Transformative Mental Health Talks: Analyzing Power in Mental Health Care
Feb
20
6:00 PM18:00

Transformative Mental Health Talks: Analyzing Power in Mental Health Care

About the Series

This event is part of an ongoing talk series inspired by IDHA’s Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum. It features members of our teaching faculty team and dives into timely topics that intersect with our transformative mental health lens. A first panel in September 2023 explored how to bridge the gap between the reality of mental health services and a world in which people’s autonomy and self-determination are truly centered. Learn more about the curriculum and enroll here.

About the Event

In this time of prolonged crisis and violence, many mental health providers are experiencing challenges in providing meaningful care to those they seek to support, as well as sustaining their own practice. Dominant mental health approaches encourage disconnection from body, mind, spirit, and our world, which greatly hinders a provider’s ability to show up authentically and effectively. Many people enter the field with a desire to help, but aren't given tools to navigate the trauma of systemic oppression and violence – which often leads to more harm. 

IDHA’s transformative mental health lens provides a roadmap to help meet this moment. It recognizes the inherent connections between our personal and collective transformation, uplifting care modalities that foster connection and name the root causes of trauma and distress. Transformative mental health situates providers within a wider ecosystem of change and liberation, calling upon them to join wider movements for equity and justice.

Join IDHA on Tuesday, February 20 to hear from a panel of activists, survivors, and providers about how they practice a transformative approach to mental health that honors our unique histories and inherent interconnectedness. Centering a multiplicity of roles and relationships to mental health, panelists will share how they have fostered self-awareness and sustainability by analyzing power in their lives and work. This event intends to ground us in the notion that mental health is political, and the role providers can play in co-creating a more liberatory and equitable future with their clients. 

This event is open to mental health workers and clinicians, researchers, educators, activists, survivors, peers, current and prior service users, writers, artists, and other advocates – anyone who is interested in exploring the link between personal and societal transformation.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL interpretation + automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please submit any additional access needs to contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

Anjali Nath Upadhyay

Anjali Nath Upadhyay M.A.² (she/they) founded the grassroots adult education program Liberation Spring and hosts the decolonial feminist podcast Feral Visions. She earned an MA degree in Political Science & a Graduate Certificate in International Cultural Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. From 2010-2014, she was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu. She holds an MA degree in Women’s Studies from SDSU. She double-majored in Women’s Studies and Political Science with a minor in Philosophy at CSU Fullerton. Upon invitation, she has presented her original research at dozens of universities, in addition to professional associations, radio shows, and community events. She has organized for prison abolition, graduate student collective bargaining, & more. She’s currently working on a manuscript titled Pulling Weeds & Planting Seeds: Wayfinding towards Collective Liberation and building the Weeds & Seeds app.

Evan Auguste

Evan Auguste, PhD (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His identities as a Haitian-African American man have informed his work on examining how the U.S.’s history of anti-Blackness has shaped psychological realities both in and outside of the country’s borders. His work focuses broadly on addressing the mental health consequences of structural anti-Blackness through the lens of Black liberation psychology. To date his research has primarily examined these experiences among recent Haitian migrants to the United States as well as justice-involved Black boys. He also focuses on developing and piloting anti-carceral and community-based health interventions, such as the Association of Black Psychologists’ Sawubona Healing Circles, which he co-developed, to promote healing from an African-centered framework.

Oumou Sylla

oumou is a multi-hyphenate polycreative - therapist, coach/wellness doula, entrepreneur, disruptor, writer, speaker, consultant and facilitator of spaces for radical learning. she is the creator of RMHFA, a workshop that is slowly but surely changing the care and mental health landscape. oumou’s lived and professional experiences are gifts that allow her to support people and businesses in intuitive and radical ways. their work aims to disrupt systems of disconnection, the laziness lie, the productivity death escalator and “the transactional ways in which relationships exist under capitalism” (word 2 niki franco).

Mayowa Obasaju

Mayowa Obasaju, PhD (she/her) is a Black, Nigerian born, American raised clinical and community, trauma and healing focused, womanist and liberation psychologist, trainer, and educator. Mayowa brings over 12 years of clinical, organizing, teaching, and training experience centering the intersectional and complex experiences of Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. In her teaching, training, organizing and private practice spaces, she works at the nexus of trauma and healing, self-in-community care practices, systemic and intersectional analysis, critical consciousness development, and anti-oppressive and liberatory practice. She believes that deepening authentic connection to self, spirit, community and land is healing. She is a mother, partner, sister, daughter and a lover of tattoos, reading, and dancing.

Moderator

Noah Gokul

Noah Gokul (they/them) is the Program Coordinator for the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA). They are a Queer multidisciplinary artist and educator here to create liberated worlds through art, storytelling, and sound. They grew up in Oakland, CA/unceded Ohlone land, and identify as a trauma survivor with sensitivities to the world around them. They use music and art for meaning-making and the healing of others, integrating these passions into their work as a peer for young adults in a first-episode psychosis program. They have facilitated in a wide variety of settings, at the intersections of anti-oppression, trauma, incarceration, Caribbean ancestry, music, and mental health. Through their incantations they create spaces of radical imagination and possibility.

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Palestinian Liberation: Lessons in Solidarity for Mental Health Providers
Dec
11
6:00 PM18:00

Palestinian Liberation: Lessons in Solidarity for Mental Health Providers

Join the Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work (NAASW), Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), and USA Palestine Mental Health Network (USA PMHN) on Monday, December 11 for a virtual panel conversation with mental health providers creating opportunities for solidarity with Palestinian liberation through their roles. 

Beyond clinical approaches for supporting clients directly impacted by the ongoing genocide and addressing historical, collective, and racialized trauma, we will invite panelists to share their own strategies and skills for politicizing the therapeutic relationship in the context of this repressive moment. Further inquiries into knowledge and praxis will aim to connect the dots between psychoeducation and political education, mental health and collective care, and Palestinian and global liberation.

This event is particularly geared towards mental health workers, clinicians, counselors, and students interested in deepening solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggles. Researchers, educators, activists, survivors, peers, current and prior service users, writers, artists, and other advocates are also welcome to join us.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

NAASW, IDHA, and USA PMHN are small organizations that strive to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. This event is by tiered suggested donation to cover the cost of ASL interpretation and panelist honoraria, though no one will be turned away due to a lack of funds. Any further proceeds generated from the event will be donated to organizations that support Palestinian liberation efforts.

Access

ASL interpretation and automated captioning will be provided. Recording to be announced.

If you have any questions about access or otherwise, please email contact@idha-nyc.org or abolitionistsw@gmail.com.  

Panelists

Vivian AbouAllol, Ms.Ed, LMHC, LCPC (she/her) is a  Palestinian American Psychotherapist practices in Florida and Illinois.  She received her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Northern Illinois University and currently is working on her Doctoral degree. Vivian is on the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network Steering Committee. She is a qualified supervisor providing supervision in Florida state. She has extensive training in Trauma, Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART). Vivian has widespread experience with PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief, adjustment issues and Substance abuse. She helped individuals and families of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Vivian currently works in her private practice and is a provider for a Group practice.

Gina Ali (they/she) is a queer North African & Muslim therapist living on the occupied territory of Tongva land (also known as Los Angeles, California). They are currently a Ph.D. candidate developing research within the field of decolonial psychology. Gina has spent many years divesting from western individualistic mental health models and moving towards a framework that centers healing within relationships. Through their educational content on social media, Gina focuses on how processing collective trauma requires a shift from “me” to we to truly identify the root of what pains us. Their therapeutic practice has become a way to create room for marginalized people to imagine life past survival, despite the dominant narrative of exile and erasure under oppressive systems. Within this space, Gina invites the transformative potential of embracing neurodivergence, tapping into ancestral wisdom, and contributing to the creation of a world rooted in community care. 

Roula Hajjar (she/her) is a postgraduate psychotherapist at the Greene Clinic in Brooklyn, where she works with adults, couples and groups across the life course. She received her MSW from Silberman School of Social Work in 2022. Prior to beginning her MSW, Roula worked in policy. She received and B.A. from the American University of Beirut in Political Studies and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in Public Policy. Having been trained in the social work discipline, Roula endeavors to bring in an awareness to the material realities of the individuals she works with, recognizing structural violence and systematic oppression in the contextualization of their pain. Roula is a first-generation Arab immigrant from Lebanon. She is a native Arabic and English speaker.

Melody Li, LMFT (they/佢) is the founder of Inclusive Therapists: a mental health directory, resource hub & community centering marginalized communities. They also founded Mental Health Liberation, a non-profit bridging Black, Indigenous and People of Color with free, quality therapy, and empowering Students & Clinicians of Color. Their activism focuses on decolonizing mental health care and dismantling the industrial complex. The colony-born migrant and settler on Turtle Island advocates for Landback, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Black Liberation as priority.

Christine Schmidt, LCSW, CGP (she/her) is a clinical social worker and group psychotherapist in private practice in Brooklyn, New York. She is on the Steering Committee of the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network, the Co-President of Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society, and the co-founder of Racial Literacy Groups collective. Christine has published about the psychological dynamics of racism with particular focus on the impact of whiteness.

Lara Sheehi, PsyD (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology and founding faculty director of the Psychoanalysis and the Arab World Lab. Lara’s work takes up decolonial and anti-oppressive approaches to psychoanalysis, with a focus on liberation struggles in the Global South. She is co-author with Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022) which won the Middle East Monitor's 2022 Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book. Lara is currently under contract with Pluto Press for her new book project, From the Clinic to the Street: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures.

Moderator

Brianna Suslovic is an abolitionist social worker and doctoral student based in Chicago on unceded Potawatomi land. She is affiliated with the Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work.

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Political Uses of Mental Health Laws in the U.S. and Canada Today
Dec
7
6:00 PM18:00

Political Uses of Mental Health Laws in the U.S. and Canada Today

About the Event

In April 2023, IDHA convened the sixth installment of our ongoing Decarcerating Care series, Histories of Coercion and Dreams for Liberated Futures. This panel explored how institutionalization has long operated as a tool of social control, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities, manifesting today in the expansion of involuntary commitment directives nationally.

In a follow-up community event on Thursday, December 7, Decarcerating Care panelists Kelechi Ubozoh and Rob Wipond will delve deeper into how we define and understand “political” uses of psychiatric detention and commitment powers in a contemporary North American context. Speaking from lived experience, Kelechi will share personal perspectives on psychiatric force. Grounded in ongoing journalistic work at the interfaces between psychiatry, civil rights, and community issues, Rob will frame various ways of understanding “political” uses of force, historically and in the present day.

The presenters will discuss both self-evident and more “gray-area” examples of politicized uses of psychiatric powers, culminating in a discussion of current changes to mental health laws in California. The event will conclude with a group discussion about different ways to understand political uses of psychiatric powers, with the goal of developing shared strategies to better convey this idea to the general public when most mainstream messaging tends to present these powers as individually-targeted, non-political, and healing.

This event is open to a multi-stakeholder audience, including people with lived experience, mental health providers of all kinds, activists, writers, artists, researchers, and other advocates.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL interpretation + automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please submit any additional access needs to contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitators

Kelechi Ubozoh

Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer and mental health consultant with over a decade of experience working in the California mental health system in the areas of research and advocacy, community engagement, suicide prevention, and peer support. Her story of surviving a suicide attempt is featured in The S Word documentary, O, The Oprah Magazine and CBS This Morning with Gayle King. She has spent the last two years facilitating healing-centered spaces for BIPOC employees. Her book with LD Green, We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, elevates marginalized voices of lived experience who have endured psychiatric mistreatment is featured in the curriculum at Boston University. More at kelechiubozoh.com.

Rob Wipond

Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist who writes frequently at the interfaces between psychiatry, civil rights, community issues, policing, surveillance and privacy, and social change. He’s the author of the book Your Consent is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships (BenBella, 2023).

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Radical Mental Health First Aide: A Framework and Tool for Self and Community Care
Nov
13
6:00 PM18:00

Radical Mental Health First Aide: A Framework and Tool for Self and Community Care

About the Event

As we witness ongoing colonial violence and genocide, it is more important than ever to increase our capacity for an ethics and practice of care rooted in consent and accountability. Many people have learned to shift their gaze or look away when others are experiencing trauma or oppression, with dire consequences. Holding space and providing support are sacred practices, and it’s critical that we are equipped with skills and practices that support liberation, rather than perpetuate harm. By building our toolkits, the practices of witnessing and care can become more sustainable.

Licensed therapist and observer-disruptor Oumou Sylla created Radical Mental Health First Aide (RMHFA) to radically reimagine how care is accessed and co-created. It is a framework and tool designed to support us in decentering the medical model from the way we access care, support, love or whatever words your community uses. RMHFA illuminates how colonial helping styles show up in so much of what is called “care,” the importance of curiosity, and how to promote community and connection in all of the work we do.

We invite you to join us on Monday, November 13 for a 2-hour virtual workshop that will offer context on the impact of oppression and social injustice on the bodymind and teach tangible de-escalation and consent skills. Oumou will go over the RMHFA Action Plan in depth, and provide the opportunity to ask questions, practice skills, and apply knowledge.

