Pathways Vermont

Decolonizing Conversations About Death & Suicide
2024-02-29 09:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Main Street Landing Film House, 60 Lake Street, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
As our society is working towards equity and social justice, we must commit to working toward further access and inclusion. Anti-racism and racial justice require continuous work of daily action, reflection, confronting inequities, and challenging narratives. We acknowledge the importance of holding a space that is not dominated by white culture. In this training, we seek to hold a space where we can talk about death and suicide in ways that highlight the complex and nuanced experiences of BIPOC community members.
This training is free to participants and made possible through the Center for Health and Learning from funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
*Note: this training, facilitated by BIPOC community members, is exclusively for BIPOC community members.*

Drop-In Peer Support, Monday through Friday 10 am to 1 pm
2024-03-01 10:00 - 2024-03-29 13:00 | Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
The Community Center is open every day 10am-1pm offering drop-in peer support with our various staff. Swing by to connect with our staff or other community members.

Overdose Prevention Training
2024-04-23 09:00 - 10:00 | Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
Join Pathways Vermont Nurse Team Lead Skylar Kelley, RN, BSN, for an overdose prevention training. Learn how to use Narcan, understand harm reduction principles, recieve tips for preventing drug overdose, and more. Open to all members of the public. Questions? Reach out to pvcc@pathwaysvermont.org.

Community Cooking
2024-04-24 18:00 - 20:00, 2024-05-01 18:00 - 20:00 | VT
Want to cook food with a friendly group of folks and work together to fight hunger in our community? Join us for Community Cooking every Wednesday from 6-8 pm at the Pathways Vermont Community Center (279 N. Winooski Ave, Burlington).
Every week, we cook up a big, healthy meal. The food we make is shared among the chefs, Community Center members, and attendees of the Food Not Bombs free lunch. No prior cooking experience necessary! For more information, you can contact April at: aprilf@pathwaysvermont.org.

Relationship-First Approach to Extreme States
2024-05-07 10:00 - 12:00 | VT
In this interactive workshop, participants will gain insight into and practice an approach that centers personal connection, empathy, and mutuality when supporting people who experience extreme or unusual states and/or have extraordinary beliefs. Participants will explore ways to negotiate boundaries and disparate needs while maintaining values of choice, transparency, equality, community, and possibility. Topics include navigating fear and discomfort, avoiding/minimizing control and coercion, and navigating multiple truths when supporting people having experiences that might be labeled as psychosis.
This training will be held virtually via zoom. We recommend that folks join via laptop, desktop, or tablet as smart phones are harder to navigate for this kind of interactive training.
This training is for folks who live and/or work in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Intentional Peer Support Virtual Overview (90 minutes)
2024-05-08 10:00 - 11:30 | VT
“As peer support in mental health proliferates, we must be mindful of our intention: social change. It is not about developing more effective services, but rather about creating dialogues that have influence on all of our understandings, conversations, and relationships.” – Shery Mead, Founder of IPS
Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. It provides a powerful framework for creating relationships where both people learn and grow together. IPS is used across the world in community, peer support, and human services settings, and is a tool for community development with broad appeal to people from all walks of life.
Why IPS? Peers come together around shared experiences and often a desire to change lives. But without a new framework to build upon, people frequently re-enact “help” based on what was done to them. IPS offers a foundation for doing something different. We come from a history of grassroots alternatives that focus on building relationships that are mutual, explorative, and conscious of power.
In this 90-minute online overview, participants will learn about the history of IPS as well as the tasks and principles of this transformational framework. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and have interactive discussions with the facilitators and other participants.
Please log in from a quiet, undisturbed location for this event as there are interactive sessions with discussions, not webinars.
This training is for people who work and/or live in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and generously sponsored by the Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Pathways Vermont's Relationship-First Practice
2024-05-16 13:00 - 15:00 | VT
In this interactive workshop, participants will explore ways to tolerate and embrace discomfort in their relationships with service recipients while learning about the values of Pathways Vermont’s Relationship-First Practice: humanity, authenticity, collaboration, humility, curiosity, and hope. Through this practice, service providers vulnerably embrace and investigate their discomfort, deepen their practice of empathy, and build powerful, meaningful connections.
This training is for folks who live and/or work in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

