The North East Recovery Learning Community
Click here to see the October Calendar of Events
Estate Planning Workshop
Estate Planning for People with Disabilities – Making the Future More Secure.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
6:00 to 7:30 PM
ILCNSCA 27 Congress Street, Suite 107 Salem, MA 01970
Download Flyer here.
Upcoming workshop opportunity!
Voice and Dialogue Training – Individual and Systems Advocacy!
Do you want to create the environments, relationships and opportunities for peers to develop the lives we want in Massachusetts?
We Need YOU!
Voice and Dialogue Training Announcement
Voice and Dialogue Training Announcement and Application
Please click on the links above to learn about this rare opportunity to train and awaken your voice, and, at the same time, promote dialogue that will empower you to create the life of your choosing and be able to help your peers to do the same!
NILP’s North East Recovery Learning Community Experiences Explosive Growth!
NILP’s North East Recovery Learning Community is re-convening its Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC), led by Stephanie Morrill, a youth leader in the North East Area. The CAC has begun meeting this month (October), with two basic tasks: (1) Formulating a set of bylaws and principles, including officers, frequency of meetings, and the like and (2) Designing a strategic planning process for the entire NERLC to plan its mission and vision for the next three to five years. This is an exciting undertaking, one that will invite and involve all participants to examine what the NERLC is today and engage in the envisioning of what it will become in the future in the context of its contract with the Department of Mental Health. Many new possibilities are being discussed and discovered, and new programs are getting off the ground. Stay tuned for more news from your CAC.
Please check out our monthly calendar of events on the RLC page of our website or ask Ann to mail you one frequently because there could be a brand new group starting in your town, if not today, maybe tomorrow, as we support our new peer facilitators in putting their recent training to use.
In addition, you are cordially invited, as a member of our community, to apply for a rare series of trainings to be delivered in Wakefield by the National Empowerment Center in collaboration with the RLC entitled “Finding Our Voice and Recovery Dialogue” Training. If you care deeply about individual and systems advocacy, this training is especially for you, because we really want and need your input and insight! Links to a thorough description and application form are available on the RLC page of the NILP website. Hope to see you in November!
We have just started a group called Adventures in Wellness, devoted primarily to alternative or complementary wellness practices. Outdoor Expeditions got a rousing start on October 16 with a trip to America’s oldest continuously working farm, Appleton Farm in Hamilton, to participate in a work day and hike the grassy trails. Check the calendar for future expeditions! “Photographic Foundations” will begin on November 8, and we will also have a Poetry group to round out our new Creative Expressions groups. We have employment peer support group facilitators actively developing curriculum focused on combining job seeking skills with what appeals to people’s job interests and passions.
We are hosting a Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) training which began in September in Lowell, and another will begin in Gloucester starting in December. At least two more WRAP trainings will be held by the end of June 2010.
The Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) was created by Mary Ellen Copeland, Ph.D., to help people who experience mild to severe psychiatric conditions. This program is a result of her own ongoing personal search for wellness and improvement in the quality of her life, in spite of being diagnosed with manic depression, major depression, and other conditions.
WRAP is a structured system for monitoring uncomfortable and distressing symptoms, and through creating a systematic plan, reducing, modifying or eliminating those symptoms. It also includes the opportunity for each individual to plan on how to get help from others when symptoms have made it too difficult for him/her to take care of him/herself. WRAP planning helps people improve the overall quality of their lives as well as to feel prepared and safe when life feels too challenging.
The North East Green Recovery Initiative (NEGRI) is another new initiative gaining momentum by building new partnerships in the area. This work rebuilds and reinforces connection to ourselves, each other and the natural world.
In addition to providing you with information and referral services, we invite you to do your own explorations in our resource room online or within our files with staff assistance as needed. We are actively reorganizing and updating our mental health resources in the resource room at NILP and look forward to providing you with new lending options in the future, including topics related to recovery, and well-being along with sources that will inform and enhance your shared decision-making with providers. We have three computers in our resource room and we are gathering many links related to human rights, wellness, benefits, housing, and the like. It is still quite a work in progress, but one that is becoming more fun all the time!
Please mark your calendars and join us for our very interactive “Turning Peer Power into a Paycheck” on Wednesday, December 8th, from 3:30pm - 6:00pm in Salem MA, at a location to be announced. This will be the second of two events planned this fall to launch our new Regional Peer Employment Network. This network is a partnership involving The North East Recovery Learning Community, the Transformation Center and representatives of a state initiative called Work Without Limits, administered through the University of Massachusetts. Together, we are sponsoring two regional cross-disability peer employment networking events. (The first one was held in October.) We can certainly learn from others who have broken through multiple barriers and support each other as we pursue vocational journeys that have meaning for us! If you are unable to join us in December, please contact us anyway, to learn about future events and opportunities.
