Lawrence Ackerman Email & Phone Number

Historic Old Town In Lansing, Michigan

Published Author of Magazine Articles, a Textbook Chapter, Internet Site, National Monthly & Quarterly Journal Articles & Special Publications and over 200 Speeches on Recovery from Mental Health Challenges. Designed a web site to market original Haiku and Senryu for gifts and special occasions: have authored over 3,000 of these terse, Zen-inspired poems since November 2006. As President of the Lansing Poets in my 4th term, I have embraced marketing strategies to increase our membership and visibility. We now have a Facebook page, a web site, a listing with www.Lansing.com: the web site of Lansing Convention & Visitors Bureau. We are now (finally) organizational members of Poetry Society of Michigan. Our meetings are listed on the Michigan Institute for Contemporary Arts [M.I.C.A.] Gallery web site, Calendar and Facebook page and we are listed on the web site and in the pages of Lansing City Pulse newspaper. All of this was accomplished free of charge.

Staffed Help Desk, answering Crisis Calls and E-mail from Families and Individual experiencing Mental Health Crises. Managed daily Office Routines. Distributed Mass-mailings via Internet/ Postal Mail. Wrote and delivered Speeches to Michigan Legislators on Mental Health relevant legislation. Aided Executive Directors with fund raising projects, web research. Wrote and published articles in independent news & health journals. Sought additional Training and Certification in Police Crisis Intervention Training ("CIT") on the regular and "Advanced Class" levels. Helped train Lansing Police Department officers and Michigan State Police in sensitivity to interactions with mentally ill persons in the public. Educated medical school, nursing, social work and case management students in the skills needed to skillfully interact with the mentally ill population, including how to do a suicide assessment. Was a Certified Peer Support Specialist, a Certified Presenter, State Trainer and State Coordinator for the "In Our Own Voice" national public speaking program. Served as Facilitator and State Trainer for Michigan's Connection Recovery Support Groups: a nationally-recognized program for mentally ill persons living in the community.

Lansing, Michigan Area

Created a Nationally-recognized web-based Suicide Prevention program that was among the top-sixty (60) web sites on suicide prevention during the 1990's. Wrote monthly and quarterly journal articles on Leadership of Self-help Support Groups for those living, surviving, thriving with and recovering from schizophrenia and related disorders of the brain. Started Self-Help Support Groups led by Prisoner-Patients residing Inside (behind the Walls) all of the Medium Security, and all but two of the Maximum Security Prisons and Prison Hospitals in Michigan, entering these places of punishment and security to teach these male and female mentally ill prisoners the needed leadership skills and attitudes for successfully maintaining their own support groups during their incarceration. I worked with corrections officials and staff to educate these folks in the attitudes & actions that would ensure successful replication of the Model for a maximum achievement of success over the long haul. Visiting over three years, often going inside multiple facilities in a single day, and more than three days a week, by 2006 the Project reached its conclusion and I flew to Virginia for a S.A.M.H.S.A. National Convention to give a keynote lecture to a standing-room only ballroom filled with professionals from across the U.S. who wanted to hear about the "Michigan Prison Reform Project." Every so often I meet people on the "Outside" who were Inside those Prisons back in the day... they universally greet me as their "brother" and greet me with tears in their eyes, for I treated them "like a member of my own family" with love, respect, dignity and compassion. So I never have to fear meeting folks from my "prison days." If anything, they all want to hug me now that this expression of genuine respect and love is permitted.

Masters Of Arts In Alcohol And Drug Addiction Ministries, 3.81 Gpa

Studies included New Testament, Hebrew Bible, Theories of Counseling I & II, Psychopathology, Group Therapy, Statistics and Research.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Mass Communication/Media Studies And Journalism, 3.432

Activities and Societies: While a student, I volunteered every Saturday afternoon leading a self-help mental health support group.