This event is open to a multi-stakeholder audience, including people with lived experience, people with professional "expertise", peer supporters/workers, licensed professionals, institutions, warm lines, and people who work with people. 

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL interpretation + automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please submit any additional access needs to contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitator

Oumou Sylla

oumou is a multi-hyphenate polycreative - therapist, coach/wellness doula, entrepreneur, disruptor, writer, speaker, consultant and facilitator of spaces for radical learning. she is the creator of RMHFA, a workshop that is slowly but surely changing the care and mental health landscape. oumou’s lived and professional experiences are gifts that allow her to support people and businesses in intuitive and radical ways. their work aims to disrupt systems of disconnection, the laziness lie, the productivity death escalator and “the transactional ways in which relationships exist under capitalism” (word 2 niki franco).

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Transformative Mental Health Talks: Rejuvenating our Practice, Redefining Care
Sep
18
6:00 PM18:00

Transformative Mental Health Talks: Rejuvenating our Practice, Redefining Care

About the Series

This event is part of a new talk series inspired by IDHA’s Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum. It features members of our teaching faculty team and dives into timely topics that intersect with our transformative mental health lens. Enrollment for the curriculum is now open, and you can learn more here.

About the Event

Many mental health providers and advocates enter the field with the intention to make a difference, but find that the tools they are given aren’t enough, and the system doesn’t support lasting healing and change. As people cycle in and out of mental health services, mainstream discourse tends to individualize the problem – but what if the system itself is actually to blame? Meanwhile, a growing number of people are challenging the current paradigm and uplifting new approaches, asking critical questions like: Are there better ways of providing support? How can we bridge the gap between the reality of mental health services and a world in which people’s autonomy and self-determination are truly centered?

Join IDHA on Monday, September 18 to hear from people who have found healing outside the formal mental health care system, with critical wisdom to impart for those working within it. A panel of activists, survivors, and providers will share how they practice a transformative approach to mental health that honors choice and authenticity. Uplifting a diversity of roles and relationships to mental health, panelists will share how they have fostered community to bring about change in and outside the system, reflecting on the power of collectivity to support transformation. The event aims to instill a feeling of hope and connection, reminding us that we are not alone and a more liberatory future is possible.

This event is open to mental health workers and clinicians, researchers, educators, activists, survivors, peers, current and prior service users, writers, artists, and other advocates – anyone who is interested in exploring the link between personal and societal transformation.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL interpretation + automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please submit any additional access needs to contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

Ji-Youn Kim

Ji-Youn Kim (they/she) is a queer, currently non-disabled Corean femme, immigrant and settler, liberatory dreamer, psych survivor, justice-oriented therapist-ish, and ongoing creation of community. Born in Bucheon, Corea, they grew up and continue to live in what is colonially known as Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. With collective liberation as their vision, they aim to disrupt carceral practices of the mental health industry & its complicities and envision new ways of mental health care rooted in cultural and collective healing. Her work is informed by Black & Indigenous feminist scholars, abolitionists, land defenders, and organizers, as well as her own lived experiences and embodied knowledges.

Caroline Mazel-Carlton

Caroline Mazel-Carlton (she/her) has laid her head in a number of places, from Indiana jail cells to Texas psychiatric units, but now enjoys a freer existence as Director of Training for the Wildflower Alliance and member of the Board of Directors of the Hearing Voices Network-USA. Caroline’s passion is centering and exploring the experiences that are often the most silenced, such as suicide, trauma and non-consensus reality states. Her work with “Alternatives to Suicide” and the Hearing Voices Network has been featured in a number popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Foreign Policy and O magazine. She has contributed to multiple academic publications on the topic of suicide and one book on her experience skating on a roller derby team as #18 “Mazel Tov Cocktail."

Jacks McNamara

Jacks McNamara is a trauma healing coach, facilitator, educator, writer and artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jacks has been in private practice for 11 years, with a specialty in supporting queer and trans trauma survivors, and in mentoring new queer and trans healing practitioners. They have been peer counseling, facilitating support groups, teaching art and writing classes, and leading workshops around radical mental health since 2004. Jacks is a member of the Generative Somatics Politicized Healers Network and a graduate of the gs Somatics and Trauma practitioner training program. In 2002 Jacks co-founded The Icarus Project, now known as the Fireweed Collective, an international support network and participatory adventure in mutual aid and healing justice. Co-author of Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness, their life and work are the subject of the poetic documentary Crooked Beauty. Jacks also hosts the podcast So Many Wings, a series of conversations at the intersection of social justice and transformative mental health. You can find them on the web at https://jacksmcnamara.net.

Vesper Moore

Vesper Moore is an Indigenous political activist, trainer, writer, and psychiatric survivor. They have been advocating for disability justice for over a decade and have been the recipient of many social justice and diversity awards. Vesper has brought the perspectives of mad, labeled mentally ill, neurodivergent, disabled people, and survivors to national and international spaces. They have experience working as a consultant for both the United States government and the United Nations in shaping strategies around trauma, intersectionality, and disability rights. They have been at the forefront of legislative reform to shift the societal paradigm around mental health. Vesper has made it their life’s mission to rewrite the ableist narratives surrounding mental health and disability in our society.

Moderator

Noah Gokul

Noah Gokul (they/them) is the Program Coordinator for the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA). They are a Queer multidisciplinary artist and educator here to create liberated worlds through art, storytelling, and sound. They grew up in Oakland, CA/unceded Ohlone land, and identify as a trauma survivor with sensitivities to the world around them. They use music and art for meaning-making and the healing of others, integrating these passions into their work as a peer for young adults in a first-episode psychosis program. They have facilitated in a wide variety of settings, at the intersections of anti-oppression, trauma, incarceration, Caribbean ancestry, music, and mental health. Through their incantations they create spaces of radical imagination and possibility.

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Seeding Transformative Community: IDHA Membership Open House
May
30
6:30 PM18:30

Seeding Transformative Community: IDHA Membership Open House

Are you an activist, educator, artist, or care provider passionate about transforming how we understand and approach mental health? Are you interested in joining a growing community that is collectively seeding that change, while embodying the values of the world we wish to see? Have you felt drawn towards IDHA’s work, perhaps wondering how you can deepen your relationship to it?

On Tuesday, May 30 from 6:30-8 pm EST, IDHA is hosting a membership “open house” as an opportunity to experience the power of our community firsthand, and learn more about membership. Being a member of IDHA means that you share our vision of transformative mental health, and align with our organizational principles and values. By becoming a member, you join a growing community of mental health change makers and gain access to a handful of exciting perks and opportunities.

The evening will feature an art showcase and panel discussion featuring several current IDHA members, as well as share information about membership and different ways to get involved with our work. We especially encourage those who are curious and seeking to learn more about IDHA to join us.

Since officially launching membership at the end of 2020, we’ve seen our network grow in such inspiring ways. We would love to share this night with you, to celebrate how far we've come and make space to seed creative visions for our shared future.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Access

Automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please email contact@idha-nyc.org with any other access needs or questions about accessibility.

Facilitators

This space will be held by members of IDHA’s staff team and feature several of our members. Contributors will be added as they are confirmed!

Sun Kim (they/she)

  • IDHA’s Membership & Community Engagement Associate

  • Educator

  • Emerging filmmaker

Jessie Roth (she/her)

  • IDHA’s Director

  • Mental health liberation activist

  • Artist and writer

  • Trauma survivor

Tatyana Nduta (she/her)

  • Non-profit Executive

  • Educator

  • Organizer

  • Artist

Rachel Corwin (she/they)

  • Psychiatric survivor

  • Case manager

  • Crisis counselor

miro sk (they/them)

  • Queer non-binary multi-disciplinary artist

  • Writer

  • Mad disabled survivor

  • Bodymind peer supporter

Karen Hudes (she/her)

  • Writer

  • Creative writing workshop facilitator

  • Listener and peer

Grace Ortez (she/her)

  • Psychiatric survivor

  • Community organizer

  • Peer crisis worker

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Decarcerating Care: Histories of Coercion and Dreams for Liberated Futures
Apr
17
6:00 PM18:00

Decarcerating Care: Histories of Coercion and Dreams for Liberated Futures

About the Series

IDHA organized our first-ever Decarcerating Care conversation in September 2020, in the midst of ongoing racial uprisings in the United States and globally. As abolitionists and organizers called to divest funding from the police and some advocated for reallocation to mental health care, IDHA sought to draw attention to the ways in which the mental health care system maintains white supremacist, racial hierarchies and operates on logics of surveillance, coercion, and control. In the two and a half years since, IDHA’s five panels have reached more than 10,000 people with urgent dialogue about alternatives to policing that are rooted in the lived experience of mental health service users and survivors, movement leaders, and disabled community members.

We have thus far explored: the importance of taking policing out of mental health crisis response; the ways in which “reforms” uphold the ongoing coercion of marginalized communities; concrete steps and tools for decarcerating one's practice; how to build community-based healing alternatives; and how systems of surveillance intersect with mental health and disability.

About the Event

Psychiatry and psychology have been used to justify mistreatment and segregation since at least the early 1800s in the United States and remained largely unchallenged in mainstream culture until the 1960s civil rights era. For example, psychiatry has been used to bolster the institutions of slavery through psychiatric disorders (“drapetomania”) and scientific reports (e.g. by Dr. Samuel Cartwright) that deemed African Americans “biologically inferior” and pathologized those who tried to escape its reins (“protest psychosis”). The ideas underpinning these ideologies persist today, evident in the disparities in diagnostic rates, as well as the disproportionate criminalization and institutionalization of marginalized communities labeled as having a mental illness. There is a direct correlation between this insidious history and present-day efforts by the state to expand involuntary commitment.

On Monday, April 17, IDHA will continue the conversation with Decarcerating Care: Histories of Coercion and Dreams for Liberated Futures. This sixth installment will explore how institutionalization has long operated as a tool of social control, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities, manifesting today in the expansion of involuntary commitment directives nationally. A panel of activists, survivors, researchers, providers, and other advocates will explore the history and current status of involuntary commitment in the United States, centered on the factors that have shaped how people approach mental health and the impact of this history on diagnosis and the mental health continuum. We will discuss key examples in New York City and California, demonstrating what these initiatives have in common and how they are indicative of a larger pattern. We will also share key resistance strategies grounded in lived experience wisdom.

Please register via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to dial into the Zoom webinar.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL + CART will be provided in Zoom. If we reach maximum capacity (1,000 people), this webinar will also be broadcast live on IDHA’s Facebook page (note that the Facebook stream will have ASL interpretation visible, but not live captions). The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

James Burch

James Burch is the Policy Director for the Anti Police-Terror Project, an all-volunteer organization that seeks to end police violence in Black and Brown communities. He began his journey in 2007 at the Southern Center for Human Rights where he investigated human rights conditions in GA and AL prisons, jails, and court systems. James left the SCHR in 2009 to study civil rights law at the Georgetown University Law Center. After graduating, James moved to the Bay Area where he worked with the Frisco 500 before joining APTP’s Black Leadership Committee and assuming the role of Policy Director. In 2018, James served as Policy Coordinator for the Cat Brooks for Oakland Mayoral Campaign. In 2019, James was hired as the Policy Director for St. James Infirmary, a peer-based occupational health and safety clinic for sex workers of all genders. James left St. James Infirmary in 2020 and now devotes his time to the Anti Police-Terror Project.

Theo Henderson

Theo Henderson is an activist, speaker, poet, educator, and podcaster living in Los Angeles. This year he was an Activist-In-Residence at UCLA and the keynote speaker at the Housing X conference. He has been published in the LA Times and KnockLA, and is currently writing for the San Fernando Sun. Theo has been interviewed for The Washington Post, New York Times, and LA Times, among others.

Chacku Mathai

Chacku is an Indian-American, born in Kuwait, who became involved in consumer/survivor/ex-patient advocacy when he was 15 years old. Chacku’s and his family’s experiences with racism and xenophobia-related assault and trauma resulted in his own loss of safety and confusing extreme states, including hearing voices and other sensory changes as a youth and young adult. These experiences, including continued racism in schools, with police, and the behavioral health system, launched Chacku and his family towards a number of efforts to advocate for alternative supports, equity, and inclusion in the community. Chacku immediately experienced the challenges of being both seen and unseen as a person of color in the psychiatric survivor/ex-patient movement, leading him to search for ways to dismantle racism in every role and initiative.  He has since accumulated over thirty-five years of experience in advocating for alternatives such as peer support and racial equity in community and in behavioral health systems in a wide variety of roles, always centering lived experience and human rights. He has both held, and lost, important leadership roles in youth leadership and community organizing, executive and board management, and behavioral health infrastructure development.

Kelechi Ubozoh

Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer and mental health consultant with over a decade of experience working in the California mental health system in the areas of research and advocacy, community engagement, suicide prevention, and peer support. Her story of surviving a suicide attempt is featured in The S Word documentary, O, The Oprah Magazine and CBS This Morning with Gayle King. She has spent the last two years facilitating healing-centered spaces for BIPOC employees. Her book with LD Green, We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, elevates marginalized voices of lived experience who have endured psychiatric mistreatment is featured in the curriculum at Boston University. More at kelechiubozoh.com.

