Crisis Ally

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Crisis Ally is a certificated strengths-based, growth-focused approach to supporting others as an ally in times of crisis and intensity, based on real-world skills for engagement, suicide and violence prevention.

While this course is primarily designed for those employed in human services, mental health, crisis support and/or suicide prevention programs, participants are also invited who have some experience, including lived experience with emotional intensity, and basic communication skills training.

The course totals 20 hours total, comprised of 4 Live Skills Sessions and 4 hours of self-paced online content and learning exercises.

Related experience is recommended but not required for registration. Discounts available to groups and individuals based on need.

Learner/agency questions?
Email for more info.
lisag@humannovations.net

What participants gain:

Crisis Ally is highly regarded by both incoming and experienced professionals in the mental health field. This course provides new confidence, knowledge, and skills to support anyone on what could be the worst day of their lives.

Everyone can Hurt
Anyone can Help
Become a Crisis Ally today!

Confidence

- Ally with someone in distress on a Crisis Ally basis
- Encounter intensity and listen to suffering
- Discuss difficult issues including violence, trauma, and suicide
- Offer shared meaningful experience when and where it is truly helpful
- Show up in the spirit of compassion for others on the worst day of their lives

Knowledge

- “Less-tening” and Compassionate Curiosity
- Strengths focused, recovery and phenomenological language related to mental health and suicide
- Offering and the Vice of Advice
- How to Engage with Intense Situations
- Rolling With Intensity
- The Suicide Question

Core Concepts

- Presence and Use of Self at intense times
- The Growth/Recovery model of crisis and distress
- Crisis Ally principles and values
- Alliance and Meaningful Shared Experience
- The 5 D’s, The 5 P’s, the Big R and the 3 Ls

Skills and Tools

- Meaningful Shared Experience
- Dignity Growth Language
- Statement of Intention
- Positive Inhibition/WAIT
- Open Questions
- Meaning Reflections
- SIFTing/Gleaning
- Offering lived experience intentionally



CRISIS ALLY Training
Upcoming Seminars

  • Crisis Ally Online FALL 2024 (Oct-Nov class)

    Live Skills Sessions 1 -4 PM CT, 2-5 ET
    OCTOBER 30, NOV 1, NOV 13 and NOV 15


I learned a lot on helping someone to deescalate. I'd like my whole company to do this. There's a lot we have going on and we need to think about the quality of the time we have with someone and to be kind. 
- R
This course has showed me what I do not know. Stand up, back up, and roll... I will remember this in the heat of the crisis.
— F
The best part of what I learned or gained out of this training was how to be more of a listener than a problem solver.
— V

Your Instructors

Eduardo R. Vega, M.Psy.

CEO and Founder, Humannovations
An internationally recognized thought leader in mental health systems, programs and policy, consumer/patient engagement, stigma reduction, men’s health and suicide prevention, Eduardo Vega’s work continues to drive the forefront of change for mental health worldwide. For over thirty years, Vega has worked for the improvement of lives and systems of care in behavioral health. A suicide attempt survivor who experienced serious mental health conditions himself since childhood, Vega has served as counselor and/or manager in virtually every psychosocial and clinical mental health service setting, as well as performing executive roles in government, business and non-profit administration. As President and CEO of Mental Health Association of San Francisco from 2010 to 2016, he drove organizational expansion and founded the International Center for Dignity, Recovery and Empowerment. Previously, he served at the executive management level of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, one of the world’s largest public mental health authorities.

A former Fulbright Specialist and California State Mental Health Commissioner, he has led progressive social and public health change at local, national and international levels, spearheaded leading-edge research, TA and training projects in suicide and stigma and discrimination reduction, community integration, self-help and peer support. Highly sought as a speaker for his dynamism and ability to connect personal experience with systems and social change, Mr. Vega has presented and consulted throughout the US, in Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and Latin America. He has served on the board of the College for Behavioral Health Leadership , the Steering Committee of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the Global Anti-Stigma Alliance, and the Executive Committee of the US National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, through which he founded the world’s first suicide attempt survivor task force. Vega has been recognized by the State of California, the United States Senate, the US federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the nation of Fiji, the International Initiative on Mental Health Leadership and the United States Surgeon General among others. He holds an M.A. in Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of New School for Social Research.

Lisa Goodale, MSW

Partner and Training Maven
Ms. Goodale has over twenty years’ experience in the area of mental health training, programs and policy, with a focus on peer support training in clinical and community-based care settings. As a Vice President for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) she was instrumental in securing and managed a $1M+ national peer specialist training and certification contract with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and managed day-to-day activities, reporting, and evaluation of a $250,000 SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services national consumer technical assistance center grant. She developed new training and consultation business related to implementation of peer support services, peer specialist training/certification, Veteran related issues and needs, and overall mental health training and consultation; secured approval of DBSA’s Certified Peer Specialist training curriculum by the national VA Office of Mental Health Services and the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs; and created and delivered online and conference-based workshops, training/continuing education courses, and organizational technical assistance. Ms. Goodale has participated as a co-investigator and advisor for multiple federally funded research and technical assistance projects, as well as serving as reviewer/consultant to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). She has been a featured speaker nationally and provided expert testimony to the US Congress. It is her joy and special privilege to have been invited along on the recovery journeys of so many courageous people.

Randyn Gries

Program Assistant / tech guru
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