Excellent piece by CBC Radio, an edition of always excellent White Coat Black Art showcasing and exploring the role of peer support and a fine example of how it can work from North Bay, Ontario.

The best of it is the 30 min podcast itself, here:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html

It does a great job of portraying just how overwhelming, disempowering and frankly frightening a human experience it can be to encounter MH services – just at a time when we’re already feeling our most overwhelmed and powerless and frightened, in short when we’re already least equipped to deal with what we can, all too often, find there…

It also does a good job of portraying the all too common attitude in such places, where staff too often feel exhausted and hemmed in by “the system”, and the trenchantly defensive routines that develop in any workplace when staff are badly treated. The unspoken attitude is given incredulous voice [and even hammed-up a little for dramatic effect] with: of how a person without professional training and, and a person with diagnoses [and especially that diagnosis!] can be allowed in here, let alone play a useful role rather than create mayhem and havoc.

People in Equal Partnership

Chris Fontaine works as a “Peer navigator” with a small organisation People in Equal Partnership, the name speaks volumes:  run by peers, Chris is “embedded” within the ER team in the local Regional Health Centre in North Bay.
More on people in Equal Partnership: PEPplace.org

He speaks to his own experience of having been many times to ER on the receiving end , the difficulties he experienced , the uncomfortable power dynamic, many staff felt they were 

“above me, better than me”.

Now ’tis only a few years ago that peer support was being heralded as miraculous, and  being seen as novel and dangerous – you’ll hear it here show-host Brian Goldman, an experienced ER Doc,  stops the tape with a guffaw to express astonishment that is still common in such places..

Goldman:

“I’m telling tales now…”

[if you’re not familiar, the basic premise of the show is that it tells tales of what goes on, because its important that someone does and that what goes on in medical institutions is something we do need to talk about.]

Particularly, important is the part of the conversation about how this couldn’t just be put-in anywhere and expected to work, it takes things to be in place already.

We hear from the Triage Nurse Leeanne Nesbitt how she sees the contribution made by Peer Navigator, Chris…

“I think its invaluable, provides so much support to those who come in and to us as Triage nurses and the emergency room nurses.”

And we hear from the Emergency room physician Dr Erica Buck:

“So much of healing comes from human connection.”

She even quotes Rumi – “where there’s a wound the light comes in.”
“Yes expertise and our knowledge and our skills are vital, but
human connection is deeply human in another way.”

Recognising that what he’s witnessing is perhaps not commonplace the  interviewer steps in and invites a reality check:

“In a busy emergency department that human connection can be hard to come by.”

Doc:

“It can be overwhelming, I wish I had more time”

Peer Supporters do not have magic faerie dust…

There are plenty of examples where it has just been ‘put in’ and didn’t work and isn’t working. Like the lightbulb, services, and those working in them have to both want to change and be ready to change.

There have been – and are – many more examples  of people being given a title “peer worker” peer specialist”  and led to believe that simply by dint of their existence -and perhaps by breathing – that they are going to single-handedly transform a whole health system.

Sadly, when they start many find themselves confronted with cold harsh reality familiar to many who have found themselves occupying the bottom rung of a tired, rigid hierarchy in a broken system, and a sick workplace: being bullied, gaslighted – stigmatized and frozen-out: marginalised by colleagues and left without support from managers.
Indeed many of these situationsinto which people enter with such hope so resemble the very worst kind of situations that so pressure human souls that they come to struggle in such ways that get deemed “mentally  ill” in the first place .

Inevitably many become exhausted, sick and leave and many give up and go to college so they can get more credentials so they can start further up the ladder in hope of escaping some of that institutionalised crap.

Many more do soldier on alone, driven by their conviction in their work even in face of every-day evidence that the system, as a whole is not ready for them and is a long way from taking their contribution seriously.

Of course, there are places it can work, and work now. There are a small few examples where it is working,  where the environment already places a strong focus on bringing humanity to services, on listening, on creating space and supporting the person struggling in identify their own needs and help them meet them rather than insisting on being right and knowing what they need.

The story here of how its working in one ER in North Bay is excellent example for how it can work and some of what it takes for it to work:   individuals prepared to bring their humanity to the fore and use that to make space in which their professional knowledge skills, expertise can work.

There are plenty other places where there is much work to be done before it can.

PEER means EQUAL

In the end “peer” means “equal”.
It does not mean:

“I have the answer”

It does mean:

“I’m alike with you.”

“I’ve struggled too/  I still do struggle in this world. “

“I am finding my way, I believe you can find yours too”

To borrow a phrase from Pat Deegan at its core, it’s about :

“Putting the human back in human services.”

And in that there is a role for everyone to play their part and bring their humanity to et fore.

From CBC Radio

Saturday December 09, 2017

Wounded Healers: How peer support workers help patients in crisis