A Harm Reduction Approach to Psychiatric Drugs (Vermont Only)
2024-05-21 12:30 - 16:30 | VT
Training schedule: Tues 5/21 and Thurs 5/23 , 1230-430pm each day (this is a two-day workshop)
As peer support workers, we are sometimes discouraged from having conversations about psych drugs and are encouraged to leave it to the medical professionals. While we cannot give medical advice or replace the role of doctors, we can offer supportive conversations that explore others’—and our own—relationship to psych drugs. We might also be in a position to advocate with prescribers, friends, and family members to support someone’s self-determination.
This two-day participatory workshop introduces a model for thinking about psych drugs as neither good nor bad, but as chemicals that can have benefits and also come with risks. A harm reduction approach meets people where they’re at without judgment, supports flexibility, and honors neurodiversity. Through sharing personal stories and opening up dialogue, we can educate and support each other to make more informed choices with less harm.
This training will be held virtually via zoom. We recommend that folks join via laptop, desktop, or tablet as smart phones are harder to navigate for this kind of interactive training.
This training is for folks who live and/or work in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Facilitators: Calvin Moen (he/him) and J Helms (they/them)
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

A Harm Reduction Approach to Psychiatric Drugs (2-day training)
2024-05-21 12:30 - 2024-05-23 16:30 | VT
As peer support workers, we are sometimes discouraged from having conversations about psych drugs and are encouraged to leave it to the medical professionals. While we cannot give medical advice or replace the role of doctors, we can offer supportive conversations that explore others’—and our own—relationship to psych drugs. We might also be in a position to advocate with prescribers, friends, and family members to support someone’s self-determination.
This two-day participatory workshop introduces a model for thinking about psych drugs as neither good nor bad, but as chemicals that can have benefits and also come with risks. A harm reduction approach meets people where they’re at without judgment, supports flexibility, and honors neurodiversity. Through sharing personal stories and opening up dialogue, we can educate and support each other to make more informed choices with less harm.
This training will be held virtually via zoom. We recommend that folks join via laptop, desktop, or tablet as smart phones are harder to navigate for this kind of interactive training.
This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Facilitators: Calvin Moen (he/him) and J Helms (they/them)

Intentional Peer Support Overview Training (4-hour)
2024-05-22 10:00 - 14:00 | VT
“As peer support in mental health proliferates, we must be mindful of our intention: social change. It is not about developing more effective services, but rather about creating dialogues that have influence on all of our understandings, conversations, and relationships.” – Shery Mead, Founder of IPS
Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. It provides a powerful framework for creating relationships where both people learn and grow together. IPS is used across the world in community, peer support, and human services settings, and is a tool for community development with broad appeal to people from all walks of life.
Why IPS? Peers come together around shared experiences and often a desire to change lives. But without a new framework to build upon, people frequently re-enact “help” based on what was done to them. IPS offers a foundation for doing something different. We come from a history of grassroots alternatives that focus on building relationships that are mutual, explorative, and conscious of power.
In this 4-hour online overview, participants will learn about the history of IPS as well as the tasks and principles of this transformational framework. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and have interactive discussions with the facilitators and other participants.
Please log in from a quiet, undisturbed location for this event as there are interactive sessions with discussions, not webinars.
This training is for people who work and/or live in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and generously sponsored by the Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Intentional Peer Support Core (In-Person - Burlington, VT)
2024-06-03 09:00 - 2024-06-07 16:30 | VT
Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. Practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.
Based on Shery Mead’s book, Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach, our in-person Core Training is a 5-day introduction to this innovative framework and is designed to have you practicing right away. In a highly interactive environment, participants learn the tasks and principles of IPS, examine assumptions about who they are, and explore ways to create relationships in which power is negotiated, co-learning is possible, and support goes beyond traditional notions of “service.” IPS is all about opening up new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing, and here we examine how to make this possible.

