Online Program

Oral

Treatment options for psychosis related crises that are solely biomedical are costly and inadequate. Traumatic hospitalization and police contact compound distress by disconnecting people from their lives and alienating natural support networks. Without access to the recovery oriented supports that Mental Health Peers embody, individuals and families are left to construct hopeless narratives for their futures. This Special Session presents findings from Parachute NYC, which re-oriented mobile crisis teams to connect clients with home-based engagement and treatment, and created peer staffed crisis respites to support people experiencing psychosis. Funded through a Medicaid innovation grant, this project is designed to explicitly integrate human rights based, peer inclusive and humanistic approaches that support people-in-crisis to stay in their lives. Presentations will offer a description of the Parachute strategy; findings from the implementation evaluation; analysis of the integration of Peer Support onto clinical teams; and a reflection on how the practices of the Parachute project may influence public behavioral health policy and practice.

Session Objectives: Discuss how alternatives to bio- medical models of psychosis that integrate peers support recovery from crisis. Identify factors that support and hinder implementing recovery oriented system change. Describe strategic solutions to bring recovery practices to scale in the context of Medicaid behavioral health reform.