Rob Wipond

Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist who writes frequently at the interfaces between psychiatry, civil rights, community issues, policing, surveillance and privacy, and social change. He’s the author of the book Your Consent is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships (BenBella, 2023).

Moderator

Tatyana Nduta

Tatyana Nduta is a Kenyan non-profit executive change agent, healing practitioner, speaker, and artist who centers on creating pathways to intersectional, justice-based work to build power with communities seeking to confront, heal from, and transform from systemic harm. As a non-profit executive change agent, Tatyana has been instrumental in developing innovative programs that tackle the root causes of social issues. Her expertise in mental health and the arts has enabled her to help organizations improve their operations and increase their impact in serving their communities. She is a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, committed to ensuring that all individuals have access to the resources and support they need to thrive. Additionally, as a practicing abolitionist, she co-creates just and courageous communities through individual and communal transformative processes. Tatyana encourages analysis, curiosity, and trust-building to shift the ways we relate to one another. She actively creates spaces for naming and responding to the impacts of systemic harm, nurturing individual and collective growth and healing.

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Lived Experience Through Creative Process: Conversations on Mental Health and Artistic Practice
Mar
1
6:00 PM18:00

Lived Experience Through Creative Process: Conversations on Mental Health and Artistic Practice

Join us for an evening of art exploration with artist/activist Kim Wichera and interdisciplinary artist/IDHA staff member Noah Gokul as they share work informed by topics of mental health, psychiatry, and their artistic practices. Following each artist’s presentation, Kim and Noah will pose questions to one another, inquiring as to how art can shift power dynamics in psychiatry and mental health.

Kim will present work that addresses the transformational processes of mental health and explores the localization of social lines of conflict in the private, and thus the inner. Through the use of video projections, voice, movement, installations, and sound, Kim will share insights into lived experience and how social exclusions are shaped.

Noah will share their visual art, which recently centered on the symbolism and resonances of the spiral, through multimedia explorations of their own experience with ‘spiraling’ mentally. Spirals, amongst other art practices, serve as their research into spaces of possibility at intersections of healing and liberation.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

This event is open to artists, creative writers, people with mental health difference, disability and social justice communities, social workers, therapists, mental health professionals, students, creative writing and art departments, psychology and social work departments, and the general public.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. The suggested donation for this event is $10, and we appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL interpretation and automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitators

Noah Gokul (they/them) is a Queer multidisciplinary artist and educator here to create liberated worlds through art, storytelling, and sound. They grew up in Oakland, CA/unceded Ohlone land, and identify as a trauma survivor with sensitivities to the world around them. They use music and art for meaning-making and the healing of others, integrating these passions into their work as a peer for young adults in a first-episode psychosis program. They have facilitated in a wide variety of settings, at the intersections of anti-oppression, trauma, incarceration, Caribbean ancestry, music, and mental health. Through their incantations they create spaces of radical imagination and possibility.

Kim Wichera (they/them) is a sound artist and activist from Berlin. Kim's artistic practice is dedicated to the mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion. Informed by years of working in care work and intersectional feminist analysis, Kim draws new lines of connection between historical and contemporary artistic and non-artistic discourses. Through the use of video projections, voice, movement, installations, and sound, Kim opens up insights into worlds of experience and characterizes social exclusions. 

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Mad Poetry and Art: A Conversation with Stephanie Heit & Chanika Svetvilas
Nov
14
7:00 PM19:00

Mad Poetry and Art: A Conversation with Stephanie Heit & Chanika Svetvilas

Join us for an evening of disability culture as poet/dancer Stephanie Heit and interdisciplinary artist Chanika Svetvilas share work informed by their lived experience of mental health difference. Stephanie will read from her hybrid memoir poem, PSYCH MURDERS (Wayne State University Press, 2022), that takes you inside psychiatric wards and shock treatments toward new futures of care. Chanika will share her art, including drawing, sculpture, and performance  video that utilizes an archive of medication guides, post-treatment workbooks, medical texts, and prescription bottles that are transformed with iconography and found materials to question medical treatment versus individualized care and healthcare access. A facilitated Q&A will follow.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

This event is open to artists, creative writers, people with mental health difference, disability and social justice communities, social workers, therapists, mental health professionals, students, creative writing and art departments, psychology and social work departments, and the general public.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. The suggested donation for this event is $10, and we appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL interpretation and automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitators

Stephanie Heit

Stephanie Heit is a queer disabled poet, dancer, teacher, and codirector of Turtle Disco, a somatic writing space. She is a shock/psych system survivor, bipolar, a Zoeglossia Fellow, and a member of Olimpias, a disability performance collective. She lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on Three Fires Confederacy territory and is the author of the hybrid memoir poem PSYCH MURDERS (Wayne State University Press, 2022) and The Color She Gave Gravity (Operating System, 2017). stephanie-heit.com

Chanika Svetvilas is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker whose practice focuses on mental health difference. Her work is an extension of her continued interest in using narratives as a way to challenge stereotypes in contemporary society and to create safe spaces. She has exhibited at the Denver International Airport, the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Asian Arts Initiative, and the Wexner Center for the Arts among others. Her work has been published in Disability Studies Quarterly, Studying Disability, Arts, and Culture: An Introduction by Petra Kuppers, and A Body You Can Talk To: An Anthology of Contemporary Disability, edited by Tennison S. Black (forthcoming). Svetvilas is the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab Artist-in-Residence, 2022-23 at Princeton University. chanikasvetvilas.com 

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Decarcerating Care: The Evolution of Mental Health Surveillance
Oct
17
6:00 PM18:00

Decarcerating Care: The Evolution of Mental Health Surveillance

About the Series

IDHA organized our first-ever Decarcerating Care conversation in September 2020, in the midst of ongoing racial uprisings in the United States and globally. As abolitionists and organizers called to divest funding from the police and some advocated for reallocation to mental health care, IDHA sought to draw attention to the ways in which the mental health care system maintains white supremacist, racial hierarchies and operates on logics of surveillance, coercion, and control. In the two years since, IDHA’s four panels have reached more than 7,000 people with urgent dialogue about alternatives to policing that are rooted in the lived experience of mental health service users and survivors, movement leaders, and disabled community members. We have discussed the importance of taking policing out of mental health crisis response, the ways in which “reforms” uphold the ongoing coercion and control of marginalized communities, concrete steps and tools for decarcerating one's practice, and how to build community-based healing alternatives.

About the Event

At the two-year mark of this series, we are starting the Decarcerating Care lifecycle over. We reflect on the ways in which our landscape has intensified since the series began, bringing both new challenges and new opportunities to cultivate autonomy, self-determination, and liberation for those experiencing crisis and distress. Historically, mad, mentally ill, and disabled people have been surveilled at astonishingly high rates within hospitals and prisons; since deinstitutionalization, however, these populations have been increasingly surveilled by other means – in what scholar Liat Ben-Moshe has termed “carceral sanism.” Today, this pattern is evident in the expansion of mandatory reporting, particularly within Black, Native, and Latinx communities; the deployment of geolocation technologies by crisis hotlines in “active rescue” situations; and the advent of medications that utilize digital tracking systems to ensure compliance with treatment.

On October 17, 2022, IDHA will continue the conversation with Decarcerating Care: The Evolution of Mental Health Surveillance. This fifth installment will examine how systems of surveillance intersect with mental health and disability by reviewing historical examples and exposing present-day iterations. A panel of mad and disabled community members, mental health practitioners, activists, and scholars will explore responses within and adjacent to our mental health system that often result in coercion, confinement, and incarceration. Drawing on deep lineages of resistance – particularly by Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, mad, and queer communities – we will uplift ongoing resistance and movement efforts that respond to these covert forms of control and prioritize community-based frames for safety in pursuit of collective healing.

Please register via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to dial into the Zoom webinar.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL + CART will be provided in Zoom. If we reach maximum capacity (1,000 people), this webinar will also be broadcast live on IDHA’s Facebook page (note that the Facebook stream will have ASL interpretation visible, but not live captions). The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

Idil Abdillahi

Dr. Idil Abdillahi is an assistant professor in the School of Disability Studies, cross-appointed to the School of Social Work, and the advisor to the dean on Anti-Black racism at the Faculty of Community Services (2020-2021). Dr. Abdillahi is a critical Black Interdisciplinary scholar, researcher, policy analyst, grassroots organizer, and experienced practitioner across healthcare, institutional, policy, and social service settings. She is the author of Black Women Under State: Surveillance, Poverty & the Violence of Social Assistance, (2022), author of Blackened Madness: Medicalization, and Black Everyday Life in Canada (forthcoming), co-author of BlackLife: Post-BLM and The Struggle For Freedom (2019), and a co-editor of the forthcoming edition of Mad matters: A critical reader in Canadian mad studies.

Dr. Abdillahi is published widely on an array of topics, including mental health, poverty, HiV/AIDS, organizational development, and several other key policy areas at the intersection of BlackLife and state interruption. Most notably, Dr. Abdillahi's cutting-edge research and scholarship on anti-Black Sanism has informed the current debates on fatal police shootings of Black mad-identified peoples. Dr. Abdillahi is attentive to the tensions between data, research, communities, institutions, and monetization. Therefore, Dr. Abdillahi works to challenge the ways that research data about communities experiencing structural oppression—particularly Black communities—are increasingly used to further the oppression of those communities. In effect, these data are used by capital-oriented institutions while simultaneously serving socio-political ‘care’ spaces that range from community-based health care to hospitals and prisons. Dr. Abdillahi’s work integrates an understanding of how these institutions and ‘care’ spaces continue to disproportionately negatively impact Black women/people, leading to their disenfranchisement from ‘public’ services and supports in Tkaronto and beyond.

Azza a Black femme person dressed in warm hues and a yellow hijab sits against a dark and shadowy backdrop. She looks over her shoulder at the camera with a slight smile.

Azza Altiraifi

Born to Sudanese parents and raised in northern Virginia, Azza’s passion for community organizing and cross-movement solidarity stems from her upbringing. Over the past several years, Azza has immersed herself in Disability Justice learning, organizing, and advocacy, and they are committed to envisioning new approaches to movement work that value rest, sustainability, and joy.

In their full time capacity Azza is a senior policy manager at a national movement support organization working to advance economic justice. Previously, Azza worked in senior research and advocacy roles within the progressive policy space, working on issues spanning disability, carceral surveillance, poverty and economic security. In addition to their full time work, Azza has served as an advisor for various national disability and health equity policy and research projects, including most recently the Center for Democracy and Technology's disability and algorithmic rights project. Azza is also involved in local-level community organizing projects and formations, including volunteering to support public sector labor organizing campaigns in northern VA.

Yana Calou

Yana Calou (they/them) is a non-binary Brazilian-American organizer and storyteller leading Trans Lifeline’s campaign for safe hotlines - a campaign aimed at ending nonconsensual 911 interventions on crisis hotlines. Their work centers lived experiences in service of an abolitionist and anticapitalist future. They live in Brooklyn & Northern New Mexico.

Image of a gender fluid Black 30-something person seated in front of a blue wall wearing a black tee with white words: DISABILITY JUSTICE IS LOVE. There is a red heart masquerading as the O in love. The person is straight faced and there are gentle rainbow reflections across the shirt and deep brown skin from the sun reflecting off the glass in front of them. There are shadows on the blue wall behind the person.

TL Lewis

Talila “TL” Lewis (they/them), is an abolitionist community lawyer, educator, and organizer who is entering a period of rest, recovery, and redefinition. TL’s work has primarily focused on highlighting the inextricable links between ableism, racism, classism, and all other forms of oppression and inequity. TL co-founded and served as the volunteer director of the cross-disability abolitionist organization, HEARD for a decade (IG/Twitter @behearddc). 

TL’s journey into working to abolish the medical-carceral industrial complex began with efforts to correct wrongful convictions of disabled people. This led TL to create the first national database of imprisoned deaf/blind people and spend nearly twenty years finding and supporting incarcerated multiply-marginalized disabled people while interrupting the cycles that feed medical-carceral systems. TL also serves as a consultant for social justice organizations and as an attorney and “expert” on cases involving multiply-marginalized disabled people. After graduating from American University Washington College of Law, TL served as the Givelber Public Interest Lecturer at Northeastern University School of Law and a visiting professor at Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Institute for the Deaf. 

TL has earned awards from numerous universities, the American Bar Association, the American Association for People with Disabilities, National Black Deaf Advocates, and the Nation Institute, among others. TL is a member of the 2018 inaugural cohort for the Roddenberry Fellowship and the Atlantic Fellowship for Racial Equity. As of the time of editing this bio, TL loves to dance, bake, create and weave words and languages, spend time with chosen family, and is learning how to roller skate (on quads).

Shawna Murray-Browne

Shawna Murray-Browne works at the intersection of healing, ancestral wisdom, and deep support for organizations, corporations, and everyday humans seeking liberation. She is curious about what happens when we question colonial thinking and make space for indigenous ways of knowing in every aspect of life. She loves to be invited into warm learning spaces where people are ready to shed mainstream thinking and embrace what they have known all along. 

In her hometown of Baltimore City, Shawna is known for holding grassroots healing circles to equip Black families and change-makers with the tools to heal themselves. Others know her best for her training intensive, Decolonizing Therapy for Black Folk, where she co-creates space for deconstructing and reimagining mental health care as we know it.

