Stories From The Road

Four Considerations: Am I Ready To Provide Peer Supports?

 

I was having a chat with a friend recently and the question that emerged was: How do you know when you are ready to do peer support work?.

This blog article is part of my exploration and answer to that question.

  There are four "drill-down" questions or four levels of considerations that I would ask myself to better clarify within yourself before launching into the peer workforce. These are tough but necessary as follows:

 

1. Wellness: Am I Well?
2. Advocacy: Can I Tell My Story?
3. Support: What Level of Support Can I Offer?
4. Mission: Is This My Calling?

 

 

1st Question: Am I well?

 

• Self-awareness: Your wellness affects everything

This has to do with a gut check by asking tough questions: How far am I into my own wellness? Do I have a relapse prevention plan? Have I experienced any crisis recently? Am I safe? I don't ask these things to be intrusive or cause you to have "ingrown eyeballs" but I think it is healthy to develop some self-awareness. The unexamined life is not worth living and your living and your effectiveness hinges on your level of self-awareness.

 

 

• Intentionality: Your commitment to your own well-being

Those that hire you are hiring you on the basis that you know yourself and where you are at in your own wellness. They are not hiring you to offer you peer supports but that you can offer than support to others. It simply comes down to this: At the moment you stop pursuing your own wellness, is the moment to you cease to provide peer supports. You cannot give what you do not have. Your effectiveness hinges on your wellness inside and outside the workplace.

• Prevention: Having a plan to be well and stay well

Do you have a WRAP Plan? Are you working your wellness plan? Do you have others on your plan that you check in with weekly? Have you shared your plan with supervisor? How often do you update your plan and tweak it? Not to be intrusive...but this is so important to show those that we support. We are the living proof. We are the evidence that wellness works because we are working our wellness. We are the evidence that recovery is real because it continues to be a reality in us.  It is important that we have a plan to be well and stay well.

 

2nd Question: Can I tell my story?

 

• Disclosure: When should I disclose?

I think it is important to realize that part of being a peer to knowing whether to share your story and when to share your story. Do we know that inner voice of wisdom to know when or when we should share. Are we trying to "one up" those who are sharing with us? Are we still trying to work through "our own stuff"? If you are finding yourself with a deeper need to be understood more than a desire to understand, then you must ask whether you need your own outlets to work through your own issues. Peers must know when to speak and when to listen.

• Trauma: Can I tell my story?

Are you comfortable in sharing your story with others? Are you still working through your own trauma or personal pain? Have you reached that safe place within yourself that you can share elements of your own story in a way that can benefit others? Have you spent time developing your own story? It might be helpful that you take time to think through your own personal history and understand your own story. Your story can be one of the most powerful tools of transformation in your recovery and in the recovery for others. Learning to craft and share your story to different audiences is important in knowing how it will land in the minds of those who we support.

 

• Advocacy: How to tell your story in a transformative way?

Have we taken the time to really think about the different elements of our story? Have we thought about the different audiences that we will would speak to and share with? Is there a difference in sharing with someone on the street vs. sharing with a group of clinicians? It is important to understand the communication process and learning to adapt our story (I didn't say compromise our story) so that it we share the elements of our story that will most benefit the hearer. It is about them and not us. We must learn to share our story so that it has the intended result of offering hope and transformation.

 

3rd Question: How much support can I give?

 

• Empowerment: Am I ready to support others?

Are you ready to get your hands dirty? Are you ready to dive into the some of the most rewarding and challenging work that you have ever done? Are you willing to get involved in the pains and joys of those who are working on moving forward in their lives? Are you able to support people without seeking to change? If you are used to being a "fixer" and you are feeling the need to help, then you may need to step back for a moment. Peer work is mutuality and about self-advocacy and self-direction and self-empowerment. We must be able to allow others to discover their own way and own path to recovery. We cannot change people and we must allow them the courage to chart their own course.

• Volunteering: What level of support can I offer?

Is this the kind of work that I would like to do for a few hours a week? Do I just want to start out by testing the waters first? There is no harm in deciding that this is a volunteer opportunity and starting slow. I think it would be better for you and for those that you are supporting for them to know that you are just starting out and beginning your own journey of self-discovery. This is not a compromise and some of the most powerful peer work (maybe in its purest form) when you are doing this work in an unpaid capacity. Those that you support will probably be greatly touched when they know you are truly on an equal playing field and you are doing this work beyond a pay check.

