Alliance Alert: The Alliance continues to advocate for the expansion of peer support services in New York and across the nation. This week Harvey and I were interviewed by David Lombardo of The Capitol Pressroom and discussed a recently passed bill, AB 7395, which clarifies specific peer roles and will facilitate the advancement of the peer workforce.
Peers have been a vital component of New York’s recovery service system, facilitating more trust in the system, hope for recovery, and self-determination with the people they work with. The Alliance has been pushing for more funding for peer and recovery oriented services including establishing more upstream peer run services like INSET to prevent the use of harmful coercive practices like court mandated outpatient treatment (Kendra’s Law orders), centering peers in crisis response by offering everyone experiencing a mental health and/or substance use emergency responder teams of peers and EMTs, creating more peer crisis respites and peer led stabilization centers as alternatives to hospitalization, expanding Peer Bridger programs to effectively support people who are hospitalized so they can successfully leave and re-integrate into their communities of choice, and offering more peer support in the community to help people enter and maintain their recovery.
While New York’s system of care has had success advancing and integrating peer support services, much more must be done to make these services more readily available and this starts with increasing our workforce capacity. The recently passed legislation will facilitate workforce growth by establishing definitions of mental health, family, and youth peers. The bill also requires the Office of Mental Health to establish peer service qualification programs with the goal of training more peer supports to work throughout the system. New York State must offer more funding to these services to expand their reach and increase compensation for peer support workers to reflect the immense value they provide to the people they work with and the system overall.
The Alliance is also continuing to advocate for other services needed to improve our service care continuum. This includes ensuring everyone has access to housing which will accept them, particularly by expanding Housing First capacity which offers housing to people regardless of treatment status or active substance use. Housing First also utilized wrap around services and frequent engagement to support people as they transition to new housing to ensure all needs are met. We also continue to push for funding upstate Clubhouses to offer people a place to go to work on their employment, education, socialization, and other needed recovery goals.
Continue monitoring this email to learn about ways you can join our advocacy efforts. We encourage everyone to join us for our upcoming annual legislative day in Albany on March 4th. Complete this form to sign up for our legislative day and get more information about legislative forums happening in your area. See below for more information, including a link to our recent interview with Capitol Pressroom.
Promoting Mental Health Peer Services
By David Lombardo | Capitol Pressroom | October 24th, 2024
October 24, 2024 – We explore the role mental health peers play in supporting New Yorkers struggling with mental illness. Our guests are Luke Sikinyi, director of public policy and public engagement at The Alliance for Rights and Recovery, and Harvey Rosenthal, the group’s CEO.
Promoting mental health peer services – (capitolpressroom.org)