Rita Aguiar is a community psychology doctoral student at ISPA-IU in Lisbon. She works as an assistant researcher in a project granted by the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology). After being diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder in 2001, her main interests concern power relations in research, emancipatory research, the self-help movement, stigma, and user/survivor-controlled research.
David Asiamah, M.A., is a doctoral student in the Clinical-Community psychology program at the University of South Carolina. He is currently a Community Assessment Coordinator for a U.S. National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation and Research funded study examining environmental factors affecting community integration of persons with serious mental illness living independently. His research interests, although broad, center of the educational achievement of African American college students, social support and homelessness.
Tim Aubry is a Professor in the School of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa. An established researcher in the fields of community mental health and homelessness, he has consulted and collaborated closely on research projects with community organizations and government at all levels contributing to the development of effective social programs and policies. He teaches graduate courses in community psychology and program evaluation.
Richard C. Baron, M.A., is the Director of Knowledge Translation for the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities. His work has focused on community integration, especially work, of individuals with psychiatric disabilities.
Louis D. Brown is a community psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health. His research examines how to improve the implementation quality of community-based interventions that promote mental and behavioral health. He is particularly interested in empowering local citizens to collaborate in improving their lives and their communities. Pursuing these interests has led to a line of research focused on two types of group-based collaborative strategies for health promotion - self-help/mutual support initiatives and community coalitions.
Victoria H. Chien, M.A., is an advanced graduate student at the University of South Carolina who is working on her doctoral degree in Clinical-Community Psychology and her masters in Business Administration. In one of her primary roles, she serves as the data manager for a U.S. National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation and Research funded study examining environmental factors affecting community integration of persons with serious mental illness living independently. Victoria has worked as an instructor of behavioral statistics, a program evaluator and a consultant to non-profit organizations. Her research interests include capacity building, community organizing, community integration, and evaluation.
Mary Ellen Copeland, Ph.D., is the founder of the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery. She has been working for over 20 years to prove to the world that people who deal with mental health issues can, and do get well, and go on to live rich and rewarding lives. To do this, she has conducted intensive studies of the day-to-day and life recovery strategies and skills of people who experience mental health difficulties, and how these people have gotten well, stayed well and worked toward achieving their own goals and dreams. She undertook these studies out of her own frustration in dealing with these issues in her own life. She has achieved long-term wellness by using many of the skills and strategies she learned from these studies. Dr. Copeland has given keynote addresses, seminars and workshops all over the world and is well known in the world wide mental health recovery movement. She is the author of many self help resources including WRAP Plus, WRAP: Wellness Recovery Action Plan, The Depression Workbook: A Guide to Living with Depression and Manic Depression, WRAP and Peer Support (with Shery Mead) and the popular facilitator training curriculum, Mental Health Recovery and WRAP. Working with Shery Mead, she developed Community Links: Pathways to Reconnection and Recovery, a program using education and peer support approaches for people who have repeated involuntary commitments. She also worked with the SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services to develop the popular booklet series Self Help Guides to Recovering Your Mental Health and the Taking Action curriculum.
Hsiao d'Ailly, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Psychology and the Chair of Social Development Studies at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. Her areas of teaching and research include social statistics, social research methods, motivation, educational psychology, cross-cultural psychology, immigrant adaptation, and community based research. Dr. d'Ailly has been an active member in the community and has taken on several leadership roles. She was the President of the Board for K-W Counselling Services from 2005-2007, a non-profit counselling agency in Waterloo region and continued to serve as a member of the Board of Directors for that agency until 2010. Dr. d'Ailly also chaired a partners' table for "Multiculturalism: Helping it Work", a project funded by Canadian Heritage, and served on the steering committee for "Newcomers Online", a project supported by HRDC to develop a community-based digital learning space to support new immigrants in Waterloo Region. She was a member of the steering committee and later participated in program evaluation for "Taking Culture Seriously in Mental Health", a 5-year Community University Research Alliance (CURA) project funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Larry Davidson is a Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Program for Recovery and Community Health at the School of Medicine and Institution for Social and Policy Studies of Yale University. His work has focused on processes of recovery in serious mental illnesses and addictions, evaluation of innovative recovery-oriented practices, including peer-delivered services, and designing and evaluating policies to promote the transformation of systems to the provision of recovery-oriented care. Dr. Davidson has produced over 200 publications, including the 2009 book written with several of his colleagues, entitled A Practical Guide to Recovery-Oriented Practice: Tools for Transforming Mental Health Care. Most recently, he has released another book entitled The Roots of the Recovery Movement in Psychiatry: Lessons Learned. His work has been influential both national and internationally in shaping the recovery agenda and in translating its implications for transforming mental health practice.
