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[music]
[Kelly]: Good morning. How is everybody today?
[Narrator]: Kelly is a volunteer at SIDE, a nonprofit in Kansas City, Kansas
that provides services to members of the community with mental illness.
[Kelly]: Let's introduce ourselves. Okay. This is the dual recovery group.
On the anti-stigma campaign, I have down...
[Narrator]: She helps write grants, mentors other members,
and is the vice president of the board of directors.
[Kelly]: ...you write your positive affirmations on them.
[Narrator]: Kelly is not a doctor or a social worker but she brings a special
understanding to her work. Kelly has a mental illness.
[Kelly]: ...because I know I see my nurse practitioner.
[Narrator]: She and every other SIDE member are on their own journey of recovery.
[Kelly]: When I was out there, just in my general life, it was half Kelly, half monster,
that's what I saw in the mirror. I was angry, I was lonely,
I was tired of just being out there.
[Narrator]: Kelly had been in out of treatment since childhood
but didn't find wellness until she came to SIDE.
[Kelly]: When I came to SIDE I was accepted, for me. It wasn't what I could give. It wasn't
what I could take. It was who I was because we respect each other we give each other peer
support. And that peer support was something that I didn't understand.
[Cherie]: She really has transformed herself from the person I knew, that was everyday
getting into a conflict with somebody, getting into someone's face, very angry, distressed,
had a lot on her plate, didn't know where to go, didn't trust anybody, didn't see a future.
To now saying, "Hey Cherie, I want to work for SIDE. You know, I want to work for SIDE."
I said, "Great Kelly, you're the type of person we need in our community."
[Narrator]: SIDE is part of a growing movement that is changing the face
of mental health services across the country. As a consumer-operated service, SIDE is a place
where peers are helping each other move past their mental illness.
They are building new lives working side by side.
[music builds]
[Betty]: It's run by consumers.
[Brenda]: Its shared leadership.
[Mindy]: We basically are in the driver's seat.
[Mary]: SIDE is a safe environment with no stigma.
[Kathy]: We challenge that learned helplessness. We don't allow that to happen.
[Cherie]: It empowers people to see themselves beyond their mental illness.
[Donovan]: We have a real family here. Different people that are in higher
positions, they show just tremendous love.
[Jean]: This is just a very good setting for consumers to come and be involved to find out
that they're really able to do a lot more with their lives.
[Kelly]: I just really like it. I'm independent now. Two years ago I didn't think I would
ever be able to live by myself again.
[Narrator]: Kelly's experience of recovery from mental illness through working with her peers
at SIDE is being repeated in consumer-operated services in communities nationwide.
SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, recently
recognized consumer-operated services as an evidence-based practice for improving
outcomes in persons with mental illness.
[Kathryn]: I think it's important for people to recognize
that consumer operated services have been
around for a long period of time
and that there are different kinds of consumer operated services.
But most often we use the term when it is a deliverable service from one
consumer to another that would be of support to them. And we have studied consumer operated
services – both self help services and peer to peer services – and have found that in fact that
the evidence shows that the use of consumer operated services improves the outcomes for
recovery for those individuals with mental illnesses that engage in those services.
[Cherie]: We've got new people coming in and offering opportunities
for new people to use their skills.
[Narrator]: A consumer-operated service is a peer-run program or service that is
administratively controlled and operated by mental health consumers.
They are also called consumer run programs.
[Cherie]: SIDE stands for Socialization, Interdependence, Development and Empowerment.
[Narrator]: SIDE was founded by consumers to help themselves and their peers rebuild their
lives and support each other in their recovery process.
[Narrator]: It runs a drop in center in the downtown area, but it offers
much more than just a place to be.
[Jean]: Their members really participate in their program.
They don't come in just to sit and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes.
[Cherie]: Our focus is toward wellness and support for each other
so that people can have lives.
[Kathy]: We have many recovery classes. We have 6 or 7 recovery classes.
[Cherie]: Now within this peer support organization, we provide leadership,
education, research, and training opportunities.
[Mindy]: We have many programs like leadership programs,
we have a lot of art programs, we
have a lot of men's groups, woman's groups, social groups, anything that has to do with
education. We value education highly. And we also value community service.
So we are out in the community a lot.
[Narrator]: Consumer-operated services can include drop-in centers, housing and
employment assistance, crisis support, education, transportation,
and many other kinds of services and supports.
As important as the kinds of services offered is that fact that
the people offering the services are peers.
[Jan]: We have been through hospitalizations. We know from first hand experience what it
is like to be hospitalized. We know what it means to have a nervous breakdown, to be
in psychosis, to be in wellness. And every person here is a member of this community
and we all experience first hand what it's like to have a mental illness.
[Lori]: I have just seen and heard so many stories of people whose lives have literally
been changed because of the peer element.
[Cherie]: I just think people feel safer to share with peers because they're walking
that same journey. They understand if I am having a bad day or if I am having whatever
symptoms there is usually a peer that has been through that that can share coping strategy.
[Kelly]: I can walk in that door and know that if I having a good day cool, if
I am having a bad day, even better because I am with my peers.
[Mindy]: We weren't brought up to say that it's okay to say that we're having
a bad day or we're hearing voices— that was not okay.
The great thing about peer support is here that's okay because they really are a family.
[Narrator]: SIDE maintains a good relationship with the near by Wyandot Mental Health Center.
Traditional mental health providers there have begun to recognize
the value peer services offer.
[Ally]: Having the lived experience, having the hope that people really can recover
that the person delivering that service at SIDE has had that experience
themselves makes all the difference in the world.
