Toronto Alternative Recovery Conference
Submitted by will on Wed, 04/02/2008 - 11:18am.06/05/2008 - 8:15am
06/07/2008 - 8:15pm
Etc/GMT-4
“International Recovery Perspectives: Action on Alternatives” offers conference participants an opportunity to hear from distinguished researchers, advocates, authors, activists and clinical practitioners who are renowned for their work in alternatives for recovery. The conference is a collaborative initiative between the Leadership Project (Toronto) and the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). Icarus Project collective members Molly Sprengelmeyer and Will Hall will be presenting for Icarus, Freedom Center, and Asheville Radical Mental Health. Check out www.intar.org
Is this really an 'alternative' - or just more of the same?
The reason I'm saying this is because of the segragationist nature of this conference and the one-day 'consumer/survivor' event which precedes it.
It seems that survivors are being priced right out of participation in the larger conference (The registration is $300 Canadian, with a handful of $50 'scholarship' registrations available) - and by definition, any decisions arising from it - with a tokenistic 'free' initiative attached that appears mainly designed to thwart dissent.
Given the degree to which we have been previously shut out of decisions affecting our lives - or prevented by poverty from being full participants in our respective communities - the manner in which these events have been structured is unacceptable to me.
What should happen instead is an accessible, affordable event in which survivor participation is encouraged, and which leaves room for the creation of survivor-controlled curriculum and physical space within the conference itself.
I intend to go to the one-day 'consumer/survivor' event tomorrow and make my views known - and since the Icarus Project is making a presentation at the larger conference, I call upon you to bring these concerns forward and hopefully initiate discussion within this framework.
GRAEME BACQUE
TORONTO, CANADA