Shawna is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, School of Social Work where she is exploring oral histories as a site of inquiry around the healing ways of Black women advocates during the civil rights movement. 

Shawna's clients have included human service and political advocacy organizations, foundations, and universities, but she's happiest at the block party, healing circle, or playdate in someone’s backyard. Dedicated to continued growth, her practice in Qigong, African spiritual traditions, and sitting at the feet of elders maintain. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and her five-year-old daughter.

Moderator

Selima Jumarali

Selima Jumarali (she/hers) is a queer, Indo-Caribbean, Muslim educator, researcher, and therapist committed to spreading radical care and revolutionary love. Selima is currently a fifth year PhD candidate in the Clinical-Community Psychology program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research focuses on the mental health experiences of queer and trans communities of color and the material needs of survivors of intimate partner violence. 

As a therapist, her practice is shaped by the teachings of Black feminist scholars and disability justice activists who remind us of our inherent resilience, our right to joy, and our duty to strive for liberation. Selima believes that oppression is a driving force of trauma and that dismantling systems of oppression are a necessary part of healing trauma.

Selima previously co-led diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts during her 9+ year career in student affairs at NYU. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Biology from the University of Miami, her Master of Arts in Student Affairs from NYU, and her Master of Arts in Human Services Psychology from UMBC.

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Transcending My Mental Health Degree: Radical Education and Unlearning
Sep
22
7:30 PM19:30

Transcending My Mental Health Degree: Radical Education and Unlearning

For those of us working in mental health, this work is both personal and political. We are often able to point to moments in time that radicalized us to want to transform the system, whether as a result of personal encounters, or those experienced by loved ones. These moments of rupture hold trauma and grief, but they also open up the possibility for radical imagination – inviting us to build systems of care that are rooted in systemic change and lived experience.

In summer 2022, the Institute for the Development of Human Arts hosted three Adelphi University psychology students as interns. Rachel, Giselle, and Alex each came to IDHA with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and at different points in their professional journeys. Over the course of a summer internship, they all experienced revelations regarding mental health experiences, the system, and their own professional training. While some of these revelations have been experienced as ruptures, they also created openings for new knowledge and understandings of transformative mental health.

We invite you to join us on Thursday, September 22 from 7:30-9 pm EST for a virtual event to explore how moments of rupture can be harnessed to facilitate mental health change. IDHA interns Giselle, Rachel, and Alex will discuss how being part of the organization has shaped how they think about mental health and reshaped their future plans. Posing a series of questions to one another, and spotlighting a polyphony of voices from the IDHA community, there will be ample opportunity for community discussion.

This event is open to mental health professionals, peers, survivors, activists, artists, and mental health advocates of all kinds. We particularly encourage students to join us as we deconstruct what it means to be trained as a “mental health professional,” uplifting the value of unlearning in our education.

Register in advance via Zoom to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

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Age-Trauma & The Liberation of Childishness
Aug
21
1:00 PM13:00

Age-Trauma & The Liberation of Childishness

Age-trauma describes an experience specific to children and childhood – the result of youth oppression where we are taught to accept and normalize abuse, subjugation, hierarchy, and autonomy suppression. Liberating our Childishness allows us to access our inner creativity and freedom by tenderly reclaiming the young parts of us and young people that we have discarded.

Led by a young person with current lived experience of ageism, this unique workshop is essential for all those aligned with building a more care-filled world. Multidisciplinary artist, author, and activist Aiyana Goodfellow will offer a presentation, followed by the opportunity to engage with others in breakout rooms. Through discussion, reflection, and creative journaling, we will collectively explore the effects of age-trauma on both personal and systemic levels. This workshop is open to all those aligned with liberation and care ethics, those who have childhood trauma or negative childhood experiences, young people, mental health professionals, and peers. It will benefit all who work with young people in their personal and professional lives.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. The suggested donation for this event is $10, and we appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

Automated closed captioning will be provided; please submit any additional access needs via the registration form. The workshop will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitator

Aiyana Goodfellow

Aiyana Goodfellow is a young Black, nonbinary, neurodivergent, multidisciplinary artist, author and activist based in London, UK. Aiyana often writes and speaks about the parallels between speciesism, white supremacy, racism, anti-queerness, ageism and capitalism. They run multiple community projects and organisations namely The Radical Companionship Project, Anti-Speciesist Arts Collective, DELINQUENTS, and are the co-founding director of NEUROMANCERS a Black and Queer led abolitionist community organisation, for and by neurodivergents.

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The Art of Grief: A Lived Experience Showcase
Jul
18
6:00 PM18:00

The Art of Grief: A Lived Experience Showcase

About the Project

In March 2022, Justice Arts Coalition and the Institute for the Development of Human Arts launched “The Art of Grief” to demonstrate the myriad shapes that grief can take, as well as the many ways that we can tend to our grief. The project centers the power of creativity to make meaning from and heal through grief, in contrast with medicalized approaches. An open call yielded 40+ submissions, which can be viewed via an online gallery.

About the Event

On Monday, July 18 from 6-8 pm EST, JAC and IDHA are hosting a virtual lived experience showcase to spotlight works submitted to “The Art of Grief,” with the hope of transmuting our collective grief into new narratives that celebrate the power of mutual support and community action. Ten artists or designated loved ones will present a curated selection of works, and attendees will have the opportunity to engage with and reflect on the art in small groups. We invite you to join us for an evening of creativity, solidarity, and connection – a communal effort to make the intangible, tangible.

This project particularly seeks to uplift the voices and experiences of those currently or formerly incarcerated in institutions. This includes, but is not limited to, those held in jails, prisons, psychiatric facilities, nursing homes, and group homes. JAC coordinated the inclusion of works from incarcerated artists, and IDHA coordinated the inclusion of works by psychiatric and trauma survivors. This event is open to anyone who has been impacted by the experience of grief. It seeks to bridge dialogue about grief experiences among activists, artists, survivors, family members, advocates, mental health providers, and other community members.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Donations

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event. Donations of any size help cover the costs of art supplies and shipping for incarcerated artists, as well as equipping the event with closed captioning and ASL interpretation.

Access

ASL interpretation and live closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants within a few days of the event alongside the caption transcript and a resource list.

Artists

Shinjini Bakshi

Shinjini is a queer, non-binary South Asian-American clinical social worker with lived experience as both a consumer and provider of mental health care. They work towards a vision of anti-carceral mental health and collective liberation.

Alisa Damaso

Alisa is a designer, illustrator, and writer living in San Francisco, California. Her bold and colorful work explores identity, joy, healing, and social justice. Alisa is author of the zines What’s Coming and Growing Up Valley. When she’s not making stuff, you can find her running at Golden Gate Park, listening to books and spooky podcasts, and singing in the band Vincent Gargiulo National Park.

Joshua Earls

I create paintings and drawings that I hope that viewers will be able to connect with on some emotional level. Though my subject matter may be diverse, each of my paintings have been of a person, a scene, an animal or an object which pulled on the strings of my heart in some way. Whether that is by eliciting a nostalgic longing, portraying an often-felt emotion or simply evoking awe in its beauty, they all somewhat represent me.

Matthew Harbin

Mostly I work in watercolor, pastel and charcoal but am branching out into oil wow and so far love it. I mostly, by necessity, have to work from pictures, but I sketch often to build my skills for drawing from life. Largely I do landscapes and wildlife. Sometimes I incorporate people into my work as well. Before coming to prison I spent most of my time hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and just plain spending whatever time I could outdoors. Since for the time being I’m stuck here most of my work reflects memories or even just wishful thinking. Dreams of what my life had been. Since I can’t currently live those out it helps to at least express them through art. I also have a love of lighthouses that make up a large portion of my architecturals. I inherited this love from my mother as well as from me being a sailor in the U.S. Navy. Most of my work is expressionist/impressionist with some abstracted reality. ← If this is not a proper art term, it should be!

Brian Hindson

Regardless of what I’m painting, I really hope the viewer is left with some sort of impact. Be it a prison themed work or free world subject. I attempt to make you see it a little differently, maybe even better than the original.

Arlis Mara

Arlis is a psychiatric abuse survivor, writer, and radical social work student. They find joy in creating and their emotional support hedgehog: Thorazine. You can find them on social media at @notyourquietsurvivor.

Angy Rivera

Angy is a queer Colombian immigrant living in NYC. She is the Co-Executive Director at the New York State Youth Leadership Council. You can find her on social media @AskAngy.

Nicole Salcedo

Nicole is a Cuban American interdisciplinary artist born, raised and based in Miami, Florida. Salcedo earned her Bachelors in Fine Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2010). Salcedo’s practice is anchored in drawing and expands out into various mediums, such as film, design and sculpture. Salcedo’s entire body of work revolves around the deepening of our connection to our bodies and the earth; creating energetically charged imagery through meticulous mark making that become portals into more subtle realms.

Cuong Mike Tran

I’ve always dabbled in drawing most of my life. As a kid I could look at a picture and draw what I saw. As I got older, school and work took priority; art was placed on the back burner. Forward some years and I find myself in prison. With a lot of time to sit and reflect, I picked up drawing again.

I’ve seen many talented artists in here working with graphite pencils and acrylic paints. I wanted to stand out, so I started to build and sculpt figurines out of whatever materials I could find. I didn’t have the faintest clue as to where and how to start. I fell back onto my mechanical background, constructing skeletal frames out of paper and cardboard lunch boxes. I then applied soap over the frames, creating “muscle and skin.” I would then paint over the dried soap using hand-me-down acrylic paints. Digging around, I was able to find scrap materials such as old t-shirts, silver burrito wrappers, and pen barrels (just to name a few things) and turn them into accessories for my figurines.

Things have snowballed from there. I’ve become more proficient at using the materials available to me (translation: junk) to make artwork. To date, I’ve made over 80 pieces here in prison, the major ones being a functioning carousel, a remote control go-kart, a scale sized Chevrolet impala, a 2 foot tall demon, and a post-apocalyptic diorama.

Always up to a challenge, I’ve recently taken up painting with acrylics. I am not formally trained. I’ve never taken an art class. I’m completely self-taught, so I believe that my work is described as ‘outsider art’ (ironic, because I’m currently in prison). As such, I’m severely limited by the availability of material, workspace, and inspiration. I am forced to be resourceful and resilient despite the physical and emotional constraints. So I like to think of myself as a ‘shackled artist.

Art has been very therapeutic for me. It allows me to free myself despite being physically restricted. In an environment where my every move is monitored and controlled, my ideas, creativity and imagination are the only things that are limitless. Art is freedom; it allows me to put a part of myself onto paper or in a sculpture. Art also allows me to show society that I am still a human being, that I am not defined by my mistakes.

Skills: I am not formally trained in any medium. However, I have found a natural affinity with graphite pencils and charcoal. Recently, I have started to paint using my acrylics. My sculpting abilities consist of forming skeletal frames using found materials and covering them with soap instead of modeling clay. I have a strong mechanical background. I am also fluent in English and Vietnamese and am teaching myself Spanish through books and full immersion. I play the acoustic guitar as well.

Sean White

I typically develop figurative pieces on two dimensions. Primarily I focus on oil, though also graphic narrative and these trippy mosaic-like collages (most frequently portraits). The Bauhaus doctrines have had great influence on my process and subject matter. I have read Albers and Kandinsky a couple of times, and even have versions of Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Interactions of Color in my possession (the Kandinsky I found as an e-text in our public domain library). All of that, though stems from Goethes Farbenlehre which if you remove the 19th century science, is brilliant in its own right. Of course, even the two-dimensional Bauhausler theories extend from the initial efforts to deconstruct the picture plane Cézanne made. So, I would say my work explores illusions in many respects, though it follows a linear branch of modernism a la Fernand Léger. I mean to say illusionism as it relates to the picture plane. Comic books have also heavily influenced my perception of art. Little boxes containing images and a few words stacked together on a single page to forward a story. The combination fascinates me.

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Decarcerating Care: Community-Based Healing Alternatives and How to Build Them
Mar
28
6:00 PM18:00

Decarcerating Care: Community-Based Healing Alternatives and How to Build Them

About the Series

Since September 2020, IDHA’s Decarcerating Care discussion series has reached more than 6,000 people with urgent dialogue about alternatives to policing that are rooted in the lived experience of mental health service users and survivors. Prior installments explored how to maintain the safety and health of our communities while preserving the rights and autonomy of those in crisis; the ways in which services and "reforms" inherently uphold the ongoing coercion and control of marginalized communities; and concrete steps and tools providers can take to decarcerate their practice.

About the Event

The mental health system is steeped in oppressive ideologies and histories. White supremacy is responsible for the erasure and co-optation of Indigenous cultures of care, healing practices, and ways of knowing that bring us closer to collective liberation. In order to transform and divest from oppressive systems that prioritize control over care, commercialize distress, and treat symptoms rather than root causes, we must bridge ancient practices with emergent possibilities, while not appropriating those practices. This involves honoring and uplifting traditional forms of knowledge, and drawing upon decades of organizing – led by and for mad, disabled, and neurodivergent activists and survivors – that have yielded strategies that can be tailored and workshopped for a wide range of contexts.

