Mary Ellen Copeland, PhD, is founder of the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery. She has presented numerous workshops all over the world and is well known in the world wide mental health recovery movement. She is the author of many self help resources including WRAP Plus, WRAP: Wellness Recovery Action Plan, The Depression Workbook: A Guide to Living with Depression and Manic Depression, WRAP and Peer Support (with Shery Mead) and the popular facilitator training curriculum, Mental Health Recovery and WRAP. These resources are based on her on-going study of the day-to-day and life recovery strategies and skills of people who experience mental health difficulties, and how these people have gotten well, stayed well and worked toward achieving their own goals and dreams. She undertook these studies out of her own frustration with dealing with these issues in her own life. She has achieved long-term wellness by using many of the skills and strategies she learned from these studies.
Arthur C. Evans Jr., Ph.D. is the Commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS), a $1 billion healthcare agency. In this capacity, he is leading a major initiative to transform how behavioral health care and intellectual disability services are delivered in the city. Since Dr. Evans’ appointment in November 2004, Philadelphia has begun a transformation of its entire system to one that focuses on recovery for adults, resiliency for children and self-determination for all people who use intellectual disability services. Dr. Evans is a clinical and community psychologist. He holds a faculty appointment at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Evans currently serves in several national leadership roles that include: Chair of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Partners for Recovery Initiative Steering Committee, Co-Chair of National Action Group on Fostering System Reform for Adults with Serious Mental Illness, and Member of the Federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment Advisory Committee.
Dr. Evans is highly committed to serving people who are underserved and ensuring that all people have access to effective, quality services.
