Colorado Gives Day
Why?
We envision a community where coercive care is no longer necessary because individuals experiencing mental distress have a broad array of effective, accessible, and safe pathways towards their own unique definition of mental wellness.
How?
We value consent & choice; alternatives to conventional system; allowing people to be the expert of their experience; collaboration, community, connection; mutuality and relationship; belonging; disruption; embracing weirdness,
non-normativity and our full humanity; non-judgment.
Our Impact
So far in 2023, across all of our peer support services, we have had 1,612 participants (including repeat participants) and 510 unique individuals.
Outside of direct peer support services, we also host events and trainings! Our training, events, and keynote addresses have reached 1,799 people. All of these events have been free and open to the public.
What We Offer
Peer Support Groups
In-person and Online Groups
We all need the space to feel and be with our emotions without immediately trying to “fix” or “cure” them. In allowing and being with our emotions, even if intense, we can be truly witnessed, fostering connection and community.
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We offer groups such as Alternatives to Suicide, BIPOC-only groups, harm reduction groups for folks struggling with substance misuse, and a group for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to provide a platform to share experiences, process difficult emotions, and find a sense of connection.
Youth Support
subheader?
For teens ages 14-18, we offer Seed Circles, Xinachtli, and ECHO. ECHO is a drop-in support group for 14 - 18 year olds to explore difficult emotions in a safe space.
Xinachtli is an 8-week culturally-based rites of passage philosophy, process, and curriculum that promotes healing, resilience, and leadership capacity. Xinachtli was developed out of the spiritual distress experienced by communities of color, reframing a new narrative of transformation healing and advocacy rooted in a gender, racial justice, anti-oppression framework.
Seed Circles is an 8-week cohort-style youth program that explores connection to self & community with curiosity and compassion.
Harm Reduction
Yarrow Collective offers liberatory harm reduction peer support groups. These groups are for people who use drugs and need support but may not be seeking recovery or abstinence.
Education + Community
Events and Trainings
We offer donation-based and open-to-the public events to help increase awareness about peer support, create dialogue around alternatives to recovery and healing, and build a sense of connected community.
Advocacy
for meaningful choice and change:
We regularly sit on committees for government and other agencies to raise awareness about the harmful aspects of the conventional mental health systems surrounding us. We advocate for increased options, inclusion, and choice.