On March 28, 2022, IDHA will continue the conversation with Decarcerating Care: Community-Based Healing Alternatives and How to Build Them. This fourth installment will explore the ways in which white supremacy plays out in the mental health system and movement spaces, and how we can draw upon traditional knowledge and lived experience to create more accountable, effective, and healing-centered alternatives. The success of the movement for transformative mental health depends upon our collective ability to imagine a different world, and to move others to action with these creative visions. To that end, panelists will share their experiences building and sustaining care systems that prioritize well-being, autonomy, and dignity. We seek to uplift a spectrum of formal to informal strategies, as well as those that can be deployed in and outside the public mental health system.

Please register via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to dial into the Zoom webinar.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL + CART will be provided in Zoom. If we reach maximum capacity (1,000 people), this webinar will also be broadcast live on IDHA’s Facebook page (note that the Facebook stream will have ASL interpretation visible, but not live captions). The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

Aida Manduley

Aida Manduley, LICSW (they/them and elle/le) is an award-winning Latinx organizer, bilingual clinician, and international presenter known for big earrings and building bridges. Trained as a health educator, social worker, and nonprofit executive, they’re working to make the world a more equitable place and get us all more comfortable with hard conversations. Their 15+ years of training and facilitation experience has yielded a range of successful collaborations with clients ranging from Departments of Health and Ivy League institutions to small grassroots organizations and neighborhood associations. Mx. Manduley is also known for launching Rhode Island's first Sexual Health Education and Advocacy Program housed at a domestic violence agency in 2011, which included groundbreaking data-collection on LGBTQ domestic violence and building the infrastructure to provide on-site HIV testing. Past projects include crisis-response with victims of sexual assault, consulting with state departments on LGBTQ health, and extensive leadership on a number of national and regional coalitions on HIV & STI prevention, BIPOC development, sexuality education, and anti-violence. 

As a Boston-based therapist, their practice focuses on trauma and communities marginalized due to gender, sexuality, and race. However, they are also devoted to merging clinical acumen with macro efforts through involvement in various projects exploring community-grounded and alternative responses to violence since 2011—including the more recent development of Cambridge HEART (Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team)—as well as the development of clinical treatment guidelines for stigmatized communities.

Vesper Moore

Vesper Moore (they/them) is a mad liberation activist, trainer, writer, and psychiatric survivor. They have been advocating as a part of the mad disability rights movement for several years and have been the recipient of many social justice and diversity awards. Vesper has brought the perspectives of mad people, disabled people, and psychiatric survivors to national and international spaces. They have experience working as a consultant for both the United States government and the United Nations in shaping strategies around trauma, intersectionality, and disability rights. They have been at the forefront of legislative reform to shift the societal paradigm around mental health. Vesper as a mad queer indigenous person has made it their life’s mission to rewrite the narrative mental health-industrial complex has enforced on our society.

Yolo Akili Robinson

Yolo Akili Robinson (he/him) is a non binary award-winning writer, healing justice worker, yogi and the founder and Executive Director of BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective). BEAM is a national training, movement building and grant making organization dedicated to the healing, wellness and liberation of Black communities. Yolo has worked primarily in three areas: Batterers intervention/family counseling with Black men and boys, HIV/AIDS, and healing justice/wellness. In 2018, Yolo was awarded the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation "Health Equity Award" for his work. He was also featured at the 2020 BET Awards as an "Empowerful Spotlight," highlighting his work facilitating the vision of BEAM. His writings and work have appeared on Shondaland, GQ, Women's Health, USA Today, Vice, BET, Huffington Post, Cassius, Ebony, Everyday Feminisms and more. He is the author of the social justice themed affirmation book, "Dear Universe: Letters of Affirmation & Empowerment for All of Us" (Michael Todd Books, 2016) and a contributor to Tarana Burke and Dr. Brené Brown's anthology on Black vulnerability and shame resilience, "You are Your Best Thing" (2021, Random House Books).

As U.S. Justice Program Officer at Open Society Foundations, Gretchen Rohr launched a grantmaking portfolio focused on community accountability for violence, harm reduction and decriminalization of drug involvement, sex work and street economies. She currently designs rapid response initiatives and contributes to OSF’s annual selection of the Soros Justice Fellows. Gretchen most enjoys working on a participatory fund alongside healers and field activists, developing infrastructure for a transformative justice movement led by survivors failed by policing, imprisonment and state surveillance. Prior to her arrival at Open Society Foundations, Gretchen Rohr served as a Magistrate Judge at the D.C. Superior Court. Motivated by the hopelessness of litigants before her and the experiences of her own family’s cycling through the carceral system, Gretchen left the bench in 2016 to help communities redesign justice systems beyond the constraints of a punitive paradigm. Gretchen has lectured extensively across the country on effective workforce and leadership development for incarcerated youth and adults, reconciliation and restorative practices for building safe communities, and legal procedures which resolve instead of add to people’s traumatic experience. In her free time, Gretchen is an Associate Teacher with Insight Meditation Community of Washington and serves on the Board of Directors with Zepp Wellness Center and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Insight Community Dharma Leadership Program (CDL5) and the Generative Somatics Transformative Leadership Training. Gretchen’s work and writings are featured in Mindful Magazine, the Lion’s Roar / BuddhaDharma Magazine and the Huffington Post Pioneers Series.

Anjali Nath Upadhyay

Anjali Nath Upadhyay M.A.² (she/her) is the founder of Liberation Spring, a grassroots adult education program that offers consciousness-raising in the service of collective liberation. She also hosts the decolonial feminist podcast Feral Visions. She’s academically trained as a political scientist, philosopher, and educator. She holds an M.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with specializations in Indigenous Politics (the only program of its kind in the US) & Political Theory & a Graduate Certificate in International Cultural Studies (the only Cultural Studies graduate program in the US that explicitly teaches scholarship from the Global South & not mostly the Western canon). She also holds an M.A. degree from the oldest Women’s Studies Department in the US (at San Diego State University) with concentrations in feminist pedagogies, epistemologies, and gender and militarization. From 2010-2014, she was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu. She double-majored in Women’s Studies and Political Science with a minor in Philosophy at California State University at Fullerton. Upon invitation, she has presented her original research at dozens of universities, in addition to professional associations, radio shows, and community events.

Anjali’s long-standing curiosities focus on learning and teaching as practices of liberation. Her community organizing has encompassed a wide range of areas, including but not limited to graduate student collective bargaining, prison abolition, Earth defense, guerrilla theater, anti-war organizing, LGBTTIQQ2SA advocacy, & popular education on transformative justice approaches to intimate partner violence. She’s currently working on a manuscript titled Pulling Weeds & Planting Seeds: a Guide to Decolonial Discernment and building the Weeds & Seeds app.

Moderator

Mayowa Obasaju

Dr. Mayowa Obasaju (she/her) is a Black, Nigerian born, American raised, womainst, clinical and community, trauma and healing focused, liberation psychologist, trainer, and educator. She is a co-founder and co-owner of Barrow & Obasaju Consulting, a social impact consulting firm that cultivates individual and organizational transformation through trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, social justice training, development, and capacity-building. In addition, Dr. Obasaju works as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the Psychology Department and as a supervisor of social workers at Wediko Children's Services-NY Based School Program. She is a member of Harriet's Tracks, a group that seeks to reimagine and radicalize social service education within the US through equipping social service workers to interrupt harm and systemic violence within social services. Mayowa believes in the power of community-based, intersectional, experiential learning and organizing spaces which are accountable to the stories, lived experiences, and demands of those most impacted by oppressive systems as sites of liberation. She is consistently inspired by the legacies of Harriet Tubman and the wisdom of her toddler.

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What We Built: Storied Transformation (IDHA 5-Year Party and Fundraiser)
Dec
9
6:00 PM18:00

What We Built: Storied Transformation (IDHA 5-Year Party and Fundraiser)

December 9, 2021 will be IDHA’s first ever open celebration,
and everyone’s invited.

This unique virtual event will include:

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
ART AND EXPERIENCE AUCTION
SWAG GIVEAWAY
LIVE MEMBER PERFORMANCES
….AND MORE!

ASL + CART will be provided. Email us at contact@idha-nyc.org for any questions about access.

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Decarcerating Care: Laying the Foundations for Liberated Practice
Sep
20
6:00 PM18:00

Decarcerating Care: Laying the Foundations for Liberated Practice

About the Event

IDHA’s Decarcerating Care discussion series has reached more than 5,000 people with urgent dialogue about alternatives to policing that are rooted in the lived experience of mental health service users and survivors. The inaugural installment, Taking Policing Out of Mental Health Crisis Response, explored the carceral nature of mental health crisis response and how to maintain the safety and health of our communities while preserving the rights and autonomy of those in crisis. Part two, Challenging Criminalization and Control in Mental Health, deconstructed the prevailing narrative around the decriminalization of mental illness and explored ways in which services and "reforms" inherently uphold the ongoing coercion and control of marginalized communities. 

On Monday, September 20, 2021, we will continue the conversation with Decarcerating Care: Laying the Foundations for Liberated Practice. Those of us who work as “professionals” in the mental health system have the opportunity and responsibility to cede power to those with lived experience in order to transform the systems that perpetuate oppression and harm for marginalized communities. This third installment will include a panel of mental health workers, individuals with lived experience, and activists working within and outside of the systems that intersect with mental health to present concrete steps and tools for decarcerating your practice, as well as methods for caring for ourselves in the face of institutional barriers and backlash.

Please register via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to dial into the Zoom webinar.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL + CART will be provided in Zoom. If we reach maximum capacity (1,000 people), this webinar will also be broadcast live on IDHA’s Facebook page (note that the Facebook stream will have ASL interpretation visible, but not live captions). The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

Erica Woodland

Erica Woodland is a black queer/genderqueer facilitator, consultant and healing practitioner born and raised in Baltimore, MD. He is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 17 years experience working at the intersections of movements for racial, gender, economic, trans and queer justice and liberation. Erica is the Founding Director of the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network, a healing justice organization committed to transforming mental health for queer and trans people of color. From 2012 to 2016, he served as the Field Building Director for the Brown Boi Project, a national gender justice organization working to change the way communities of color understand and experience gender. His consulting practice is rooted in a deep belief that we must restore trust and connection in our relationships, the bedrock of our movements, in order to do the work of liberation together, and he has worked with a number of organizations to promote this vision. Erica’s training and expertise around trauma and crisis  allows him to integrate healing justice into his work to interrupt patterns that undermine our political, organizing, direct service, and healing work.

Iresha Picot

Iresha Picot, M.Ed, LBS is a Licensed Behavior Specialist and Therapist, Doula, and Community Activist. A Philly transplant by way of Virginia, Iresha is the co-editor of the book, "The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives", and has written articles in the Research in the Teaching of English, The Philadelphia Weekly, Elephant Journal, Aunt Chloe’s Journal, Specter Magazine, and For Harriet and has been featured in NPR, Bicycle Magazine and PBS American Portraits. Iresha recently directed her first short film with Love Now Media, called the “The Do-Over”, which centers a story on trauma and triumph and has worked with the “Me Too” movement on their survivors healing series. Iresha currently hosts a “Sis, are you good?” series with Girltrek, INC that digitally centers Mental Health check-ins with Black Women.

Jess Stohlmann-Rainey

Jess (she/her) loves to talk about suicide. She is a mad, fat, queer, feminist, and care worker. She is currently an instructor in the University of Denver Graduate School of Professional Psychology and the Director of Program Development at Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners She has focused her career on creating pathways to intersectional, justice-based, emotional support for marginalized communities, and believes mutual aid, disability justice, abolition, and other liberation ideologies are integral to solving the problems that lead to suicide. Jess centers her lived expertise as an ex-patient and suicide attempt survivor in her work. Jess and her work have been featured in various publications including USA Today, and PEOPLE magazine. She collaborates on a videocast called Suicide ‘n’ Stuff with Dese’Rae Stage from Live Through This. Her lived experience and dedication has led to multiple awards including the 2019 American Association of Suicidology Transforming Lived Experience Award and the 2019 Cookie Gant and Bill Compton LGBTQIA Leadership Award for Excellence in Promoting Diversity and Inclusion.

Renaya Furtick Wheelan

Renaya Furtick Wheelan, PhD, co-founder and executive director of I’m FREE is a native Philadelphian. Dr. Furtick Wheelan is a motivator, coach, teacher, counselor, trainer and organizational development consultant with expertise as a group psychologist. In all her work, she uses a holistic approach in an effort to empower her clients. She has actively empowered and educated youth,women, and young adults for over twenty five years, particularly with programs that work with people transitioning as a consequence of life-changing events. In addition to conducting a series of workshops in correctional facilities, she has designed, implemented, and evaluated training, curriculum and programs for government agencies, nonprofit and for profit entities. She also spent time working as a Therapist, motivating and cultivating young adults in a dual-diagnoses (substance abuse and mental health challenges) psychiatric facility. Dr. Furtick Wheelan served for three years as a project coordinator with an intergenerational program; creating a multi-generational mentoring environment.

