There is a support group that meets each Thursday Evening from 7-9pm at the Quaker Space 43 Center St., second floor, left side entrance, Northampton.

Support group is a peer-run space for sharing and seeking support. This meeting is open to people who experience extreme states, psychiatric survivors, to trauma survivors, and to people who experience or have been diagnosed with mental illness.

To create the most supportive environment possible, we ask that the meetings be reserved for people who are seeking support. If you are a professional ally or curious community member who does not experience extreme states or mental illness, we have many other events and resources that you are welcome to attend.

Freedom Center organizing meetings are at the Quaker Space 43 Center St., second floor, left side entrance, Northampton.

Meetings are held twice monthly on the First and Third Wednesday of each month from 5-7pm.

Email Freedom Center for more info, freedomcenterinfo(at)gmail.com

Freedom Center is going strong!

After more than 9 years of fast-paced activism focus, Freedom Center is going strong -- and evolving. We're  concentrating on our community support and wellness programs these days: support groups, yoga, writing, and acupuncture. We're also continuing to co-sponsor Madness Radio and we collaborate with the Recovery Learning Community and the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition.You may not see our website always reflecting what's going on (our webmaster has moved to the west coast!), but come to one of our groups and be part of our thriving community!

Healing Homes Film Premiere:
The Alternative Perspectives Film Series will kick off its Spring season with the world premiere of Daniel Macklers Healing Homes.  The film chronicles the work of the Family Care Foundation in Gothenburg, Sweden.  The organization, backed by over twenty years of experience, places people who have struggled within the traditional system with host families -- predominately farm families in the Swedish countryside -- as a start for a whole new life journey. 

Download flyer here: http://www.freedom-center.org/files/JacquiDillonMarch2011.pdf

Alternatives to Suicide: Community Forums March 3+10

In 2010, the RLC piloted the Alternatives to Suicide group beginning in Northampton.  Funded with the support of Tapestry Health, it is one of the first peer-lead support groups in the country to address the issue of suicide. 

Based on the success of this first group (which has also presented at a statewide Suicide Prevention conference), we have been expanding including a group in Holyoke and soon to also include Greenfield.

To help the groups grow with the community, our Holyoke facilitators, Gretchen and Gineen will be hosting two community forums. Co-sponsored by the RLC and Freedom Center.

Join us for a tantalizing Spa Night! On Friday January 21st from 530-830pm
at the Quaker Friends Meeting House on 43 Center St. in Northampton is an
opportunity for you to come relax while also supporting social justice
work.

Spa night is an opportunity for YOU to get a relaxing and affordable
massage, acupuncture treatment, craniosacral treatment, shamanic reading,
and  more! Tickets start at just $5 and an unlimited pass to get as many
treatments as you want cost %50.

100% of the proceeds will be going to help the Freedom Center, a
peer-led, support and activism community run by and for people labeled

Congratulations Oryx!

MEMORIAL-- Tuesday Dec 28 at 2 pm in Williamstown at the First Congregational Church, in the chapel downstairs

Watch the video Dave's sister Mecca made here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB_I0WwsYG8

Recovery Learning Community is sponsoring a "Starting Hearing Voices Groups" training with Oryx Cohen, Gail Hornstein, Ron Coleman (UK Hearing Voices Network) and Paul Baker (UK Hearing Voices Network). This is a great opportunity to learn about how to create a hearing voices group in your area and become a hearing voices group facilitator.

Dates for the training are November 12th & 19th and December 3rd & 10th. Download the training application here. For more info, contact

Oryx Cohen

Recovery Learning Community

187 High St., Suite 303

Holyoke, MA 01040

Fax: 413-536-5466 (attn: Oryx)

Email: oryx@westernmassrlc.org

The Freedom Center is not currently running a writing group. If you are interested in starting a new writing group, please contact us and we will work with you to make this happen. Below is a model for one of our previous writing groups.

Thank you Judi Chamberlin for all your inspiration, your years of friendship and support for Freedom Center, and the inspiration you have given the survivor movement.

Judi passed away. She recently wrote:

The Freedom Center's Monday night yoga class has been going on for about 8 years. We recently had to suspend classes because of our financial crisis and because our long-time yoga instructor Chaya Grossberg has moved on to the west coast.

The Somatics' Institute, the yoga space that we were paying rent on, has generously offered to give us the space for free!  We have also recieved many donations that should allow us to keep up our programs at least through the summer (please donate more if you wuold like to see our programs go on longer than that!!)

We also found a new yoga instructor, Sally Morgan who is also a crainosacral therapist to take over the Monday night class. So join us mondays at 7pm. Hope to see you there!

A blog article by former Boston Globe health journalist and _Side Effects_ author Alison Bass profiles the Freedom Center & Caty Simon. Fairly accurate, and yay coverage, and yay Alison Bass.
http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2009/06/freedom-center-alternative-to.html
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You can donate tax-deductibly via cash or check by mailing a donation to:
Freedom Center/CHOICES and mail to Freedom Center, P.O. Box 623, Northampton, MA 01061.

Or you can donate tax-dedictibly via paypal by going to the DONATE NOW section of our  website www.freedom-center.org. Also we have a Facebook Cause here: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/288347

Newsweek magazine just did a big story on Mad Pride and The Icarus Project, profiling Freedom Center co-founder Will Hall.

Yet again, the city of Northampton has recognized the valuable services that Freedom Center has provided and has given the Freedom Center additional funding to keep our programs going. The city of Northampton awarded the Freedom Center $2,500 towards helping to maintain our weekly writing group, acupuncture clinic, yoga classes, and support group. All of these programs take place in Northampton and are free and open to the public and therefore provide lots of benefit to northampton residents.

The solicitation ordinance, which if passed would have de facto criminalized panhandling in most of downtown Northampton, has been withdrawn by the mayor's office & the police department from the Northampton city council'sconsideration and is "tabled indefinitely".

They cited "polarization around the issue" (that is, increased opposition to it!) making the discussion "no

The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, published by The Icarus Project and Freedom Center, is now available in spanish - thanks to the dedicated translation work of Agustina Vidal from Buenos Aires Argentina.

John Brodie was a Vermont man who died in an encounter with Brattleboro police in 2006 after neighbors called 9-11. At 36, John was a Princeton PhD and already a world-reknowned physicist widely published in scientific journals. He was also a psychiatric abuse survivor, whose non-ordinary mental states were repeatedly met with force in hospitals. On the night of his death, he was not violent or suicidal, but was behaving in a strange way -- knocking on doors at 11pm. Confused neighbors called the police, which escalated a harmless situation into a tragedy. John ran away, terrified of the police, and went into the freezing river.

The widely read Yoga Journal magazine, available across the US, recently had an article about Freedom Center's weekly yoga class, quoting teacher Chaya Grossberg and FC co-founder Oryx Cohen. Download and read the article here.

The Hampshire Daily Gazette just did a 10-17-08 story on the proposed panhandling law in Northampton that Freedom Center opposes, and quotes Caty Simon from Freedom Center speaking at a recent protest and City Council meeting:

"It's clear that this legislation does, de facto, criminalize panhandling, if not in the letter of the law, then in the spirit," said Catherine Simon, reading from a prepared statement at a recent council meeting....

Simon, meanwhile, said the homeless and the poor are already the victims of economic violence.

Freedom Center relies on the donations and volunteer energy of many people near and far to keep our innovative wellness and advocacy programs going. We have been supported by individual donors, small grants, and limited support from the City of Northampton Community Development Block Grant and Resist,Inc., but we receive no money from pharmaceutical companies.

We need your help to continue our important work!