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Biographical Sketch
of Angela D. Vickers, JD, CRPS
Mental Health Advocate & Educator
Angela is an attorney, author, mental health advocate, national speaker, and educator. She
promotes basic education about mental illnesses for all lawyers, judges, faith leaders, the
media, and school children. Her book, Brain Bondage – the Delay in Mental Illness Recovery,
is available at
www.AngelaVickers.net. Angela has been in recovery following a manic episode in
1988. A Florida Bar member since 1979, Angela received a national award for her education
and advocacy with the Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court.
She encourages and has provided training about mental illness for numerous civic, religious,
educational, legislative, and legal groups. Her 2007 presentations include: the Florida
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Conference, the Florida Suicide Prevention conference, the joint Florida
Supportive Housing and Homelessness conference, Duval County health and physical education
teacher in-service training, the national Crisis Intervention Team conference in Memphis, the
Alternatives Conference in St. Louis, and NAMI Florida annual meeting. She has spoken
throughout the nation including speaking at the NAMI conference in 2006, the GAINS conference in
2006, the Forensics Conference sponsored by NAMI New York in Rochester, 2005; the NAMI South
Carolina conference in Columbia, 2005; GAINS national conference in Las Vegas, 2004; the National
Algorithms Conference in Orlando, 2004; the Los Angeles 2003, Cincinnati 2001, and Boston 2000
national conventions of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) [formerly known as the
National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association]; the Washington, DC 2004 and 2002 national
conventions of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness); the Washington, DC 2001 national
convention of the National Mental Health Association (NMHA); and the Miami 2003 Linking Forces
children's mental health conference. She was a plenary speaker and co-chaired the Orlando
national 2004 Mental Wellness: a Journey of Self-Determination and Choice through Medical,
Educational, & Legal Partnerships Conference, and was a plenary speaker at the Tucson 2004
Mental Health Association of Arizona conference, the Jacksonville 2004 NAMI FL convention, the
Savannah 2003 statewide conference of the Georgia Association of Community Services Boards, the
Helena 2002 Montana State Mental Health Conference, and the Cleveland 2002 Ohio DBSA State
Conference. She was an invited speaker at: the 1999 Southeast Psychiatric Treatment Update
conference; at several CEU/CLE programs including the University of South Florida's Mental Health
Institute, the University of Louisville, and Baptist Medical Center of Jacksonville; and twice
gave invited testimony to the Florida Governor's Commission on Mental Health & Substance
Abuse. She spoke of legal reform at the Stigma & Discrimination Symposium in March 2001
in Baltimore.
A past board member of the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation of Jacksonville and the MHA of
Northeast Florida, she is currently is the First Vice-President of NAMI Florida, serves on the
NAMI Florida Child and Adolescent Mental Health committee, the nominations committee, and is a
NAMI Jacksonville board member, and a NAMI Florida Consumer Council member. She is a
longstanding national DBSA Speakers Bureau member and past Legal Committee participant, who helps
train Jacksonville police officers in the Crisis Intervention Team program.
She was active in legislative reform, has worked on an Assertive Community Treatment task force,
a mental health and juvenile court task force, and served on the Jacksonville Coalition for the
Prevention of Adolescent Violence and Substance Abuse and is a Northeast Florida Council on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse participant. She served as a core advocate for the Self Directed
Care (SDC) pilot program in Jacksonville, Florida, was a founding member and current participant
of the Florida Peer Network, an appointee on Florida's Transformation Working Group, a consumer
representative and member of the 2004-2007 Jacksonville's Adult Mental Health Task Force, which
recently because the Adult Mental Health Coalition. She served on the public opinion
committee and currently serves on the prevention committee.
She lobbied lawmakers and educators about a bill, defeated during the 2000 session, which would
have added mental illness facts, age-appropriately, K-12, to Florida school children's
curriculum. She continues to advocate for education reform. She has participated in
training for special education (SEDNET) teachers and administrators. In 2005 she
represented Jacksonville in Florida Children's Mental Health Voice, a statewide assembly of
stakeholders working to improve children's mental health, working to promote a children’s
cabinet. She has addressed several classes of Leadership Jacksonville Youth. She has
been a longstanding District 4 steering member for Florida Partners In Crisis (FPIC), the first
of several national statewide advocacy groups made up of judges, attorneys, law enforcement
officers, providers, and advocates. She has provided mental health training for Department
of Juvenile Justice probation officers and parents, child casemanagers, an HIV/AIDS coalition,
in-service training for hospital psychiatric staff, and college level domestic violence
institute. She participates frequently with Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance peer
support, and has recently been certified as among the first of Florida's Recovery Peer
Specialists.
