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Division Director for Recovery Services - Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services BoardMichael has worked in behavioral health field for more than 10 years advocating, training, delivering direct services, and managing and designing behavioral health programs.Michael’s personal mission is to assist, and lead out in, the transformation of behavioral health systems. This can only be accomplished through the meaningful contributions of individuals with lived experience. Starting out as a peer specialist in 2010 as an informal volunteer at the transitional housing facility where he had lived for 3 years, he quickly moved to working part-time at an employment center, then obtained full-time job as a peer partner for a few years at an outpatient mental health clinic. Michael developed a strong belief in the power of peer support to create powerful, healing, human connection. Since then, he has designed and delivered trainings and presentations including at the California state and national level, coordinated a speakers bureau, worked as the chief “consumer” advocate at a county behavioral health system, and managed peer support and clinical programs at a Wellness & Recovery Center in Sacramento. He is a native of Northern California.Michael has a background in theatre, and found over the decades of feeling unwell, that involvement in the arts was often the only thing that kept him going. He has experience as a theatre director, opera singer, dancer, and actor. Since getting his feet firmly on the path to wellness 8 years ago, Michael has earned a Bachelor’s in Drama, and a Master’s in Organizational Development. . He enjoys working with and getting to know the many dedicated folks who labor to bring healing to his peers. And, most of all, spending time with the family he never believed he would have.Hope is possible. Living a fulfilling life is possible. For everyone. He tries to convey that message of hope in his work and life.
