Setting the Stage for Peer Support Services
I was asked to write something about “best practices” when working with peers in clinical settings. What follows is a short history designed to give you some idea about how I formed my opinions on this topic.
When I moved to Oregon in 1991, I left a Boston metro area community mental health agency where I was the Director of Crisis Services. Literally as I was leaving, peers were ceremoniously evicting the agency clinical staff from their offices in what had been a day treatment program, now converted to a Club House (Fountain House model). Staff were all abuzz about how people they had experienced for years as being unable to sit through a 20-minute skills group could now focus on the meaningful work of their community’s recovery during four-hour Club House strategic planning meetings. The inspiring Dr. Patricia Deegan came to speak to our community (staff and peers) about her experience as a patient at Danvers State Hospital, and her own path to recovery. There was an established warm line in Leominster. It was the late 80’s, and it was an exciting time for peer services on the East Coast.
[For more of this story, written by Martha L. Spiers, go to http://traumainformedoregon.or...s-clinical-settings/]
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