Join us for a live webinar

In Honor of May is Mental Health Month, join us to hear about the experiences of Peer Advocates who work to create positive change for our peer community.

About the webinar:

Peer Advocates play an important role in the fight for the rights of our peer community. As individuals with experience navigating the mental health system, they have grown and persevered. Members of a peer coalition, Peers Advocating for Rights & Recovery (PARR), will share their experiences, stories, strategies and goals of their advocacy work and projects to promote improvements to our mental health system and services.

Speakers:

Katherine Wolf, MPH, MESc, is a doctoral student with mental health and physical disabilities in the Sustainability and Health Equity and Disabled Ecologies laboratories in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California at Berkeley. She conducts research at the intersection of environmental health and disability studies with a particular focus on health facility sites in California. 

Paul Simmons has worked in the nonprofit sector since 1991, including several mental health associations. He worked with Rusty Selix, the preeminent mental health advocate in California and co-author of Proposition 63 (the Mental Health Services Act), which has brought billions of dollars to the mental health services field. Paul worked with the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) as a Community Engagement Specialist and Executive Director to revitalize mental health services in California. He helped develop the Selix Soft Skills Suite, which is a series of events and workshops to provide education and support to Californians with mood disorders and their families and friends. Paul was a primary advocate in the campaign against Governor Newsom’s Proposition 1, which reduced billions in funding from Mental Health Services. He now serves on the Board of Directors of California Peer Watch, an advocacy organization representing the interests of the mental health community.

Emily Wu Truong is an award-winning Taiwanese American mental health advocate and grief artist for trauma-informed care, harm-reduction, and systemic change to strengthen community resilience and healing. She learned to channel her grief energy into various art forms - singing, writing, dancing, playing the piano, & being a fashion statement for mental health in green and the LGBTQ movement in rainbow. Identifying as a suicide-attempt, sexual assault & psychiatric survivor, she serves as a peer resilience coach inspiring others to tap into their own inner strength. Invited to speak for Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, Yale, Princeton, USC, TEDx and Raytheon, she was featured by the California Mental Health Movement when it was called “Each Mind Matters.” As a support group facilitator, she creates safe spaces for marginalized individuals with mental health disabilities. Emily serves as the first Asian American board member for the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery. She was named the 2024 AAPI Community Champion by former Senator Anthony Portantino and honored by The Alliance for Rights & Recovery for their Unsung Champions of Advocacy Award. Her advocacy, creative expression and dedication to community healing inspires many to transform their own pain into beauty to share with the world.