Being a peer specialist is rewarding and meaningful work. It's also challenging and can be re-traumatizing. What protective strategies can you employ to create a safe space for the peer specialists in your organization who are doing this work? How can your supervision structure be sensitive to those who live with the impacts of trauma? Learn from our facilitators, Dr. David McClung and Michelle Vance, and our panel of seasoned Peer Support Supervisors, Tammy Harper, Lydia Proulx and Millie Sweeney, on lessons learned and tips for creating safe spaces. … [Read more...] about Creating Safe Spaces for Peer Support Specialists
Community Wellness & Peer Supports
Peer Support and Secondary Trauma
Peer support specialists often serve on the forefront of mental health and substance use systems. Using their lived experience to support others to navigate recovery, peers play a critical role in meeting the growing demands for trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and recovery-oriented systems of care. In addition, peers help to fill some of the significant workforce gaps within systems of care. Doing this crucial work means that peers may be exposed to large amounts of secondary trauma. This can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. Systems of care must work to ensure that peers have adequate strategies, resources, and support to be able to identify and respond to secondary trauma when it occurs. This 60-minute Facebook Live event brought together a panel of magnificent peer support specialists who shared their experiences and strategies for reducing and preventing secondary trauma. Audience:This presentation is intended for peer support specialists, as well as peer … [Read more...] about Peer Support and Secondary Trauma
SOAR for Children: Connecting Children and Youth with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Support
SAMHSA’s SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery (SOAR) initiative is a national program designed to enhance access to disability income benefit programs by individuals who are at risk of homelessness and have a serious mental illness, medical impairment, and/or co-occurring substance use disorder. Presented by the SOAR TA Center, this hour-long webinar introduces tools and resources to help children and youth with disabling conditions access Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Resources provided include the free SOAR Online Course: Child Curriculum. Learn how SOAR can be integrated into programming and how collaboration with key stakeholders can enhance efforts! … [Read more...] about SOAR for Children: Connecting Children and Youth with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Support
Mental Health and Faith Webinar Series Session 6 of 6
Available data suggests that faith communities desire additional support and information about existing mental health services within their communities. Similarly, mental health professionals frequently want to ensure that services are culturally responsive to individual’s faith and spirituality. It can be difficult, however, for faith communities and mental health providers to know how to effectively work together to build stronger and more supportive systems of care. In this webinar, participants heard from a fantastic panel of subject matters experts who have found innovative pathways for bridging mental health conversations between congregations and their communities. With the support of the panelists, participants had the opportunity to explore pathways for bridging these gaps within their own communities. … [Read more...] about Mental Health and Faith Webinar Series Session 6 of 6
Addressing Equity In all Collaborative Efforts: Are We READY?
As system of care and mental wellness providers, we often isolate equity work to our internal processes, procedures, services, and outcomes. However, when we focus only on our internal capabilities, we leave out a very important component: community collaborations. When community collaborations are diverse and fostered intentionally, they can serve as fertilizer for long-term equitable outcomes. They allow organizational staff to focus in their areas of expertise while working with other organizations, when the choices and holistic needs of the youth, young adult, and families they serve extend beyond what they can effectively offer. In this interactive webinar, learners: 1) Increased their awareness of organizational culture and its impact on collaborative service innovation 2) Understood the impact of organizational readiness on equitable service provision for youth, young adults, and families. 3) Analyzed and shared their impressions of the R-E-A-D-Y framework for addressing complex … [Read more...] about Addressing Equity In all Collaborative Efforts: Are We READY?