Board of Directors

Martha Roberts is currently Vice President of the Board of Directors of Vermont Psychiatric Survivors. She first joined the Board in 1998. She has served as Board Secretary and President.

She served for 12 years, from 2000 – 2012, as an original member and co-facilitator of the State Program Standing Committee for Adult Mental Health, and as such she received the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Community Service in 2008. She was a member of the work group that developed Alyssum, a peer-run crisis respite, and serves on the Alyssum Board. She also serves as President of the Board of the Vermont Center for Independent Living and a member of the Steering Committee of the Vermont Coalition of Disability Rights. She is a member of Vermont Interfaith Action, involved in their “End Homelessness in Washington County by 2020” campaign, the Montpelier ADA Committee and the Social Justice Committee of her church.

In 1998 she was certified as a WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan, a wellness program) facilitator, and since then has co-facilitated WRAP workshops in the community, in provider agencies and at the Vermont State Hospital. She mentors new WRAP facilitators and is one of two Advanced Level WRAP Facilitators in Vermont.

After college, she worked with learning and emotionally challenged elementary and high school students, taught women’s history and women’s literature at Community College of Vermont, tutored math and GED skills.

Marty holds a Bachelor of Arts from Goddard College, where she studied child development and education. After her work at Goddard, she joined the National Teacher Corps, a program providing educational support to disadvantaged children, as a part of her graduate program at the University of Vermont.

She has a strong interest in writing, which she employs in her community activities.

Zachary Hughes is currently Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Vermont Psychiatric Survivors. He joined the Board in 2015. He co-supervises two, peer programs at Washington County Mental Health and runs a volunteer-based non-profit that promotes peer services.

Originally from Texas, he has lived for the last 30 years in Central Vermont.

He is passionate about and regularly consults on cases about ADA/ADAA issues, service animals/emotional support animal issues.

In his free time Zack likes to take pictures, read, write, watch documentaries, and travel.

Robert Dyer, Jr. is Secretary of the Board of Directors of Vermont Psychiatric Survivors. He joined the Board in 2016. Bert runs the Hearing Voices Group at Pathways Vermont Community Center, which he helped create, and also works at the Vermont Support Line as a Support Line Operator.

Bert is trained in Intentional Peer Support and in Non-Aggressive Psychological and Physical Intervention. He is also a trained facilitator for Hearing Voices groups and Alternatives to Suicide groups.

In college, he helped to create a chapter of Active Minds. Active Minds is a nonprofit organization that empowers students to speak openly about mental health to educate others and encourage help-seeking.

Bert holds a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from the University of Vermont from which he graduated in 2014.