Voices of the Heart, Inc.

Framework & Strategy

•Volunteers/Members•Trainings•ABCD•Human Rights

• Fundraising•Events (Authors, Movies)•Trainings•Conferences•Community Table Events

•Peer Respite House•Alternatives Project•WRAP• IPS groups•Hearing Voices Groups• Support Line

•Advocacy• Self-Advocacy Trainings•Advance Directive Project

Rights Alternatives

CommunityPublic Perception

Rights & Advocacy

• Reasonable accommodation• Medication over objection

hearings• Involuntary Commitment • SSI/SSD• Housing

Self-Advocacy Training

Advance Directive Project

• http://www.voicesoftheheart.net/index.php?categoryid=29&logout=1

Alternatives Healing Project

Peer Respite/Hospital Diversion

Framework Training• “Over the last 35 years, peer support in mental health has

evolved out of a human rights perspective. Starting in the late 1970’s, when most of the “mental health” community was talking about life long illness and containment in the community, people working in peer support were talking about rights, consciousness raising, alternatives, and choice. While all this was developing, so were the ideas about what makes peers support different from other kinds of “help”. Not better or worse, but a whole different way of thinking about life and supportive relationships.”

- Shery Mead IPS

Wellness Recovery Action Planning

• Voices of the Heart 14 Trained Facilitators for our Counties

• Respite Staff

• Support Line volunteers

Hearing Voices Network

• Hearing Voices Groups originated in Europe and now there are over 160 chartered groups in England alone.

• Hearing Voices Groups do not pathologize hearing voices or other altered experiences, instead, group members explore these phenomena in an environment of mutual support and curiosity.

• There is an emerging body of evidence to support the effectiveness of Hearing Voices Groups.

• They offer people who hear voices the opportunity to share their experience and find ways of coping with this experience which can be complementary to other support methods.

Public PerceptionAnnual Conference Fundraising Events

Training & Framework Staff, Volunteers & Members

Trainings

• Advocacy• Copeland Center (WRAP)• Intentional Peer Support

(IPS)• Hearing Voices Network • Living into Wholeness

Frameworks

• Human Rights

• Asset Based Community Development

Integrity of Peer Support• “Recovery is a concept that came out of the client movement. And I think it's very

important that as we move into this new era where we've got the whole mental health system talking about recovery. We have to be the ones to make sure to keep them honest.

• They've co-opted a lot of words we've used in the past. They kind of co-opted empowerment, they kind of co-opted self-help. We can't let them do that with recovery. We can't let them make recovery just another synonym for the same-old, same-old.

• (about the mhsa) ....so there are powerful entrenched forces that are going to try to take this language around choice and empowerment and twist and tweak and torture it to make it mean something it doesn't mean. It just seems so clear when you say client choice, that it really means that we have choices.

• But a lot of people who have very paternalistic attitudes believe that we're not really capable of making real choices and knowing what's good for ourselves are going to twist it into some kind of — I don't know what they're going to call it — guided choice or controlled choice or assisted choice or ??, so we've got to be really vigilant.”

• Judi Chamberlain• Remarks from keynote at Client Forum 2005

Contact Us

• Daniel Hazen – Executive Director• Voices of the Heart, Inc• 518-798-1100• vohwebmaster@albany.twcbc.com• www.voicesoftheheart.net