KPFA - Pushing Limits

Jenn Peoples’ childhood was frightening and traumatic.  As a result she’s faced terrifying demons of self-destructive behavior.  Now she’s far along in recovery, not from her mental illness, but from the self-destructive behaviors that followed.  Today, she is a dual diagnosis counselor at a peer support recovery center in downtown Santa Rosa, California.

The concept of centers run by and for people with chronic mental disabilities came out of the psychiatric survivors and mental health consumers movement and, in California, has been supported by the Millionaires Tax, Prop. 63 since 2004.

People like our guest often point to the support of peers and peer-run centers as one reason that their lives have improved. Some of these folks have a strong desire to give back by helping others in similar situations.  Add training to that desire and you build powerful role models and community leaders like Jenn Peoples.

Covid-19, unemployment, the opioid epidemic and the West Coast fires have terrorized vulnerable people who were already struggling.  Jenn Peoples tells us how all this looks for those she knows and describes how she and others, despite it all, are keeping their feet on Recovery Road.

Adrienne Lauby produced and hosts this program.  Mark Romoser and Sheela Gunn-Cushman provided production support.

Jenn Peoples is a Peer Recovery Specialist who works for Interlink in Santa Rosa California. If you’d like to know more about Interlink or join one of Jenn’s groups, call (707) 546-4481 or go to Interlink Self Help Center’s website. They offer a warm line for emotional support. Sonoma County’s Behavior Health Department also offers a warm line at 565-2652 and San Francisco has a 24/7 warm line at 855-845-1415

Jenn also reminds us that there are many free Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on line. In the north bay there are in-person meetings at the Alano Club in Petaluma and at one of the downtown parks in Santa Rosa. A phone can help ease the mind and keep you connected to support and you can often find free smart phones in Santa Rosa at a big blue tent outside the Food Max on Sebastopol Road or in the Coddington parking lot in front of J.C. Penny’s.

Finally, Jenn mentioned Smart Recovery an alternative to the 12 step programs.  SMART Recovery is an international non-profit organization that provides assistance to individuals seeking abstinence from addiction. SMART stands for Self-Management and Recovery Training. The SMART approach is secular and science-based, using cognitive behavioral therapy and non-confrontational motivational methods.  Like 12 step programs, their mutual support meetings are free of charge.

The post Jenn Peoples: Living in Recovery, Mental Illness, Addiction & Covid-19 – Pushing Limits – September 11, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

Blind from birth, Warren Cushman was a passionate advocate for blindness, cross-disability, and environmental issues for over 15 years. 

But, in 2007, something happened that changed him deeply and set him on a new path which he names as mental illness.

Now, 13 years later, Warren is at long last talking publicly about what happened.

He’s chosen our airwaves to, not only recount this life-changing event, but to talk about how his family and the blind community has reacted to his recent public announcement of this additional disability.

Adrienne Lauby hosts to ask what’s changed, what’s the same, and Warren Cushman’s thoughts about his path ahead.  Warren works with the California Council of the Blind, sits on the Alameda County IHSS Public Authority Board and adds his voice to many other groups and campaigns.

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DISABILITY 101 WEBINAR

Disability, Chronic Illness, and Neurodiversity are present throughout human populations regardless of color, class, or creed. Famed writer Susan Sontag informs us that “we are all subject to dual citizenship in the land of the well and the land of the ill.” Perhaps the most onerous parts of being disabled are due to the oppression disabled folks face at the hands of able-bodied, “sane,” and neurotypical populations.

Join the Los Angeles Spoonie Collective for an informative workshop on the emergence and development of Disability Justice activism; a modern civil rights movement. We will discuss many topics and concepts of ableism and saneism (the forms of marginality disabled people encounter) including: Patty Berne of Sins Invalid’s Principles of Disability Justice, Christine Miserandino’s Spoon Theory, johanna hedva’s Sick Woman Theory, and more. Our workshop will close with a discussion on how folks can learn to stand in solidarity with disabled people in their lives, and how to appropriately support and affirm disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill people.

This webinar will have simultaneous Spanish and ASL interpretation and live transcription.

Tasha Fierce (they/them/the divine feminine) is an infinite being. They are also: a crazy fat queer disabled nonbinary femme, a Black feminist, a writer, an artist, a facilitator, an activist, a scholar, an anarchist, a witch, a gardener, a crisis doula, a lover of shadow, and an intermittent ray of light currently residing in the occupied Tongva territory known as Los Angeles. Their essays have been published in White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race and Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love, and Fashion, as well as Bitch, EBONY.com, Bitch Planet and other publications. Their fiction appears in the anthology Nothing Without Us by Renaissance Press.

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Find the Los Angeles Spoonie Collective at https://www.spooniecollective.org, or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/la.spoonie.collective/.

Fireweed Collective offers mental health education and mutual aid through a Healing Justice lens. We help support the emotional wellness of all people, and center the needs of those most marginalized by our society. Our work seeks to disrupt the harm of systems of abuse and oppression, often reproduced by the mental health system. Learn more at about us.

If you cannot join this webinar live, you may still register here to get access to the recording afterwards. The recording will include closed captioning.

For any questions, please contact Lilac at [email protected]

The post Warren Cushman’s Vision – Pushing Limits – August 28, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

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The pandemic is spreading quickly among people in prisons and other locked institutions. That means many people with disabilities are massed together directly in the path of Covid-19.

Armanda Shackleford and Sarah Wild join Eddie Ytuarte to discuss their effort to #FreeThemAll in Chicago and beyond.

Many incarcerated Chicago Police Department torture survivors sit behind bars as the virus rages, and one of them is a disabled man named Gerald Reed.  We’ll learn more about Gerald Reed and the work of folks on the front lines of prison abolition and disability justice.

Amanda Shackleford is Gerald Reed’s mother. Sarah Wild is the lead activist with Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which has been actively demanding the release of Gerald Reed and the depopulation of the Cook County Jail.

Sarah DelMonte & Eddie Ytuarte produced this program.

Chicago Torture Justice

Information about Gerald Reed

Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

The Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST) is campaign of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR)

The post Free Gerald Reed, Free Them All – Pushing Limits – August 14, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

“Blind people watch TV. Blind people watch movies.” But, how DO they DO that?!! How does one make “A picture worth a thousand words” show up for people watching with their ears?

Welcome to the “Blind Alley” version of “Pushing Limits”.

What turns a movie into a radio drama?

Roy Samuelson, for one. Roy is an audio description narrator and, in this program, he shares behind-the-scenes knowledge. He’ll explain what makes narration effective, non-intrusive and exciting. Then, he explains how we can help make it better with something he is calling Kevin’s Process.

In this program, you’ll also learn how you can keep Pushing Limits on the air.

Yep, it’s that time again. And, we’re having fun with this fund drive. For the first time ever, a

The San Francisco Orpheum Theater provides audio description to some of their presentations.  When they begin live shows again, check it out here.

We’ve excerpted from Roy Samuelson’s speech at the American Council for the Blind (ACB) annual convention.  ACB has provided audio files of the convention workshops, including several more covering audio description.  ACB also has an audio description project which includes a list of all audio described DVDs, broadcast television, movies, performing arts, museums, and national parks.

Sheela Gunn-Cushman and Mark Romoser produced and hosted this program.

The post “Audio Description with Ray Samuelson” Pushing Limits – July 31, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.