WEDNESDAY, May 22, 2024

3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. PT
Session 4 of 4 in the "Rooting Young Adult Mental Health Services in Culturally Sustaining Values & Practices" Series (view series main page for full details)

 Honoring and Supporting Peer Support in Healing-Centered Approaches

May 22, 2024: Session 4

This session’s essential question is: How might organizations truly value, uplift, and support the wisdom and skill of those with lived experience? Join us as we explore peer support in healing-centered engagement.

The learning objectives include:

• How YYA serving organizations can implement peer support providers, and uplift lived experience professionals
• Learn about the power and benefits of peer support in a young person's life
• Ways to implement peer support in young people's treatment plan as a way to promote employment opportunities and belonging
• How to create youth leadership programming and youth voice initiatives

Main Series Program Goals

1. Counter the impacts of vicarious trauma and burn out by creating a safe and responsive learning community for the YYA workforce to be heard and seen in their efforts to support the holistic needs of their clientele.
2. Build an understanding of healing centered engagement and approaches to youth development and case management that strengthens service provision for transition-aged youth.
3. Expand our organizational and individual capacity to support young adult holistic wellness, critical consciousness development, and collective healing.

Audience

All community-based organizations, institutions, and mental health professionals, including peer support specialists, therapists, psychologists, counselors, and others who support the mental health and wellness of transition-aged youth.

Meet the Co-Facilitators & Faculty

Oriana Ides, MA, APCC, PPS (she/hers)

Oriana Ides is a School Mental Health Training Specialist at CARS (the Center for Applied Research Solutions) and approaches healing the wounds of trauma and oppression as core elements of social justice. She has worked with young people across the life course from elementary school to college, and has served as teacher-leader, school counselor, classroom educator and program director. She is committed to generating equity within school structures and policies by focusing on evidence-based mental health techniques and institutional design.

Falilah “Aisha” Bilal (she/her)

Falilah “Aisha” Bilal has worked joyously for over 30 years creating innovative, relevant evidence-based strategies to transform, empower and develop individuals, systems, organizations and contemporary thought.

Ms. Bilal’s work is centered in healing practices, empowering youth and families, and self-discovery.  Ms. Bilal specializes in the field of youth development, healing informed organizational development, and strategic fundraising consultation.

Currently Ms. Bilal serves as the Chief of Staff for the Black Organizing Project as well as directs her own consulting company where she provides trainings, curriculum development, healing experiences, coaching, and executive leadership to local and national agencies, companies and programs. Previously, Ms. Bilal served as a Senior Trainer with the National Black Women’s Justice Institute and a Radical Healer with Flourish Agenda.  She served as the Executive Director for M.I.S.S.S.E.Y. raising over 2 million dollars in funds to support sexually exploited children and young adults.   She has worked for numerous Bay Area agencies including World Trust, Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, Oakland Bay Area CARES Mentoring Movement, GirlSource, Office of Family, Children and Youth, City of Oakland, and the Young Women’s Freedom Center.

Ms. Bilal holds a M.A. in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and a B.A. in Theater Arts and Child Psychology from San Francisco State University.