nlpaward@mcn.org
Press Release
A member of your community, Richard M. Gray, Ph.D., has recently
been selected as one of four recipients of The
NLP World Community Award. We believe that the work for which Dr. Gray is
being honored will be of interest to your readers, and we hope an inspiration,
as well.
“Because of the good works of each of these
people, lives have been turned around from tragedy to possibility, otherwise
unrealized potential has been set free to be expressed and developed, and
significant environmental devastation has been averted by transforming
political adversaries into cooperative policy makers.”
— Leslie Lebeau, Director of the NLP World Community Awards
Please feel free to contact us for more information regarding the Awards or Richard’s work.
Contact Information for The NLP
World Community Awards
Website: www.nlpawards.org
Leslie Lebeau, Director
Ph: 707-937-2862
Email: nlpaward@mcn.org
David Gordon, Co-Director
Ph: 520-319-5687
Email: ddak@earthlink.net
Contact Information for Richard
M. Gray, Ph.D.
Ph: 732-872-7353
Email: richardmgray@comcast.net
Website: richardmgray.home.comcast.net
Background on the Awards
The NLP World Community Awards was inaugurated
in 2004 by Leslie Lebeau (Cameron-Bandler) to honor individuals who have used
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to make significant community contributions to
Peace, the Environment, and Education.
NLP is a powerful change and personal
growth technology that is taught in hundreds of training institutes worldwide.
Originally developed in 1975, NLP began with the modeling of experts in the
field of interpersonal and intrapersonal communication and change, experts
including Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and Milton H. Erickson. Over the past 30 years, NLP has continued to
attract intelligent and visionary people. The NLP World Community Award is
intended to honor some of those people whose visions have been made a reality
in our communities.
Four criteria were used in selecting recipients
for the Award:
·
Neuro-Linguistic
Programming was the essential technology used to implement the program.
·
The
“community” served was well identified and described.
·
The
benefits of the program to the identified community are apparent.
·
The
program can be replicated.
There are four recipients of the NLP World
Community Award. In addition to Dr. Gray, the recipients are:
·
Jamie K.
Reaser, Ph.D. (Charlottesville, Virginia) for creating an international
cooperative program to address invasive species.
·
Lenon C.
Murray (Queens, New York) for creating a culture of respect and academic
achievement at an inner-city school.
·
Catherine
Wilson (Portland, Oregon) for creating an empowering public speaking
program for children
The four recipients of the NLPWCA will share a
monetary award of $20,000. They will receive the Award itself and be honored
for their important contributions on April 9th at a ceremony during
the 16th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of NLP, in
Montreal.
About
Leslie Lebeau (Cameron-Bandler)
Leslie is one of the original developers of Neuro-Linguistic Programming,
and established the International Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and
the first training center in the field of NLP. It was there that Leslie
co-developed and inaugurated the original Practitioner and Master Practitioner
credentialing programs. During her 20 years in the field, Leslie led hundreds of
NLP Trainings and authored or co-authored a numerous books, including Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Volume 1, Solutions, Know How, The Emprint Method,
The Emotional Hostage, and The NLP Home Study Guide.
The Work
For Which Richard Is Receiving This Award
Dr. Richard
Gray created and implemented an outpatient substance abuse program that works.
Since its inception in 1997, his 16 week "The Brooklyn Program" has
helped hundreds of federal probationers live sober, personally directed lives.
A remarkably high percentage of participants remain drug free for a year or
more. And this is working with individuals whose participation is mandatory,
typically the most difficult client population.
Richard was
frustrated with what he describes as "standard abuse treatments which did
little more than rehearse the problem behaviors and attempt to bully the
participants into other behaviors." Instead, he developed a program that
uses NLP techniques and approaches to introduce people struggling with substance
abuse to a world of new behavioral choices. Beyond that, his program offers
them positive tools for enjoying self-maintaining, meaningful interpersonal
skills that affect all aspects of their lives. As a colleague of his observes,
"More than just the statistics that showed Dr. Gray’s success with NLP, I
saw the program’s effectiveness in the faces of the probationers, parolees and
releasees who participated. Where they were previously negative and uninspired,
I observed them transform into a positive force. I saw it in how they
interacted with each other and their families, and I saw it in how they
interacted with Dr. Gray himself."
Wanting to
make an even wider impact, Richard wrote a clear and detailed
"Facilitators Manual" for the program that can be used by
anyone—including people without NLP training. Because of Richard’s generosity
of spirit, today The Brooklyn Program is in the hands of many individuals,
addiction professionals, social workers, and organizations. As New York
Governor George Pataki noted, "The effectiveness of your Brooklyn Program
is evidenced by the interest of, and use in, other jurisdictions, here in this
country as well as over in South Africa."
Richard has
turned hundreds of lives around that would otherwise have been wasted or lost to
substance abuse, and as The Brooklyn Program spreads, those hundreds will
become thousands.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONTACT RICHARD DIRECTLY:
Website