Mad Movement Histories (Vermont Only)
2024-06-11 12:30 - 16:30, 2024-06-13 12:30 - 16:30 | VT
DATES: Tues 6/11 and Thurs 6/13, 1230pm-430pm each day (*this is a two-day event*)
DESCRIPTION: Come explore mad* movement histories through themes of resistance to oppression and building alternative supports, and through lenses of racial, disability, economic, and gender justice. We will look at and discuss some primary sources, and there will be short assignments in advance of our sessions.
* including ex-patients, psychiatric survivors, psychiatrically labeled/disabled, neurodivergent, experiencing extreme states, marginalized by sanism, and many more self-described identities
Please note: Training participants will be asked to watch an hourlong documentary (free on YouTube) outside of training.
This training is for people who work and/or live in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and generously sponsored by the Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Facilitators: Calvin Moen (he/him) and J Helms (they/them)
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

2024 Vermont Mad Pride Day March and Celebration
2024-07-13 12:00 - 15:00 | Battery Park, Battery Park Extension, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
Join us on July 13, 2024, in Burlington for Vermont Mad Pride, a march and celebration organized by psychiatric survivors, consumers, mad people, and folks the world has labeled “mentally ill.” It’s about shedding shame, challenging discrimination, advocating for rights, affirming mad identities, remembering and participating in mad history, and having fun.

Training - Conversations About Suicide (2-Day Workshop: 8/7 & 8/8)
2024-08-07 12:30 - 16:30 | VT
Schedule:
This is a two-day, eight-hour virtual training. We will meet on Wednesday 8/7 and Thursday 8/8 from 12:30-4:30pm ET each day. We will take two 15-minute breaks during each training session. Participants must attend each session in full to receive a certificate of completion.
Description:
In this participatory workshop, we’ll explore ways to practice empathy and prioritize autonomy when engaging in conversations about suicide. We’ll spend time unpacking suicide as a language of pain, then consider ways to support folks who are thinking about dying. Through sharing personal stories, opening up dialogue, and practicing difficult conversations, we will educate and support each other to remain curious, lean into discomfort, and center mutuality.
This training is fairly interactive, so think about what you’ll need to stay present and engaged throughout each session. We ask that participants have cameras on for the majority of the time, though understand if you need to be off camera for a short amount of time. If you have any accessibility needs, please let us know on the registration form.
Objectives:
+Practice empathy for people considering suicide
+Increase comfort with talking about suicide
+Practice having conversations about suicide
+Explore suicide as a social justice issue
+Deepen awareness of why people consider suicide
+Consider ways to restore dignity to crisis
Audience:
+ Peer support workers and other service providers working in a variety of social services settings
+Medical professionals and emergency responders
+Community members who want to provide better support to people considering suicide
+Family and friends of people considering suicide
+People with lived experience of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts
Platform:
We will be using Zoom for the training sessions. The link will be shared with you via email prior to the training. Please arrive on time each day so that we can start each session promptly. There will be a waiting room and we will open the room at the start time.
This offering from Pathways Vermont Training Institute is sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative and free of charge to participants. Please contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Training - Conversations About Privilege & Oppression (Sold Out)
2024-08-13 10:00 - 14:00 | VT
As peer support workers, we are sometimes faced with difficult conversations around oppression and privilege. We may encounter a service recipient who expresses racist or misogynistic worldviews. A co-worker may make a homophobic or transphobic remark. We may encounter sanist and ableist ideologies within the mental health system. We may even face our own implicit biases.
This participatory workshop is intended to support ourselves, fellow staff, and service recipients to engage in conversations about oppression and privilege. We’ll spend time unpacking oppression, privilege, and bias, then consider why, when, and how to respond. Through sharing personal stories, opening up dialogue, and practicing difficult conversations, we will educate and support each other to engage in conversations consistent with anti-bias values.
This training will be held virtually via zoom. We recommend that folks join via laptop, desktop, or tablet as smart phones are harder to navigate for this kind of interactive training.
This training is for folks who live and/or work in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

PVCC - Insomnia Support Group
2024-08-13 13:15 - 14:15 | Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
This event is a support group for individuals who have experienced insomnia to connect with others who have shared this experience. All facilitators of this event will also have shared experience with navigating difficulty sleeping. As a one time event offering we hope you’ll consider joining us if this topic resonates with you, and feel free to email pvcc@pathwaysvermont.org or use our suggestion box at drop-in if you’d like to see more events like this!

