The Center for Practice Innovations is very pleased to announce the Celia Brown Legacy Leadership Awards! These awards are presented to two young people in memory of her legacy of global leadership and to continue her dream of supporting young people to lead us and our communities across New York State.  Please join us in congratulating our 2026 awardees!

Each award recipient will receive:

• An award of $2500 to support their proposed project
• Regular connection with a CPI liaison and our team for up to one year
• Connections to mentors, collaborators to leverage support and capacity for the project
• ·Ongoing support for professional development, e.g. references, recommendations
• Assistance with dissemination of project outcome

Alissa Rouse

Alissa Rouse is a current sophomore at Borough of Manhattan Community College planning to transfer to a four-year institution for Fall 2027. She is a fierce advocate for the expansion of higher education support programs for foster youth, informed by her own lived experiences as a foster youth. She has testified before legislators to encourage change while supporting fellow foster youth in sharing their experiences, with the aim of reducing disparities in socioeconomic outcomes between foster and non-foster youth through advocacy.

Her project aims to increase awareness of higher education support programs that already exist for foster youth within New York State. Through collaborating with child welfare agencies to advertise these foster-specific programs for youth within care, she hopes to connect youth to these resources before they age out of care; as aging out causes youth to lose eligibility for taking advantage of these programs that make attending college seem realistic despite the unique challenges foster youth often face.

Miranda Martinez

Miranda Martinez, a first-generation Latina lesbian, draws from her personal experiences of overcoming challenges rather than succumbing to them. Her trials instilled in her a sense of curiosity and propelled her into a history of advocacy in education, environmental, and mental health fields.

From her accomplishments such as giving testimony before the Committee of New Jersey of the budget cuts and recovery of community colleges in the state. Co-chair of the Young Adult Advisory Committee on a non-profit Fountain House, using her story to highlight the importance of community access to clubhouse settings. A volunteer peer for Identity House, an all-volunteer community that provides counseling services to support and encourage LGBTQ+ adults.Through it all, her goal at the end of the day is to be the person she needed in her life. In her free time, she volunteers in stewardship, reading research and essay papers, and spending time with her loved ones.

Miranda’s project proposal is to provide valuable access to community support and resources lesbians/sapphic-identified people of color. While a peer leads events and a space for in-depth conversations to explore broad or complex topics, clarifying key concepts across diverse communities addresses a significant gap in support, research, and community care. It also challenges the notion that “one LGBTQ+ experience” represents everyone. There is a severe lack of focus on the lives, experiences, and stories of lesbians/sapphic-identified people of color.

About Celia Brown

Celia Brown was a psychiatric survivor and long-time advocate for people with psychiatric disabilities. She was the President of MindFreedom International, and she co-founded Surviving Race: The Intersection of Race, Disability and Human Rights Coalition. She was a Regional Advocacy Specialist for the Bureau of Recipient Affairs at the NYC Field Office of the New York State Office of Mental Health for many years. Celia facilitated training on peer supervision, wellness, and recovery approaches in community mental health agencies. She was one of the first Peer Specialists in New York State and was instrumental in developing and implementing the Peer Specialist Civil Service title for the New York State Office of Mental Health.

A field school graduate of the Center to Study Recovery in Social Contexts, Celia was a member of the Advisory committee for the Center for Practice Innovations. Celia served on NARPA's board of directors for many years. She was a founder of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). She has presented nationally and internationally on topics such as self-help, peer counseling, advocacy, trauma, and cultural competency.