Vivianne Guevara

Vivianne has been a social worker in criminal and civil defense for over twelve years and is the Director of Social Work and Mitigation at the Federal Defenders of New York in the Eastern District. Vivianne was previously an Investigator and Social Worker at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia, where she supported litigation that challenged conditions in juvenile and adult jails and prisons in Georgia and Alabama, the provision of indigent defense in Georgia, and the proliferation of debtor’s prisons in Georgia. Vivianne began working in public defense as a Social Worker at the Bronx Defenders in 2007, where she worked with clients charged in domestic violence and mental health courts. Vivianne is a graduate of New York University and Columbia University’s School of Social Work (CSSW ‘08). Vivianne holds a certificate in Restorative Justice and Restorative Circles and received training from Kay Pranis, Planning Change, and the International Institute in Restorative Practices, and began facilitating peacemaking and community-building circles in 2014. Since then, Vivianne planned and facilitated circles within/for the criminal legal system, schools, universities, coalitions, community members, and private and non-profit organizations. Vivianne comes from a family of farmworkers, religious workers, and social justice workers, and strives to honor their legacy and that of her ancestors through a life of service. She continues to learn through teaching others and by providing opportunities that promote community and healing.

Moderator

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Jacqui Johnson

Jacqui Johnson, LPC, NCC, CCMHC, PMH-C, is an IDHA Board Member andthe Founder and Clinical Director of Sankofa Healing Studio in Philadelphia. She is a Social-Justice Art Therapist who specializes in creating holistic trauma-specific healing spaces within marginalized communities and is trained as a Play Therapist. Jacqui uses a blend of approaches including art, play, storytelling, hip-hop therapy, parts-work, and mind-body awareness with EMDR, Brainspotting, and energy-based practices of Sound Healing and Reiki. She provides consultation to trained EMDR and Brainspotting clinicians seeking board certification, and is a training facilitator for EMDR in Color, a national training initiative committed to making EMDR more accessible to Therapists of Color. Jacqui teaches in the Community and Trauma Counseling program at Thomas Jefferson University and lectures widely. Her clinical work and research center around working with people in the Black community who have suffered various types of traumas as well as racism, systemic oppression, and mass incarceration.

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The Radical Music Therapist
Aug
23
6:00 PM18:00

The Radical Music Therapist

About the Event

Humans have been creating music since time immemorial. Music-making has historically served a range of purposes in community, including entertainment, celebration, and practicality. Many shamanic practitioners create music that emulates natural soundscapes to aid spirituality and healing. Music has also played a crucial role in all social and political movements, conveying powerful messages and transforming the experience of struggle into a more integrated and profound communal ethos.

Our inherent fluency in music-making can be nurtured and encouraged. Music therapy is a modality that uses music to support the healing of people of all backgrounds and abilities. The music therapist's role is not to teach individuals how to play an instrument, but to use music as a medium for emotional healing.

In this community event, composer and music therapist Dorian Wallace will ground us in social movement music and radical politics to explore how we can apply elements of music therapy to mental health, integrating it within a social-political perspective in order to strengthen community activism.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is open to all humans, including peers, clinicians, people with lived experience of trauma and oppression, musicians, educators, and helpers of all kinds. Automated closed captioning will be provided, and the event will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

Please note: IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs. We appreciate contributions of any size for those who have capacity to give. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitator

Dorian Wallace, MT - BC,  is a composer, pianist, board certified music therapist, and teacher based in New York City. His work addresses socio-political issues and philosophical concepts, often incorporating improvisation. He has collaborated with artists such as Bonita Oliver, John Sanborn, Paul Pinto, Pamela Z, Charlotte Mundy, Frank London, and Nicholas Finch, to name a few.

Wallace is a founding member and co-artistic director of Tenth Intervention, a progressive new music collective exploring the intersectionality of social justice and community engagement through contemporary music. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he founded the New Music Organizing Caucus, contemporary classical music advocacy, and labor rights collective to address systemic inequalities within the field. With David Kulma, Dorian co-hosts Trysteropod, an anarchist podcast discussing politics from a musician’s perspective. He is a Sing In Solidarity member, a socialist movement chorus in New York City that performs music from the international and domestic left.

One of New York City’s most in-demand dance accompanists, Wallace has played for Martha Graham Dance Company, Doug Varone and Dancers, Juilliard, New York University, Columbia University, and many, many others. He also teaches Music for Dancers at the Martha Graham School and is a teaching artist for the Mark Morris Dance Accompaniment Training Program.

Wallace received a BA in Music Therapy from Montclair State University, studying under Dr. Brian Abrams and Dr. Michael Viega. He completed an internship at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine and MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care. Dorian completed his Level 1 training in Guided Imagery and Music from Atlantis Institute for Consciousness and Music. He leads music therapy and mindfulness meditation groups through his private practice, Mederi Music, as well as American Humanist Association, and About Face - Veterans Against the War. Wallace is a United States Army veteran after serving for 10 years.

He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

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Ancestors in Training: Intergenerational Compassion
Jul
27
6:00 PM18:00

Ancestors in Training: Intergenerational Compassion

About the Event

Not all ancestors lived honorable lives. We see this in intergenerational traumas, but what does it mean to reconcile this truth with our (un)learning processes? This virtual conversation facilitated by writer and cultural organizer Veronica Agard uses intergenerational compassion as a lens to acknowledge complex ancestries and create a path forward. 

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is open to all humans, including peers, clinicians, people with lived experience of trauma and oppression, educators, and helpers of all kinds. Automated closed captioning will be provided, and the event will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

Please note: IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs. We appreciate contributions of any size for those who have capacity to give. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

About Ancestors in Training

Ancestors in Training (AIT) is a living project and lived experience that centers sacred traditions, new technologies, and intergenerational healing. Evolving with the times, AIT as a praxis examines how to apply the lessons of the past as a means to shape a better present and future for those that come after us. Through inquiry-based creative processes, critical race and media theories, and archival memory - the educational project allows all those who enter to leave with a better sense of self and how they relate to the world.

Facilitator

Photographer: Carlita Lopez, @carlitaz_way

Photographer: Carlita Lopez, @carlitaz_way

Veronica Agard (she/her) is a writer and cultural organizer at the intersections of Black identity, wellness, representation, and culture. Of Afro-Caribbean, African-American and Indigenous descent, she experiments with creative healing modalities and puts theories learned into practice. In addition to bylines at Redefining Our Womanhood, Black Girl Magik, Life as Ceremony and Black and Well; Veronica has brought Ancestors in Training to the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, El Museo del Barrio, Ethel's Club, Mayday Space, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, to name a few. She graduated magna cum laude from CUNY City College in 2014 and is pursuing a master of social work degree from Fordham University.

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Food Liberation: Our Gateway to Healing
Jun
28
6:00 PM18:00

Food Liberation: Our Gateway to Healing

Food Liberation - Banner.png

About the Event

BIPOC communities facing health/mental health injustices hold expertise as to the flaws and harms of the Western biomedical model onto our mind-bodies and lives. This workshop will highlight the intersection between food justice, physical and mental wellbeing through group activities and discussion. Join food justice organizer Ana Morán, urban farmer and educator Sheryll Durant, and community chef Sia Pickett to explore how we can use food as leverage towards community liberation and healing. The event will invite active participation from the audience to learn and share.

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is open to all humans, including peers, clinicians, people with lived experience of trauma and oppression, educators, and helpers of all kinds.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join. Automated closed captioning will be provided, and the event will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

Please note: IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitators

Ana Moran currently works as the Community Food Coordinator for Community Access, assisting tenants and staff in supportive housing to expand opportunities to grow and eat fresh produce, and engage in food-related entrepreneurial initiatives. Originally from Guatemala, Ana is an incredibly passionate food justice organizer who has worked at various points along the food chain, including being a food vendor, restaurant worker, farmer and entrepreneur. She has also worked in various communities engaging in urban farming projects. Ana is deeply connected to the intersections between food, immigration, and culture.

Sheryll Durrant is an urban farmer, educator, and food justice advocate. She has been the Resident Garden Manager at Kelly Street Garden since 2016, and is also the Food and Nutrition Coordinator for New Roots Community Farm, managed by International Rescue Committee (IRC). Her work has included developing community-based urban agriculture projects, providing expertise and technical assistance for gardens within supportive housing developments, and she currently serves as Board President for Just Food. Sheryll has led workshops and spoken on issues related to urban agriculture and food justice for many key organizations, and was part of the 2019-2020 HEAL School of Political Leadership cohort. As a former Design Trust fellow for the Farming Concrete project, she is now responsible for communications and outreach for the data collection platform that helps urban farmers and gardeners measure their impact. Prior to her work in urban agriculture, Sheryll spent over 20 years in corporate and institutional marketing.

Sia Pickett, affectionately known in her community as Chef Sia, started with Just Food as a Community Chef in 2011, eventually moving into the treasurer role through her commitment and dedication to the organization’s mission. Sia brings 30+ years of experience in fiscal oversight as a business owner, culinary/nutrition instructor, wellness coach, facilitator, management and mentoring, curriculum development, project/event coordination, marketing, business technology application, business consultation, and business development. She has worked in operational and sales management for various fortune 500 companies, spent 12 years working in personal banking with US Bank, and has held positions with several nonprofits. Sia currently serves as project coordinator for Business Outreach Center Network (BOC), and has worked as a project manager for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In addition to her community work, Chef Sia owns Malata Cuisine, a “Natural Foods'' personal chef service and culinary nutrition education company in Brooklyn, NY.

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The Heart of Harm Reduction
May
27
7:00 PM19:00

The Heart of Harm Reduction

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About the Event

Harm Reduction is popularly misunderstood as "doing less drugs" - a misunderstanding that may keep us from embracing and leaning-in to the core tenets of this approach: peer-driven, person-centered, non-judgmental, trauma-informed, and low-threshold engagement and services. These are the same tenets that we prioritize when using harm reduction approaches to psychiatry and mental health concerns.  In this community event, harm reductionists Jay Stevens and Al Ostapeck will discuss the core of Harm Reduction, the philosophy that informs the practice, and explore how identifying and challenging our own internalized biases leads to the ability to support all people with gentleness, right where they're at. Whether for mental health concerns, substance use concerns, self-injury/harm, sex and sex-work, or challenging harmful systems, using a harm reduction lens is transformative for all parties - including you! 

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. The event is open to all humans, including “clinicians," people with lived mental health and/or substance use concerns, family members of the same, and helpers of all kinds.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join. Automated closed captioning will be provided, and the event will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

Please note: IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Facilitators

Jason (Jay) Stevens (he, him), MHC-LP, CASAC, MA, CARC, ADS identifies as a person with lived experience of unhelpful substance use, homelessness, and incarceration. After having his eyes opened to the systemic harms caused by structural racism, classism, patriarchy, the War on Drugs, and white supremacy, Jay dedicated the remainder of his life to supporting others who are suffering, and helping to transform unjust systems. A mental health counseling limited permit holder, Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist, harm reductionist, trainer and activist, Jay now works on a New York City ACT Team as a Harm Reduction Specialist supporting those living in mental health homeless shelters and Supportive Housing in NYC. He believes deeply in the healing power of human connections born of non-judgment, and strives to support the creation of a transformative mental health system led by people with lived experience.

Al Ostapeck (they/them) is a harm reductionist and drug user living in Brooklyn, NY. Experiences in the medical system, psychiatric system, and witnessing the destruction of other oppressive systems have pushed them to be deeply invested in the liberation of oppressed people within their communities and throughout the world. Al began practicing harm reduction as a young person, helping friends and people in the community stay safe while using drugs. They have worked in a syringe exchange program at the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center and as a Harm Reduction Specialist working in housing at Community Access. Al will be returning to LESHRC to continue working toward improving and expanding harm reduction services in the Lower East Side. In their free time, they enjoy studying revolutionary history and theory and finding new ways to make seitan and experimenting with fermentation with their partner.

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Integrating the Hero’s Journey into your Life and Practice
Apr
19
6:00 PM18:00

Integrating the Hero’s Journey into your Life and Practice

Hero's Journey event - banner.png

About the Event

What does myth have to do with mental health? More than one might imagine. The Hero’s Journey was described by Joseph Campbell as a way to understand the similarities he noticed in folklore and mythologies throughout history and worldwide.

On April 19th from 6-8 pm EST, IDHA and facilitators JoAnn Dorio Burton, CPRP and Kristin Becker, LCMHCA are hosting a workshop that explores the Hero's Journey as an empowering way for individuals and practitioners to conceptualize life experiences in ways that are person-centered, de-stigmatizing, and cross-cultural. This event expands upon themes covered in the November 2020 IDHA workshop "How to Convert Your Life Into Legend".

Joined by storyteller and previous IDHA presenter Audrey Dimola, the trio will traverse the stages of the Journey (including Departure/Separation, On The Road/Initiation, and Return/Transformation), discuss how to engage the Hero's Journey in your life and practice, and explore how to invoke specific myths to deepen resonance and internal explorations in the way that only the Old Stories can-- with the rich example of the Grail Legend that centers around Parsifal, the Wounded Fisher King, and the courage to ask the necessary questions.

Register* in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing Zoom information about how to join, along with a reminder email a few hours before the event. Automated closed captioning will be provided, and the event will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

*There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is designed for a multi-stakeholder audience. The workshop is designed to bridge the mental health needs of the "clinician" and of the "client.”

