Description: Self-direction is a model for organizing supports in which the participant manages an individual budget to purchase for a variety of services and goods used to facilitate their recovery journey.
This webinar started with an introduction to SDC, including a brief history and the places that are testing it out. There were three perspectives shared:
1. Bevin Croft: The research that has been done, preliminary results here and in England. Future directions in research and funding for research.
2. Julie Schnepp will share the ways that SDC has changed her life, both its impact on her capacity to live in the community and her self-confidence. She will comment on the advocacy especially by Joe and Susan Rogers that got the program set up in PA. .She will also share the difference between the pilot program and the sustainable county funded program.
3. Pam Werner will share the perspective of a state administrator, what role she played in bringing SDC to Michigan, she will share the funding and the evaluation, as well as ways that an administrator sees advantages to the program
Moderator - Daniel Fisher is a person of lived experience of recovery from schizophrenia. He is co-founder and CEO of the National Empowerment Center which is a consumer-run organization with a mission to carry a message of recovery, empowerment, hope and healing to people with lived experience. He is a community psychiatrist and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at UMass Medical School.