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Supporting Peer Specialists
An increasingly common workforce issue is preparing “traditional” providers for working beside peer providers, that is, individuals with the lived experience of mental health issues. SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) defines a peer provider as “a person who...
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MHA Vet2Vet Program: Leading the Way in Peer Support
Mental Health Association in Orange County, Inc. (MHA) is pleased to provide Orange County’s only Vet2Vet Peer Networking Program, also known as the PFC Joseph P. Dwyer Peer Support Project. The program is named in honor of Private First Class Joseph P. Dwyer, an Army Medic who served in Iraq,...
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Whole Health Peer Support: Improving Health Disparity Among Individuals with Serious Mental Health Challenges and/or Addictions
Recovery Innovations is one of the largest employers of peer support providers in the world. Our peer workforce is about 600 strong and counting. Back in 2000, we began to identify significant vulnerability in the health of our workforce as well as the health of the people they were serving....
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Intentional Peer Support: Using a Crisis as an Opportunity for Growth and Change
In January 2013, Community Access, in partnership with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, launched the first alternative to hospitalization program in New York City. Called a crisis respite center, the new program has several unique features that, compared to “treatment as usual,”...
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From Isolation and Despair to Engagement and Activation: The Peer Support Specialist’s Role in the Behavioral Health Care System
Peer coaches are individuals in recovery from a behavioral health condition who are trained to use their lived experience to help others on their journey to recovery. They do this by offering support, promoting engagement and facilitating activation. Optum’s Whole Health Peer coaching program is...
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Support for Older Adult Peers
The Baltic Street, Advocacy, Employment, and Housing, Inc, Geriatric Peer Advocacy Program may be the only peer to peer program in New York City that offers services to seniors that have psychiatric disabilities. The program has been in existence since 1998 and although it is a small program, over...
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Peer-Led Support Helps Parents and Caregivers Cope with Mental Illness
When her teenage daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Deniece Chi did not know where to turn for help. A native of Belize residing in New York City, she had no experience with or understanding of mental illness. Her relatives dismissed the diagnosis and suggested that a lack of discipline...