RLC Articles Archives
Commissioner recognizes RLCs - May 2010
No Surrender 22 Conference - June 2010
L.O.V.E. Group went to Salisbury Beach- August 2010
About The North East Recovery Learning Community
The North East Recovery Learning Community (NE RLC) is in its third year of providing peer-run support and services to people with psychiatric disabilities throughout the North Shore and Merrimack Valley. Many new staff have joined the RLC and numerous program initiatives are well underway.
The RLC offers recovery-oriented, trauma informed care and culturally sensitive peer support, both in group settings and on an individual basis. Among the core activities we provide are information and referral, peer counseling, peer advocacy and skills training. We are also offering an ever-expanding list of self-help activities, training opportunities, and support to Peer Specialists and other peers working in traditional mental health settings.
The newest program at NILP, the RLC is one of the state's six Recovery Learning Communities, a project funded by the Department of Mental Health. All of the RLCs are peer-run and offer support, advocacy, information and referral, as well as self-help workshops and trainings to help persons with psychiatric disabilities optimize their wellness and strengthen their support networks. Our logo is a phoenix flanked by a rising sun, both symbols of hope and renewal, reminding us that we are the experts at charting our own, individually unique paths to recovery.
You can click on this link, to view the RLC's activities in the current month. Some highlights are worth mentioning:
» A Warm Line operates six nights per week, every week, Tuesday through Sunday from 4:00 to 8:00 pm, for people living in the North East Area, thanks to generous collaboration provided by our colleagues at the Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community, metrobostonrlc.org. A Spanish speaking peer is available on Sundays and Tuesdays. The Peer Warm Line phone number is 1.877.733.7563 or 1.877.PEER.LNE. Questions about the Warm Line can be emailed to info@bostonresourcecenter.org.
» Numerous support groups assist patients at Tewksbury Hospital, as many of them prepare for discharge into the community. RLC staff members also provide technical assistance to Patient Advisory Committees, to support the decision-making and growth of people receiving services in the hospital.
» The "Creative Expressions Collaborative" is in full swing at both the Point After Club and the Haverhill Clubhouse, an ongoing venture involving the RLC, Point After Club, "People! Drop In Center, and the North East Young Adult Initiative, offering weekly peer group with a focus on creativity.
» A weekly Craft Group continues to meet in Gloucester at the Open Door, 32 Emerson Street, Gloucester, meeting every Wednesday from 6:00 to8:00 PM, facilitated by a local peer.
» Continuing participation in a significant statewide initiative, "Latinos in Action."
» Ongoing collaboration with the Community Based Flexible Support Teams in all five sites served by the NE RLC, and a collegial partnership with the RLC's funding source, the MA Department of Mental Health.
» Expanding opportunities for people to come to the RLC office to give and receive informal support and donate their time on various projects.
While the Northeast Independent Living Program's "Peer Counseling Project," which provided one-on-one peer support and advocacy for persons with psychiatric disabilities in the Greater Merrimack Valley, is coming to a close as we start fiscal year 2011, a host of new programs sponsored by NILP's North East Recovery Learning Community are in the development stage. At a meeting held at the NERLC on July 15, current and recent graduates of the Peer Counseling Training expressed enthusiastic excitement about teaming up as Peer Facilitators for various Support and Learning Groups in the Northeast’s 52 cities and towns. Such groups include Dual-Recovery, Creative Arts and Expressions, and Making and Keeping Friends. The NERLC staff is prepared to support the up-and-coming Peer Facilitators in their new roles by helping them locate community space, outreach to local communities and provide mentoring and supervision along the way. The kick-off for the NERLC's Support and Learning Group Initiatives will take place on Thursday, July 22 at the Peer Counselors'’ Graduation Dinner Celebration.
» The NERLC has an ambitious vision and is planning to add a number of well-being initiatives to those listed just above for the North East area. We are committed to the re-education and training of ourselves as whole people who choose to uncover and connect deeply to our true selves so that we can relate to the Earth, ourselves, and all "others" in the various communities of our choosing to create the full lives we want. We are planning curricula in areas such as shared decision-making, nutrition, exercise groups, reiki, movement for stress-emotion-mind management, music & movement, gardening, and ecotherapy groups. Plans include peer educator trainings in many of these areas, as well.
For more information, please contact:
The North East Recovery Learning Community at NILP,
20 Ballard Road, Lawrence, MA 01843
Phone: 978-687-4288 (v/tty)
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