3rd International Conference on Citizenship and Recovery-Oriented Peer Support Work Montreal and Zoom, June 19, 2024, 9 am to 5 pm (UTC−4)
Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/8KAELMdNU3
IRCC Mission Statement
The International Recovery & Citizenship Collective (IRCC) is a global collaboration of policymakers, healthcare providers, persons with lived experience, advocates, researchers, and other stakeholders. The IRCC focuses on bi-directional learning and sharing policy, service delivery, workforce, and other mental health and addictions innovations designed to promote recovery, citizenship, and healthcare system development and transformation.
The IRCC envisions a world where people thrive, connect to their communities, and live self-determined, meaningful lives. The IRCC aims to:
- Establish global partnerships to promote the development of peer, paraprofessional, and clinical workforces;
- Share information, resources, and evidence-based practices to promote recovery, citizenship, and health care system development;
- Secure funding to support IRCC initiatives and conduct collaborative research on culturally and contextually adapted community health care approaches;
- Disseminate information on IRCC work through journal publications, newsletters, and social media;
- Convene annual symposia, conferences, and/or colloquia.
IRCC 2024 Conference Purpose Statement
The 2024 International Recovery and Citizenship Collective (IRCC) conference, the 3rd International Conference on Citizenship and Recovery-Oriented Peer Support Work will focus on integrating peer support workers (PSWs) into multidisciplinary teams in mental health and addiction programs within institutional networks. The conference aims to promote the importance of building leadership with people who have lived experiences as a vital part of mental health care systems transformation. In addition, the Civic Recovery Composite Index (CRCI), originally developed as a measurement tool for research and evaluation purposes, will be shared, including experiences of how the archives department of a public establishment has accepted the tool for PSWs to use in their daily routine. The conference will provide instructions on using the CRCI, including references to the PSWs' lived experiences and how we can use this experience to develop leadership to change the healthcare system.
The conference's keynote presentation will introduce peer support workers' core competencies through a Citizenship and recovery-oriented approach developed by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Following the keynote, IRCC members from (or speakers representing) Brazil, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the United States will talk about the innovative work they have been doing in their respective countries to implement and sustain peer support work. By learning from each other's experiences, we will be better equipped to successfully implement and adapt this recovery strategy across different mental health systems. Finally, we will discuss how to increase leadership by valuing the knowledge that people with lived experience and peer support have to change traditional systems of care to recovery-oriented systems.
We will explore several questions during the conference, including:
- What have we learned?
- How can we sustain such change in different countries' mental health systems?
- What do we need to do to honor peer support work?
- What has your country been doing well?
- Has peer support helped your mental health system to build more engagement in services?
- How can we preserve and enhance the well-being of all those who face the challenges of peer support work in their day-to-day lives?
As you prepare for the conference, please consider the following questions:
- What brings you to the conference this year? As you search for ways to address needs in your country and communities, how do you envision our conversations this year will help you?
- Is the role of peer support as described above understood in your country? If not, how would you describe the work of peer support in mental health in your country?
Learning objectives
By the end of the conference, the attendees should be able to:
- Understand how to interpret the score of the Civic Recovery Composite Index (CRCI) to guide note-taking by peer support workers.
- Incorporate lived experiential knowledge when using the CRCI in the context of peer support work with individuals or groups of people.
- Propose ways to integrate the use of the CRCI into interdisciplinary clinical collaboration while maintaining a non-clinical standard of peer support work.
- Gain insights from peer support workers and people with direct lived experience with mental health/addiction/trauma on their leadership role in transforming the mental health system.
PROGRAM: June 19, 2024, 9 am to 5 pm (UTC−4)
9:00 – 9:30 am Welcome Remarks
9:30 – 9:45 am Conference Overview
9:45 – 10:30 am Revisiting SAMHSA’s Core Competencies for Peer Support Workers Through a Citizenship and Recovery Orientated Approach. Keynote speaker: Tom Coderre, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (United States)
10:45 – 12:15 am Honoring Peer Support Knowledge and Promoting Leadership through Lived Experience.
1:15 – 1:30 pm Outcomes from Civic-Recovery Composite Index
1:30 – 3:15 pm How are peer support workers trained to talk and integrate civic recovery into their work?
3:30 – 4:30 pm Breakout sessions: small online groups.
4:30 – 5:00 pm Plenary reports from the breakout sessions
5:00 pm End of conference
Sponsors:
The Connecticut Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services
Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health
Montreal Mental Health University Institute Research Center
Montreal East Island Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre
West Montérégie Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre