Alliance Alert: This year’s Alliance Annual Conference, to be held September 23-25 at the Albany Marriott, features 11 presentations and plenaries that offer a wide-ranging focus on the integrity and the irreplicable impact of peer support, as offered by some of the state’s and nation’s most respected experts! Please see below for more details about the presentations, presenters and also hotel and conference registration information
While this year’s conference site at the Wolf Road Marriott is now full, we’ve secured additional rooms
with special rate arrangements at 2 nearby hotels that are minutes away from the Marriot:
Rooms in those conference blocks are available on a first-come, first-served basis
until September 11 so please make your reservation as soon as possible.
- Hampton Inn Albany-Wolf Road 515-438-2822
A limited number of rooms are available at our conference rate. BOOK YOUR ROOM - Home2 Suites by Hilton Albany Wolf Road 518-482-4045
Rooms are available at a reduced rate. BOOK YOUR ROOM
See here for information about a number of other nearby hotels!
https://tinyurl.com/4p2yw69r
Register for the Conference HERE
Full Conference Program
ALLIANCE RIGHTS AND RECOVERY ANNUAL CONFERENCE
PEER SUPPORT FOCUSED PRESENTATIONS
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
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 specialists, a group that was scarcely known by both service providers and recipients alike, are now a significant part of a wide array of programs and organizations. However, with this growth comes the risk of sacrificing much of what makes peer services so special. During this workshop, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by the peer workforce and explore strategies for honoring the history and values that got us here in the first place.
Building the Capacity for an Inclusive Peer Support Service Continuum- Through the Lens of Equity
Sara Taylor, Positive Steps and the BIPOC PEEEEEEK project
Creating an equitable and inclusive peer support workforce requires intentional strategies that elevate diverse voices, address systemic barriers, and foster meaningful opportunities for leadership. In this engaging session, Sara Taylor will share insights from Positive Steps and the innovative BIPOC PEEEEEEK Project, highlighting approaches to strengthening the peer support continuum through the lens of racial equity, cultural humility, and community engagement. Participants will explore promising practices for recruiting, developing, and retaining a diverse peer workforce while building organizations and systems that reflect and respond to the communities they serve.
Holding the Line: Prevention of Peer Drift and Honoring Peer Fidelity
Matthew R. Federici, Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery
This presentation explores how peer supporters can stay grounded in the core values, ethics, and unique purpose of peer work while navigating changing systems and workplace pressures. Participants will examine common signs of peer drift, strategies to maintain authentic peer practice, and approaches that strengthen role clarity, recovery-oriented practice, and meaningful outcomes. This workshop offers practical reflection and skill-building to support high-quality fidelity peer support.
Implementing Peer Services in Local Jail Settings
Karen Boliver and Stamatina K. Stamatakis, Northern Regional Center for Independent Living
This workshop explores the development, implementation, and impact of peer support services within a local jail setting. Participants will gain insight into how individuals with lived experience can play a critical role in supporting incarcerated populations, fostering trust, and improving engagement in services. The workshop will also address common challenges such as navigating institutional culture, maintaining boundaries, and ensuring sustainability while offering practical strategies to overcome them. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how peer services can enhance reentry outcomes, reduce recidivism, and promote a more humane and effective system of care. This session is ideal for service providers, peer advocates, administrators, and community partners interested in implementing or strengthening peer-led initiatives in justice settings.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
The Power of Connection: Peer Support as an Overdose Defense
Daniel Galvin and Christopher Weber, Spectrum Health and Human Services
Early recovery from opioid use disorder is one of the most vulnerable periods in the treatment journey. Although Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) is clinically effective, engagement can be fragile during this phase. Delays in prescriber access, medication lapses, and limited social support often contribute to disengagement, relapse, and overdose. This workshop introduces a model that embeds peer support directly into the MAT pathway from the moment treatment is identified. They help ensure medication continuity, coordinate rapid prescriber access, and introduce harm reduction strategies at first contact. Participants will leave with practical strategies to adapt this model in their own settings and a renewed understanding that connection can be a powerful form of overdose prevention. In early recovery, showing up, staying present, and walking alongside someone can make the difference between returning to use and moving toward recovery.
Peer Leadership in Practice: Maintaining Mutuality in Roles of Authority
Melissa Wettengel, Hands Across Long Island and Edye Schwartz, Edye Schwartz Consulting
As peer services become more widespread, increased opportunities are becoming available for peer leaders. Future success in these roles is dependent on growing our competencies and comfort in a position of authority. As leaders – by title or influence – we are faced with balancing the reality of a power differential with mutuality and respect. Through presentation and discussion, this workshop will describe how peers can embrace leadership without straying from the values of peer support.
From Lived Experience to Leadership: Building, Elevating, and Sustaining the Peer Workforce
Mona Lisa McEachin and Bethany Morgan, BestSelf Behavioral Health
For years, peers fought to be recognized. Today, peers are not only at the table; we are helping lead systems transformation, workforce development, organizational culture change, and recovery-oriented care across New York State and beyond. This heartfelt and interactive workshop explores how lived and living experience can evolve into leadership, mentorship, advocacy, and sustainable workforce development. Through storytelling, practical strategies, audience engagement, and real-world examples, participants will explore what it truly means to build, support, supervise, and sustain a thriving peer workforce while remaining grounded in peer values and recovery-oriented practices.
Issues for the Peer Workforce: Where We Were and Where We Are Now
Joanne Forbes, Rutgers University consultant and Rita Cronise, retired, Rutgers University Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions
This workshop will share the preliminary findings from research which looks more deeply into the issues impacting job retention for peers. This research also updates previous research done ten years ago that studied compensation, education and job satisfaction for working peers individuals living with mental health challenges, substance use, disabilities, and veterans are increasingly being pushed into systems of punishment instead of support. From encampment sweeps to restrictive local ordinances, we are seeing a shift away from what we know works: housing, peer support, and voluntary, community-based care. This session brings together a cross-sector panel of leaders from housing, mental health, substance use, disability rights, and veteran advocacy to align around a shared call to action: advancing a Homeless Bill of Rights at the state level. Grounded in both policy and practice, this session will equip participants with clear, actionable steps to move from advocacy to impact in their own communities.
A Culture of Peer Innovations
Cherene Caraco, Promise Resource Center
Innovation flourishes when lived experience is recognized as expertise and peers are empowered to lead meaningful change. In this inspiring session, Cherene Caraco will explore how the Promise Resource Center has cultivated a culture of peer innovation that challenges traditional approaches and advances recovery-oriented services. Participants will learn how peer-led creativity, collaboration, and leadership can drive organizational transformation, improve outcomes, and strengthen community connections. Whether you’re developing new peer initiatives or looking to foster innovation within your organization, this session will offer practical ideas and real-world examples for building environments where peers and innovative ideas can thrive.
The Science of Connection: How Peer Support Engages the Brain, Heals the Heart and Awakens the Soul
Bryant Pugh, Mental Health Empowerment Project
This workshop explores one of the most powerful and least talked about truths in human healing: that peer connection is not just emotionally helpful, it is physiologically transformative. Drawing on cutting edge neuroscience, this workshop bridges the spiritual language of human connection (“the soul link”) with hard science, showing participants exactly what happens inside the brain, heart, and nervous system when two people who share lived experience come together with openness and care. This workshop is rooted in MHEP’s person-driven mission and revalidates our ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind authentic mutual support.
SoulCare Beyond Self-Care: Reflective Writing, Narrative, and Restoration in Peer Support Space
Luis Lopez, Nandini Chakravarty, and Samantha Headley, Center for Practice Innovation
Peer practitioners and support professionals often carry more than responsibilities and caseloads they carry stories, grief, resilience, emotional labor, memory, and the weight of holding space alongside others while navigating systems themselves. Over time, continuously supporting others without intentional opportunities for reflection, restoration, and reconnection can contribute to emotional exhaustion, disconnection, compassion fatigue, and burnout. While self-care is frequently encouraged within professional spaces, many traditional approaches fail to address the deeper emotional and relational impact of lived experience work, peer support, and emotionally supportive roles. This interactive workshop introduces SoulCare as a restorative, recovery-oriented practice rooted in reflection, storytelling, mutuality, narrative, and community care.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
Care That Connects: CHWs, Peer Support & Mental Health for Hearing Loss
Marina Fanshteyn and Tara Tobin-Rogers, United Hands Organization, Inc.
What if mental health care just worked, no barriers, just connection? In this session, discover how CHWs and peer support can transform care for individuals with hearing loss. Learn practical ways to build trust, improve communication, and support recovery plus pick up a few basic American Sign Language (ASL) signs you can use right away.
INSET: Reimagining Engagement Through Choice, Trust, and Connection
DeSean Wright, Baltic Street Wellness Solutions, Jeronica Digby, Recovery Options Made Easy, Alex Frisina, Hands Across Long Island, and Raquelle Kolodny, Greater Mental Health of New York Facilitated by Em Wasserman, NYS Office of Mental Health and Shannon Higbee, Alliance for Rights and Recovery
Intensive and Sustained Engagement Teams (INSET) offers an alternative approach for supporting people with complex needs who are disconnected from traditional services and systems of care. Grounded in voluntary participation, relationship-building, choice, and persistence, INSET starts with the person rather than requiring the person to engage on the system’s terms. Teams focus on building trust over time, remaining present through periods of disengagement, and creating opportunities for connection without coercion. This panel will bring together leaders from INSET programs across New York State to share how this approach is being put into practice.
The Cultural Competence Trap: How Humility Transforms Peer Support
Joy Taylor
In peer support, we often say “meet people where they are.” But where they are includes their culture, the language they speak, the values they hold, the survival strategies they’ve learned, the ways they understand illness and healing, and the communities they belong to. Culture shapes how people experience mental health, what they believe about treatment, who they trust, and what recovery looks like.