MONDAY

Dr. Yvonne Sanders Butler
Good Nutrition and Fitness Makes For a Sound Mind.  Parents, educators, school counselors, clinicians, health care providers, faith based practitioners and community health advocates can all benefit from the personal story of Dr.Yvonne Sanders-Butler. She is known to millions as the pioneer of the first Sugar Free Zone School, now Healthy Kids, Smart Kids in the U.S.  However, most people do not know that her creation of the Sugar Free Zone came out of her personal battle with food addiction, obesity and depression which almost cost her life. It was her own personal obsessions that she overcame that helped her to become an advocate for children’s health and well-being. She shares how good nutrition and fitness not only helped to save her life but how it delivered her from a lifetime of depression as well. Her easy-going, humorous delivery will keep you entertained while she presents valuable information how good nutrition and fitness can be a first line defense in supporting a sound mind.

Dr. Yvonne S. Butler is the principal of Brown Mills Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia and author of Healthy Kids. Smart Kids.  She is an international nutritional advocate, consultant, and motivational speaker promoting healthy living for life.  Dr. Butler is a member of the 2008-2010 Robert Woods Foundation National Advisor Committee for Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities.  Browns Mill School's unique nutritional program, Academic Excellence Through Nutrition and Exercise, was spotlighted on ABC News with Peter Jennings. This was one component in a series of segments on Obesity in America Crisis. Dr. Yvonne Sanders-Butler is a leading voice in the nations’ fight against childhood obesity and an advocate for healthy life choices for families. Dr. Butler wasn't the first person to notice that too many of our nation’s children are overweight, but eight years ago she was one of the first to design and implement effective solutions to reverse the trend. She firmly believes that “To be healthy, you have to live healthy.” Dr. Butler is also the President and Founder of Ennovy, Inc., a company which provides comprehensive health and wellness intervention, consultation, and support. The company combines sound nutrition and fitness practices, behavioral influence techniques, and project management disciplines to help organizations assess and better manage their wellness environments. Ennovy designed and launched the first of its kind Wellness Behavior Management Program for Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, to improve student health and well-being. Dr. Butler has May 12 and 13 open if your company or agency is interested in her services, contact her here.

Robert Whitaker
The Medical Model: Does it Promote Recovery? A look at what the scientific literature has to reveal about long-term outcomes for schizophrenia, bipolar and depression. The scientific evidence for the use of psychiatric drugs generally comes from short-term studies, which are conducted by pharmaceutical companies to obtain FDA approval for these drugs. Long-term studies are typically funded by government agencies, and a review of this scientific literature will reveal whether our medical model promotes long-term recovery. This review will look at whether outcomes for schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorders have improved over the past fifty years, or whether they have worsened.

Robert Whitaker is a prize winning science journalist. He worked as the science and medical reporter at the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York for a number of years. His journalism articles won several national awards, including a George Polk award for medical writing, and a National Association of Science Writers’ award for best magazine article. He was a Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A series he co-wrote for The Boston Globe was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. He is currently writing Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. It will be published by Crown in the spring of 2010. His first book, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill was named by Discover magazine as one of the best science books of 2002, while the American Library Association named it one of the best history books of that year.  In his research he has interviewed countless psychiatric clients. Mr. Whitaker believes that if you ignore the voice of those so treated, you do so at great peril of doing real harm.  He has found that the patients' own stories, time and time again, has seemed right and accurate as we get some perspective from history. In his interviews he found that the people who have been through this and recovered are amazing human beings -- and courageous beyond belief. If your company or agency is interested in Mr. Whitaker's services, contact him here.

TUESDAY

Dr. Catherine Reimer
The Native Medicine Wheel. Dr. Reimer will compare and contrast the popular Medicine Wheel with the Native Medicine Wheel. Based on her research on suicide, she will also discuss the components of the Medicine Wheel and how each of the aspects are negated by the person contemplating suicide. Dr. Reimer will also discuss the negative effects of alcohol/drugs on the living out the Native Medicine Wheel. Dr. Reimer's source of information is based on her interviews with elders and her own experience where she at one time contemplated suicide and how she was able to lift herself out of the morbid thoughts and negative spiritual experiences that were tempting her to take her life. She also will discuss how suicide thoughts are always a temptation and not a way to escape the journey of life and the purpose for each of our lives that we need to fulfill.

Dr. Catherine Swan Reimer, psychologist, researcher, author, and trainer has a Masters and Doctorate in Counseling Education. Dr. Reimer is an Inupiaq Psychologist who has trained at universities, health care organizations, schools, and NAMI.  She is author of Counseling the Inupiat and has worked for National Organizations as trainer and curriculum writer.  Dr. Reimer tries to integrate spirituality, creativity, and culture in her trainings.  She is also a Voice Dialogue trainer. If your company or agency is interested in Dr. Reimer's services, contact her here.

Michael Zeeb
Peer Support in Challenging Situations. “Peer Support Basics” can be very effective even in challenging situations. What are some of these basics?: Listening, focusing on strengths, relating similar experience, asking permission, asking open-ended questions about choices and solutions, offering to partner on a plan. Just because a situation becomes intense and there is potential risk does not mean that we abandon these important peer support skills, which offer the other person space for choice and self-empowerment. Sometimes, for those of us in recovery, very meaningful growth occurs when we are in a “crisis” and, instead of giving away our power and allowing others to totally take over, we stay at the steering wheel. We share in decision-making. We remain an active participant in the process of steering our way out of crisis. When we have a Peer Support Specialist by our side during this process, acting as our partner and not our director, we can discover strengths and steering skills that are uniquely our own. We can develop self-efficacy that helps us navigate “crisis” situations with greater and greater confidence and skill in the future. Along the way, we often figure out strategies that make “crises” less likely to occur in our lives. We are the best author of our own strategies because of how uniquely we know the person who needs to use them.

