“Let the authentic peer run organizations within each state set certification standards for the peer specialists within that state.”
That’s what we did in AZ.
We need to tear down the “professional mystique”.
The only reason we “license” people is to “protect the public”. Pretty much every board of licensure (including the FCB) has as it’s mission protecting the public from people capable of great harm.
Doctors, nurses, lawyers, electricians all have a degree of threat based on their relation to the persons they serve.
A peer support should never be placed into such a compromising position where they are capable of causing that degree of harm.
A peer support, by design, should NOT have that kind of power over the health and well-being of another. Once that power differential manifests, they are no longer a peer support.
They are a case managers.
And we DON’T require case managers to be licensed.
People call this “professionalization”. It’s not. It’s stigma dressed in a tie and offering reassurance to potential employers that you are “one of the good ones.”
That you, the person with a mental health history, are not a danger to the public.
They have a term for this: “respectability politics.”
Finally, someone gets it!
Thank you, Darby!
I still haven’t heard any reasoning why obtaining the NCPS from the Florida Certification Board costs more than a Mental Health Counselor’s license from the Florida Board of Mental Health Professions.
“Let the authentic peer run organizations within each state set certification standards for the peer specialists within that state.”
That’s what we did in AZ.
We need to tear down the “professional mystique”.
The only reason we “license” people is to “protect the public”. Pretty much every board of licensure (including the FCB) has as it’s mission protecting the public from people capable of great harm.
Doctors, nurses, lawyers, electricians all have a degree of threat based on their relation to the persons they serve.
A peer support should never be placed into such a compromising position where they are capable of causing that degree of harm.
A peer support, by design, should NOT have that kind of power over the health and well-being of another. Once that power differential manifests, they are no longer a peer support.
They are a case managers.
And we DON’T require case managers to be licensed.
People call this “professionalization”. It’s not. It’s stigma dressed in a tie and offering reassurance to potential employers that you are “one of the good ones.”
That you, the person with a mental health history, are not a danger to the public.
They have a term for this: “respectability politics.”
Finally, someone gets it!
Thank you, Darby!
I still haven’t heard any reasoning why obtaining the NCPS from the Florida Certification Board costs more than a Mental Health Counselor’s license from the Florida Board of Mental Health Professions.
http://floridasmentalhealthprofessions.gov/licensing/licensed-mental-health-counselor/