Betsy Davis is a graduate student in the Clinical-Community doctoral program at the University of South Carolina. She is currently a research assistant for a U.S. National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation and Research funded study examining environmental factors affecting community integration of persons with serious mental illness living independently. Her research interests include community-based interventions aimed at facilitating the recovery and community integration of individuals with serious mental illness.
Paula Goering is the Research Lead for At Home/Chez Soi, a project funded by the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Health Canada. She is also a Professor at the University of Toronto and an Affiliate Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Her research interests include homelessness, the evaluation of community mental health services and knowledge translation. She has, throughout her long career, been involved in applied research and consulting aimed at improving systems of care for individuals with severe mental illness.
Tereas Duarte has a Master's degree in Community Psychology and a B.A. in Social Policy. Currently, she is the President of AEIPS - Association for the Study of Psychosocial Integration - an NGO that aims to promote recovery, employment and community integration for people with experience with mental illness. Teresa is also on the board of the Portuguese Association for Supported Employment, a member of the European Union of Supported Employment, and on the steering committee of the Portuguese Network for Corporate and Organizational Social Responsibility.
Jay Harrison is a Master of Social Work candidate at Wilfrid Laurier University in Kitchener, Ontario. Jay's research and practice interests include meaningful user/survivor involvement in all aspects of the mental health system and the legitimacy of lived experience knowledge. Jay's work is greatly informed by her own recovery and community work, including serving as President of the Self Help Alliance, a consumer/survivor initiative located in southwestern Ontario.
Nora Jacobson is an interpretive social scientist who uses qualitative methods to study the development of health policy and the design and delivery of health services. She is the author of Cleavage: Technology, Controversy, and the Ironies of the Man-Made Breast (Rutgers University Press 2000), In Recovery: The Making of Mental Health Policy (Vanderbilt University Press 2004), and Dignity and Health (Vanderbilt University Press 2012). From 2001 until 2010, she was a scientist in the Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Currently, she is senior scientist and qualitative methodologist at the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Rich Janzen is Research Director at the Centre for Community Based Research in Kitchener, Ontario, and Assistant Professor at Renison University College at the University of Waterloo. He has been involved in over 90 applied research projects that have used a participatory action research approach. For Rich, research is a tool for social change - to find new ways of bringing people who are on the edge of society to live within community as full and equal members. Much of his research has focused on issues of immigrant settlement and integration, immigrants and churches, and community mental health. Rich has an academic background in Community Psychology, having completed an M.A. and a Ph.D. at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. He has also taught community-based research methods to graduate social work students.
Nev Jones is a community psychology doctoral student at DePaul University in Chicago and also works closely with Dr. Patrick Corrigan at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Nev's research interests include peer-led interventions, the treatment and phenomenology of early psychosis, power and empowerment, and issues related to service engagement and user-provider relationships. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, she is strongly committed to increasing user/survivor leadership and participation in research, and directs Chicago Hearing Voices.
Jessica A. Jonikas, M.A., is Associate Director of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Center on Mental Health Services Research and Policy, as well as a Research Specialist in Health Systems Research for the UIC Department of Psychiatry. She holds a Masters degree from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration and Center for Health Administration Studies. Ms. Jonikas is co-investigator/program director on federally-funded projects to promote health and self-determination for people in recovery, as well as evidence-based practice and research translation in public mental health settings. Ms. Jonikas is the senior author or co-author of research articles, book chapters, training guides, and other educational resources on recovery-oriented models of care. For over two decades, she has been an influential force in preparing and mentoring the mental health workforce.
Maria Fatima Jorge-Monteiro is currently a researcher at Psychology and Health I&D at Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, IU, Lisbon - Portugal, where she is completing her doctoral degree. She also has experience as a practitioner in a community mental health organization and expertise in social and mental health policies. She has participated on policy boards, through the membership in national advocacy organizations.
Thomas A. Kirk, Jr. is an executive whose extensive career includes nationally recognized design, operational and leadership experience in public and private healthcare systems. His vision has been driven by the firm belief that substance abuse and mental illness are treatable healthcare conditions for which recovery should be hoped for and expected, and that individuals and families in care must be major forces in designing care systems. These themes, at the outset and during his public service tenure in Connecticut as Commissioner (2000-2009) of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, were the basis for setting an overarching strategic goal - transform a traditional care system into one designed, implemented and evaluated based on recovery-oriented principles, values, and outcomes proposed by the mental health and addiction recovery communities. This resulted in a statewide quality-enhancement focus, emphasis on continuing and recovery support vs. acute care strategies, and strong cross-state agency, academic, faith and recovery community partnerships. Strong outcome and aggressive resource development/reinvestment approaches supported the transformation. Dr. Kirk currently is a member of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Advisory Council, served on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Council (2005-2009), and on workgroups of the Betty Ford Institute, the Milbank Memorial Fund, MacArthur, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations. He was appointed, in July 2011, to the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at the rank of Professor (Adjunct), and maintains a part-time consulting practice.
