We warmly invite you to join us for the Conference Reception and Panel Discussion on Friday, November 1st, at 5:45 pm, to be held at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. While the event is free, RSVPs are required.
Reception & Panel Discussion
"Re-Visioning Mental Health and Practice" with Claire Bien, Sascha DuBrul, Becky Brasfield, Shannon Pagdon, Will Hall, and Christina Bomnae Babusci.
Description: Join us for an in-person panel discussion featuring emerging and established activist, clinical and policy leaders from across the US. Discussion will focus on priorities, actionable change, and equity in context of race, culture, gender identity, socioeconomic and disability. Refreshments provided.
When: Friday, November 1st, 5:45- 7:30 pm (immediately after the pre-conference workshop)
Where: University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning, Room 2017.
Who: This event is open to pre-conference workshop attendees, general conference attendees, and members of the public
Cost: Free
RSVP required: https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cZpNEEvRzU7l79A
Conference details: www.isps-us.org/conference
Speaker Bios
Will Hall, MA PhD(c)
Doctoral candidate at Maastricht University, therapist and community development worker changing the social response to madness. A schizophrenia diagnosis survivor and longtime organizer with the psychiatric survivor movement; author of the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Medications and Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness; host of Madness Radio; co-founder of Freedom Center, Portland Hearing Voices, and Hearing Voices Network USA: www.willhall.net.
Becky Brasfield, MA
Chicago-based professional writer, policy researcher, and recovery support specialist who advocates for wellness and recovery, disability rights, and justice reform. She is politically independent, and her works are driven by ethics reform.
Claire Bien, MEd
Research associate at the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health; author of a memoir: Hearing Voices, Living Fully: Living with the Voices in My Head; the immediate past president of ISPS-US; Hearing Voices Network-USA board member; and co-facilitator of two HVN-USA support groups. She is most keenly
interested in the underpinnings of intergenerational trauma and resilience born of war, colonization, refugee flight, immigration, racism, family, and heritage.
Christina Bomnae Babusci, LSW
Doctoral student in the School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh, clinician and advocate with a focus on Asian Pacific Islander (API) equity in the context of
conditions labeled as 'serious mental illness' and racial justice more broadly; former early psychosis therapist and lead organizer of the Advocacy in Action webinar series.
Shannon Pagdon
Doctoral student in the School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh, peer specialist and activist with a focus on early psychosis and anti-carceral social
work. Co-creator of the visionary project Psychosis Outside the Box and Vice President of Lived Experience for the International Early Psychosis Association
(IEPA).
Sascha Altman DuBrul, MSW
Co-founder of The Icarus Project and a lead trainer with The Institute for the Development of Human Arts. For more than two decades, he has been laying
the foundations for a Transformative Mental Health System, inside and outside the public system, which understands human suffering and mental difference as a
catalyst for generative change, rather than a pathology.
