National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery | NCMHR

Activism

Report on Wisconsin's 2012 Empowerment Days

By Molly Cisco, Executive Director, Grassroots Empowerment Project (www.grassrootspower.org)

Our state-wide consumer network is called “United We Stand WI”. We began our work for Empowerment Days by having UWSW sponsoring 10 listening sessions throughout WI (a lot of miles). The purpose of the listening sessions is for folks to tell us what the biggest problems with the mental health system that need changing. We spend about 4 hours at each location facilitating a conversation/discussion on the issues... getting details on each topic and also people’s suggestions for how to solve the problem. Each group decides on the top 5 priority topics since we cannot address them all. After we are done, we generally form these into themes. Most of the time, it is easy because the same problems exist throughout they state. We also take the solutions and use them for developing our position papers (see attached). This entire process takes a few months but is critical to assure that we are a true coalition and have a bottom up structure.... people tell us what they want us to do/say and take action on. Click here to view full report.

Occupy the APA Is a Success!

By Susan Rogers, National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse

On Saturday, May 5, 2012, more than 200 dedicated human rights activists, most of whom had firsthand experience with the mental health system, gathered inside Friends Center in Philadelphia to rally before marching to the Pennsylvania Convention Center. At the Convention Center, many activists ripped up their psychiatric labels while, inside, thousands of psychiatrists attended the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, where a key topic was the controversial proposed new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the DSM-5 – due to be published in May 2013. Click here to read the entire article.

American Association of People with Disabilities

The mission of the American Association of People with Disabilities is to empower, politically and economically, all people with disabilities in the United States - www.aapd-dc.org.

Mouth Magazine and the Ragged Edge Magazine

Up-to-date news, commentary, and humor about issues of concern to the disability rights movement - www.mouthmag.org and www.raggededgemagazine.com