• Bi-Vocational: Can I handle more than one job?

Can I handle the pressure of two jobs? Will peer work pay the bills? Will one job compromise my effectiveness in the other job? These are really important considerations to be taken into account. There is no need to plant seed in the ground if the seeds in your hands are the ones that you need to eat. It is important for you to take into account your own life situation and sometimes it comes down to keeping the lights on,food on the table and the rent paid for you and those you love. No one gets into peer work to get rich. No peer is paid what they are worth.

 

4th Question: Is this my calling?

 

• Profession: How do I approach my work?

Do you approach your job with excellence? Do you consider that your name is tagged to everything you do? Your work transcends your job. Long after all is said and done when others walk through the gallery of your life, others will view the legacy you have left. The choice is yours whether they look at your work and shrug their shoulders or stare in wonder at the quality of your work. You get the final vote in whether you approach your work as an artist and as a professional.

• Passion: Does peer work give me a sense of fulfillment?

Are you all in on this? Does peer work tap into your "deeper sense of YES!!!"? Does this connect to your sense of purpose? I think at some level you understand that in your work life that you get two pay checks. One pay check is the money you are paid. The other pay check is the joy you get out of your job. If you are not getting the second pay check ( you must consider) is the first one really worth it? These are important considerations because peer work must at some level tap into your deeper sense of why you are here and what you are meant to do and become.

 

 

• Competence: Am I effective and am I teachable?

Are you willing to stretch? Are you able to receive feedback and be taught? Are you truly connecting with others in such a way that others say they benefit from your presence and friendship? I think how you answer these questions may be some of the toughest yet important ones to answer. You have to be teachable and being willing to take constructive feedback on the chin. You must at some level see that you are able to connect with others in such a way that they walk away better because of it. There is nothing wrong with standing at the threshold and seeing that this might not be for me.

Take time to think through these different questions and stages of decision making and then launch your boat. Being and becoming a peer support specialist is an amazing journey once you have done your homework and the necessary soul work required.

Enjoy the journey.

 

 

Peer Support With Kids, Youth and Families in the System of Care

 

A family partner is a peer support person to families with children with mental health, substance use or developmental challenges. The parent that supports the other parents share their own lived experiences both personally and those they have shared supporting their own children who have experienced those similar challenges.

The National Wraparound Initiative described the role that a family partner plays in the different phases of the Child and Family Team and wraparound process.  I have tried to summarize below the different things that a family partner does in each identified phase of the family partner to give an overview of what peer support looks like for families from the time a referral is received to the time that the family moves forward in their own recovery and independence.

You will find a link below of the National Wraparound Initiative's Document "How Family Partners Contribute To the Phases and Activities of the Wraparound Process"

Download Phases of Family Partner Work from the National Wraparound Initiative

 

 

I have provided an outline and overview of the document that lays the groundwork for the work the family partner does in each stage of the Child and Family Team work that is done to support each family as follows:

Phase 1: Engagement

• Family partner listens without judgment, bias or blame to establish trust
• Gets to know the family and all that are significant to the team process
• Orients the youth and family to the family team process
• Addresses their rights and legal issues of confidentiality & reporting etc…
• Addresses and deals with any immediate crisis or concerns that exist or that may occur
• Family partner and family reach an agreement on how we together will respond
• Facilitate conversations around needs, strengths, vision and cultural discovery
• Family partner prepares a strengths-based document that summarizes the engagement
• Family partner begins to engage the other family and team members identified
• Family partner gathers information from all stakeholders towards an initial meeting

Phase 2: Plan Development

• Family partner works to build mutual trust and respect among family and team players
• Family partner works to make sure the voice of the child, youth and family are heard
• Family partner offers feedback and assists the family in making their needs known
• Family partner identifies the strengths of the family as well as the team doing the work
• Family partner helps identify with family the needs they decide they want to work on
• Family & team develops an overarching mission to take them through all the phases
• Family partner works with family and team on developing an initial plan of care
• Family partner seeks to assign some of the tasks to the natural supports identified

