GreenTree Peer Center and NC CANSO sponsored Susan Rogers, Director of the National Mental Health Consumer’s Self-Help Clearinghouse, to present the Freedom Self-Advocacy curriculum at GreenTree on September 19 and 20. People as far away as Raleigh, Charlotte, and the mountains participated while most of the crowd came from Winston-Salem.
It was an exciting opportunity, because peers were able to enter into important and empowering discussions that could only happen in such a venue. Susan shared a history of the empowerment movement among people with lived experience as it began in the northeastern U.S. She gave specific action steps that can help people express themselves clearly when advocating at the personal level or at the system level. When people left the training, they seemed to feel united around a common hope that their voices and ideas will impact their own lives, their communities, and this state!