PVCC - Dance Party
2024-08-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
Dance party at the Pathways Vermont Community Center! Contact pvcc@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Training - Intentional Peer Support Core (Virtual)
2024-08-20 12:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. Practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.
Based on Shery Mead’s book, Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach, our virtual Core Training is a 10-day introduction to this innovative framework and is designed to have you practicing right away. In a highly interactive environment, participants learn the tasks and principles of IPS, examine assumptions about who they are, and explore ways to create relationships in which power is negotiated, co-learning is possible, and support goes beyond traditional notions of “service.” IPS is all about opening up new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing, and here we examine how to make this possible.
This is a virtual training and we’ll be using Zoom as the platform. You’ll receive the joining information via email prior to the training.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays for 10 days: 8/20, 8/21, 8/27, 8/28, 9/3, 9/4, 9/10, 9/11, 9/17, and 9/18
12:00 – 4:00pm each day (with short breaks)

Facilitators:
J Helms (they/them), Vermont Statewide IPS Trainer
Alexander Ferguson (he/him), Vermont Statewide IPS Trainer
Amey Dettmer (she/her) , Vermont Statewide IPS Trainer
Cost:
This training is generously sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative – there is only a $120 fee per participant, which includes the cost for IPS Core Materials (a book). Please include an address for shipping when you register.

Arts & Crafts @ PVCC
2024-08-22 11:00 - 13:00 | Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
Join us for arts and crafts at the Pathways Vermont Community Center! Email pvcc@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Charlie the Barber Does Free Haircuts @PVCC
2024-08-26 11:00 - 14:30 | Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 North Winooski Ave, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
For folks in need of a haircut who might not have other opportunities, join us on Monday as Charlie donates their time to cut hair! Available to anyone 18+ in the community who might not otherwise have access. There will only be 6 slots available and haircuts will be offered on a first-come first-serve basis.

Training - Disrupting the Institutional Circuit
2024-08-29 13:00 - 15:00 | VT
In this interactive virtual workshop, participants will learn about how Pathways Vermont utilized Housing First values to build a synergetic partnership with the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC). Through this ever-evolving partnership, Pathways supports people leaving incarceration to reacclimate to independent living and reintegrate into their communities, including building – and sometimes reconnecting with – natural supports. We’ll discuss common challenges people face when leaving incarceration and reintegrating into the community, including the impact of institutionalization on mental health and the importance of balancing personal autonomy with accountability to one’s community.
If the cost of the ticket is inaccessible to you, please reach out to training@pathwaysvermont.org to explore possibilities for discounted tickets.

Training - Relationship-First Approach to Extreme States
2024-09-20 10:00 - 12:00 | VT

Training - A Harm Reduction Approach to Psychiatric Drugs (Vermont Only)
2024-09-23 12:30 - 16:30 | VT
Training schedule: Monday 9/23/24 and Wednesday 9/25/24 , 1230-430pm each day (this is a two-day workshop)
As peer support workers, we are sometimes discouraged from having conversations about psych drugs. We are encouraged to leave it to the medical professionals. While we cannot give medical advice or replace the role of doctors, we can offer supportive conversations that explore others’—and our own—relationship to psych drugs. We might also be in a position to advocate with prescribers, friends, and family members to support someone’s self-determination.
This two-day participatory workshop introduces a model for thinking about psych drugs as neither good nor bad, but as chemicals that can have benefits and also come with risks. A harm reduction approach meets people where they’re at without judgment, supports flexibility, and honors neurodiversity. Through sharing personal stories and opening up dialogue, we can educate and support each other to make more informed choices with less harm.
This training will be held virtually via zoom. We recommend that folks join via laptop, desktop, or tablet as smart phones are harder to navigate for this kind of interactive training.
This training is for folks who live and/or work in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Facilitators: Calvin Moen (he/him) and J Helms (they/them)
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Training - Harm Reduction: Autonomy, Choice, & Self-Determination
2024-09-24 10:00 - 14:00 | VT
Autonomy, Choice, & Self-Determination: Harm Reduction
In this interactive workshop, participants will gain insight into applying harm reduction principles when supporting folks having a variety of experiences. Together we’ll explore how to meet folks where they are and practice a person-centered, empathetic, and nonjudgmental approach to harm and risk reduction. Participants will investigate the utilization of risky or harmful behaviors as survival tools for managing pain, trauma, and emotional distress; practice engaging in conversations about the pain and trauma that lead to risky or harmful behaviors; and explore harm reduction as an embodiment of social justice.
This training will be held virtually via zoom. We recommend that folks join via laptop, desktop, or tablet as smart phones are harder to navigate for this kind of interactive training.
This training is for folks who live and/or work in Vermont. This training is free of charge to participants and sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Training - Intentional Peer Support Overview Training (4-hour)
2024-09-27 10:00 - 14:00, 2024-10-03 10:00 - 14:00 | VT

