People

Adam Christoferson is the founder and driving force of Musical Intervention, an organization that helps people write, record, and perform original music. Adam grew up seeing the effects that trauma, drugs, and homelessness had on the people in his life and has also seen the transforming power of music during these otherwise turbulent times. Before going to college, he worked with Sue Feldman from the Hill Health Center’s Village of Power program. It was there that he actualized his calling to help people with music.

Musical Intervention began to take form during his work as a Recreation Therapist at Yale Child Psychiatric Inpatient Hospital. His work on the inpatient unit was featured in the World Congress of Adolescence and Psychiatry in Beijing, China. Adam has presented his work to numerous high schools, universities, and hospitals, including being a featured speaker at the Donald J. Cohen Mentorship Program at the Yale School of Medicine.

In 2015, Adam received a grant through the National Endowment of the Arts to provide a platform for the homeless population in New Haven to create music and be connected to human service organizations. This project led to the opening of Musical Intervention Headquarters where he oversees programming for a diverse community throughout the week. This program has earned the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s award for its contribution to the creative ecosystem. Research has begun with Yale’s Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) to measure the effects of MI’s impact on health in the community. Adam sits on the Citizens Community Collaborative (CCC) aiming to help people with mental illness and addiction engage with their rights, responsibilities, roles, resources, and relationships.

Larry Davidson, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) in the Department of Psychiatry of the School of Medicine at Yale University. He also serves as Senior Policy Advisor for the Connecticut Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services (DMHAS), and for five years was Project Director for the Recovery to Practice initiative of the federal Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Trained in phenomenological philosophy and its application to the development of human sciences, his research has been primary qualitative and participatory in nature, conducted in collaboration with persons with lived experiences of mental illness and substance use. This research has focused on processes of recovery in serious mental illnesses and addictions and translating the implications of what has been learned about recovery into the development and evaluation of recovery-oriented policies and practices. These include person-centered care planning, peer-delivered recovery supports, and pathways to community inclusion for persons in recovery.

In addition to being a user of psychiatric care himself, Dr. Davidson has produced over 400 publications in collaboration with student, trainee, and junior faculty mentees, including A Practical Guide to Recovery-Oriented Practice: Tools for Transforming Mental Health Care and The Roots of the Recovery Movement in Psychiatry: Lessons Learned. His work has been influential internationally in shaping the recovery agenda and in operationalizing its implications for transforming behavioral health systems to the provision of recovery-oriented, person-centered, and culturally-responsive care.

Elizabeth Flanagan, Ph.D., is on the faculty at the Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) in the Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Flanagan’s research interests focus on health disparities, stigma and discrimination, and the physical health of people with serious mental illness. She has also developed an anti-stigma intervention “Recovery Speaks” in which people with histories of mental illness, substance abuse, and incarcerstion spread the message that recovery is a reality. Dr. Flanagan also researches the subjective experience of mental illness and the politics of the DSM.

Kirsten Maclean visited the Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) for 12 months as part of her Ph.D. research exploring the links between education, citizenship, and community organising/activism for people with experience of mental health issues.  She is based at Strathclyde University, Glasgow and her research is part of CRISP (Citizenship, Recovery and Inclusive Societies Partnership).  She works for a mental health advocacy organisation in Scotland and has been involved in developing the first ”Mad People’s History and Identity” course outside Canada in partnership with Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Henning Pettersen is a Visiting Scholar at the Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. He is permanently employed by the National Centre for Dual Diagnosis in Norway. His areas of interest are qualitative research into addiction and mental illness recovery, community services, assertive outreach, and citizenship.

Billy Bromage is a social worker who has worked in the New Haven community for over 15 years. He works as the Director of Community Organizing at the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) and the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC). He is also a lecturer in the Yale Department of Psychiatry. He works alongside people in mental health recovery to support their participation in the community and to improve the community overall in the process. He coordinates an intervention called Project Connect which connects people in recovery to other people in the community who share their interests. He is also a co-chair of the Food Access Working Group of the New Haven Food Policy Council, and has led efforts to implement and expand summer meals, a senior nutrition program, and information sharing about food free resources throughout New Haven, through political advocacy and collaboration across stakeholder groups.

Patricia Benedict is a member of the Abenaki Nation of the Odanak reserve in Canada. For sixteen years, she worked for American Indians for Development, Inc. in a variety of capacities. Over the years since then she has provided Native American cultural competency training for two Connecticut state agencies. Patricia works for the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) and was the Director of the Citizens Project for eighteen years. In her current position as the Director of Citizens Community Enhancement, she oversees the development and implementation of Recovering Citizenship Initiatives and leads the Connecticut Recovering Citizenship Learning Collaborative. She also provides training and TA to organizations locally, nationally, and internationally in their replication of the Citizens Project. Under her current title, she supervises the Co-Directors of the PRCH Citizens Project. Patricia has assisted in development and implementation of peer support/peer support supervisor training initiatives both locally and nationally. She provides supervision support for Recovery Support staff in local community-based reentry projects, Connecticut Valley Hospital, and the Whiting Forensic Hospital. Patricia serves as a community mentor for Fellows in Yale’s LET(s)LEAD Academy, with current cohorts in Toronto and New Zealand. In 2009, Patricia received the Leadership Award from the Connecticut Chapter of the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (USPRA, now, PRA).

Mark Napoli Costa is a medical doctor with residency in psychiatry and a master’s degree in public health. From 1993 to 2011, Mark worked as a psychiatrist in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in Community Health Mental Services. In the year 2000, Mark became the coordinator of the main advocacy organization of Minas Gerais: the Forum Mineiro de Saude Mental. After receiving his Education Commission for Foreign Medical Doctors (ECFMG) certificate in October of 2013, Mark was able to join the research team of the Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH) in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, becoming a postdoctoral associate in April of 2015. His research interest as a postdoctoral associate at PRCH is related to the life stories of people in recovery with criminal justice involvement, supported employment services for people in recovery, people in recovery with diabetes, how people recover from mental illness in Brazil, early mortality of people diagnosed with a mental illness, peer support, and participatory research.

Annie Harper is a social anthropologist who studies poverty, finances and mental illness. She is an Associate Research Scientist, and Director of the NIMH-funded Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC) Financial Health project, which is exploring ways to help low-income people with mental illness with their finances. Annie worked for many years in international development, mostly in South Asia and Southern Africa, focusing on finances, poverty and women’s empowerment. She lives in New Haven with her husband and three children. 

Allison Ponce earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Connecticut in 2003, and completed her postdoctoral training in the Yale Department of Psychiatry before joining the faculty in 2005. She is the Director of Education at the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC). Dr. Ponce has research, administrative, and clinical interests in public mental health, particularly with regard to serious mental illness and homelessness. Another major area of focus is the education and training of psychologists and other mental health professionals. Dr. Ponce supervises psychology fellows and coordinates several seminars focused on administration, leadership, and community-based care. Dr. Ponce is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Center (APPIC) and serves as an internship site visit chair for the American Psychologist Association’s Commission on Accreditation.

Therapeutic relationships–broadly considered–are a passion for David Sells in research. His studies have included client perception of acceptance in counseling, peer support in cancer survivorship, and mentored community reentry, and throughout each, he has felt inspired by the capacity to connect with others in ways that can ameliorate distress and galvanize meaningful action. While squarely in the realm of clinical psychology, the topic also converges with sociology, anthropology, medicine, and literature, and David is fortunate to have collaborated with authorities from all these areas. Correspondingly, he feels most enthusiastic with employing mixed methods designs, integrating data from “numbers to narratives,” and assessing how findings inform stories of personal and collective significance.