Peer Support Specialists and Outreach

Billions of dollars are spent on research designed to improve the quality of professional mental healthcare services.  While that is appropriate, I wish there was as much attention on the issue of how to help people engage in treatment in a timely way. 

 We know that people commonly wait years before they enter needed formal professional treatment for mental health and substance use conditions that are damaging their lives.  While there are some who recover without treatment, it appears clear that many suffer a great deal of damage to their lives by waiting too long to seek help.   We can develop the most effective treatments possible, but if people who need them wait for years before they try them, what is their real value?

 Healthcare professionals are not really the right people to effectively speak to people’s ambivalence about seeking help.  When people feel ambivalent about starting treatment, the ambivalence usually extends to the treatment providers.  ‘If I don’t think I really want to enter therapy or take medications, having a psychologist or psychiatrist tell me I should, is not helpful’.  What is much more persuasive is having someone who has struggled with similar problems and successfully recovered from them, talk to me about my decision to get help.  In that situation, the ‘peer’ has a great deal of credibility and inside knowledge of what the person may be feeling, and can be particularly persuasive. 

 Peer Support Specialists are finding their way into those types of conversations, but not frequently enough.  Organizations should be capitalizing on that special credibility that Peer Support Specialists have, and placing them in contact with people who are struggling with the decision to enter care or not.  Maybe organizations are simply too busy providing care to those who have entered.  Possibly they are just not attending to the needs of those who have not come to their front door yet.  Whatever the reason, it is clearly quite costly for these organizations to ignore the needs of people who are too ambivalent about care and recovery, to fully engage.  The result in continued suffering, decline in functioning and confidence, and higher costs to the healthcare industry as people eventually do seek out care after they have suffered and require more treatment, should worry all of us.

 What can you do as a Peer Support Specialist?

1.     Advocate for the people who have not yet sought help.  Raise the topic and talk about the risk of not doing active outreach.  More than half of the people who have a mental illness are not engaged in treatment, and most take more than 10 years to enter the treatment they need.  This is a huge group of people who are suffering for years before they engage in care.  Healthcare organizations are not thinking enough about the importance of outreach to this group.

 2.     Be involved with those doing outreach.  Help your outreach team see your unique value as a Peer Support Specialist. Use your past experience to help them successfully engage those who need services.  Help them expand their staffing so that they can reach more people.

 3.     Develop skills for helping people make the decision to get help. There are lots of tools available, but you will need training and practice to use them.

 4.     Look for the natural places to interface with those who need help.  It may be in other parts of healthcare, like primary care.  It may be other places in the community.  There are natural partners for this work, including employers, colleges, family members, and religious organizations.  They all see those who need treatment but are not seeking it.  Develop partnerships with them.

 Outreach is going to be a large area for growth for Peer Support Specialists.  Be active in helping your healthcare organization recognize its importance, and the central role you as a Peer Support Specialist can play.