The Growth of Peer Support in Passaic County: 13 years and counting
October 25, 2010
Steven Sacks
Outreach Advocate
Mental Health Association in Passaic County
It was while still attending Friendship House day program/workshop in Hackensack in late 1996 when I learned that the Mental Health Association in Passaic
County was looking for mental health consumers for part-time positions, under the title “peer advocate”. It was to be a pilot program. Successful applicants would share their experiences with mental illness, hoping to use them to help other consumers, while also helping to reduce their isolation and integrate them more into the community.
I recall that after my Friendship House case manager handed me the application, I stored it on my desk at home and didn’t look at it again for awhile. When I finally filled it out, not realizing that the deadline for submission had passed, I wrote that one of my strengths was the ability to submit paperwork on time. When I re-read the instructions, and learned that the deadline had passed, I amended what I had written to include the word, “usually”, and hoped this would not eliminate my prospects. Fortunately, it didn’t.
An estimated ten or eleven of us began our training at the office, on Clifton Avenue, in Clifton, toward the end of January. Tina S. and Cynthia D. were the director and assistant director, respectively, of the program, called the Peer Outreach Support Team, (POST). After the training period, we were matched with consumers, usually between one and three apiece, mainly residents of the Collaborative Support Program (CSP) with whom the Mental Health Association shared the building at 404 Clifton Avenue. Because we were so closely affiliated with CSP we would attend their team meetings and discuss our mutual clients and their goals. Working within a reasonable budget, we would, usually once weekly take our resident(s) out for coffee, or lunch, or to a park and occasionally, when the budget allowed, take them to a movie or bowling, or miniature golf, or a special event. Sometimes, we would take them to recovery meetings.
Their CSP case managers continued to handle responsibilities such as social security or doctor’s appointments, and food shopping. We were, however, responsible for reporting any behavioral or medical changes to CSP.
Though we primarily worked one-to-one with our clients, we took a group of them to the Social Connections self-help center two or three times a week and usually once during the summer we took them to a baseball game to our annual summer barbeque, and to a fund-raising softball game at Weaslebrook Park, where clients and MHA staff played the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department. . Every December, we also hosted a holiday party
Tina left her position as program director about a year later and was succeeded by John V., then a CSP case manager. He tried to expand our client population beyond CSP housing by first doing outreach at the Paterson YMCA, and gradually we began to get referrals from other agencies. We began to reach out to more groups. Some of us began to do weekly visits to a West Milford Boarding Home called Bethel Ranch. Oftentimes we took a vanload of the men to a nearby diner for coffee and snacks once a week.
It was at this time that we began to discuss our job titles. We decided that the title “peer advocate” gave us little control over our ability to choose when and how to discuss our mental illness. We decided that the job title “outreach advocate” would allow us to self disclose our mental illness with our clients in a more respectful way.
During those early years, some of us became involved in mental health advocacy, contacting our legislators about pertinent issues and going to rallies in Trenton. We also tried to get our clients involved in advocacy as well. I remember at one time going with the agency’s Executive Director, Joanne G. and my fellow advocate Dennise B, who was becoming a much more consistent participant in advocacy than I was, to the Clifton City Hall to speak on behalf of mental health consumers. Clifton residents had gathered in an attempt to restrict housing for the mentally ill in their community.
Toward the very end of the decade, we also added an on-site Wellness Group, in which a couple of us would facilitate discussions with consumers about how to stay well physically and mentally, in addition to presenting stimulating mental exercises about various topics.
In 2000, John, our newly-betrothed program director, left the agency. For a few months, as we awaited the hiring of a new director, Dennise, who like me had been an advocate since the inception, helped to coordinate the day-to-day running of the program. She was so adept at this that in December, when Rebekah L. was hired as Director of Outreach Services, Dennise was hired as the Assistant Director, going from a part-time to full-time employee of the Mental Health Association in Passaic County.
As the new century and a new decade began, peer outreach expanded when a new program was established called Consumer Parent Support Network (CPSN) to assist parents struggling both with mental illness and the pressures of raising a child. Dennise worked closely with this program, both as an advocate and in supervising other advocates in the field, primarily, Lynn W. and Ephraim D. They all work closely with full-time staff social worker Yolanda C. in this regard.
Two of our advocates, Richard G. and Amanda R. began to work along with staff in Barnert Hospital’s PATH program, providing outreach services to the homeless of Passaic County, under the supervision of hospital staff.
One of our advocates, Jeanne M. was quite knowledgeable and involved in mental health legislative advocacy work, and her job title changed to “advocacy specialist”, attending meetings of system advocacy committees, and helping to advise the other advocates and clients on advocacy issues. She also laid the groundwork for a Double-Trouble group at the office, a support group for consumers struggling both with mental illness and substance abuse. Robert P. and Amanda R. now facilitate it and also have started a similar group weekly at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Several of us in the last year have done outreach at St. Mary’s Seton Center and Harbor House, both day treatment centers, to help members fill out Psychiatric Advance Directives, putting their wishes regarding treatment on paper in case of hospitalization. We’ve also meet with patients at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital who are ready for discharge. We discuss their concerns of patients who are ready for discharge, and also make them aware of available resources as they prepare to re-enter the community. We have gone to Our House, a self-help center in Paterson where Melanie D. and Mike H. facilitated a social enhancement group and where some us now- myself, Melanie D. and volunteer Dennis B. address issues facing consumers who would like to return to work. Most recently, Melanie D. and Dennise have started a depression bipolar support group which meets weekly.
With our group responsibilities we also continue to serve as outreach advocates to individual consumers. As the demand for our services has increased, we’ve had to limit the length of our client matches to four months, with a few exceptions. As a result, the focus of our responsibilities has shifted slightly. In addition to the socialization we provide, we must simultaneously increase our efforts to find them other social, educational, volunteer or other pursuits that can help them to enrich their lives after our weekly visits are discontinued. In addition, because many consumers do not have case managers to help them negotiate government and private benefits, we often assist with them with this as well. After the four months of services, some re-apply for services at a later time.
We’ve come a long way since peer outreach was first implemented at the MHA in Passaic County almost fourteen years ago. As we continue to find new ways to meet the needs of our consumers, we hopefully will continue to expand and maintain existing services for years to come, with the cooperation of our budget. I’ve been quite proud to have been a part of it.