Alliance Alert: This year’s Alliance Annual Conference, “Our Movement, Our Moment,” will be held this year at the Albany Marriott and will offer free hotel transport from the airport and Alliance transport from the Amtrak station. We will be offering upwards of 60 very timely expert workshops, keynotes and trailblazer sessions, including our very popular free healing sessions, comedy show, Diversity Bash and Fashion Show and Open Mic. See below for some of our featured presentations.
Register today and take advantage of our extended special
Buy 5, Get 1 Free group registration offer by Friday (7/24)!
Alliance 44th Annual Conference: Some Featured Presentations
September 23-25,2026 Albany Marriott
BEST PRACTICE
Hollywood 2.0 is an L.A. County pilot program that brings the revolutionary, community-based mental health care model from Trieste, Italy to the Hollywood neighborhood. It prioritizes “radical hospitality”, shifting focus from a medical diagnosis to a holistic approach of People, Place, and Purpose.
By focusing on holistic, peer-driven recovery, the program has successfully helped slash Hollywood’s street homelessness by nearly half.
Sapna Mendon-Plasek Rand Corporation
Kerry Morrison, Heart Forward Founder and Project Director, Hollywood 2.0
Jillian Santoro, Fountain House Hollywood
PUBLIC POLICY
New York City
Mental Health Policies under the Mamdani Administration
Dr Jorge Petit Executive Deputy Commissioner, NYC Division of Mental Hygiene
New York State
–OMH Town Hall Dr. Ann Sullivan, Commissioner, NYS Office of Mental Health
–New York State and Federal Policy Community Dialogue
Harvey Rosenthal and Luke Sikinyi, Alliance for Rights and Recovery
National Policy
–Under Fire: Olmstead Community Integration Protections!
Clarence Sundram, one of the nation’s foremost disability rights advocates, former Chair of NY’s Commission on Quality of Care
Jennifer Mathis, Deputy Director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Patrick Wildes, Director of Albany Law School’s Government Law Center and former Assistant Secretary for Human Services and Mental Hygiene in the New York Governor’s Office
–Coming Together for Rights and Recovery
Cherene Caraco, Promise Resource Center; Kris Locus, On Our Own of Maryland; Phyllis Vine, Historian and Author; Chris Assini, FOR-NY Moderator: Luke Sikinyi, Alliance for Rights and Recovery
PEER SERVICES
–A Culture of Best Practice Peer Innovations
Cherene Caraco, Promise Resource Center
-Another Brick in the Wall…How Can the Peer Workforce Thrive Without Being Co-opted?
Jeremy Reuling and Melissa Wettengel, Hands Across Long Island
-Peer Leadership in Practice: Maintaining Mutuality in Roles of Authority
Melissa Wettengel Hands Across Long Island; Edye Schwartz, Edye Schwartz Consulting
-Holding the Line: Prevention of Peer Drift and Honoring Peer Fidelity
Matthew R. Federici, Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery
-Peer Job Retention: Update on Compensation, Satisfaction, and Education Issues for Peers
Joanne Forbes, PhD, consultant Rutgers University; Rita Cronise, Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions, Rutgers University
HUMAN RIGHTS
-Passing The Torch: Sharing Our Success and Learning from the Global Disability Rights Movement
Eric Rosenthal, Disability Rights International
-NY’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program: A Review Stakeholder Panel
-Distorted Narratives in Psychiatry: Anosognosia and the Construction of a Scientific “Fact”
Jesse Mangan, Committable and Jim McQuaid
EQUITY
-Eliminating Disparities by Centering Equity and Justice: Individual and Systems Level Responsibilities, Practices, and Actions
Haner Hernandez, Independent Consultant and President of the Massachusetts Addiction Counselor Certification Board
-Building the Capacity for an Inclusive Peer Support Service Continuum-Through the Lens of Equity
Sara Taylor, Positive Steps and the BIPOC PEEEEEEK project
-Small Changes for Big Impact
Kai Cronk, Recovery Options Made Easy
-Inequities, Discrimination and Stigma in the Workplace
Karen Broadway-Wilson, Norman Kim and Raymond Gregory, Center for Practice Innovation
HEALING AND THE ARTS
-The Art of Recovery: Gayle Bluebird, Bluebird Consulting; Sharon Wise, Wise Workz; Michael Skinner, Surviving Spirit; Bryant Pugh, Mental Health Empowerment Project; Moderator: Andrea Wagner, NYS Office of Mental Health
-Sacred Stories Author’s Panel
Lori Tatarski, I Dare You to Walk in My Shoes; Len Statham, 5 Greatest Moments and Michael Skinner, The Lunchbox Theory: Lessons Learned from Trauma and Abuse; I Know You Say It’s Red, But My Crayon Is Blue: The Power of Self-Identification in a World That Keeps Labeling People, Jeff McQueen
-Stand Up for Mental Health! with David Granirer and comics
–Diversity Bash and Fashion Show Alliance Multicultural Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee
–Free Shiatsu, Acupuncture, Massage, Yoga and Tai Chi!
-Rhythms for Resilience and Resistance! Chrys Ballerano
JUSTICE REFORM
-Communities Not Cages: Prison and Sentencing Reform
Thomas Gant and Ismael Diaz Jr, Center for Community Alternatives and Franchesca Capellan, TheraCorp, Fairleigh Dickinson U
-Re-Entry and Recovery
Skip Skipper NYC Justice Peer Initiative; TBA Correctional Association of NYS; Charles Corbin, Treatment not Jail Coalition
Register for Conference HERE
Get Hotel Rooms HERE
Full Conference Program
