The Transformative Power of Peers
- 1:30-2pm The Role of Peer Specialists & Radical Powerlessness - Abaigeal (Abbe) Duke, Elise Diamond
- 2-2:30pm Redefining Community and Enlarging Connection: Peer Support on Discord from Wildflower Alliance - Claudia Wilson, MSW, MFA, Michal Ditkoff
- 2:30-3pm The Peer Message in the Psychiatric Hospital - Patrick Kaufmann, CPSS, CPRC, BS, Shannon Kaufmann, CPSS, ITE
The Role of Peer Specialists & Radical Powerlessness - Abaigeal (Abbe) Duke, Elise Diamond
The profession of Peer Specialist goes well beyond merely being a person with lived experience. Peer Specialist is the only role in the mental health system specifically intended to undermine and interrupt power relationships, with a well-developed body of practices and competencies in service to those goals. In this panel discussion featuring Abaigeal Duke and Elise Diamond, the Peer Specialist Training Department at OnTrackNY, we will explore some examples of how Peer Specialists do radical powerlessness, what other provider roles can learn from Peer Specialists, and how the Peer Specialist role can be truly integrated into multidisciplinary (particularly Coordinated Specialty Care) teams to transform all aspects of care.The conversation will begin with sharing some stories about the role of power relationships in the public mental health system and how Peer Specialists recognize and trouble those power relationships. The panelists will then facilitate a conversation to surface participant’s experiences with power relationships. We will collectively identify strategies for interrupting power, putting into practice the core Peer Specialist competency of drawing out the expertise that already exists in any given group of people.
Redefining Community and Enlarging Connection: Peer Support on Discord from Wildflower Alliance - Claudia Wilson, MSW, MFA,
Michal DitkoffPeer Support is done from the point of view of lived experience. It offers connection and camaraderie through relationships, but what happens when those relationships are jeopardized by the Covid 19 pandemic? What do organizations do to continue social connection and rebuff against alienation? In 2006 a peer-support worker within the Wildflower Alliance, Natan Cohen created a discord platform for folks to come together using Wildflower Alliance Values to have spaces to share mental health challenges, problems, and receive support. Since that time, this online community has grown to over three-thousand members, many within Massachusetts and many from around the globe. While this community is still growing and learning, it has become a space that offers members possibilities and connection. This happens due to the dedicated participation of volunteers, staff, and community members who help to co-create space and a culture of care. Folks who attend this workshop will hear about how we hold space, handle conflict, and maintain a deep sense of connectivity by practicing our guidelines and approach. We aim to consistently (through learning together) grow and discover new ways forward. A few of our guidelines include: “not giving a personal assessment of other people's experiences unless they ask about it,” and “not using clinical language” so as to not reproduce the harm that has happened in clinical settings. The presenters of this abstract are Wildflower Alliance employees who started using the space as regular, ordinary members, who then wanted to be a part of this work in deeper ways. While we are not the founders/creators of this space we have contributed significantly to the diversity/variety of this space by adding our presence and lived experience of being Black, Queer, and Neurodivergent. We provide peer-support in this space, creative projects, and play within this community. Together we affirm the values of the space to welcome anyone and to continually co-create space intentionally.
The Peer Message in the Psychiatric Hospital - Patrick Kaufmann, CPSS, CPRC, BS, Shannon Kaufmann, CPSS, ITE
Presenters will share briefly on personal experience as a voice hearer and as a spouse of a voice hearer. They will describe their experiences with bringing recovery groups and specifically a hearing voices group into the psychiatric hospital. Attendees will learn the advantages of peer led groups that address unshared reality especially on their effectiveness in acute hospital settings. Presenters will be objective while identifying challenges and room for growth. As a collective all involved will consider why these approaches are valuable as they also explore how this approach can be improved upon for future efforts.
