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Ruthie Poole, BA, CPS, COAPS

Ruthie Poole works as the Assistant Director of Recovery at Bay Cove Human Services in Boston overseeing Bay Cove’s team of Peer Specialists in Adult Community Clinical Services and the Peer Support Network, a recovery learning center which is part of the Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community. Ruthie has worked in the Peer Movement for over thirty years in various roles from direct peer support to advocacy to training to supervision and program management—not necessarily in that order!  

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Tanshella Branch

Tanshella has worked as a Certified Peer Specialist at Boston Medical Center for the past three years and is currently the Coordinator of the Peer Support Line for the Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community (MBRLC). She has been supporting peers in human services organizations for over 20 years. Tanshella believes in the therapeutic power of art, and encourages individuals to draw on their own experiences, thoughts, and emotions throughout the creative process. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Wheelock College at Boston University, and a Master of Education in Creative Arts in Learning from Lesley University.

 

Denise Clarke

Denise Clarke has worked in the mental health field for over 25 years, starting as a psychiatrist for 14 years and then as a CPS for the last 14 years. Since 1997 she has had to deal with her own major mental health challenges and has worked on her recovery in individual therapy, as well as in peer groups, which she has found  particularly helpful.To this day she remembers attending her first peer group, a DBSA group meeting, as a major turning point in her life and recovery.

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She has worked for Bay Cove Human Services for the last 14 years, first at PERC and for the last 3 years at PSN, a Boston Recovery Learning Community, where she currently works. She loves her work with individuals and with groups. She especially enjoys supporting peers in classes like Wellness Recovery Action Planning, Whole Health Action Management, and most recently Wellness for Peers in the 8 Dimensions of Wellness. .Denise is also an avid football fan, and she loves garden design which she did professionally previously for 5 years.

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Mary Broderick

Mary Broderick has lived with depression and anxiety since young adulthood. She worked for many years and was able to support herself working in retail sales. Mary is now a Peer Support Worker at PSN, a Recovery Learning Center for more than ten years. She moved into her first apartment five years ago and recently adopted a black cat. She is a Creative with many interests, especially Art and mental health. She has a modern style of decoupage and creates with three other women friends in a class. The class met over Zoom during the entire pandemic.

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Ewa Pytowska

Ewa is a peer voice on the NAMI MA Board of Directors, focusing on advocacy, education and organizational development.  She is the driving force behind the NAMI Greater Boston Peer Support and Advocacy Network (formerly NAMI GB CAN), for which she facilitates weekly peer support groups and works with individual members.  A Certified Peer Specialist who trained with Recovery Innovations in 2014, she also taught the NAMI Peer-to-Peer classes and presented a workshop at the Alternatives 2018 conference.

 

Ewa is also the leader of NAMI Greater Boston, an umbrella affiliate of three support and advocacy networks (SANs) working together to build NAMI presence and membership in the city of Boston. Ewa’s career as an educator includes 15 years directing the Intercultural Training Resource Center for teachers and thirteen years of serving as Assistant Superintendent of Schools. She is a Bryn Mawr College alumna and holds two graduate degrees from the Harvard University School of Education. Ewa is a proud grandmother who helps to care for an 8.5 year-old boy and a 4.5 year-old girl. She enjoys biking, traveling, and music, and frequently journeys to Poland, where she was born and raised.

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Cynthia Piltch 

Cynthia Piltch, Ph.D., MPH, LCMT, Reiki Master and Peer Specialist, is an educator, consultant and clinical practitioner trained in a variety of integrative healing modalities including therapeutic massage, Reiki, reflexology and craniosacral and myofascial release therapies.  Dr. Piltch conducted her dissertation research on a gender comparison of the causes and consequences of stress in an industrial sample of workers. She received her Ph.D. from Boston University, her MPH from the University of Michigan, her AB in Psychology from Harvard University, her diploma in massage from the Muscular Therapy Institute, her Reiki Master training from Arlington Reiki Associates, and her peer Specialist Training from the Transformation Center.

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Dr. Piltch is currently a part-time community research consultant with the Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital and she maintains a private clinical practice in Lexington, Massachusetts .  She has written and spoken extensively about complementary and alternative health strategies and mental health recovery, including several years teaching wellness courses at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.

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Dr. Piltch also has several volunteer positions, including: Founder and Chair of the Temple Isaiah Mental Health Initiative, a Board Member of ECT: A Light in the Darkness, a Speaker in the  NAMI “In Your Own  Voice” Outreach Program, a Co-Leader of the McLean Hospital ECT Support Group , a Group Facilitator for the DBSA Women’s  Support Group and a Reiki  Volunteer at Beth Israel/Deaconess Hospital.