Larry Drain recently joined in to pressure the elected officials to seriously consider the consequences of their actions upon the most vulnerable consumers of Tennessee. I ask that you join me in reading his blog and giving serious consideration to what we need to do and individuals to right a wrong. Thank you.
New post on Hopeworks Community
A place to go…. a plea for peer support
by Larry Drain, hopeworkscommunity.com
All of us need a place to go. We need a place that
provides the resources, the relationships, the support and the experiences that
give us a chance to lead lives of purpose, dignity , and meaning. That place is
different for everyone. Without it life seems never what to be what we want or
hope for. Instead pain and disappointment define our days. Life is a never
ending source of deprivation and opportunity seems reserved for other
people.
For many people with serious mental health issues that place has
come to be their local peer support center. Counseling and medication may be
helpful to them, but neither is sufficient for them to have a realistic chance
at a successful, stable life in the community. They need a lived experience with
other people who have dealt with the same challenges they have, a lived
experience with others who have found that life can be better, that what you
know and practice makes a difference, a lived experience with others who show
that it is possible and needed to take control of their own life and be
responsible for their own choices. They need a lived experience in an
environment which shows them that not only do they have the opportunity to get
but the ability to give in a meaningful fashion, an experience that not only do
they count, but that they can be counted upon. Many of them have been in and out
of psychiatric institutions most of their life. Disruptions and problems have
marked their entire life and they may never have known the stability in living
essential to some measure of happiness and feeling of personal
significance.
Peer support centers have been their safe place. It has
given their lives the impetus that has allowed them to function successfully in
the community many for the first time. Many of them have no insurance or
financial resources and peer support centers are the only place they even have
access to. If you are poor and have serious mental health issues you have very
few places in this state to turn to for help. Peer support centers are one
essential life line.
The proposal to cut peer support funding puts all
this in jeopardy. Peer support centers radically improve the quality of the
lives of the people that go there. They improve the quality of the communities
they are located in. They do not meet the needs of everyone, but the people they
do meet the needs of normally have little where else to go. They give you much
more bang for your back than many much more expensive options. They keep people
out of psychiatric hospitals whose experience in hospitals is that they cant
make it anywhere else.
Peer support centers are a kindness to people who
have very little kindness in their lives. Before you take that kindness away
consider not the savings, but the costs. Think about the costs measured not in
numbers, but just in misery. We all need a place to go that matters.
In the overall scheme of things the money that will be saved by cutting peer
support centers is small potatoes. The gain of keeping them open at present
levels is immeasurable.
Please give us a place to go. Support peer support centers.
hopeworkscommunity | November 20, 2013
New post on Hopeworks Community
A place to go…. a plea for peer support
by Larry Drain, hopeworkscommunity.com
All of us need a place to go. We need a place that
provides the resources, the relationships, the support and the experiences that
give us a chance to lead lives of purpose, dignity , and meaning. That place is
different for everyone. Without it life seems never what to be what we want or
hope for. Instead pain and disappointment define our days. Life is a never
ending source of deprivation and opportunity seems reserved for other
people.
For many people with serious mental health issues that place has
come to be their local peer support center. Counseling and medication may be
helpful to them, but neither is sufficient for them to have a realistic chance
at a successful, stable life in the community. They need a lived experience with
other people who have dealt with the same challenges they have, a lived
experience with others who have found that life can be better, that what you
know and practice makes a difference, a lived experience with others who show
that it is possible and needed to take control of their own life and be
responsible for their own choices. They need a lived experience in an
environment which shows them that not only do they have the opportunity to get
but the ability to give in a meaningful fashion, an experience that not only do
they count, but that they can be counted upon. Many of them have been in and out
of psychiatric institutions most of their life. Disruptions and problems have
marked their entire life and they may never have known the stability in living
essential to some measure of happiness and feeling of personal
significance.
Peer support centers have been their safe place. It has
given their lives the impetus that has allowed them to function successfully in
the community many for the first time. Many of them have no insurance or
financial resources and peer support centers are the only place they even have
access to. If you are poor and have serious mental health issues you have very
few places in this state to turn to for help. Peer support centers are one
essential life line.
The proposal to cut peer support funding puts all
this in jeopardy. Peer support centers radically improve the quality of the
lives of the people that go there. They improve the quality of the communities
they are located in. They do not meet the needs of everyone, but the people they
do meet the needs of normally have little where else to go. They give you much
more bang for your back than many much more expensive options. They keep people
out of psychiatric hospitals whose experience in hospitals is that they cant
make it anywhere else.
Peer support centers are a kindness to people who
have very little kindness in their lives. Before you take that kindness away
consider not the savings, but the costs. Think about the costs measured not in
numbers, but just in misery. We all need a place to go that matters.
In the overall scheme of things the money that will be saved by cutting peer
support centers is small potatoes. The gain of keeping them open at present
levels is immeasurable.
Please give us a place to go. Support peer support centers.
hopeworkscommunity | November 20, 2013
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