SAMHSA ADS: A Focus on Peer Support and Peer Service

From small-group meetings in which peers share their experiences and offer mutual support to large peer-run organizations that are designing and implementing innovative alternatives to hospitalization, peers are working to change the face of recovery.  Peers are not only helping one another, but are also changing their communities as a whole.  As they do so, recognition of their tremendous work and value is growing.

In peer-support groups, the reciprocal giving and receiving as equals help develop strong bonds that fuel participants’ sense of meaning, purpose, and belonging. In peer-operated crisis services, individuals experiencing an emotional crisis receive support in a safe, home-like environment from others who have experienced similar events. This situation enables people in crisis to weather an emotional storm and perhaps, most importantly, to find hope.

In this e-resource update, the SAMHSA ADS Center seeks to highlight resources that illustrate the value that peer support and peer-provided services bring to the lives of individuals in recovery.

Visit our Web site at http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov  to check out the following examples of the many resources we offer to support and strengthen the peer recovery movement:

• Learn about the grants competition for the 2012 Campaign for Social Inclusion Awards for Statewide Peer-Run/Recovery Community Organization Projects, opening May 4.  More information about this grant competition and how to apply will be available beginning May 4 at http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/CSI/awards/default.aspx.

   

• Learn about innovative, peer-operated alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization and how to design and fund peer-respite services in your community by listening to our archived teleconference Peer Respite Services: Transforming Crisis to Wellness, available at http://www.promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/teleconferences/archive/

  training/teleconference08042011.aspx. 

   

• Hear inspiring presentations about the peer-recovery movement, where it’s been, and where it’s going, by listening to Peer Support and Peer Providers: Redefining Mental Health Recovery. Visit the ADS Center’s archived teleconferences section http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/teleconferences/archive/default.aspx to access this and other ADS Center archived trainings.

   

• Check out the November 2011 edition of the ADS Center Information Update “Promising Practices for Social Inclusion: Peer-Provided Respite Care—Innovative Practices that Promote Wellness and Recovery” for information about national and community model programs, an inspiring personal recovery story, and a wide range of valuable tools and resources. This newsletter and all archived newsletters are available at http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/update/default.aspx.

   

• Read about Jen Pape’s recovery journey in which she discusses how “academic, professional, and mental health consumer communities to which I have disclosed my mental illness have provided me with a different sense of connection and network of support.” To continue reading Jen’s story and others’ hopeful and inspiring stories, visit the ADS Center’s My Story section at http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/publications/mystory.

   

• Access valuable resources including SAMHSA Consumer-Operated Evidence-Based Practice Kit and Nuts and Bolts: A Technical Assistance Guide for Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Self-Help Groups. Visit our Information by Audience: Consumers section at http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/audience/

  consumers/brochures.aspx for these and many other guides and toolkits, fact sheets, research articles, and resource organizations.

We encourage you to join with other peers to strengthen your own recovery and build supportive communities. Visit our Web site at http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov to learn more.