“The highly disproportionate amount of Illness and deaths from Covid in congregate settings shines a light on how institutions cause people to lose their value. Institutions stifle a person’s development, break the spirit, and work against having access to our natural resilience” – Ron Bassman, Executive Director of MindFreedom. Join Ron and other guests in
Dismantling Institutions in Favor of Community Living
Wednesday, June 30
3:00 PM Pacific
6:00 PM Eastern
On June 30 from 6:00-8:00 ET, we will be presenting our 6th free monthly meeting to foster understanding and collaboration across all disability. Our meetings were developed in a partnership of MindFreedom International and I Love You Lead On. The presenters at this meeting will discuss their invited statements to the United Nations in their world-wide mission for de-institutionalization. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A addressing strategies to create the opportunities for community living rather than congregate living spaces.
Facilitator
Ron Bassman is a Psychiatric Survivor who was twice hospitalized for schizophrenia, later earned his PhD in psychology and is currently the Executive Director of MindFreedom International. He is the author of
A Fight To Be: A Psychologist’s Experience From Both Sides of the Locked Door and co-author of Exploring Identities of Psychiatric Survivor Therapists: Beyond Us and Them.
Presenters
Laurie Ahern is the President of Disability Rights International and is responsible for all operations of the organization. She also conducts human rights investigations and is the co- author of Torture not Treatment, United States; Torment not Treatment, Serbia; Behind Closed Doors, Turkey; and Hidden Suffering, Romania and several other reports. She is a former newspaper editor and reporter and has written for the Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Guardian and other publications.
Before joining Disability Rights International, Ahern was the co-founder and co-director of the National Empowerment Center, Inc. (NEC), a national, federally funded recovery and technical assistance center for people diagnosed with mental illness and their families.
Marcie Roth is Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer for the World Institute on Disability (WID). She has served in senior and executive leadership roles for national and global disability advocacy and public policy organizations since 1995, establishing and leading coalitions committed to operationalizing disability inclusion as an intersectional imperative for global social justice.
Mels Felton is an Independent Living Advocate and the Spokane Youth Project Coordinator for the Disability Action Center. Autistic and diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, they understand stigma associated with being disabled and how important the development of accurate disability data is to advocacy and fighting biases used against the disability community.
Latoya Maddox, disability rights activist with Adapt
Pre-registration is required. To register click HERE
To view/share a flyer for this event, click HERE