Peer Employment: The Next Level
May 24, 2017
10 am - 1 pm
Administrative Professionals Session
What does a peer do?
●Builds relations and collaborations
●Shares experiences
●Connects to resources
●Helps bridge gaps in recovery plans
●Makes self available to other staff as well as to mental health consumers
●Uses their skills and abilities
●Translates the world / what is expected from you, what are others and your understanding
●Builds relationships through personal connections (neighborhood member)
What does a peer NOT do?
●Prescribe
●Invade privacy - let peer “share” on their own time
●Go outside their skills, boundaries
●Judge others
●Fix others
●Take care of supervisors and coworkers’ needs (Those who judge or make fun of consumers, for example)
●Assessments
●Treat
What are the assumptions about peers?
●I have to “protect” them
●“So many accommodations”
●Needy/emotional
●Bring “emotional” baggage
●Need outside org. support
●Won’t fit in
●Peers can only work with other peers
●Nepotism
●Peers can’t grow in the organization because they aren’t smart enough
●They are not professional. No boundaries, less than.
●Not as “competent”
●Are “different” from other employees
●Cannot be reliable due to “instability”
What do peers need to be successful?
●Recognize their strengths
●To be “seen”
●To know that you want them to succeed
●Solid understanding of their soul and role responsibility (like everyone else!)
●Strong relationship with 1) Immediate supervisor, 2) Peer group (“peers” and non-”peers” alike), and 3) Integration into the organization.
●Support from managers
●Access to resources and clinical staff
●Employer awareness, support, and encouragement
Hiring for Diversity of Experience
●Spirit program
●Clubhouse transitional program
●Berkeley drop-in center
●Outreach to people within clinics
●Recovery House
●Partners that serve target population
●AA / NA / OA
●Homeless outreach
●Black Chamber of Commerce
●Service organizations
●Youth groups, colleges
●Social media
●Marketing strategies - “being seen”
Interview Questions
●You were a volunteer with ____ program… what skills and strengths do you have?
●We serve people who are, or have been, in acute crisis. What kind of experience - personal or professional - do you have with this population?
●Can you tell me about your experiences with the mental health system?
●What unique combination do you bring to the position?
●What kind of challenges do you think your mental health clients will have when joining the workforce?
●Describe a job/work situation which created a dilemma for you.
○What was the dilemma?
○How did you think about it?
○Did you consult about it? Why/why not?
○How did you proceed?
○What was the outcome?
●What are your leadership skills and style?
Take-Aways
●Circulate job postings to diverse organizations
●Use peer questions at organization
●Bring staff speaker and resources to organization
●Recruit outside of mental health system
●Take Wellness Works
●Absorb
Supervisors Session
Challenges to Address
●Supervisors don’t always have lived experience
●Need to differentiate clinical vs. peer role
●Cultivate understanding and empathy among supervisors
●We want you to “peer” but don’t “peer too much”
●Organizational and knowledge gaps for staff/supervisors
●More training/information needed on how to support mental health in the workplace
●Increase motivation to learn more about the peer experience and how to support it
●Peer experience can “disappear” in clinical culture because it is drowned out by clinical/medical model language and culture
●Difficult to find a balance between support and disciplinary action
●Job descriptions and hiring need to be done well to set supervisors up for success - “front-end work” must be executed correctly
●Over-supporting a peer to the detriment of the rest of the team
●“Us vs. them” mentality
●Stigma related to peer experience
●Lording one’s power in a peer position over other peers and harming them in the process
Self-Care for Supervisors
●Look at the policies and procedures to understand expectations and workplace culture when you start a new position
●Transparency & direct communication
●Choose when & how to come out with your peer experience, and be prepared for the possibility of discrimination
●Peer consultation groups
Tools to Share
●Trauma stewardship
●Wellness Works training
●Mutual peer support
●Transparency and direct communication
●Clinicians coming out with lived experience
●The Stability Network - professionals with lived mental health experience who do public speaking events
●Educate the entire workplace on recovery and importance of peers
●Make the entire organization healthier
●Language matters! MHASF presentation (1.5 - 3 hours) that talks about words and why they matter
●Patrick Corrigan - Honest, Open, Proud
●Laurie Ashcroft - Weekly Doses
●Working Well Together
●Peer consultation group
●MHSA-funded innovation project - Collective Wisdom
Feedback - Overall
Pluses
●Inviting dynamic and safe environment
●Loved the passion of the presenters
●I enjoyed how interactive this was
●Peer to peer check-ins
●Good process
●
Deltas
●A little more time
●Food
●I feel claustrophobic in this building