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Based in Albany, the Mental Health Empowerment Project (MHEP) has helped start and sustain hundreds of self-help groups in New York State since its founding in 1987. As part of its mission to nourish the mental health grassroots, MHEP offers consumers a grab bag of educational programs, ranging from individual recovery to group process. The Recovery Dialogues combine individual and group methods. In fact, MHEP has pioneered training techniques that others have copied.

In New York City, we are fortunate that every year MHEP takes its show on the road. This year's conference took place on May 25 at South Beach Psychiatric Center on Staten Island. It may have been an historic event—the last MHEP conference before the State Office of Mental Health (OMH) initiates the Medicaid-funded Personalized Recovery-Oriented Services (PROS).

Thus, the conference theme of "choice" was a timely one because many consumers fear that PROS will restrict their choice of services. By giving OMH equal time to make its case for PROS, MHEP demonstrated how deeply it believes in informed choice. Whether or not the audience believed in the benefits of PROS touted by the State, one thing was certain: PROS is much more complicated than the present system. That's a challenge to consumers and providers alike.

If PROS was difficult to swallow, MHEP provided a smorgasbord of consumer delights. (I don't mean just the excellent lunch but also the workshops run by some of the leading "chefs" in the mental health consumer movement).

Josh Koerner, executive director of CHOICE in New Rochelle, received several rounds of applause for his keynote address, "Your Choices in the Mental Health System," a painfully funny monologue about his hospitalizations and how the role of "mental patient" is a trap set by ourselves as well as by the system. At the risk of "selling out," I suggest that OMH enlist Koerner to sell PROS. Then Medicaid would have to pay for the healing of funny bones.

The 15 workshop leaders engaged the hearts and minds of participants. Being veterans of the mental health movement, they have all spilled their blood, sweat, and tears on the road to recovery. Not that consumers don't appreciate what professionals have to offer. But there is something to be said for navigating by your own compass.

For example, the group "Women with Positive Voices" headed for an imaginary tropical island. They billed their workshop as, "A positive view of the mental health system, including empowerment, hope, socialization, and family life from a women's point of view, with the use and help of your imagination."

Janice Jones, Digna Quinones Fragiacomo, Sheila Hollingsworth, and Grace Zapata showed off what they had learned as peer bridgers for the Baltic Street Mental Health Board. With the mood upbeat for the mostly female audience, digs at ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands were small. Clearly, the survival skills of the women participating were top rate.

Having proved himself a mentor of the first order, Josh Koerner led a workshop about the risks of being a role model. He used the unhappy example of Julius Green, a leader of the consumer movement and a "poster guy" for the City Mental Health Department who committed suicide in 2000. Any negative feelings produced by mental illness can be multiplied by expectations that consumers must outshine the "chronically normal" to be accepted. Those of us who think such a plight is reserved for consumer mental health stars should think again the next time we counsel a peer or client.

David Gonzalez, coordinator of support services for MHEP, used his own life of recovery, starting as a peer advocate at Kings County Hospital and an employment specialist for New York Works. As stated in the program description, "This interactive workshop is designed to examine the various challenges facing mental health recipients who want to work."

In "The Dynamics of Recovery," Ike Powell, training director for MHEP, encouraged consumers: "Telling your recovery story can have a powerful impact on the lives of others. They see how far you have come—how much you have overcome—and it gives them hope. Telling your recovery story is also important in your own journey. Reminding yourself on a regular basis how far you have come helps sustain your hope and vision."

Joel Slack described the "Human Dynamics" that are influenced by mental illness. He concluded that the sickness role doesn't earn us much because society doesn't value healthy minds to start with. Cognitive dysfunction is the main result of mental illness. We must relearn how to think if we want to recover.

Some of the other workshops were "Trauma and The Mental Health Connection," by Chris Ballerano; "What is Systems Advocacy," by Carla Rabinowitz; "OMH Recipient Programs and Services," by Celia Brown; "Scripts to Recovery," by Ken Byalin; "Empowerment Dialogues," by Jonathan Edwards; Natural Mental Health Treatments," by Dana Burns; and "MICA Support Groups," by Mariah B.