Thursday, February 8, 2024

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM, ET

(12:00 PM - 1:00 PM - Optional Lunch)

Alliance Health Office

5200 West Paramount Parkway

Suite 200 (in Perimeter Park)

Morrisville, NC 27560

Many states around the country, including North Carolina, are working hard to improve service systems that support people living with a variety of disabilities or health conditions. A practice called “Person-Centered Planning” (PCP) is especially important in these change efforts. PCP is a collaborative planning process in which the preferences and choices of service recipients are the primary factor in developing individual care plans that best support each person’s/family’s unique vision of a good life.

Consistent with this belief, the Division of Mental Health Developmental Disabilities and Substance Use Services (DMHDDSUS) has issued new guidelines and expectations around PCP in North Carolina. While introductory training has been offered to a wide range of professional providers on this topic, it is also critical to directly involve people who receive services to make sure that their “lived experience” informs all parts of state-wide PCP implementation.

Calling all existing and emerging North Carolina lived experience leaders

and person-centered advocates!!

Individuals and family members with lived experience of receiving services from DMHDDSUS.

Peer support and family support specialists.

Leaders from recovery communities and advocacy organizations.

You may already be very familiar with the practice of PCP, or you may be hearing about it for the first time. You do NOT need any knowledge of PCP to participate in this workshop – the voices of ALL people with lived experience of using services are welcome.

This 3-hour workshop is your chance to get involved and tell us what you think! It is an opportunity to learn about North Carolina’s initial PCP efforts in 2023. But more importantly, it is an opportunity to provide feedback regarding YOUR needs in PCP and YOUR ideas about the design of the state’s PCP initiative moving forward.

Do you want to have more voice and choice in decisions that impact your life and experience in care?
Do you want to learn more about how PCP can help make that happen?
Are you willing to share what you think is going well (and maybe not-so-well) with PCP in your experience?
Do you want to hear about ways to get/stay informed about the DMHDDSUS effort to support PCP and ways to be more involved?

If you would like to know more about PCP in advance, you can read more about PCP and North Carolina’s efforts to support this practice at NCDHHS PCP. Please join us and share your ideas and experiences!

Meet Our Facilitators

Janis Tondora, PsyD, (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Her work involves supporting the implementation of person-centered practices that help people with behavioral health concerns and other disabilities to get more control over decisions about their services so they can live a good life as they define it. Dr. Tondora has done this work in partnership with over 25 states, and multiple international collaborators, where she both teaches and learns from, stakeholders committed to person-centered systems transformation. Read more.

Janis is looking forward to facilitating this interactive session with support from national and local lived experience leaders. Stay tuned for future communications on this topic.

National Lived Experience Leaders

Amy Pierce (she/her) is a passionate disability rights advocate who has been actively working in the Peer Movement in the State of Texas for almost two decades. In her current role as Recovery Institute Associate Manager at Via Hope, Amy is the Subject Matter Expert on the implementation of peer services and other recovery-oriented practices. She has extensive experience in the peer support

sector, having started the first peer support program in the state hospitals in Texas. Amy currently serves on the Disability Rights Texas Board of Directors and previously served as the Chair of the PAIMI (Protection & Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness) Council in Texas. Amy is a peer, and family member, with both mental health and addictions lived experience.

Ebony Flint (she/her) is the Director/Black Communities Connector at Wild Ivy Social Justice Network and Policy Analyst with HSRI (Human Service Research Institute). She is the founder of, "A Tribe Called Black," a peer support initiative that promotes well-being and creates cultural wealth in her community. In 2022, she co-facilitated the first-ever Alternatives to Suicide training specifically for black and brown communities in Colorado. Ebony was named, "Social Justice Advocate of the Year," in 2022 by Healing Black Women—an online safe space designed to encourage and promote all forms of wellness & healing for black women. As the mom of an autistic warrior, Ebony's work is driven by a passion for accessibility for all, and she has been a champion of PCP as an Ambassador for the Charting the LifeCourse person-centered framework.

This training activity is offered by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

For more information, contact Brittany T. Jones, Human Services Program Consultant II, NCDHHS.