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 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.

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

What Will Be Gained?

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

Everyone can hurt
Anyone can help
Be 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 INTENSIVE
    March 2024     Tues-Friday 3/5-3/68
    Live Skills Sessions 1 -4 PM CST

  • Crisis Ally Online APRIL 2024

  • 2-Day In-Person Crisis Ally Intensive: May 21-21 Chicago, IL
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. A former Fulbright Specialist and California State Mental Health Commissioner, he has spearheaded progressive social and public health change at local, national and international levels.
For over twenty-five 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 near one-thousand percent in three years, focusing on innovation in consumer-run services and community empowerment. Simultaneously, as Director and Principal Investigator at the International Center for Dignity, Recovery and Empowerment Vega spearheaded leading-edge research, TA and training projects in suicide and stigma and discrimination reduction, community integration, self-help and peer support. 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.
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 on policy and technical issues in behavioral health with stakeholder and consumer groups, private industry and government throughout the US, in Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and Latin America. He serves on the boards of the College for Behavioral Health Leadership and United Suicide Survivors International, 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. Eduardo Vega holds an M.A. in Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of New School.
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.

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.

Seraluna Sanchez, MUP

Operations Manager and Co-Trainer
Sera is a proud mother of two, and a survivor of DV, SA, substance addiction, homelessness, community violence, suicide loss, and suicide attempts. She brings her lived experience to her work dedicated to systems change, human dignity, and empowerment within crisis response and disaster management models. She has previously provided peer support for the Disaster Distress Helpline's Online Peer Support Communities alongside the Survivors and Responders of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Survivors of Mass Violence, along with event support such as the 2023 Living Beyond Suicide Experiences Summit. She offers an urban planning perspective by identifying the impacts on mental health that stem from mass injustice within systems and her heart's work is to support those experiencing violence, regional instability, and environmental displacement. She joins the call for a global legal framework to protect and care for those displaced between regions and the demand for the recognition of their dignity and natural human right to migrate. She is thankful for the opportunity to work alongside caring, dedicated individuals who embody the spirit of service and compassion.
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