Training - Intentional Peer Support Core (5-day In-Person - 10/7 through 10/11/24, Burlington, VT)
2024-10-07 09:00 - 16:30 | VT
Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. Practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.
Based on Shery Mead’s book, Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach, our in-person Core Training is a 5-day introduction to this innovative framework and is designed to have you practicing right away. In a highly interactive environment, participants learn the tasks and principles of IPS, examine assumptions about who they are, and explore ways to create relationships in which power is negotiated, co-learning is possible, and support goes beyond traditional notions of “service.” IPS is all about opening up new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing, and here we examine how to make this possible.
Please review this document in its entirety before registering. Registration for this training indicates agreement to participate, as noted in the document.
Schedule:
Monday, October 7th through Friday, October 11th, 9:00am-4:30pm. Participants must attend all days. We will take an hour lunch and two short breaks each day.
Venue to be announced closer to training date.
Cost:
This training is generously sponsored by Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative. There is only a $100 fee per participant for IPS Core Materials (a book). You will receive your book the first day of the training.
Location:
This training will be in Burlington, VT. Venue to be announced closer to training date.
Contact peerworkforce@pathwaysvermont.org with any questions.

Beyond The Bridge Documentary Screening & Panel Discussion
2024-10-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Main Street Landing Film House, 60 Lake Street, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States
ABOUT THE FILM
The team at A Bigger Vision Films noticed that most documentaries on homelessness offer few solutions, so they set out to create BEYOND THE BRIDGE, an ambitious documentary film about solutions to homelessness. The film crew drove over 40,000 miles to visit 12 cities and dozens of service providers, those with lived experience and policy makers to answer this question: How can this country solve homelessness in a comprehensive way?
The answer: Working with deep coordination — a single homelessness response systems plan based on the principles of Housing First with community buy-in from law enforcement, judicial systems, business communities, service providers, volunteers, and leadership from the mayor and county executive, all working from the same page.
Learn more about the film here
Learn more about A Bigger Vision Films here
ABOUT THE EVENT
A Bigger Vision Films is very excited for you to join for a Special Preview Impact Screening of Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness, hosted in Burlington, taking place on Monday, October 7th at the Main Street Landing Film House, in collaboration with: Pathways Vermont, Champlain Housing Trust, The Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont, and Together Films.
Following this special preview impact screening, local experts and advocates will join us for a panel conversation and audience Q&A. More info to come soon.
Our goal is for this film to be a part of a community-wide conversation about homelessness. Who do you know that needs to know more about this issue? Who else needs to get involved in this dialogue? We encourage you to invite others to this free screening, panel, and Q&A, so that we can all be a part of answering the question: How can Vermont solve homelessness in a comprehensive way?
ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
Throughout 2024 and 2025, the Beyond the Bridge team will travel nationwide on a 30-city screening tour, with the goal of changing the national discourse on solutions to homelessness. Each screening event will include post-screening panels and Q&As, calls- to-action and follow-up activities for audience members, and the opportunity for community members to discuss, together, how they can begin addressing homelessness in their local communities. Ultimately, our goals with the campaign are to:

Change the narrative about people experiencing homelessness and solutions to the housing crisis
Inspire communities to develop a unified approach based on Housing First throughout their homelessness and supported housing service system
Build unity among homelessness advocates
Expand public involvement on the issue of homelessness

More info on the film: https://asolutiontohomelessness.com/