Phase 3: Implementation

• Family partner monitors progress and any changes that need to be made
• Family partner works to continue to build team cohesiveness and mutual respect
• Family partner helps the team maintain the “big picture” of what we are working on
• Family partner is a cheerleader of what successes that are being made on this journey
• Family partner is mentoring and coaching the family towards self-empowerment
• Family partner checks in with family to monitor their progress & see if they are on track
• Family partner keeps their fingers on the pulse of team buy in and engagement
• Family partner works as a collaborative advocate through this phase

Phase 4: Transition

• Family partner works on developing a plan of transition away from formal supports
• Family partner works to support the child & family in maintaining outcomes achieved
• Family partner assists family in identifying the new supports to achieve independence
• Family partner mentors family in preparing them to a transition in supports/services
• Family partner develops a transition/crisis plan for future issues that may arise
• Family partner documents the team’s work and goals achieved to celebrate successes
• Family partner encourages family to celebrate their achievements in a meaningful way
• Family partner checks in with family periodically as needed to monitor their progress

I found this document helpful as an overview in how to guide the work of offering peer supports to families and how the family partner is to support children, youth and families  in the Child and Family Team and System of Care work in North Carolina.

Peer Inspiration: Humility & True Effectiveness

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face..."I cor. 13:12

It is a humbling thing to come to the sudden realization that we only know things in part. Our knowledge is incomplete...and always will be. In such a realization, that can breed frustration or ...give way...to curiosity.

To know that we can only see from our vantage point, makes our need for collaboration essential. It is a stark reality to know that all knowledge about the individuals that we support lie...outside of us. This makes our need for humility...essential.

The essence of all effective peer support work lies in this realization. We come face-to-face with true effectiveness in our support of individuals in the moment we are silenced and we allow the individual to speak. Our effectiveness begins at the moment we become "the student" and the individual becomes "the teacher".

This realization lies at the heart of person-centered thinking and planning. We, in the recovery movement, must allow the individual to be our "True North". All we need to know to support them lies...with them. All of our decision-making, planning and priorities must revolve around that individual and their wellness.

Humility must be practiced in a sustained way. The realization that we only know in part...can give way to wonder, mystery, and a "fiery" curiosity to the questions and challenges of life.

Then we come face-to-face with the mystery...of the individual...and true effectiveness.

Community: Meaning, Togetherness and Finding Our Way Home

 

Life's meaning will determines life's effect. How we perceive what is happening to us will determine our ability to cope and overcome. The perceptions we share regarding what has and what is happening affects our ability to make sense of the world.  It's all about the meaning we attach to life's challenges.

 

 

Our ability to cope with life's challenges are fiurther strengthened by both life's meaning and life's participants. Whether we isolate or join together, will result in whether our resilience is either weakened or strengthened. The clarion call of the Civil Right's Movement was not I but "We Shall Overcome."

 

Meaning and a shared sense of identity lead to a greater sense of togetherness and "being at home" with the challenges we face. It is seems we are all like Dorothy in that we all seem to have a universal desire for home and to return home. That longing extends out for real a sense of community. 

 

Peers can hold space towards this end. Peers, can be with others, in such a way to provide solid ground and a sacred place for others to expand their understanding of life and with intentionality and patience support others in constructing new maps to find their way home.

 

Adversity is inevitable but successfully overcoming life's adversities is a choice. We either choose confusion or meaning. We either choose isolation or togetherness. We either choose rugged individualism or to join together to face life's adversities.

 

Our choices will ultimately and inevitably determine whether you and I, together,......find our way home.

 

 

 

Recovery (For Me) Is Not Enough

 

"Resilience is individual and relational. It is like a web and each strand is a “strength-to-strength bond” that extends to each family member and significant person in our lives. The web extends out further to our extended families and relationships and even into the communities we live and work within."

 

 

Recovery starts with me but it doesn’t stop with me. It’s not enough for me to believe that recovery is possible and it not further extend in every direction.

Recovery should be extended to my family. My wife and all three of my children (who experience mental health challenges) are resilient. Recovery is possible for all of the members of my family (as well as yours). My recovery is vitally connected to their recovery, and vice versa.

