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Peer Advocacy Program
• Case Management
• Community
Placement Team •
Peer
Advocacy Program
Many CHOICE clients face a Catch-22: they
are disabled by mental illness, but are unable to access services and benefits
designated for people with psychiatric disabilities. Applications and screenings
designed to determine eligibility frequently keep out the very people they were
meant to let in.
Peer Advocacy, CHOICE’s first program, was developed
to address this gap in services. Advocacy clients are for the most part self-referred.
They may come to hear of our services from current or former clients, providers
or friends. To set up an intake appointment the potential client must initiate
the phone call to CHOICE.
Peer Advocacy clients do not have to meet
stringent eligibility criteria to receive services. There are no diagnostic requirements.
Sometimes just the desire to enter mental health treatment is sufficient to enter
the program.
This unique program is successful because it is flexible.
Goals will vary from client to client as will length and frequency of meetings
and form of contact. While some clients require multiple face-to-face meetings
others may prefer phone calls. The client sets the pace for services. We are there
to support and guide our clients but we always encourage them to play an active
role in attaining their goals.
Peer Advocacy is a person-centered program:
it means different things to different people, and so the services we provide
vary widely. We are the stepping-stones to sobriety for one client, the mediator
with the Department of Social Services to another. We’ve helped our clients
secure and furnish apartments, obtain vital benefits and even regain custody of
their children.
This is a program designed to catch people falling through
the cracks. The system's focus statewide has been on the most severely and persistently
mentally ill (SPMI). Those identified as such have been prioritized for housing,
case management and a slew of other services. But what about those who don’t
meet the SPMI criteria? Those who are too impaired by their psychiatric illness
to even apply for benefits? Or an individual so suspicious of the system that
he has evaded treatment for years? These are just a few examples of Advocacy clients.
For many Peer Advocacy clients their visits to CHOICE mark the first
time that they are treated like productive individuals with the capacity to recover.
They are seen as people rather than diagnoses. Because our services are not clinically
based and goals are client centered, people are afforded the opportunity to present
themselves in a favorable light. Our clients have often been judged by the clinical
assessments and psychosocial histories that precede them. At CHOICE, they are
given a clean slate.
One client, in her late 60's spent the greater
portion of her adult life in institutions. At the time we opened Sally’s
(not her real name) case she was living in a local adult home where she had resided
for the past 17 years. Sally wanted us to help her secure housing in the community.
Considering that she had spent almost 2 decades in a state hospital and approximately
25 years in adult homes, her clinical providers were wary of her living alone.
Sally's advocate saw Sally the way she saw herself. We looked at the
woman before us, how she chose to present in our office, rather than her diagnoses.
We saw a tenacious woman who had a lifetime of pain and struggle behind her. When
Sally requested aid in obtaining housing we assisted every way we could, helping
her to present as the functional and contributing member of society that she viewed
herself as being. Not only did Sally have the support of her advocate but also
the credibility and power of the agency behind her. Sally has successfully maintained
placement in a county subsidized treatment apartment for two years and is currently
planning her move into her own apartment.
The match of advocate to client
takes into account cultural background and language, personality, and the nature
of the client’s needs and each advocate’s area of expertise. If a homeless
client meets the criteria for homeless outreach services the intake specialist
or assigned advocate will make a homeless outreach referral to the county.
The lessons we learned in Peer Advocacy have influenced all of our subsequent
programs. From the success of utilizing the strengths based approach to client
services to determining service gaps, Advocacy paved the way for other CHOICE
services. From Advocacy clients we saw the need for outreach specifically geared
towards individuals in the shelter system. Advocacy is the melting pot of CHOICE,
a mixed bag of individuals with varying needs and interests. But one thing they
have in common is the potential to do and feel better about themselves and their
lives.
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