on mental health treatment
• Giving backo Something to break up lonelinesso Collective approach: Partnership with Witnesses to Hunger
Questions andDiscussion
New England MHTTC, 2020
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E-mail: [email protected]
Billy [email protected]
Bridgett [email protected]
