Angelo Barbieri is one of the first individuals ever to be hired by the Office of Mental Health as a Peer Specialist in New York State. He is currently working at South Beach P.C. as an Employment Specialist and is also a trained benefits and entitlements advisor. Angelo entered the mental health system in 1974 at a resource & treatment center. His overall experience was one of dissatisfaction and frustration with the level of services he received.

Angelo worked as a hospital corpsman for the United States Navy where he was stationed in Oakland, California, in 1979. He subsequently received an honorable discharge in 1980, after having received a psychiatric diagnosis. Upon returning home, Angelo became a trainee at Long Island University where he attended CASAC certification training in 1992. He then completed two internships, one at Luthern Medical Center's detox unit for alcohol and substance abuse counseling and the other at Bronx Psychiatric Center for MICA counseling. As a result of that training he received a counseling position at Pibly Residential Services in a MICA therapeutic community in the South Bronx.

For the last 15 years Angelo has been facilitating a Recovery International self-help group. As the group facilitator, Angelo demonstrates self-help techniques that illustrate Dr. Low’s self-directed wellness management skills. He is also a Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner, having recieved his CPRP in 2003. Angelo also received his training as a facilitator of self-help concepts and principles from Ike Powell of the Mental Health Empowerment Project.