Join us for a live webinar.

In honor of May is Mental Health Awareness Month, we invited speakers with lived experience with mental health disabilities to share their stories of hope and journeys to recovery, which show that having a mental illness is not a barrier to living a fulfilling life.

From their experiences, we will learn how speaking up and advocating for our needs and rights can create positive changes in our lives. Through self-advocacy, we can make a difference and live the lives that we choose.

ASL Interpreter Available

About the webinar:

Speakers will join us in this webinar to talk about their life journey, sharing their struggles and experiences living with a mental health disability.

They will also talk about their accomplishments advocating for themselves and others.

Please join us as they share their personal stories and express their thoughts about:

• Mental health and recovery
• Their discovery of self-advocacy
• Their recovery journey and the importance of hope

Speakers:

Richard Gallo is a self-advocate. He is currently a night counselor in a step-down program from clients coming from 5150 units to stabilize on their medications. He is a former Disability Benefits Specialist with BPAO projects which now is the WIPA projects. He is also hard of hearing.

Wendy Cabil is a Community Advocate from Antelope Valley, deeply rooted in South Los Angeles, who utilizes her lived experience to empower and educate her peers. By practicing her own self-advocacy, she is able to show up for others because she knows there is someone out there like her who also needs a lifeline. After losing her job in an organization that helped the unhoused, Miss Wendy struggled with homelessness for 13 years before securing permanent housing. Advocacy has been her lifeline. While battling Major Depression, PTSD and Anxiety, Wendy became a Peer Mentor and “In Our Own Voice” Presenter with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Miss Wendy is the Chair for the Cultural Competency Committee within the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and the Chair of the African American Committee at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. She is passionate about social justice and policy reforms. With a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA in History and Applied Developmental Psychology, Miss Wendy enjoys music, singing, creative writing, arts and crafts, personal growth workshops, aromatherapy, comedy, and equine therapy.

Princess Kosinski is a peer, advocate, joy developer, and multidimensional soul having a human experience. As an Afro-European with a white lived experience, the self-study of Afrikan metaphysics and spirituality with a secular religious upbringing has provided the experiential opportunities and self-reflection to create space for many perspectives. The journey began with the choice to align with her Divine Purpose, composting the past, expressing gratitude for today, and honoring the soul's contract to experience all that is to be human while awakening from spiritual amnesia. Curiosity continues to lead the personal exploration of different personal development and wellness interventions to figure out what works and doesn’t in her Universe. Being an avid YouTube University student, library card holder, and lover of long-form podcasts that focus on topics such as spirituality, behavior science, health and wellness, and optimizing the learning process, much has been learned and is ready to be shared to support others with creating the internal dialogue of internal validation, self-love and self-acceptance to remain unbothered when navigating the secular world.