Tag: peer specialist

Discussing a meta-analysis on the effectiveness of peer support: The co-opting of peer support specialists into roles that don’t fit with their purpose is a big problem.

My intent with this blog is to compare some lessons learned from my recent medical crisis response to a similar peer-run respite response.

Once my colleague started spreading her conviction that I was relapsing, the whole agency began scrutinizing my behavior. As a peer, you’re under constant suspicion.

Recognition of peers under Medicaid could undermine their interventions by morphing them into a hybrid of traditional medical and clinical recovery principles.

Peer supervision is often silent and stigmatizing instead of including necessary, robust discussions around relapse.

An analysis of the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics’ regulations on dual relationships: Indications for self-disclosure and problematic consequences for peers entering the social work workforce.

There is clear evidence of a double standard and attitude that favors and privileges one side of the binary—the clinicians—over peers. This discrimination must be made visible and revealed to mental health advocates and changemakers.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut released a new ‘Murphy Bill’ this past week. It’s called the ‘Mental Health Reform Act of 2015,’ though it has yet to be assigned an official number. While many words appear in its more than 100 pages, it’s worth noting that the term ‘evidence’ (most often paired with ‘based’ to form the familiar and supposedly scientific phrase, ‘evidence-based’) appears 27 times. Never to be outdone, the almost 200-page House version (‘Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis,’ H.R. 2646) from Representative Tim Murphy uses the same word 38 times. This makes sense. Why wouldn’t anyone want anything to do with… well… just about anything…