Michael Zeeb has a BA in Liberal Arts (concentration in Humanities/Social Sciences). He has completed post-graduate coursework in Special Education and Psychiatric Rehabilitation. He has worked as a Special Education teacher and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. He joined Recovery Innovations of Arizona (then called META Services) in 2002. He has served as a Primary Instructor and Administrator for Peer Employment Training in Phoenix, and he is one of the co-authors of the Recovery Innovations Peer Employment Training Workbook. He has been able to facilitate Peer Employment Training “on the road” in Alaska, New Jersey, California, and New Zealand. Since 2007, Peer Employment Training at Recovery Innovations of Arizona has expanded greatly, and his current role is to develop new services and supervise overall program operations. Mr. Zeeb started receiving psychiatric services when he was in his teens. For him, employment has been one of the keys to his recovery – especially employment that involves “giving back” to the community. If your company or agency is interested in Mr. Zeeb's services, contact him here.

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.
Visioning a Recovery Oriented Alaska Mental Health System. After reading Robert Whitaker's book, Mad in America in 2002, Jim Gottstein co-founded the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®), CHOICES, Inc., and Soteria-Alaska to capitalize on the scientific information presented by Mr. Whitaker as a way to dramatically improve outcomes for people who get caught up in Alaska's mental health system.  These three organizations, plus to a lesser extent, a fourth known as Peer Properties, form the backbone of this effort.  Building on Robert Whitaker's presentation of what the science shows about creating a system that can at least halve the percentage of people who end up categorized as chronically mentally ill, Mr. Gottstein will present the universal organizing principles involved for all of these organizations, and their individual roles in the system change effort.  Mr. Gottstein will also discuss the practicalities of interacting with bureaucrats, providers, legislators and other funders, and even consumer/survivors, in a way that allows them to see that a fundamentally different approach should be taken. 
Jim Gottstein grew up in Anchorage and describes himself as an escapee from the mental health system, is a Harvard Law School graduate, and has been practicing law in Alaska for 30 years. Believing that criticizing the system is not enough Mr. Gottstein has also helped launch a number of Alaskan peer-run programs that draw upon the evidence and the valuable, but untapped expertise of people who have recovered after a diagnosis of serious mental illness. 

Jim Gottstein currently devotes the bulk of his time pro bono to the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) whose mission is to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock around the country.  Recent accomplishments include winning three Alaska Supreme Court cases substantially increasing protections for people considered mentally ill the State seeks to lock up and drug against their will. Mr. Gottstein was one of the principal attorney's in the Mental Health Trust Lands Litigation, which resulted in the formation of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.  He was a member of the Alaska Mental Health Board from 1998 to 2004, including, at different times, being chair of its Program Evaluation Committee and Budget Committee, the latter of which made recommendations to the Trust regarding funding of Alaska's Mental Health Program.  Mr. Gottstein is most known around the country and the world for subpoenaing and releasing the Zyprexa Papers documenting Eli Lilly's suppression of negative information about Zyprexa.

Wilfredo L. Soto
Delicate Shades of Black and Blue. Wilfredo Soto is nineteen years old and is a sophomore at the University of Connecticut.  Mr. Soto has founded and begun his own sole proprietorship called “Guiding Adolescents and Children at Risk (GEAR) Enterprise.” His goal is to travel the world reaching out to all people, especially foster children and youth, who are at risk, of entering the system, letting them know that there is a way out of their pain.  Through his life story he hopes to spark inspiration and empower people of all ages to an empowered way of life.  Attendees will increase their knowledge in the power of culture and the affects of natural supports, while coping with a parent’s mental health, from an urban youth’s perspective.  Wilfredo’s story begins with an absent father and being raised by a single mom with mental health issues. They often lived in shared housing and shelters.  As a teenager he sought a destructive lifestyle which lead to depression, and thoughts of suicide.  It was friends, church, and community that gave him hope and a reason for living.

Wilfredo Soto is expected to graduate with an Individualized Major in Psychology, Sociology, and Human Development and Family Studies in 2011 and plans to obtain his Master’s of Public Health in 2013.  He has been a consumer of child services as of age fifteen and serves as a Director of the Board and Co-Chair for the membership and marketing committee of the National Latino Behavioral Health Association (NLBHA).  He has worked for a federally funded non-profit while in high school from fifteen until he was eighteen.  Currently he is working for FAVOR as a Youth Coordinator on a wraparound initiative that has been funded by a grant via the University of Connecticut.  Wilfredo is the recipient of the Secretary of Connecticut’s Excellence in Citizenship Award in June 2007 and Barbera Bellinger’s Youth Resilience Award. He has been recruited by various organizations including, Mental Health America, South Western Mental Health Board, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), AmeriCorps, National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA),  Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA),  National Latino Behavioral Health Association (NLBHA), Partnership for Kids (PARK) Project, A Family Advocacy Organization (FAVOR), and Child Health and Development Institute (CHDI) of CT to share his knowledge, consult, and critique on youth empowerment and foster care as related to his experience.  In addition, he is assisting Dr. Susan Keys, the contact person for the Inspire Organization based out of Australia.  He has helped Dr. Keys develop her mission statement, target population, website, and social marketing plan to establish an American version of the Australian youth group.