Alternative Perspectives Series:
Trauma-Informed Approaches with Darby Penny
Friday, July 15
1-4p, Shire City Sanctuary
40 Melville Street, Pittsfield
Join Darby Penney for a brief introduction to the role that trauma plays in the lives of people with psychiatric histories, and the kind of changes required if mental health systems want to provide trauma-informed approaches to people experiencing extreme mental or emotional states.
Topics will include defining trauma, understanding its impact on people and communities, and looking at trauma through a cultural lens. We will examine the extent to which current practices must change if the mental health system wants to respond in trauma-informed ways and avoid the re-traumatization that the system often perpetrates on people.
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Free and open to the public – CEU’s for LCSW’s and LMHC’s have been requested.
Darby Penney is a long-time activist in the human rights movement for people with psychiatric histories. She is a Senior Research Associate at Advocates for Human Potential Inc., where she is currently Principal Investigator of a federally-funded study of Intentional Peer Support. She developed curricula on trauma-informed approaches and trauma-informed peer support for the National Center on Trauma-Informed Care, and is co-author of “Engaging Women in Trauma-Informed Peer Support: A Guidebook”.
Darby is also co-author, with Peter Stastny, of “The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic”, based on the discovery of 400 suitcases belonging to people committed to Willard State Hospital in upstate New York. She was formerly Director of Recipient Affairs at the New York State Office of Mental Health, where she brought the perspectives of people with psychiatric disabilities into the policy-making process.