Hearing Voices Training

Hearing voices training
Learn to facilitate Hearing Voices groups

Apprenticeship: Portland Hearing Voices is looking for dedicated individuals to apply for a one-on one apprenticeship to become hearing voices facilitators. This individual will get personalized training in the form of coaching, skill-building and assignments, while honoring the unique individual skills and traits that they bring to the group. Upon completion of the apprenticeship, they will have all of the skills necessary to facilitate a Hearing Voices group in their own way. To apply, please fill out the volunteer application and return to: Kate@portlandhearingvoices.net

Hearing Voices Group Facilitation Training: Embrace mental diversity! In this 3-day certification training, you will learn the skills and knowledge necessary to run a hearing voices and extreme states group. Hearing Voices Network (HVN) groups are a peer-led place to share and explore voices and other kinds of unusual experience in a supportive and non-judgmental atmosphere.  These states are sometimes labeled psychosis, but the HVN embraces a much wider view of human possibility.  This workshop brings people who experience extreme/altered states together with people who have not had these experiences.  The result is a powerful environment for learning to set up and facilitate a group. All peers, professionals, and allies are welcome, however, registration priority will be given to those who have lived experience are/or are committed to starting a group.   This course is designed to meet the OBPE (Oregon Board of Psychology) requirements for CE credits. 

Hearing Voices Network 101: This 4-hour workshop, introduces students to the basics of the Hearing Voices Movement (HVM).  This includes the HVM’s roots in social justice and research, its philosophy and its present state, both domestically and internationally and shares valuable resources.  In this workshop, Kate speaks from her own experience of hearing voices and seeing visions as well as from her experience as a group facilitator and trainer.  She includes relevant interdisciplinary research and welcomes people of all backgrounds to join and share their experiences as well.  This workshop is intended to prepare participants for the Hearing Voices Network certificate training

Hearing Voices Facilitation Basics:  In this 4-hour workshop, a trainer will cover the basics of facilitating a Hearing Voices Network (HVN) group. Topics include a variety of facilitation styles and approaches, difficult situations, physical environment, outreach and marketing strategies, how to achieve sustainability, community development techniques, and important social justice issues. A variety of useful resources will also be presented for future use.  This workshop is intended to prepare participants for the Hearing Voices Network certificate training.

Trainer Bios

Hearing voices trainer, Kate Hill

Bio:  Kate Hill is a trainer, public speaker and consultant specializing psychology/mental health and social justice issues.  She has been a member of the Hearing Voices Network since 2009, has served as director of Portland Hearing Voices and has been teaching HVN and related workshops/trainings since 2012.  She earned her BS in psychology from Portland State University and her associates in Process Oriented Psychology from the Process Work Institute in Portland, Oregon.  Kate served on the Hearing Voices USA board of directors for five years, and was a member of the Mental Health Advocacy Committee of Disability Rights Oregon in 2019.  In Kate’s work, she speaks from her own experience of hearing voices and seeing visions as well as from her experience as a group facilitator.  She also includes a variety of relevant interdisciplinary research in her classes and encourages attendees to share their own experiences as a part of the learning process.  She is presently owner/operator of Know Thyself Consulting.

John Herold, MA is facilitator, advocate, trainer and speaker from Gig Harbor, Washington.  He has experienced altered and extreme states of consciousness and was involuntarily hospitalized in 2012.  John is the founder and director of Puget Sound Hearing Voices, now in its fourth year of weekly meetings.  He is passionate about spreading innovative ways of understanding experiences that often get called mental illness.  In 2017 John received an Inspirational Person Award from Intervoice: The International Hearing Voices Network.  John has a master’s degree in Process Work and is working with a grant from the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care to support the growth of the Hearing Voices Network in the Pacific Rim region.  Learn more about John’s work at www.johnherold.net and www.pugetsoundhearingvoices.org.