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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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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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Financial Anxiety is Becoming a Public Health Issue
Economic stress has long been framed as a personal budgeting challenge, or a macroeconomic concern measured in inflation rates, interest hikes, and employment numbers. But for millions of Americans, financial pressure is no longer an abstract concept, it is a daily psychological burden that is...
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Meeting the Moment: Addressing the Challenges to Advance Solutions for Mental Health Clinical Trial Recruitment
Mental health has become one of the most urgent and complex public health challenges of our era. Today, more than 1 billion people globally live with some form of a mental health disorder.1 Among young people, the situation is equally concerning: 1 in 7 adolescents experience a mental health...
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Westchester County Develops “Lives Forward” Program – Providing Dual Certification MH and Addiction Peer Training to Currently Justice Involved Individuals
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Few things illustrate this better than using one’s lived experience to support another person seeking recovery from co-occurring disorders. Now formally recognized as “peer”...
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From Collaboration to Impact: How a Foundation and CBO Are Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce for Older Adults
I am delighted that my colleague Marc Damsky, Senior Program Officer at the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation (MCHF), has joined me for a conversation about workforce innovation as it relates to mental health and aging. We are proud that MCHF is currently supporting two workforce projects at Service...
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What It’s Really Like Living with Bipolar Disorder
As of 2019, 0.53% of people in the world are bipolar, according to a study from the World Health Organization. I am one of them. Living with bipolar disorder isn’t easy. Scholarly journals document the symptoms and struggles that come with this disorder, but they’re far from accurate. Common...
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Stress or ADHD? What Holiday Breaks Reveal About College Students’ Struggles
When college students return home for holiday breaks, families often notice changes that were easier to overlook during the semester. A student who once seemed capable may now appear overwhelmed, disorganized, emotionally reactive, or shut down. Parents begin to ask whether they are seeing typical...