[Leslie]: There are a lot of things that mental health professionals can do
to help people in the recovery process...
[Ally]: But what's even more critical is that the consumer be able to develop a
social support outside of the mental health system.
[Michael]: Consumer run organizations can offer such a variety of activities
that we're not able to offer at the mental health center.
I think it is able to meet the consumer where their needs are at the time.
[Ally]: Many consumers that we serve have lost their families, their friends,
and really have no one else to rely upon. So SIDE really fills that role for consumers
and I think ultimately that social support network, the community integration piece
outside and apart from the mental health center is critical to a person's recovery.
[Narrator]: Far from seeing consumer-operated services as competition,
mental health providers are now seeing consumer run organizations as partners
who can help bring more services to their community.
[Leslie]: One of the huge benefits of peer support is that
they really free up a mental health center
to do what we do best and deliver those services that are recovery oriented,
partnerships with consumers but are clinical. Whereas they can provide a lot of the peer
support, the friendship, the networking, the developing of a sense of hope
and that reclaiming your life is possible. And if you can marry those two approaches,
you really have, I think, a complete set of services and supports
that help people along on the path of recovery.
[Narrator]: The sense of partnership between SIDE and the Wyandot Center
is not an isolated case. A growing body of research and experiential evidence
supports the work of consumer-operated services.
[Narrator]: Managed care companies are recognizing that the promotion of wellness
through consumer-operated services can prevent expensive hospitalizations
and reduce the need for acute care services.
[Edward]: There is outcomes research and there's a good deal of practice wisdom and
there is any number of consumer-operated services all around the country, which show
everyday that this is not only a possibility but a reality. And that people's lives
are improving not just a little bit but dramatically.
[Narrator]: Jean Campbell is the principal investigator for the government funded
COSP multi-site research initiative.
[Jean]: What we found overall was that these programs
are extremely effective when offered as an adjunct to traditional mental health services
in producing well-being, to promoting wellness.
[Narrator]: The multi-site study findings study establish consumer-operated services
as an evidence-based practice.
[Jean]: In other words, if you deliver the services the way they're intended,
you will get the outcomes. And in this case it means you will have people
that have greater well-being over time.
[Narrator]: This growing body of evidence is changing the way policy makers
look at consumer-operated services.
[Arthur]: The reality is that our service systems have to operate more efficiently
and they have to operate more effectively. We think that using COSP
and having COSP be a part of that service system actually help our service system operate
more effectively and efficiently.
[Linda]: It extends an over- taxed mental health system. A mental health system
that is under-funded where we have a capacity problem. You're creating the potential
for more services for people who need services and supports.
[Melody]: They're cost effective. They're creative. They're life affirming.
They fill in gaps. We know that the mental health system struggles with people
who get lost in the gaps. So as a policy maker who is responsible to the citizens
where I live, it is important that I do what I can to fill in those gaps.
And I believe that consumer run organizations do that.
[Kathryn]: I mean, this is really recognizing the people that you serve as having
a dynamic and central role in their own care. And that's a shift for people.
I think that there is some reluctance. I think that there is some hesitation. I think there is
frankly, an educational process, but I have found that over time, even those individuals
who had resistance, once they see a consumer-operated service at work,
once they talk with individuals who have benefited from consumer-operated services
they really do, I think, embrace it and become advocates for it.
[Narrator]: Self help and peers helping peers are fundamental elements of
the recovery movement in mental health. They represent a fundamental change
in the way we think about people with mental illness.
[Arthur]: The whole recovery movement, particularly the voice of the consumer
is in a lot of ways a civil rights movement. And people are not going to go
back to a system that is driven without their voice. And so, for me this is not only about
how to help a service system operate more efficiently, in a lot of ways it is about
a social movement that says that people who have mental illness have the right,
the ability, it should be a integral part in how that service system operates.
[Narrator]: As more professionals interact with consumer-operated services,
the support for partnerships grows.
[Edward]: I think one of the most exciting things is when professionals
begin to see that consumer survivors actually can do things on their own.
And when they get to the point of managing budgets and raising money, it's very exciting.
[Jeanie]: People are very surprised about how effective it is but when they
see people who were once recipients of services who are now living successful lives
in the community, working, and giving back and helping others—
it's probably the most profound thing that really affects people the most.
[Narrator]: As mental health systems begin to see the benefits
of independent consumer-operated services, the question becomes,
how to support them?
[Jean]: I think the biggest need for peer run programs is
having stabilized funding. I think that that is really key in order for these programs
to exist now and to plan to exist in the future.
[Narrator]: Policymakers and mental health administrators around the country are
recognizing that supporting and partnering with consumer-operated services
can improve outcomes for the people they serve.
[Arthur]: There has to be a real strong message from the top of the organization,
from the top of the system that this is important. And that it is not just a nice thing
to do but an important strategy for making the system effective.
[Kathryn]: We're at that tipping point where we have enough evidence around their success
and we just want to reach over that tipping point and get it into every system.
[Narrator]: People like Kelly and organizations like SIDE are living proof that
consumer-operated services can make a difference.
You, too, can make a difference. Order a free resource kit on
consumer-operated services at mentalhealth.samhsa.gov
The KIT provides practical information and materials for
policy-makers, practitioners, advocates, and consumers.
[Kelly]: We are not our mental illness we are people. And that has always stuck in my head.
Because I am not a mental illness. I am a human being.
[Ally]: It's just an incredible and unique partnership that we have with SIDE
and I can't imagine not working with a CRO, I just can't.
[Cherie]: There is a bright future out there. And that the mental illness
doesn't have to be that stopper and that catch-all. There's life beyond mental illness.