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Mentorship and Leadership in Advancing Behavioral Health Equity
Growing up in Jamaica, Queens, in a working-class family, I learned early that one’s circumstances do not define one’s potential. My grandparents instilled in me the value of perseverance and the belief that education is a powerful equalizer. I was driven not only to advance myself, but also to...
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Peering In: A Look at Mental Health Peer Providers and How They Help People Recover
I believe that recovery is possible. Not just for me, but for EVERYONE. Does this mean that everyone recovers? No, because not everyone is taught the skills to recover. Also, once a person learns the skills, they must choose to use them. My peer specialist colleagues and I can give you a flashlight...
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The Peer Advocate: Role Model, Listener, and Problem Solver for Older Adults
Peer Advocates have changed the way that we practice behavioral healthcare at Service Program for Older People (SPOP) – and have changed the lives of the older adults we treat. SPOP is a community-based behavioral health provider for older adults (55+) based in New York City. We serve...
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Healing, Growth, and Purpose: Becoming a Peer Specialist
On January 14, 1980 (my birthday) I sat at a drafting board at Island Drafting and Technical Institute in Amityville, New York, beginning my journey as a mechanical draftsperson. One thousand hours later, I earned my certification and was placed through the school's employment services at an...
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Peer Specialist, Heal Thyself: Recovery at Age 75 is Not Too Late
The Dream Scene I Psychiatrist X: We’ve got you covered…. Psychiatrist Y: Smothered Psychiatrists X and Y: And if you don’t perform, we’ll make you permanent. Me: Let me out of here and we’ll all be free. Scene 2 Social Worker Z: We’re cancelling the group...
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The Power of a Peer Specialist: Sharing Lived Experience to Support Recovery
“It is people who go through suffering that have an empathy for the suffering of others.” - Mary Robinson The Journey Traveling through suffering is best shared. Learning from suffering and being able to pass on knowledge is a blessing. Working with mental health consumers, I can see...
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The Power of Peer Support: Walking Alongside Someone Towards Recovery
I remember the nights I’d cry, looking in the mirror, not recognizing the girl I was looking at. I wanted and needed a way out. With so much shame and stigma around substance use and mental health, I did not know how to ask for help. The process of calling detoxes and getting certain documents...
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City Voices: A Peer‑Run Legacy of Connection, Recovery, and Community
In 1995, a man named Ken Steele began what he described as his recovery from a “30‑year schizophrenic odyssey.” His story stretched across the United States — from Hawaii to New York City — through periods of homelessness, halfway houses, and profound disconnection. Everything changed...
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Between Two Homelands: The Mental Health Burden and Strength of South Asian Immigrants
My father is fluent in English. He has two master’s degrees and a law degree from India. He can debate policy, analyze contracts, rattle off political science, and write with precision. But when he came to America in the early 1980s, he learned that fluency was not the same thing as...
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Amplifying Peer Specialists in the Behavioral Health Continuum of Care
We have witnessed the ongoing strain on our traditional mental health care system over the past five years. There is a growing need for help across communities, where help seekers are experiencing nuanced mental health challenges. From suicidality, stress, bullying, substance misuse, to family...
