The WellPower’s 2012 Recovery Conference, Understanding Mental Illness: Defeating Stigma, featured the latest in recovery strategies, testimonials from several consumers of the WellPower, and strategies for defeating the stigma associated with mental illness. The conference took place Thursday, May 24th at First Plymouth Church in Denver.

Keynote presenter Patrick Corrigan, Ph.D., a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean of Research at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a person recovering from mental illness himself, suggested that the irony of the stigma associated with mental illness is that one out of every four or five individuals will experience mental illness or substance abuse issues during their lifetime. He argued,  “Who are the people with mental illness? It’s not them, it’s us!”

WellPower CEO, Dr. Carl Clark, welcomed attendees and was careful to make a distinction between being a “resident” of a community and a “citizen” of a community for the audience. Dr. Clark said, “There are a couple of different ways that you can live in a community. You can be a resident, which means you have a place to live in and come and go from there. Or, you can be a citizen of a community. Citizens are people who come together around certain topics or certain values that they have and they try to make the community better. And for me you’re citizens because you’re here to talk about recovery. “

Dr. Clark’s comments underscored what this year’s conference was all about—community. “This is a really unique idea for a conference,” explained Mark Canjar, conference coordinator. “We’re bringing together consumers, their families, and their providers to speak honestly and openly about mental illness.”

Canjar went on to explain that mental health conferences often exclude the very demographic that they are designed to help. “We’re all working on this together—this year’s conference is all about inclusiveness and community,” he explained.

The Recovery Conference is free and open to the public and held every year in May in honor of Mental Health Month.  Over 300 people attended this year’s conference. Six workshops were offered in afternoon sessions:

• Coming out Proud: A Program to Reduce Self-Stigma, led by Patrick Corrigan, PhD
• Learn about Mental Health First Aid, led by Joanne Aiello and Linda Laganga
• Got Employment Success?, led by JoAnn Dorio Burton and Steve Johnston
• Lean Six Sigma and Consumer-Driven Process Improvement, led by Craig Iverson, M.A., and Joe Romero, Consumer
• Promoting Recovery in Mental Health Centers, led by C.J. McKinney, Ph.D., Shawna McGuckin, B.A., and Shahn Taylor, M.A.
• Understanding Self-Stigma, led by Steve Baumer, B.A., and Karin Carpenter

The WellPower and Access Behavioral Care sponsor the conference. The next Recovery Conference will be in May of 2013.