Her faith and community initiatives include teaching pastors the crucial role of faith leaders in
mental wellness, and participation in NAMI FaithNet panels at the 2004 and 2007
conventions. She originated an annual National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery
and Understanding in 2004, to be held the Tuesday of Mental Illness Awareness Week. She has
led mental illness training for the Jacksonville Christian Legal Society, and the Monday Night
Alive singles faith ministry of Beach United Methodist Church. She was a guest on several
episodes of the television program HEALTH TRENDS, sponsored by the Florida Department of
Health. She co-chaired the Mental Health Coalition of 2010 Healthy Jacksonville, an
initiative of the Center for Disease Control and the US Department of Health. In 2005 and
2007, she was a guest on Civil Discourse, a public access cable television show sponsored by the
American Civil Liberties Union, where she addressed the injustices and discrimination resulting
from a lack of accurate mental illnesses education for school children, the media, the public,
and for lawyers and judges.
Angela was the 2000-2001 chair of the Jacksonville Bar Association's Law and the Disabled
Committee, and spoke at the First Coast Disabilities 2001 Conference. She is on several
Jacksonville and Florida Bar committees, and organized two public conferences on disabilities for
the Jacksonville Bar. A lay member of the National Council of Family & Juvenile Court
Judges, she spoke to NCJFCJ national metropolitan court judges in 2000. She prepared a
workshop with skits on mental illnesses and related legal issues for the Chester Bedell Inn of
Court in 2000, for federal, state, and appellate judges and prominent lawyers. This was
entered in the national Inn of Court competition after being repeated and videotaped by WJCT, a
Public Broadcasting Station (PBS). The Florida Bar's Board of Governors unanimously
approved her petition, which the Florida Supreme Court affirmed in February 2001, adding
"mental illness awareness" to Florida's mandatory Continuing Legal Education (CLE)
program. She spoke to numerous groups at Florida Bar meetings and throughout the nation
about the need for attorney and judicial training in mental illnesses. She spoke at the
2001 American Bar Association convention about the need for support for this civil rights
issue.
She has given pro bono CLE courses to the Jacksonville Holland & Knight law firm,
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc., the Jacksonville Office of the Public Defender, the
Jacksonville Women Lawyers' Association, Jacksonville Bar Association, the Orlando Office of the
Public Defender, and the mid-year Bar meeting Equal Opportunity Law Section workshop. She
was featured in Jacksonville newspapers: Florida Times Union, Folio Weekly, and the Daily Record,
and on the local CBS television affiliate, WJXT, as the "Everyday Hero" and was a guest
on PBS and other talk radio shows on several occasions. NBC TV 12 /ABC TV25 awarded her the
"12 Who Care" 2002 community service award. She has been interviewed by
television stations seeking psychiatric facts.
Her articles have been published in the NAMI Advocate, the Treatment Advocacy Center Catalyst,
the Mental Health World Winter 2003, Getting It Together Summer 2003, the Jacksonville Bar
Association Bulletin, the Florida Bar Equal Opportunities Law Section Opportunities, the National
Council of Juvenile & Family Court Judges Journal, and the Florida Bar Association's The
Florida Bar News where her articles were submitted through her membership on the Florida Bar
Quality of Life and Career committee: www.flabar.org/publications. She has been featured in
the national newsletters of both the NMHA and the DBSA, as well as in the Bar Leader, a
publication for bar officials by the American Bar Association, and numerous mental health
publications. She has received recognition by the 2002 Grassroots Forum for People with
Disabilities, POWER (Parents Offering Wisdom, Enrichment, and Resources - an advocacy group of
parents with mentally ill children), the Mental Health Association of Northeast Florida, the
Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation of Jacksonville, NAMI Jacksonville, NAMI Florida, and the
Jacksonville Bar Association, for her advocacy and pro bono work. A Colorado advocate
created and has maintained for her at no cost for six years a website found at
www.AngelaVickers.org. Her new website, www.AngelaVickers.net, features her book.
She graduated with Honors from the University of Florida, College of Law; and has worked in
legal services and commercial real estate law. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in
Medical Technology from the Medical College of Georgia. The majority of her undergraduate
studies were at the University of Georgia, where she participated in the Honors Program and held
a University of Georgia Board of Regents' scholastic scholarship, majoring in chemistry.
She has worked in hospital laboratories and in a protein chemistry lab doing medical research.
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