Laura Kurzban, M.A., is a doctoral student in the Clinical-Community Psychology
program at the University of South Carolina. She received her M.A. in
Psychology from New York University in 2010. She is currently working on a
U.S. National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation and Research funded study examining how social and environmental factors can facilitate community integration for people with psychiatric disabilities. Her research interests include the effects of poverty, homelessness, and stigma, and also community-based interventions for mental illness.
Sarah Maiter, M.S.W., Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her teaching, research and practice focus on policy and services for members of diverse ethno- cultural/racial communities particularly in the areas of mental health, child welfare, and youth mental health. Dr. Maiter is Principal Investigator/co-investigator of several Social Science and Humanities Research Council funded projects. She is currently exploring child protection services for members of diverse ethno-racial families when language barriers exist. Dr. Maiter was board member and Chair of the Diversity Committee of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). She also served as an Expert Panel Reviewer for Guidelines for Culturally Competent Evidence Based Approaches to Trauma Treatment for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and has provided consultation and training to Child Protection agencies and workers on policy and services for diverse ethno-racial families.
Lauren Munro is a doctoral student in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, whose research is primarily focused on social exclusion related to the health and well-being of gender and sexual minorities. Her approach to research is grounded in her lived experience as a user/survivor and, as such, she favors projects that prioritize marginalized voices and emphasize community control. Lauren is also an actor-activist, artist, and writer. She strongly believes in the importance of integrating academia and grassroots activism to create projects that push boundaries and challenge the status quo.
Joanna Ochocka is Executive Director of the Centre for Community Based Research and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Sociology at University of Waterloo and in the M.A./Ph.D. program in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. She was a recipient of Award for Teaching Excellence for the 2005 at Wilfrid Laurier University. Joanna is one of the leaders in the use of participatory action research and she practices community-based research as a tool to mobilize people for social change. Joanna's research and action has focused on community mental health for people with serious mental health issues, cultural diversity and immigration, and community supports for marginalized populations. She led the Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) on culture and mental health and CUExpo2011.
Maria O'Connell, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Dr. O'Connell has provided oversight and quality assurance for collaborative research and evaluation projects conducted at PRCH since 2002. She has an extensive background in conducting research on recovery-related topics, including psychiatric advance directives, self-determination and choice, recovery-oriented services, housing and other community based programs, as well as expertise in the development of data management systems, statistical analysis, and program evaluation. Dr. O'Connell has produced over 50 publications on topics related to recovery, advance directives, case management, supported housing, citizenship, and peer-related work, and is considered a leader in the field on the assessment of recovery-oriented systems of care.
Mary O'Hagan was a key initiator of the mental health psychiatric survivor movement in New Zealand in the late 1980s, and was the first chairperson of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry between 1991 and 1995. She was a Mental Health Commissioner in New Zealand between 2000 and 2007. Mary is now an international consultant in mental health and the developer of PeerZone - a series of peer led workshops in mental health and addiction. She has written and spoken on user and survivor perspectives in many countries, and has been an international leader in the development of the recovery approach.
Myra Piat, Ph.D., is a researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute Research Centre and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and School of Social Work at McGill University. She has many years of experience in managing social services in the public and community sectors. Her research focuses on mental health and homelessness, housing preferences, peer support, non-professional caregivers and the implementation of mental health recovery policy into services. Dr. Piat has also been instrumental in developing a partnership with the Yale University Program on Recovery and Community Health.
Lauren Polvere, Ph.D., is a research associate at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. Lauren earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the Graduate Center, CUNY. Lauren's research is focused on mental health recovery, youth agency and development, Housing First and interventions for homeless adults, and youth perspectives on institutional care.
David Reville, psychiatric survivor, is an adjunct professor in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. He teaches Mad People's History. He has been working on mental health issues for over 40 years as a community activist, a member of Toronto City Council and the Ontario Legislature (1980-90), special advisor to the Premier (1990-94), and chair of the Ontario Advocacy Commission. In 1996, he established David Reville & Associates (DRA), which specializes in social research and community development. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has been a major client, retaining DRA as a consultant on its redevelopment project and on client employment, empowerment, and banking. Since 2004, David has been an instructor in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. David's community service has been recognized by the Canadian Mental Health Association, the ARCH Disability Law Centre, and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.
