Emerging Leaders...Come Rise Together

About the LET(s)Lead Academy

The Lived Experience Transformational Leadership Academy—LET(s)Lead is an experiential learning leadership academy offered virtually. Our goal is to advance lived experience leadership across New England. The course is facilitated by a diverse team of national and international faculty and mentors, most of whom identify as people with lived/learned expertise. Learn more at Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. 

Chyrell Bellamy, MSW, Ph.D.

Co-Director of LET(s)Lead Academy

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University

Maria E. Restrepo-Toro, BNS, MS

Co-Director of LET(s)Lead Academy

Project Manager, Education and Training, Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health

About the Learning Community 

The Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health (PRCH) LET(s)Lead Academy partnered with the New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (New England MHTTC) to offer its academy to emerging leaders with lived experience of recovery in New England from August 2020-April 2021.

Fourteen Fellows graduated from the New England MHTTC LET(s)Lead Academy Learning Community, after completing a 10-week course and working with faculty, staff, and mentors to develop a transformational change project in their community or organization.

Learn more about the impact of this learning community in this report.

New England MHTTC LET(s)Lead Fellow Projects

Projects included developing curricula on peer support for Bridger programs for those returning from prison or veterans leaving substance use programs, starting a peer-led food co-op, increasing equity in workforce development programs, reducing stigmatizing language used by families of those in recovery, and advocating for systems reform. In this section, we introduce the 2020-2021 New England LET(s)Lead Academy Cohort and their projects. To hear Fellows give their elevator pitch for their projects, watch this video.

Interested in learning more?

More Information about LET(s)Lead Academy 

Questions? Please contact:

Maria E. Restrepo-Toro, BNS, MS
Project Manager, New England MHTTC
[email protected]