Laurie Ahern

Laurie Ahern, Co-Director of the National Empowerment Center, is a psychiatric survivor and a person who has recovered from severe emotional distress - after having been hospitalized and labeled with mental illness at the age of 19.

For the past eight years, Laurie has worked at the National Empowerment Center, Inc. She is the editor of the award-winning NEC newsletter and co-created the Empowerment Model of Recovery and the PACE model, a non-coercive alternative to Assertive Community Treatment. In addition, she conducts workshops, gives talks, and organizes conferences for consumers/survivors, families and mental health providers to promote recovery. Laurie is also the vice president of the National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) and is the editor of the NARPA newsletter, The Rights Tenet. Prior to her position at the NEC, Laurie was the managing editor of several newspapers and free-lance writer for the Boston Globe and Associated Press and has won national awards for her investigative and editorial writing and reporting.