Priscilla Ridgway, Ph.D., is organizational and community researcher at the Center for Community Support and Research at Wichita State University. She was formerly an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. Her education includes a M.S.W. (University of Connecticut) and Ph.D. in Social Work (University of Kansas). Ridgway has personal experience of recovery from brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her work in the field of mental health spans more than 40 years, from being a psychiatric aide, case manager and advocate for psychiatric inpatients, directing innovative programs at a psychosocial rehabilitation agency, and coordinating research and planning and policy development for a state mental health department. For the last 20 years she has worked within organizations committed to innovation and building recovery paradigm knowledge, including the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University, the University of Kansas Office of Mental Health Research and Training and Advocates for Human Potential, Inc. Her work in the last several years includes co-authoring Pathways to Recovery: A Strengths Self Help Workbook for personal recovery; a national research on a team primarily of consumer researchers in the What Helps and What Hinders Recovery? Project; work on recovery and resilience, hope, and spirituality; and defining elements of a recovery and recovery facilitating system; the development of recovery performance indicators; and whole health, peer support, and trauma healing.
Susan Rogers is Director of the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, a consumer-run national technical assistance center funded in part by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services; and she is Director of Special Projects of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania. She has 37 years of experience as a writer and editor; her articles have appeared in such publications as Behavioral Healthcare and the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing; and she currently edits People First for the Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. She has spoken at numerous national and statewide conferences, and has been interviewed on television, on the radio, and in the print media. She has been active in the consumer/survivor movement since 1984.
Mark Salzer, Ph.D., is a professor and founding Chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at Temple University. He is the Director of the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities, a research and training center funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Dr. Salzer obtained his B.A. in sociology and psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his Ph.D. in clinical/community psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, and completed his clinical internship at Yale University. Dr. Salzer has been the principal Investigator on numerous federally-funded research grants and has more than 60 publications that examine the delivery of effective community mental health and rehabilitation services to individuals with psychiatric disabilities.
Marybeth Shinn is Professor and Chair of the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Much of her research focuses on homelessness - how to understand it, prevent it, and end it for different populations, including individuals with serious mental illnesses. She has also worked with the Center for Recovery in Social Contexts at the Nathan Kline Institute to understand how the capabilities approach can contribute to recovery and open opportunities for people with mental illnesses. She is currently collaborating with colleagues at the Instituto Superior do Psicologia Aplicada and the Associação para o Estudo e Integração Psicossocial in Portugal to examine how the latter organization promotes members' capabilities. Beth has served as president of The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the Society for Community Research and Action, and received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Theory and Research from the latter group.
John Sylvestre is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology, and a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services, both at the University of Ottawa. He is also currently Senior Editor of the Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health. He has many years of experience conducing research and program evaluations of various aspects of local and provincial community mental health systems, including housing for people with serious mental illness, crisis intervention, and court outreach programs.
Greg Townley, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Portland State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina. His research interests include community inclusion of individuals with psychiatric disabilities, homelessness and housing, sense of community theory and measurement, and social-environmental research methods. He is also involved in research and applied work with peer-delivered mental health services and acts as the incoming co-chair of the SCRA Self-Help/Mutual Support interest group.
John Trainor is recently retired from his position as Director of the Community Support and Research Unit (CSRU), Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He is an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. He has extensive experience in hospital and community-based mental health services. As Director of the CSRU at CAMH, he was responsible for innovative programs in direct service, advocacy, community development, and research. From 1991-1995, Mr. Trainor was seconded as a senior policy advisor and program coordinator with the Ontario Ministry of Health and was responsible for the program development, policy, and research aspects of a province-wide initiative to develop consumer-controlled mutual aid programs.
Sam Tsemberis, Ph.D., founded Pathways to Housing an organization based on the belief that housing is a basic right, in 1992. He currently serves as the CEO. Pathways developed the Housing First program that has been remarkably effective in ending homelessness for people with mental health and addiction problems. Pathways Housing First program is successfully replicated in many places in the USA, Canada and Europe. Dr. Tsemberis is a clinical-community psychologist and is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. His latest book entitled Housing First was published by Hazelden Press.
Karen Unger, M.S.W., Ed.D., is president of the consulting firm Rehabilitation Through Education located in Portland, Oregon and an Associate Research Professor at Portland State University. Prior to these positions she was a Research Associate Professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson and Director of Supported Education at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Boston University where she led the development of the concept of supported education in the early 80's. Dr. Unger has authored numerous articles and book chapters on supported education and written A Handbook on Supported Education, Providing Services for Students with Psychiatric Disabilities, published by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company and available at Amazon.com and Supported Education: A Promising Practice (in the SAMHSA Evidence-Based Practices KIT series).
