Townhall: Peer Support Specialist Certification – Challenges with Grandparenting-In

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Townhall: Peer Support Specialist Certification – Challenges with Grandparenting-In

Many people with mental health disabilities find that having a psychiatric service or emotional support animal improves their daily lives and their mental health and wellness. Learn the difference between these assistance animals and your rights regarding public access and reasonable accommodations.

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Townhall:Peer Support Specialist Certification – Challenges with Grandparenting-In

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Join us for a live townhall

Are you running into barriers trying to get certified by Grandparenting-In? Since the deadline to Grandparent-In is June 30th, 2023, it is urgent that we hear from you so we can call out CalMHSA to address and resolve these issues! Sponsored by Peers Advocating for Rights and Recovery (PARR), come join us to share your experiences and advocate for change!

*This training is presented from a peer perspective by people who have lived experience with mental disabilities.*

Live Caption and ASL Interpreter Available

When:
April 5, 2023
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Pacific Time

Register Today

About the townhall:

Come join Peers Advocating for Rights and Recovery (PARR) to provide your feedback about the specific obstacles you have been facing in the Grandparenting-In process for Peer Support Specialist certification. We will gather your input and report these issues to the California Behavioral Health Planning Council to advocate for making the process easier. Let’s call out CalMHSA to finally address and resolve these issues!

We want to hear about your experiences and challenges, including:

  • Work Requirements & Obtaining Required Documentation
  • Training and CEU’s
  • Getting Letters of Recommendation
  • Application & Exam Process & Accommodations
  • Getting Questions Answered by CalMHSA
  • How Much Time it Takes to Apply & Get Certified
  • And much more!

Peers Advocating for Rights and Recovery (PARR) is a coalition of peer advocates whose goal is to elevate the peer voice and promote positive change in our mental health system. We advocate for voluntary, community-based services that respect our self-determination and individual choice to better support and serve our peer community.

PARR Facilitators:

Andrea Wagner is the Executive Director of California Mental Health Peer-Run Organizations (CAMHPRO) and is a person with lived experience. She is a long-time peer advocate who oversees several peer-focused programs and presents frequently at mental health-related conferences throughout the state. She had the opportunity to work for several years alongside Sally Zinman, one of our pioneer peer advocates. Andrea is very passionate about supporting and elevating the peer voice and creating positive change for our peer community.

Laurie Hallmark is a psychiatric survivor with lived experience with involuntary hospitalization. As an attorney, she has advocated for her clients' human and civil rights in psychiatric hospitals, jails, courts, and for people who are unhoused. For the past six years, working with peers, she has focused on Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs) as the foundation for holistic legal advocacy to protect rights, increase self-determination, and hold systems accountable to the people they exist to serve. But the best job she has ever had was working in a clubhouse.

Tiffany Elliott is an asexual, neuroatypical, and disabled woman who was introduced to the transformative power of the Recovery Model of mental health care in 2006 during a peer support training. Mental health professionals had told her Social Security was her only hope for a sustainable income and insisted she would never complete her post-secondary education. She has since received her BA and MFA. Elliott has worked in the behavioral health field for over 13 years (including as Program Manager for CAMHPRO’s Peer Empowerment Partnership, where she elevated the peer voice in SB 803’s roll-out). Elliott is currently the Program Manager for Painted Brain’s Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Training Program, which is training future peer supporters.

Robyn Gantsweg is a person with lived experience who has advocated for the rights and recognition of our peer community since she was a teenager placed in a locked facility against her will. Since 2015, she has been the Program Manager of the Peer Self-Advocacy Program at Disability Rights California. In her current work, she advocates for systems change by creating The Peer Connection newsletter, managing a peer listserv and working alongside other peer advocates in PARR. Robyn’s goal is to unify and mobilize our peer community to elevate peer voices and advocate for a mental health system that truly meets us where we’re at.

For more information about PARR, send an email to: robyn.gantsweg@disabilityrightsca.org.

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