Michael Morisette

Background

About Michael Morisette

I'm a Peer Support Specialist, certified by the California Mental Health Services Authority, looking to work in Interpersonal Crime Victim Peer Advocate roles. I have a lived experience in mass violence, loss, & trauma. My daughter was killed in a mass shooting where the attacker took his own life as well. This put me on a track of interacting with other families and survivors in order to support others as well as to help me with my own process of healing. I began as a participant in grief support groups, started to volunteer with the mental health organization who was serving our needs, and became an employee of that same organization as there was an opportunity to join a team on a project to support another mass violence community. My interest has always been in supporting the immediate and long-term needs of families and survivors after a mass violence event, and in order to be most useful in my work I want to be available to families and survivors of interpersonal crime as well. Whether the incident was a mass incident or an individual experience, the families and survivors are often in need of much the same kind of support which I believe I can bring through a deep empathy. The commonalities can be bonding, and the peculiarities can be encouraging. I am very interested in the conversation on mental health, in regard to both individual and community emotional wellness. I can see this is first because my experience tells me that we can be deeply impacted as victims and survivors, but also because I see that there is a huge deficit in our culture between the emotional wellness of a healthy, supportive community and that of an isolated, uncaring, and selfish society. I believe that suicide prevention should always be promoted and advocated for because it is something that is part of this huge mess of a human condition, as way too often it seems that we can suffer from the sense of hopelessness and worthlessness that makes suicide appear as the better option over working through difficulties. I am no longer working full time for the mental health organization (GiveanHour.org) but am consulting for them in the role of outreach advocate, which gives me a platform to speak into the community from and gives them opportunity to further collaborate and partner with other organizations. My immediate desire is to be employed in resilience-building roles for individuals, and to add to the opportunity for positive life experiences in the greater community.