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Tuesday, 28 January 2020

Welcome to the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community

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The Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (RLC) supports healing and empowerment for our broader communities and people who have been impacted by psychiatric diagnosis, trauma, extreme states, homelessness, problems with substances, and other life-interrupting challenges through:

  • Peer-to-peer support & genuine human relationships
  • Alternative Healing Practices
  • Learning Opportunities
  • Advocacy

Essential to our work is recognizing and undoing systemic injustices such as racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, transmisogyny, and psychiatric oppression.

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The RLC is made up of PEOPLE (not places) and is wherever and however YOU and others from the community may choose to connect.  Together, we offer a variety of events, workshops, trainings, advocacy and leadership councils, as well as a peer support line, three resource centers (Springfield, Greenfield, and Holyoke) and a Peer Respite in Northampton. Above all else, we create space for anyone who has a genuine interest in taking part in our community and holding its values to share and find connection, information, ideas and opportunities to make change in their own lives and/or the community around them. Our shared experiences and ‘humanness’ are what unite us. Our stories, collective wisdom and strength are what guide us and our community forward.    

 

The Recovery Learning Community (RLC) is a peer-run project providing supports to individuals with lived experience.  One of the founding concepts behind the RLC is that human relationships with people are healing, particularly when those people have similar experiences.  And so, above all else, the RLC strives to create forums through which human relationships, community and a regional network of supports can develop.  On a day-to-day basis, that effort may take the form of a community meeting, a support group, a computer workshop and/or simply offering a safe space where people can communicate with others or simply be.  The RLC also acts a clearing house for information about other resources in the community.   

 The Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community is funded, in part, by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, the United Way of Franklin County, and a variety of private foundations and donations.liveunited logo

 

COMMUNITY_HAPPENINGS

Talking About Suicide

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Talking About Suicide
by RLC Advocate, Currie Murphy
Appeared originally in the Greenfield Recorder, 8/29/14
 
For me, it's hard to believe that people can't sit with the word "suicide", and I often find myself asking them why it is so hard? Usually I am met with resistance and anger or a befuddled look on their faces. After a few minutes of explaining why I like to ask this question to as many people as possible, we get into a place of real conversation. One that is frowned on in everyday society. From a young age, people are told the word "suicide" is taboo and never to be uttered unless to someone trained to handle suicidal people. Are we creating a society of children who are taught to fear the word suicide? Is it our own fear that is creating this culture of silence? How do we change the fear response to the word "suicide."?
 
This conversation is happening in western Massachusetts communities. The Alternatives to Suicide Peer Support Groups are places where people can come together and support each other around suicide without fear of judgment, or being locked up, or drugged against their will. Traditionally, if a person is feeling suicidal and seeks medical help they would be told these feelings are not OK or "normal" and we must do whatever it takes to stop them. We are a group of people trying to change the way society looks at and approaches someone who has thoughts of suicide. Instead of making them feel ashamed or alone, we give the space for people to express the thoughts and feelings to empathic ears. And if want, we share our own lived experience with suicide and how we moved through the difficult times.
 
Where to Find Local Alternatives to Suicide Peer Support Groups:
Mondays, 6:30– 8pm @ Friend’s Meeting House, 43 Center Street, Northampton
Tuesdays, 5– 6:30pm @ RLC’s Greenfield Center, 74 Federal Street, Greenfield
Fridays, 2:30-4pm @ RLC’s Springfield (Bowen) Center, 340 Main Street, Springfield
For more information, call 413.539.5941 x 318 or
e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

What's Mine is Mine: Your Right to Your Own Belongings

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Do people staying in Department of Mental Health (DMH) programs (residential programs, DMH beds in respite, etc.) have a right to their personal belongings?The short answer is, ‘Yes.’No I Say When2

Nonetheless, we’ve heard multiple stories of people losing access (or having access substantially limited) to their personal belongings in the last week alone. When we hear these sorts of complaints, the two most frequent justifications that programs have offered include:

  • House-wide behavioral plans that people reportedly agree to when they move in    
  • General health concerns (e.g., someone drinks “too much soda,” etc.)
To many of us, it seems obvious that adults have a right to their own personal property, even when others feel they have ‘misbehaved’ in some way or are doing something that does not represent the best judgment. Fortunately, that perspective is also supported on paper and in law, too.
 
In the Department of Mental Health Human Rights Handbook, it clearly states the following:
 
“Every client has the right to his/her own possessions, barring a threat to client safety.
Massachusetts law affords clients the right to keep and use their own personal possessions, including toilet articles, and to have access to client storage spaces for private use.”

That statement in the DMH handbook is footnoted as having been drawn from Massachusetts General Law Chapter 123, Section 23 which reads:

“… a mentally ill person in the care of the department shall have the following legal and civil rights: to wear his own clothes, to keep and use his own personal possessions including toilet articles, to keep and be allowed to spend a reasonable sum of his own money for canteen expenses and small purchases, to have access to individual storage space for his private use, to refuse shock treatment, to refuse lobotomy, and any other rights specified in the regulations of the department; provided, however, that any of these rights may be denied for good cause by the superintendent or his designee and a statement of the reasons for any such denial entered in the treatment record of such person.” (www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVII/Chapter123/Section23 )

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