Join the 2019 PeerFest Planning Committee!
PeerFest is a peer-designed and peer-led event that brings people with lived experience of mental health challenges together to share our many paths to wellness. In April 2016, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, in partnership with a 25-person External Consumer/Peer Planning Committee, launched the first PeerFest. It was a four-day, three-night event that offered an inclusive, welcoming, recovery-oriented environment where peers from across the state came together to share our diverse expertise in creating our best lives. In 2018, the Hogg Foundation invited Via Hope to partner in hosting the next PeerFest in 2019.
One of the key principles the foundation upheld in planning the first PeerFest was full partnership with the consumer/peer planning committee. That meant the planning committee made all substantive decisions around the event. Now that many of those one-time decisions have been made, we are decreasing the size of the external consumer/peer planning committee to 12 and intend to have 6 of those spots be filled with prior planning committee members based on contribution, diversity, and geography. We are looking to add 6 more peer representatives to the planning committee for PeerFest 2019.
The planning committee will be instrumental in determining the programmatic content of the event as well as outreach to peers, sponsorship opportunities, and more. Travel support is available as needed. Applicants should consider the time commitment that will be required. We anticipate having meetings in Austin two to three times over 2-3 days each (for which we will help cover travel costs) and monthly two-hour webinar planning meetings. Planning committee members will also attend and help host the event. We are looking for your time, skillful contribution, and diversity in experiences and world views to make this event even better than PeerFest 2016!
If you are a person with lived experience of mental health challenges and did not serve on the previous PeerFest 2016 External Consumer/Peer Planning Committee, and you are interested in being on the planning committee for PeerFest 2019, please click on the button below and submit your application by the *extended deadline* of December 3, 2018. Applications will be reviewed by past planning committee members and all applicants will be notified by December 14th, 2018.