MadFreedom Advocates Staff
Chris Nial
CEO of MadFreedom Advocates
Chris Nial was the team lead for Pathways Vermont’s Community Center and Statewide Warmline until taking on his new role for MadFreedom Advocates. He serves as the co-chair to the board of Alyssum, and has been working in mental health peer support for the past 4 years following his own experience with a mental health crisis and extreme state. He is incredibly passionate about making more spaces for alternative approaches to mental health outside of the traditional medical model, and promoting the voices and choices of psychiatric survivors, ex-patients, consumers, and mad folks.
He particularly believes strongly in people’s capacity to support one another, believing in people’s lived experiences, and reducing the harms caused by psychiatric systems and dominant narratives about mental health.
Neilah Rovinsky
Advocacy and Education Coordinator
Neilah Rovinsky is a psychiatric survivor and a passionate advocate for systemic change and mad liberation. After spending over two years in an involuntary abusive residential facility from ages 16-18, Neilah emerged with a determination to challenge and transform systems of harm.
As a former Project Manager at UnSilenced, she helped organize a lobbying trip to Washington, DC to advocate for the Stop Institional Child Abuse Act (SICAA) and led campaigns to raise awareness of the harms of seclusion, restraint and coercive control. With three years of experience as an early childhood educator at the Greater Burlington YMCA, Neilah emphasizes a relationship-centered approach, fostering autonomy, choice, and respect for youth.
Her commitment to liberation for all and ending all carceral systems extends to FreeHer VT, where she has volunteered to support legislation to halt new prison construction in Essex. Neilah has also interned with AsylumWorks in DC, helping asylum seekers share their stories to drive asylum policy reform.
In her new role at MadFreedom Advocates, Neilah is dedicated to advancing the rights of individuals labeled as mentally ill, with a focus on achieving meaningful policy changes, advocacy initiatives, and training programs that amplify marginalized voices and effectively represent the lived experiences and goals of our community.
Esmé Knoke
Patient Representative - Chittenden County
Esmé Knoke (she/he/they) is a firm believer in amplifying the voices of and trusting the expertise of those with lived experience of marginalization.
As a former medical assistant at Planned Parenthood, he has supported people seeking care outside of traditional medical institutions as a result of access issues, stigma and discrimination, and traumatic experiences. He has seen first-hand the harmful impact left by ‘healthcare’ that does not promote agency, autonomy, and self-determination. Esmé believes in affirming, empowering, relationship-centered support that dehierarchizes the helper/helpee binary.
As a birth doula, they advocate for birthing people’s voices to be heard and their wishes respected. In this work, they also practice holding space for intense experience and providing companionship on an individual’s self-determined journey. They will continue to cultivate this way of supporting others in their work at MFA.
Through her own mental health challenges, Esmé has experience with many of the community resources she is now partnering with in her new role at MadFreedom Advocates. As the Patient Representative for Chittenden County, she is committed to fighting discrimination against the mad community in her work supporting the self-advocacy of involuntarily hospitalized individuals, bolstering knowledge of their rights, and connecting them to alternative community resources. It is heartwarming for her to be part of a team of passionate people reimagining mental health support and offering the advocacy she herself needed.