PEER Voices Podcast The PEER Center

Well, this is it! Another season of PEERVoices done. Join Gabe and Juliet as they speak with our editor, Lisa Kiner, about the highlights of the 2023 season of PEERVoices. We talk about our favorite episodes, our favorite guests, and what we learned through the process.
 
It talked about what works in peer advocacy and anger has a place. I don't think anything's changed in the world until somebody got angry about it, but they didn't change it with anger. They changed it with organization. They changed it with passion. They changed it by enlightening people's way of thinking. As I'm very fond of saying, if all you had to do was yell at somebody to get the problem solved, I'm very loud. This problem would have been resolved years ago. ~Gabe Howard

Part of the stigma of mental illness and addiction is that those living with these conditions are erratic, unpredictable, and violent. But that simply isn’t true. Join us as Vincent Sabino, the state director for Recovery Innovations International, explains that his organization takes a different approach. Focusing on creating rapport and trust with their guests (and they call the people they serve guests, not patients or clients) improves treatment outcomes and reduces hostility and violence.
 
 
We're not afraid of the people that come to us. We don't look at safety from a you to me, like I need to protect me from you. It's safety in the sense of can I get you to trust me to have that conversation about why you're having the worst day of your life? And can we help you get that turned around? ~Vincent Sabino

Sharon Fitzpatrick is a pillar of the peer recovery support community in Ohio. Join Gabe and Juliet as Sharon tells us her story and explains how those experiences brought her to the work of peer support. Sharon also shares that there is a stigma against peers in the workplace, and we all need to be aware of that.
 
 
Don't be paranoid, but be aware, that they’re looking. The clinicians are looking, the providers are looking, your family is looking. As soon, as soon as I say I'm managing my mental illness or as soon as I say I'm in recovery, I'm not, I'm not using they’re looking. The preachers are looking, the police is looking, the teachers. When you interact with your teachers in school, they looking. How are you showing up? I'm not saying it's right. That stigma is there. So, let's be aware of it. ~Sharon Fitzpatrick

OhioMHAS recently announced that the Ohio Chemical Dependency Professional Board will begin handling some aspect of the certification or peer recovery supporters in Ohio. What does that mean? Will the peer voice and point of view be heard? Join us as the chair of the board, Dr. Drew Moss, speaks with Juliet about this and other topics such as profesionalizing the peer recovery supporter workforce and how leaders can better support peer employees.
 
“Peers really make a difference in the treatment landscape. They make a huge difference in the experience of a client who's struggling with something. I've never seen something more effective, to be honest with you, as an interaction with a peer who can just kind of go there and share and connect. And I think people want that connection. So my thought is we need to just make sure that we are giving folks doing that really, really important work as much time and attention as we can.” ~Dr. Drew Moss

When you hear the phrase “peer advocacy” do you think of someone standing on a stage sharing their personal story? But what about all the other types of work peer recovery supporters are doing? Are other types of advocacy less important than sharing your story? Where does that fit in? Today’s guest is Michael Krause, the executive director of OhioPRO. Michael shares his thoughts about the importance of peer support in the behavioral health landscape and how peer support can be better integrated into someone’s overall care.
 
“A peer is someone who shares a lived experience, right? It's just someone who's in recovery, who shares the lived experience with someone else. And that's their experience. That's their expertise. That, for whatever reason, we needed to find recovery. We found recovery. And that journey to recovery and staying in recovery gave us an experience that we're now able to share with another individual who's walking a similar path.” ~Michael Krause

We’ve all heard horror stories of what happens when police officers have to deal with people living with mental illness. What can we do to make horrible things not happen so often? The answer is CIT, Crisis Intervention Training. Join us as Sergeant Matt Harris, the supervisor of the Columbus, Ohio mobile crisis unit explains some of the history of CIT in Franklin County, and what his day to day work looks like.
 
“CIT came to Columbus, Ohio, in about 2001. I got involved, pretty much right away. It finally gave us some meaningful training on how to not just put a Band-Aid on a situation. How to actually do something that was more meaningful to help because we really didn't know what to do. And it's not like CIT teaches you how to solve all the problems, but it definitely helps better understanding what is happening to this individual? Right. Recognizing that this is not criminality here. This is a health issue. This is a mental health issue.” ~Sgt. Matt Harris