Ren Pelley

Areas of expertise: Peer Support, person-centered life planning, storytelling, writing, expressive arts facilitation, consumer-led engagement and life enrichment, advocacy for Peer Specialists and organizations to counter co-optation of Peer Providers

Bio: Ren Pelley, CRSP (she/they) is a Certified Recovery Support Practitioner who works across Southern New Jersey as a Peer Support Specialist and Expressive Arts Facilitator. They use their lived experience with their LGBTQ+ identity, neurodiversity, chronic pain, and mental health recovery not only to support their peers who are facing challenges, but to consult other peer providers in enrichment activities that embody the quote “see what’s strong, not what’s wrong.” Ren was inspired to become a peer specialist during their own time in a mental health outpatient program. They had never met a peer specialist, and for the first time since hospitalization they finally felt “seen,” and found a sense of purpose in bringing that same hope to others. Ren received their diploma as an adult at the Goodwill Industries Helms Academy, received their credentials through the NJ Mental Health Association, and has trained for a year learning recovery-based cognitive therapy for peer providers with the Rutgers and Beck Institute’s CT-R program. They are currently pursuing further education in psychiatric rehabilitation.

Experience

• Alum Guest Speaker at Comcast/Goodwill’s Digital Literacy event, at Goodwill’s The Helms Academy, 2021
• National Consumer Scholar, 2021-2022
• Featured Alum Speaker at Goodwill’s Awards Gala, Union League of Philadelphia 2022
• Featured experience in the publication “Understanding preferred language for ‘people with lived experience’”,  2022
• Interviewed for Core Competencies Curriculum Training Video, Camden Coalition, 2022
• Storyteller and workshop presenter at the Putting Care at the Center Conferences, 2022
• Peer Panelist- Rutgers/Beck Institute CT-R program- New Jersey CT-R Peer Summit, 2022