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VOCAL CO-OP Leadership Retreat & Peer Program Summit
A week of community, creativity, and skill-building for peer-run programs
Sunday, October 1, 2006 – Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Full scholarships available Newly forming groups welcome
Guest List: We welcome everyone involved in starting or running a peer-run mental health group or program in Virginia. Newly-forming groups welcome! Full scholarships are available.
Location: The retreat will be held at a beautiful site in Central Virginia, approximately 20 miles from Charlottesville. Accommodations are comfortable. Food is delicious.
Train the Trainers: This year will include a special Train-The-Trainers section, so you can learn skills for leading a training for your group back home.
Workshops: The CO-OP retreat is planned to be creative, interactive, and participant-directed. Here’s a few highlights for last year:
New Training Topics: Potential new training topics this year include:
Fees & Scholarships: Some full scholarships are available for staff, board, volunteers and organizers of peer-run programs. Newly forming groups are welcome. Scholarships are first come first serve (apply soon!). The cost without a scholarship is $400 (includes all food, lodging, registration and materials). To keep costs down, everyone who is able to will be asked to help clean up after meals. Please register by August 4, 2006.
Registration: Please click on the link below for the Registration and Scholarship Application. The deadline is August 4 (it says August 1 on the form - please ignore that part) 2006 Retreat Registration & Scholarship Form
Trainers & Organizers: Special guest trainers: Betsy Raasch-Gilman & Erika Thorne from Training for Change Retreat Design & Organizer: Cassandra Nudel Site & Event Coordinator: Yolande Long Collaboration & Technical Support: Brian Parrish Peer-led Workshops: Everyone is welcome to lead their own groups!
Betsy Raasch-Gilman provides training in a wide range of social change skills. She facilitates meetings and teaches groups about group process, consensus decision-making, and productive conflict. Training for boards of nonprofit organizations and cooperative businesses is a particular strong point for her. She helps organizations to develop their own strategic plans, and assists activists involved in campaigns to think strategically about their next moves. All of her training is done with attention to the dynamics of gender identity, sexual orientation, class, race, age, religion, and physical ability in a group. Farmers, neighborhood organizers, church-based activists, veterans, environmentalists, students, labor unionists, social service providers, and activists with developmental disabilities are some of the people Betsy has trained with.
Erika Thorne has been a progressive activist, writer, facilitator and cultural worker since 1974. She focuses on anti-racism work, coalition-building, and diversity work. She also loves to facilitate strategic planning, training of trainers, hate-crimes response, board development, conflict waging, ethical grassroots fundraising, and meetings - especially real sticky ones! Erika has worked with Environmental Justice and Media Justice groups, undocumented immigrants, Hmong organizations, domestic violence activists, housing projects residents, and a full range of non-profits, organizers and rabble-rousers. As a former dancer for social change, she brings joyful physicality to her facilitation. Erika is a Partner in Future Now Training in Minneapolis, and is a Training for Change Associate.
Cassandra Nudel is an educator, advocate, nonprofit consultant, and writer of grants, proposals, plays, poems, and stories. As an advocate for social justice and disability rights, she has co-founded and raised funds to start the VOCAL CO-OP, REACH, and the VOCAL Network. Her past experiences with diverse cultures include: personal experiences with disability & mental health recovery; working with gay & lesbian and women’s causes; leading educational programs for Korean immigrants; working on community health projects in Brazil; studying Shamanism and American Sign Language; and living and traveling in India, Nepal, Brazil, and Eastern Europe. She is currently creating her own small business As the Crow Flies: Holistic Consulting for Grassroots Social Change.
Yolande Long is Office Manager, Conference Organizer and Newsletter Editor for the VOCAL Network. Yolande is also Director of ABIL, Inc. (Agoraphobics Building Independent Lives). ABIL’s mission is to provide hope, support and advocacy for people suffering from debilitating phobias, panic attacks and/or agoraphobia by establishing self-help groups and providing public education.
Brian Parrish is Executive Director of VOCAL and Program Director of the VOCAL CO-OP. Brian has worked to help strengthen peer-run programs throughout the state. He has also co-designed and initiated several new statewide programs, including REACH, The VOCAL Network, and the Two People Two Chairs Program. Brian serves on the Virginia Mental Health Planning Council, and regularly offers participation and presentations at mental health councils and conferences around the state.
The VOCAL CO-OP (Consumer Owned & Operated Programs) is a collective of peer-led, self-help mental health programs in Virginia. This retreat, and all CO-OP activities, are made possible thanks to generous support from the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation & Substance Abuse Services.
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