Please note: IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Presenters

JoAnn Dorio Burton, CPRP, is an educator, trainer, consultant and author and works as the Community Programs Coordinator at Windhorse Community Services, in Boulder Colorado. She is a longtime advocate of community mental health, clubhouse programs, and psychiatric rehabilitation. In collaboration with Kristin Becker she created Hero’s Journey: Path to Well-being (formerly Hero’s Journey of Recovery) based on the work of Joseph Campbell. She has a BA degree in Therapeutic Recreation and Sociology, (concentration Social Work) from Lehman College, CUNY and attended the Transpersonal Counseling Program at Naropa University. In 2018, JoAnn received the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner Award.You can find out more about her Hero’s Journey workshops and trainings at www.herosjourneyworkshops.com

Kristin Becker, LCMHCA is a licensed clinical mental health counselor in Asheville, NC. She has counseled youth aged 4 through 17 in both school and wilderness settings. She met JoAnn Dorio Burton in 2014 at Windhorse Community Services where they developed their framework inspired by the shared experiences of those undergoing mental health challenges and the work of Joseph Campbell. She continues to incorporate this framework into her work with youth.

Audrey Dimola is a born-and-raised NYC artist, storyteller, and dancer adventuring in myth, ecological wellness, and wild body dreaming. She carries lived experience of neurodivergence, altered states, and past mental illness diagnosis; the Hero's Journey, and working with the Sacred Aliveness in Story, quite literally saved her life. Audrey is a lifelong writer/poet and multidisciplinary performer and has nearly a decade of experience as a celebrated event curator, organizer, and sacred space-holder working creatively in diverse communities. She holds a Certificate in Ecotherapy from the Earthbody Institute and facilitated the November 2020 IDHA event, "How To Convert Your Life Into Legend: Inside the Hero's Journey."

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Decarcerating Care: Challenging Criminalization and Control in Mental Health
Mar
4
6:00 PM18:00

Decarcerating Care: Challenging Criminalization and Control in Mental Health

About the Event

In September 2020, IDHA hosted a public panel discussion called Decarcerating Care: Taking Policing Out of Mental Health Crisis Response, which explored the carceral nature of mental health crisis response through the voices and experiences of survivors and people with lived experience.

On Thursday March 4, 2021, we will continue the conversation with Decarcerating Care: Challenging Criminalization and Control in Mental Health, a panel that will deconstruct the prevailing narrative around the decriminalization of mental illness and explore ways in which public mental health services and well-meaning "reforms" inherently uphold the ongoing coercion and control of marginalized communities. Panelists will explore the stigmatization and surveillance often experienced by those seeking or mandated to treatment, recognizing that mental healthcare is not immune from the systems of oppression inherent to racial capitalism. By again uplifting a range of expertise and lived experiences from diverse backgrounds and identities, the panel will focus on harmful practices within mental health treatment that inhibit self-determination and maintain the status quo, while amplifying approaches to politicized care and community-based alternatives that keep us safe while accessing the healing we need and deserve.

Please register via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to dial into the Zoom webinar.

Donations

IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.

Access

ASL + CART will be provided in Zoom. If we reach maximum capacity (1,000 people), this webinar will also be broadcast live on IDHA’s Facebook page (note that the Facebook stream will have ASL interpretation visible, but not live captions). The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. If you have any questions about access, please email us at contact@idha-nyc.org.

Panelists

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Marco Barrios

Marco Barrios is a resident of Queens, a veteran and a member of Freedom Agenda. He works as a criminal justice advocate with the Urban Justice Center Mental Health Project. In addition, he is engaged as a member of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice Implementation Task Force, as part of the Subcommittee on programming. Prior to his role in criminal legal system reform and building communities, he was formerly incarcerated and while serving his sentence, he obtained his bachelor’s degree in behavioral science. Furthermore, throughout his incarceration he had the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of his affliction with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use. The tools and skills that he acquired over the years shaped him into the man he is today and always wanted to be. He believes that the improvement of his character, mind and perception has prepared him to dedicate his life to the work he is doing.

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Dustin Gibson

Dustin works in the tradition of deinstitutionalization and has worked with Centers for Independent Living (IL) in Pittsburgh, PA and both of the national IL organizations. He is the Access, Disability and Language Justice Coordinator at PeoplesHub, a Peer Support Trainer with Disability Link in Atlanta, GA and a founding member of the Harriet Tubman Collective.

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Victoria Law

Victoria Law is an author and freelance journalist focusing on the intersections of incarceration, gender and resistance. Her books include Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reform, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, and  Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities. Her newest book "Prisons Make Us Safer" and 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration will be out in April.

Her writings about prisons and other forms of confinement have appeared in The New York TimesThe NationWiredBloomberg BusinessweekThe Village VoiceIn These TimesRewire News and Truthout. She is a co-founder of Books Through Bars—NYC and the editor of the zine Tenacious: Art and Writings by Women in Prison. She is also a proud parent of a young woman who has graduated from the NYC public school system.

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Kendra McLaughlin

Kendra J. McLaughlin, PhD (she/her) is a legal psychologist, writer, educator, and activist. She also lives with bipolar disorder. Her research and writing centres on various ways in which people who are psychiatrized face criminalization, surveillance, and confinement. Kendra is a carceral abolitionist feminist and a socialist. She believes in a future where all psychiatrized people are consulted in the care they receive and in societies in which no person is expected to pay for health/medi/pharmacare. You can find her writings at CriminalizedMentallyIll on Instagram and on her website: KendraJMclaughlin.com

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Yazan Za3za3

Yazan is the Community Organizer at Vigilant Love, a healing justice organization committed to challenging the structural and communal impacts of Islamophobia and the War on Terror at large. Yazan's primary work focus on Vigilant Love's #ServicesNotSurveillance campaign where they support with the development of political analysis, campaign strategy, and educational facilitation with special attention to the overlaps between racialization, surveillance, and the co-optation of health. Yazan holds an MA in Women's and Gender Studies from San Diego State University. Their own research focuses on the relationship between war, migration, surveillance, and social welfare programming.

Moderator

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Grace Ortez

Grace Ortez is an empathy-driven and revolution-minded NYC-based prison abolitionist. She is a community organizer, paradigm shifter, generational cycle breaker, and advocate for the incarcerated (and their loved ones). She also serves her community as a criminal justice reform and healing-oriented speaker, re-entry coordinator, and healing circle facilitator. She is a member of Freedom Agenda, and currently works as a Community Outreach Coordinator at Dream Deferred Inc.

Grace is a proud daughter of the South Bronx with Indigenous roots, whose expertise comes from lived experience as a violence, trauma, and psychiatric survivor. She is fiercely passionate about uplifting Black and Brown communities impacted by systemic trauma and mass incarceration - through grassroots movement building, elevating directly impacted voices, increasing civic participation, and reclaiming community power within NYC and beyond. Her mission is to help bring about both a cultural shift and concrete systemic policy change in the ways that our society responds to trauma, mental health, violence, and racial equity.

Grace is a firm believer in both restorative and transformative justice, second chances, and compassionate rehabilitation without exceptions - because no one is defined by their worst moments in life, and no one is beyond redemption.

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Confronting the History of Mental Health Treatment Using Poetry
Feb
8
6:00 PM18:00

Confronting the History of Mental Health Treatment Using Poetry

Many early career clinicians enter the field having been provided a limited view of the history of mental health treatment as a whole. Further, many individuals lack tangible tools to maintain their own mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being in the face of dehumanizing processes. 

On Monday, February 8th IDHA is offering a virtual workshop that examines the history of mental health treatment in the United States and the use of poetry as a therapeutic tool. Poetry provides a unique medium for proposing new ways of being in the world and framing struggle, in ways more playful and empathetic than traditional modalities. Using selective snapshots, Autistic social worker and spoken word poet Steven T. Licardi will invite clinicians to explore the legacy of mental health treatment and to critically examine the ways in which we each, individually and collectively, continue to contribute to that legacy. Throughout this examination, participants will familiarize themselves with creative writing techniques, such as erasure/blackout poetry, letter writing, list making, and the golden shovel, as a means of subverting narratives. Participants are asked to come prepared to create and to reflect.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is designed for a multi-stakeholder audience. The workshop is designed to bridge the mental health needs of the "clinician" and of the "client.”

Facilitator

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Steven T. Licardi is a social worker, spoken word poet, actor, and performance activist working at the intersections of art and social policy. He travels domestically and internationally using the power of spoken word to create empathic dialogue around, to confront the realities of, and to assist communities in dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness. As a child, Steven was diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum, an experience that has deeply informed his professional work. Since 2016, his ever-evolving performance series "Coup de Mot" has been confronting how mental illnesses manifest out of oppressive social pathologies, with versions appearing in Vigo, Spain in 2016, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2018, and in Thessoliniki, Greece in 2019. His most recent collection of poems, ‘a billion burning dreams’ (STL, 2018) traces his own mental health journey from patient to professional. www.thesvenbo.com

Exquisite Corpse poem that was composed in the Chat during the event:

You exist
dear chosen, be anything....
perhaps
along with me
no matter what it looks like
An affair I have
In your prismed silence
Different, calmness
Bring me the warmth in my belly
I never thought before
My buzzing eyes ears nose life
Be hungry . . . beyond food.
we find you wild
Distracting like a fearscape
sleeplessness my friend
you are here and smiling
lost minds
We can wander
lost minutes
navigate the world where the branches always reach out to meet you
dear destiny:
missed connections
uncertainty can mean distress, but also endless possibilities
Remember to Love Yourself first. then you can bring the Love to others, too!

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Mind Body Practices for Trauma, Resiliency and Wellness
Jan
14
6:00 PM18:00

Mind Body Practices for Trauma, Resiliency and Wellness

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On Thursday, January 14, IDHA is offering a workshop, during which participants will learn a variety of mind-body practices to help with dysregulated states including anxiety and depression, insomnia, rumination and difficulty focusing. A brief overview of how trauma affects the nervous system will be shared with an understanding of how using the conscious connection of the mindbody increases resiliency and wellness. Breathwork, Mindful Movement such as Qi Gong, Yoga and Play, Meditation and Restorative Postures will be utilized. All practices are trauma informed and appropriate for all bodies.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is open to all humans, including clinicians, caregivers, activists, humanitarian aid workers, and medical professionals.

Facilitator

Gina de la Chesnaye is a core faculty member of Second Response which tends to the emotional & psychological needs of people exposed to trauma, providing body-centered methods to relieve the harmful effects of stress, distress & trauma. Most recently Second Response served survivors of sex-trafficking, refugees, street-children and the women in Uganda and Kenya. Gina also leads trauma informed trainings and Care for the Caregiver workshops for clinicians and  street counselors. She serves as key faculty for The Lineage Project, bringing mindfulness based exercises, yoga and meditation to at-risk and/or incarcerated youth and their support staff in New York City. 

Gina is also the Founder and Director of The Nachan Project which serves the women and children of the Katwe slums in Kampala, Uganda and offers Mindfulness and Trauma Management Trainings to social workers, street counselors, trauma therapists and caregivers throughout Uganda.

Gina is the Trauma Resource Director of the International Center for Mental Health and Human Rights where she facilitates mindful movement, yoga and meditation, a component of the Contemplative Based Trauma and Resilience Training. 

She is an alumna of the 2017 Harvard Global Mental Health Trauma & Recovery Certificate Program. She also offers Contemplative Care classes to the Columbia School of Social Work, NYU and Baruch College as a visiting lecturer. Gina recently lectured on and led Care for the Caregiver at the 3rd Annual Joint UCPA (Uganda Clinical Psychology) and UBHA (Uganda Behavioral Health Alliance) conference at the University of Kisubi, Entebbe, Uganda.

Gina recently co-taught a 300 Hour Yoga, Meditation and Dharma Teacher Training at The Three Jewels Outreach Center in NYC with Michael Hewett. 

She is a contributing writer and photographer to The Huffington Post, NY Yoga + Life and YogaCityNYC and has written numerous articles on yoga, meditation, martial arts and Buddhism.

Dedicated to humanitarian relief, she has spent several years focusing on trauma and resiliency work with children in orphanages, schools, IDP camps and monasteries throughout Nepal with the volunteer organization 108 Lives. In March of 2018, Gina led a team of 13 volunteers. 

She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her two daughters and has a private practice working with trauma survivors in New York City and is the lead collaborator on integrative practices with The Therapy Collective.

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IDHA Membership Launch Party!
Dec
7
6:00 PM18:00

IDHA Membership Launch Party!

Are you interested in transforming the mental health system and joining a community of change-makers passionate about social justice?

If your answer is yes, join us for IDHA’s Membership Launch Party on Monday, December 7th between 6 and 8 PM EST. After months of work formalizing IDHA’s structure, we are ready to launch our membership program to grow an international community of mental health change makers spanning people with lived experience, clinicians, family members, activists, artists, researchers, and advocates who share IDHA’s vision of transformative mental health.

Participants can drop in between 6-8 PM EST and meet the many faces of the IDHA community, learn about the benefits of IDHA membership, and participate in a unique virtual gathering with music, poetry, and more.

Register on Eventbrite here or using the form below! This is a virtual event. Zoom link and meeting details available upon registration. ASL and CART will be provided.

