Andrew Phelps, Claudia Consigny, Hope Holland

title

Education Based Recovery: a Mutual Support Alternative

abstract:

Supported education adjusts clients to college, whereas mutual support derives empowerment from social values embedded in community. "Client culture" focus changes the counseling role. We seek a collaborative involving "learning community," appropriate curriculum, and mutual academic support. Complexities - conduct, career,

training faculty and County M.H. staff - are addressed.

goals and methods

Themes are:

  1. Empowering students with mental health challenges provides a “client culture” alternative to the “supported education” model;
  2. San José City College has five years experience following a mutual support (“beauty path”) variant of the “Adelante” model for mental health clients;
  3. Under the Mental Health Services Act, an expansion and intensification of the Beauty Path Program is envisioned; and
  4. This project integrates community college education with Prilleltensky’s values of community psychology.

Education based recovery starts from the insight that behavior management based treatment is contradictory to the nature of education as a means for people to realize values, careers, and lives. [See Phelps and Scheff, The Challenge of Bonding, Shame and Social Death, .] “Positive psychology” overcoming “learned helpless” points the way; here we identify the “social death sentence” lived out as “warehousing” of long-term clients. Social justice for those traumatized by social management requires a shift in the dialogical structure and a shift in opportunity. [See Phelps, Continued Self-Help Development: Report on the Educational Retreat, .] New opportunity may be found in mutual support in an educational setting, looking to produce what Nelson and Prilleltensky [Community Psychology] describe as “personal, relational and collective” well-being in the community. Actual transformation will be done by academic mutual support, a “learning community,” close support of counseling and disability services, and a change in the campus environment regarding the social role of students with mental health challenges. We address complexities like student discipline, career issues, and training for faculty and mental health staff.

This presentation will be in roundtable format, with initial presentations on community psychology and the logic and experience of empowering mental health students as clients, with an example from the “dual diagnosis” area. Participants will discuss experiences in education, deficit models, and the path of “recovery.”

presenters

(lead) Andrew Phelps, Ph.D., CIS instructor, San José City College,

Claudia Consigny, Ph.D, Dean of Counseling, San José City College,

Hope Holland, student, San José City College, m