Recovery has long been demonstrated as an "individual project" but also needs to be shown as a "relational enterprise". Resilience is found in what we can do together as well as what I can do. Strength is found within me and beyond me. Strength and resilience are shared virtues and shared responsibilities to cultivate in all of our relationships.

We are interdependent. Resilience is individual and relational. It is like a web and each strand is a “strength-to-strength bond” that extends to each family member and significant person in our lives. The web extends out further to our extended families and relationships and even into the communities we live and work within.

Resilience and strength even extends over time and is intergenerational. Resilience can be found at the community level. It’s about building stronger families, stronger communities and more resilient and recovery-oriented systems of care.

Recovery (for me) is not enough. I am not satisfied until reaches my family and your family. My community and your community. I want to see communities and our systems of care become recovery-oriented. We all are resilient. We all can recover.

Recovery and wellness is for all.

Overcoming Adversity

 

“Do not fear the winds of adversity.  Remember:  a kite rises against the wind rather than with it.”  ~ Unknown

The safety zone is no longer the comfort zone. If we choose to remain in a life of ease, then we remain at risk. If we stand still...that is still a choice. It's a choice to a life of setbacks as others pass by while we have our feet are firmly planted...in our own comfort.

Adversity opens the door of life into a realm of rich experience and growth. Problems and pain are the gifts that remain under the tree that most do not want. They remain some of life's greatest treasures-where life's greatest lessons are learned. In their absence, wisdom remains absent as well.

Victor Frankl states "What is to give light must endure burning." The refining fire of human experience removes the dross and leaving shining silver of our souls to radiate. This process is tough and sometimes painful but necessary in the journey of becoming real.   As Aurther Golden suggests, "Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are." I think for many it is easier to be clothed in fantasy that the stark choice of standing naked in the light of the truth.

Joshua J Marine states that "Challenges are what makes life interesting, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." Adversity makes life meaningful and rich. These things that are tough we will reach the crest of the hill and look back and see that they were the things enriched us. As Dan Millan concludes "Looking back we see with great clarity, and what once appeared as difficulties now reveal themselves as blessings."

Nick talks about the importance of parenting in early childhood and it's significance in overcoming hopelessness. Willpower is a driving force for making our big dreams come true, but if we don't get a miracle in life, we can always be a miracle to someone else.

Nick Vujicic was born in Australia to a Serbian immigrant family, with a rare disorder characterized by the absence of all four limbs. Most of his childhood he struggled with depression, and after a suicide attempt he decided to concentrate on what he did have instead on what he didn't. He realized that his life story inspires many people. Watch his story as a living example of someone has overcome the adversities of life.

 

 

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.” ~ Peter Marshall

12 Simple Ways To Show Appreciation To Peers On Your Team

 

1. A simple, sincere word of thanks
2. Post a note on their door
3. Create a simple "ABCD" card that given when a peer goes  "Above the Call of Duty"
4. Write about them in a company-wide email
5. Have the team sign a "Certificate of Appreciation" and frame it
6. Elect and post them to the "Wall of Fame"
7. Establish a "Rock Solid Award" to recognize peers who consistently do their job well
8. Start a company scrapbook highlighting different peers you're appreciating
9. Make a YouTube thank you video
10. Send a post card
11. Have team give a standing ovation
12. Bring them a cup of coffee or their favorite beverage

 

My Poem: "Among The Birds"

 

Where were you?

When I was stumbling 

When it all came...tumbling

Tumbling down...to the ground

You were nowhere to be found

All I wanted was your hand...your ear

Even your silence...and a single tear

You gave me...compliance

I gave you...defiance

You gave me pills...pink, yellow and blue

When all I really wanted...was you

I will not walk your halls

I will no longer stare at your walls

With eyes that gaze...eyes that glaze

I will not shuffle...with writhing tongue

I will not sit in your outpatient...dung

When there are songs to be sung

Stars to be flung

Sunsets to be hung

While you type...and smith...your words

You will find me wheeling...singing...and soaring

Among...the birds...

