Request to all Certified Peer Support Specialists in Georgia
In November 2009, Appalachian Consulting Group (ACG) was one of the sponsors of the Pillars of Peer Support Services Summit at the Carter Center in Atlanta, GA. This summit brought together the states that were billing Medicaid for Peer Support Services. The product was the 25 Pillars of Peer Support Services – outlining the supports needed at the state and local level to sustain this new Peer Specialists workforce.
ACG is looking for Peer Support Services recovery stories to be part of an expanded version of this product that will be made available to the participants at the second Peer Support Services Summit to be held at the Carter Center in October, 2010. This summit will bring together states that do not currently have Peer Support as a Medicaid billable service.
ACG is using the following statement, which is attributed to Recovery Innovations in Phoenix, as a screen for the stories.
“When consumers begin to work in the mental health system as peer specialists, recovery is accelerated in three ways. The Peer Specialist’s recovery is strengthened. The Peer Specialists help others recover. Peer Specialists help the agency and/or system recover.”
ACG would like stories from you that illustrate how becoming a Peer Specialist has strengthened your own recovery.
ACG would like stories from some of your peers as to how a Peer Specialist has helped them recover.
ACG would like stories from non-peer, clinical staff – especially supervisors or agency directors - as to how hiring Peer Specialists has helped the agency become more recovery driven.
Stories can be emailed to Ike Powell at ikpwll@aol.com. The deadline for receiving stories that will be a part of the expanded version of the Pillars of Peer Support report handed out at the second Carter Center summit in October is September 17th. In order to honor confidentiality, names will not be attached to stories selected for publication.