You should join us if...

  • You are an organizer passionate about social justice

  • You are inspired by IDHA’s values and principles

  • You are do work related to the the mental health system

  • You are close to someone who has gone through the mental health system and are seeking shared experiences

  • You are a member of IDHA or interested in becoming one!

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How to Convert Your Life Into Legend: Inside the Hero’s Journey
Nov
16
7:00 PM19:00

How to Convert Your Life Into Legend: Inside the Hero’s Journey

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About the Event

On Monday, November 16th, IDHA is hosting an online workshop that aims to familiarize participants with the mythic mental health healing modality of creative recontextualization, via Audrey Dimola’s "Live Your Legend" framework. The evening will include an exploration of Joseph Campbell's The Hero’s Journey and Audrey's own personal adventures in myth, including reframing her Bipolar II diagnosis with the Legend of the Two Wolves, which emerged spontaneously from her in 2016. The workshop will also feature discussions on the honest challenges and profound rewards of pursuing alternative frameworks to traditional mental illness narratives, several generative journeying and visualization exercises (no experience or prep necessary, no overthinking required!), and open invitations to experimenting with thinking and seeing metaphorically and symbolically. As storied poet and mythteller Robert Bly wrote: "We are receiving a request to move on still further, from the psychological to the mythological stage […] that understanding is not behind us, but ahead of us." The workshop and Q&A will be co-facilitated and moderated by fellow mythic explorer, Noah Phillips -- IDHA organizer, working peer specialist, and LMSW.

Register in advance via Zoom to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is open to all people, including people with lived experience, family members, activists, allies, and psychiatrists or other mental health providers -- people who are interested in exploring creative recontextualization and working with myth/legend in their own lives or with their clients.

Background

Audrey Dimola was initiated into the sacred aliveness in Story as a matter of life and death. After struggling mentally, emotionally, and behaviorally for many years with unchecked trauma and destructive patterning, she was given a Bipolar II diagnosis and a prescription in 2018 -- a path she knew deep in her Soul she could not follow. What grew from the wound was a deep dedication to converting her life into Legend by creatively recontextualizing her experience of "mental illness" via co-creating in tandem with her personal mythology: journeying into -- and back out of -- a mythical internal wilderness and its Under- and Over-worlds, with two wolves as her guides. This practice and framework is based on the "monomyth" ideology of The Hero's Journey as presented by one of her personal heroes: prolific writer, mythologist, and professor Joseph Campbell; as well as the acknowledgment of archetypal presences and a collective unconscious we all share, inhabited by fearsome and fantastical creatures, quests, landscapes, and meanings that are accessible to us at any moment. The Hero's Journey is a pattern identified by Campbell that is apparent in myths and stories from different cultures throughout our history. In it, the Hero -- which could be any of us -- heeds a Call to Adventure which leads them to cross a threshold down into the Underworld on a thrilling and dangerous journey with the specific purpose of returning back home to their community with the treasure, wisdom, or boon from the quest. It is a revelatory and positive framework to apply to mental illness experiences, with-- as in Audrey's case-- radically life-changing (and saving) results.

Organizers

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Audrey Dimola is a Bearer of Legend exploring myth, mental health, and the ecologies of spirit through earth-based healing modalities, multidisciplinary art, radical vulnerability, and deep (re)connection to land, fellow beings, and more-than-human kin. She is a lifelong artist, writer/poet, and performer; youth mentor and public speaker; and has nearly a decade of experience as a NYC-based event curator and sacred space-holder working creatively in diverse communities. Past offerings include: Church of the Sacred Body, How We Create & How We Cope: Intersections of Art & Mental Illness, and countless happenings at world-renowned art-space Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, where she has served as Director of Public Programs since 2016. Her latest article, "Validating Psychosis: The Missing Narrative" was published in Mad in America this past August, her most recent books of poetry and prose are "WILDLIGHT" and "THE BOOK OF LEGEND," and she is currently pursuing a Certificate in Ecotherapy from The Earthbody Institute.

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Noah Phillips is a Peer Specialist at Community Access as well as a Licensed Master of Social Work and IDHA Organizer.


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Decarcerating Care: Taking Policing Out of Mental Health Crisis Response
Sep
14
6:00 PM18:00

Decarcerating Care: Taking Policing Out of Mental Health Crisis Response

As the movement for racial justice gains momentum in the United States, there has been a lot of conversation around how to divest funding from the police and reallocate it to mental health care. Although the notion to replace “cops” with “care” is well-intentioned, psychiatric survivors, their family members, and advocates are well acquainted with the oppressive nature of the mental health system. Too often, both mainstream and progressive group discussions immediately revert to a model of "caring" for "the mentally ill" in hospitals and other confined settings that are functionally no different than the jails and prisons that they propose to replace.

IDHA seeks to advance a discussion of alternatives to policing and criminal justice that is rooted in the lived experience of mental health service users and survivors. In this context, it is crucial to center the particular ways in which psychiatry has been used to exert control over Black bodies, not unlike the prison system. From the historically racist roots of diagnosis; to the ways in which the pain of racial oppression is erased or made invisible due to the subjective nature of psychiatric diagnosis; to the significantly higher rates at which Black communities are diagnosed with “serious mental illness,” it’s clear that unilaterally replacing policing with more mental health care is not the answer.

On Monday, September 14th, IDHA is hosting a community discussion that will bring together frontline organizers with a range of perspectives on how to maintain the safety and health of our communities in ways that are free from the police, rooted in survivors' experience, and designed to preserve the rights and autonomy of those in crisis. We will hear from panelists who have developed creative models across the country, both within and outside of the existing system. We seek to disrupt the notion that struggling community members are “diseased” and “disordered,” rather than in need of care and support. We will be asking the difficult questions about how to create community-based alternatives to cops in our neighborhoods and what it will take to lay the foundation for a new paradigm of engaging with what is called “mental health crisis.” We invite anyone who is interested to join us in this discussion, including but not limited to: individuals with lived experience, trauma survivors, clinicians, peer specialists, family members, activists, and artists.

Please register via Zoom to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with call-in details.

NOTE: ASL + CART will be provided. This webinar caps at the first 1,000 people to join, and will also be broadcast live on IDHA’s Facebook. The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

Panelists

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Asantewaa Boykin

Asantewaa Boykin is a San Diego, CA native, Emergency RN, daughter of Valerie Boykin and granddaughter of Bertha Brandy. Her poetry combines her love of words, storytelling, and resistance. Exploring topics like; space-travel, black-femme militancy,& motherhood. Which describes her first full length poetry collection, “Love, Lyric and Liberation.” Asantewaa is co-founder of APTP (Anti Police - Terror Project) an organization committed to the eradication of police terror in all of its forms. Along with being a dedicated nurse she is also a founding member of the Capital City Black Nurses Association. Asantewaa along with a brave group of organizers and medical professionals developed Mental Health First or MH FIRST a mobile mental health crisis response team aimed at minimizing police contact with those who are in the midst of a mental health crisis. While her greatest honor is being the mother of her son Ajani and bonus daughter Aryana.

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Tim Black

Tim Black is the Director of Consulting at White Bird Clinic. With a background in runaway and homeless youth, harm reduction, and street outreach, he began working for CAHOOTS as a Crisis Intervention Worker in 2010, before moving into an administrative role as the CAHOOTS Operations Coordinator. His work with White Bird and CAHOOTS has put him in touch with cities across North America looking to implement services based on the CAHOOTS model of behavioral health first response, including Olympia, WA’s Crisis Response Unit and the STAR Program in Denver, CO. Outside of his work with White Bird Clinic, Tim serves as the Vice President of the Board of Directors for Eugene’s Community Supported Shelters.

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Stella Akua Mensah

Stella Akua Mensah is a Black, gay, Neurodivergent Psych Survivor, writer, Transformative Justice advocate, abolitionist, and artist from Chicago. She studied Literary Arts at Brown University, writing magical realism centering on themes of inherited trauma, Madwomanness, and Black Diasporic approaches to healing. Stella now serves as a Peer Support Housing Navigator for Homeless Women in Boston. She recently published the piece ‘Abolition Must Include Psychiatry’ with the Disability Visibility Project. She is a 2020 Crip Camp x Adobe Fellow in Honor of  Ki’tay Davidson. Her ongoing passions center on transformative, decarceral, and communal care, as well as experimental and post-colonial artistic exploration.

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Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (she/they) is the Director of Project LETS; a national grassroots organization led by and for folks with lived experience of mental illness, Disability, trauma, and neurodivergence. Their work specializes in building peer support collectives and community mental health care structures outside of state-sanctioned systems of “care” -- grounded in principles of anti-racism and Disability/Transformative/Healing Justice. As a skilled facilitator and curriculum developer, they have led hundreds of trainings across various sectors for students and practitioners. They have also served as a consultant for mental health policies, program development, and accessibility. As a queer, mad, Disabled, neurodivergent human with lived experience of psychiatric incarceration, they are an active community organizer invested in disrupting multiple systems which disproportionately discriminate, harm, and kill our community members worldwide. 

Neil Gong

Neil Gong (he/him/his) is a sociologist at the Michigan Society of Fellows. He is working on a book that compares community-based mental health services in public safety net versus elite private settings. Most recently, Neil authored a piece in the LA Review of Books entitled "How Defunding Abusive Institutions Goes Wrong, and How We Can Do It Right." 

Moderator

Noah Gokul

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Noah Gokul (he/him) is a queer educator, artist, musician from Oakland, CA. He identifies as a trauma survivor, and has used music for personal healing and for the healing of others, as a Peer Specialist working with young adults. He currently is a consultant for COR (Confronting Structural Racism) program in the Jewish Board, organizing programming for an agency wide anti-racism initiative. He strongly believes in reimagining what we call “mental health”, through a holistic lens rooted in anti-oppression framework.

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IDHA Community Open Mic!
Jun
29
7:00 PM19:00

IDHA Community Open Mic!

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World Building & Mental Health - An IDHA Community Open Mic

Hosted by IDHA members: Steven Licardi & Pauline Pisano

“Our images/feelings/thoughts have to be conflicted before we see the need for change. Imagination offers resolutions out of the conflict by dreaming alternative ways of image/feeling/thinking. For positive social change to happen we need to envision a different reality, dream new blueprints for it, formulate new strategies for coping in it. “ 

- Gloria Anzaldúa (From: This Bridge Called My Back)

Questions + Framing

Any time we ask ourselves: Who am I? What are my needs? What brings me joy? What is the world  that I wish to create? We are performing a revolutionary act. We are giving ourselves a profound gift whenever we choose to critically examine our mental health. These are all mental health questions, and also revolutionary questions.

  • How can the gifts of artists be used to  create the worlds we wish to see?

  • If mental health is a revolutionary act, how can we use our magic for our collective health?

  • Does love play a part in this? If so, how? Is mental health a loving practice?

  • Who is an artist? Who gets to be an artist?

  • How can we share + build our creative health toolkit with others?

Format 

  • 7 - 8:30 PM Open Mic performances (a brief 5 min intermission half way through)

  • 8:30 - 9 PM Open discussion + Group reflection

Art pieces may take many forms, including poems, songs, visual art, or otherwise. Members can present art both old and new, some repurposed for this open mic and others created specifically for it.

Register in advance via Zoom to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Sign up to perform at the Open Mic here.

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Looking Inward: Dismantling Racism within Ourselves
Jun
8
6:00 PM18:00

Looking Inward: Dismantling Racism within Ourselves

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"It's been a horrible week. We've taken both today and yesterday as rest days. We might take tomorrow as well...We are all sore and sick, in mourning and exhausted⁠—yet triumphant. Odd to be triumphant. I think it's because most of us are still alive. We are a harvest of survivors. But then, that's what we've always been”  —Octavia Butler

On Monday, June 8th from 6 - 7:30 pm EST, IHDA is hosting a loosely moderated community discussion as we reflect on recent events and protests against police brutality. We hope you will join us in self-reflection about how we make sense of this issue and racism within ourselves.

Please bring any artwork, poems, paintings that you would be comfortable sharing with the group. We will have moments for personal sharing as well as art sharing.

Register in advance via Zoom to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

And if you haven’t already, please fill out our Community Care Survey to help inform how we design these spaces.

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IDHA Community Open Mic!
May
25
6:00 PM18:00

IDHA Community Open Mic!

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“We believe we have mad gifts to be cultivated and taken care of, rather than diseases or disorders to be suppressed and eliminated. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness, creativity, and collaboration can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world.” -Sascha DuBrul

On Monday, May 25th, we will celebrate the launch of our new class, Dangerous Gifts (featuring IDHA Training Director Sascha DuBrul) by hosting another virtual open mic! For this open mic, we will pose the following questions to all participating artists in efforts to ignite our community’s radical imagination and continue to develop a shared analysis. Shared being the most important word.

  • Do you navigate the space between brilliance and madness? If so, how?

  • What is your quiet revolution?

  • Have you ever been quelled?

  • What is the role of harm reduction in this moment?

  • What does self-determination mean to you?

Art pieces may take many forms, including poems, songs, visual art, or otherwise. Members can present art both old and new, some repurposed for this open mic and others created specifically for it.

Register in advance via Zoom to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.

Sign up to perform at the Open Mic here.

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