 

Painting by Angela Moulton-website ♫ shop  ♫ blog ♫ facebook ♫ twitter ♫ tumblr ♫ instagram

SAMHSA's Recovery-to-Practice Webinar on Spirituality

Important Statistics

According to a survey done in 2010 by the California Mental Health & Spirituality Initiative on behalf of consumers and their families and they discovered:

• 79 percent said spirituality was important to their mental health
• 74 percent wanted their mental health-care providers to discuss spiritual concerns with them upon request
• 98 percent agreed or strongly agreed that “spirituality is an important element of multicultural competence for mental health providers”

SAMHSA's Webinar "Understanding and Building on Culture and Spirituality in Recovery-Oriented Practice"  discussed how spirituality is important in our sense of recovery.  They  talk about  spirituality in assessment and care within behavioral health.  They show how spirituality is a vital part of a person's culture and it is important in light of cultural competency to understand each person's culture and worldview. 

Download Spirituality Webinar <---from SAMHSA

Download Spritiuality Powerpoint<----from SAMHSA

 

 

Sensitivity

Rev. Laura L. Mancuso, M.S., CRC/CPRP who is an Interfaith Chaplain spoke about the following important items related to spirituality and cultural competency

• Focusing on sharing and learning from each other
• Focus on where your spirit dwells in your body
• The difficulty in talking about spirituality
• How do we begin a conversation about it
• The FICA Questions of Spiritual Assessment
• The HOPE Questions for spiritual assessment
• How can you bring Presence to the conversation
• Example of a spiritual assessment tool:  Spiritual Initiative Postcard

Spirituality

Dolores Subia BigFoot, Ph.D. who is the Director, Indian Country Child Trauma Center and the Project Making Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and she presented examples of sacred teachings of indigenous peoples that might have a powerful impact on one's recovery such as:

• Know that you are Sacred
• Know that you are Honored
• Know that you are Prayed For
• Know that you have Choices
• Know That You Have A Name

Recovery

Gladys Christian, CPSS who was the President, National Association of Peer Specialists and a Certified Peer Support Specialist shares the power of her own sense of spirituality and the central role that it played in her own recovery.

• The Will to Recover
• A culture of love, support, value, and opportunities for growth
• Faith Makes All Things Possible

This webinar offers a beginning map in how spirituality and cultural competence overlap, interact and relate.  Spirituality typically has been omitted in the past or this dimensions has been totally eliminated from the discussion too long.

It is time for us as peers to embrace rather than ignore this reality and to see it as a powerful dimension for recovery for ourselves and for those that we support.

 

 You May Also Like

• SAMHSA Webinar: Promoting Recovery Through Psychological and Social Means
• SAMHSA Webinar: Person-Centered Planning
• SAMHSA Webinar: Engagement and Outreach
• SAMHSA's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
• SAMHSA's Publication: The Role of Faith- and Community-Based Systems in Addiction Treatment and Recovery

The Practice of Humility

 

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it."-Margaret Fuller

 In an age of increasing knowledge and information, one thing can remain lacking: true wisdom.

Socrates stated that the beginning of true knowledge is humility and to state that we do not know what we think we know in order to better understand. To question and examine ourselves and the result of that is an examined life that is worth living.

As a peer, we must be very intentional in withholding all the good stuff we are learning and things we think are our "great insights" and withhold them. Yes...withhold them. In our support of others we must allow them to ask their own questions.

Yes, and to love the questions more than the answers.  Learning to ask better questions lead to better answers.  Answers that they arrive at on their own. That they can own and claim and get back their own power. All the power that was taken away before by all those who consider themselves "in the know". We are not a part of that system or way of thinking as peers.

It is for us as peers to practice humility, walk tenderly and mindfully before all that we support. Realizing whatever we have discovered is a gift from life learned, mistakes made and wisdom gained. If they ask you for insight...consider responding with a question:

• What do you think?
• Why do you ask...where did that question come from?
• Who do you really admire...how would they answer that?
• What do you mean when you say....?
• What are some of the answers you are considering?

Yes...you can answer if they ask...but don't go so quickly. Allow them to light their own candles as they see that you care more about them gaining their own insights.

They must light their own candles rather than you doing that for them. We cannot think for them...they must must learn to seek, ask, knock and open their own doors and find their own answers.  

True wisdom is then found and all can shine.