Staff Spotlight – Meet Amey!

Hi – I’m Amey!

I started working at Pathways Vermont in the Training and Advocacy Department at the end of March 2024. In my new role as Training Specialist, I provide training to Pathways Vermont employees. Additionally, I provide training to the peer support workforce in Vermont through Vermont’s Peer Workforce Development Initiative – a grant funded by Vermont’s Department of Mental Health. I also conduct and develop training with the Pathways Vermont Training Institute, where I bring peer support education and approaches to organizations and communities in Vermont, nationally, and internationally.

I would describe myself as a compassionate, adventurous spirit. I love to connect with nature and wildlife, spending as much free time as I can outdoors. I find enjoyment as a mother through raising my two beautiful children. I am also a passionate advocate in the peer support movement, promoting relationship-first approaches and alternative mental health options that are rooted in self-determination, choice, and healing-centered approaches.

The day-to-day of my role is always changing and evolving. Some days I am leading Intentional Peer Support Co-reflections. Other days, I am facilitating training or focusing on training development and handling all the administrative tasks that come with enrolling and communicating with those taking our courses. Additionally, I participate in various internal committees at Pathways, sharing my perspectives on the practices Pathways has around advocacy, hiring and retention, and justice, equity, and universal access within our workplace. One of my favorite things I get to do in this role is to build collaborations with other organizations around peer support training and innovative mental health alternatives.

Pathways Vermont’s mission inspires me because I have my own experiences with mental health struggles. As a teenager, I experienced a year of institutionalization. I have also faced homelessness as both an adult and a youth. Since finding my way into recovery, personal empowerment, and peer support, I have dedicated my 14-year peer support career to learning about the Recovery/Ex-Patient/Psychiatric Survivor/Mad Movement and about alternative options for mental health care that move completely away from coercive services and forced treatment. I am inspired by Pathways Vermont’s mission because I deeply believe in alternative, voluntary, peer-led, compassionate, and relationship-centered options for people trying to find mental health healing. The current structures of our mental health systems across the nation are causing iatrogenic harms. Re-institutionalization concerns are rising in our country. Meanwhile, plenty of data exists for the efficacy of innovative alternatives – like Soteria Houses, peer-run respites, and other peer-led approaches. Pathways is part of creating social change for how we as a society support people. It is exciting to be a part of this work when we can offer our community a place of healing, not of harm. It is inspiring to me that people can come to us with whatever mental health struggle – suicidal thoughts, extreme states, deep sadness or anger, and we can offer a place for people to express themselves without being met with fear and a response that leads to forced treatment or coercion.

My lived experience shows up in my work as I am a person who has experienced institutionalization, suicidal thoughts, overwhelming and crippling anxiety, domestic violence, and the long lasting effects of childhood trauma. I have spent many years working on myself, understanding my own needs, my strengths and my challenges and have entered into the non-linear path of recovery, or more so what I like to call my wellness journey. Any various life experiences of my human experience will show up in my work as I model personal self-disclosure throughout many of the trainings we offer.

I believe that a huge part of peer-led alternative mental health options involves sharing snippets of our lives with fellow humans. This vulnerability and disclosure can do many things: it can let people know they are not alone or that someone else understands their experience, it can make someone else feel safe enough to be vulnerable too, it can remove relational power dynamics and create more space for people to explore and be curious about the human experience together, and it can often bring hope and meaning into each other’s lives. Whether it’s in trainings offered through Pathways Vermont, through advocacy efforts we are engaged with, or through internal conversations as an organization, I will be sharing my lived experiences to cultivate more of a “we are safe to just experience our humanness together” environment anywhere this role takes me.

What motivates me to come to work each day is the passion I have for social change and my co-workers who share this passion with me. I believe we are making a difference in the lives of Vermonters and the services that Vermonters are providing as a result of our trainings. I also really enjoy making meaningful connections with all sorts of people from around our brave little state.

Selfie of a woman smiling. She has long dirty blonde hair and is wearing a white shirt with flowers on it and a grey sweater.
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