Oct  17, 2021 Teaser~International Peer Respite Soteria Summit
Channel: International Peer Respite Soteria Summit
Date: 2021-10-10

A sneak peak of day three  of our International Peer Respite Soteria Summit! 
"Creating Compassionate Alternatives to Mainstream Interventions  for People in Crisis and Distress"

Every Sunday in October 2021!  October 3, 10, 17, 24 & 31.

For more info and to register, go to www.alternatives-conference.o...

This free international, online, participatory conference will give people the inspiration, tools, resources, networks and ongoing support to bring a Peer Respite or Soteria House to their communities.

Sunday, October 17-- The Administrative Container workshop
    * Organizational structure, incorporation, board of directors
    * Funding
    * Policy environment
    * The house, siting, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), community relations

Moderator in video:
Top right: Jen Kilyon, Chair of UK Soteria Network, helped set up a pilot Soteria House which ran successfully for a year in the UK. She is now supporting local UK Soteria Groups with a view to opening several Soteria Houses.

Panelists in video: 
Top left: Jim Gottstein, co-founder of Soteria-Alaska, which operated from 2009 to 2015, founder and CEO of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), and author of The Zyprexa Papers

Bottom left: Cindi Fisher, from a parent perspective, Cindi has successfully fundraised to establish a culturally-sensitive alternative house

Bottom right: Susan Musante, founding director of Soteria-Alaska and first full-time director of CHOICES, an alternative to conventional community mental health services directed and provided primarily by people who themselves have a “lived experience” with recovery

Joining later in video: Todd Noack, executive director of Life Connections Peer Recovery Services by that has operated the only Iowa-based Peer Run Respite House in Iowa for the last three years

Additional panelist not in video: 
Joleen Darby, an internal leader of People USA whose four New York Rose Houses have diverted people out of 25,000 psychiatric hospital days since 2001 when the first Rose House opened. 

Pesach Lichtenberg, former academic head of psychiatry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, left the closed psychiatric ward he directed in order to set up Soteria homes in Israel.

Kevin Fitts actively champions voice and choice. Through his leadership of Oregon Mental Health Consumers Association (OMHCA), wrote, introduced, and got passed an Oregon state legislative funding bill for four peer respites http://omhca.org/

Maria Kavouras manages two Rose Houses serving three New York counties, multiple supportive housing programs, a mobile outreach team, and several programs designed to help individuals living at state psychiatric hospitals to transition directly back to community living.