Guest Blogger- Sara Reynolds, Youth Peer Support Lead Trainer

I’m very pleased to announce that the first Youth Peer Support pilot training has been completed, and there are now five brave and compassionate individuals providing the service for the first time in Michigan. What a momentous event! I feel so overwhelmingly grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the development of this new service that will positively affect outcomes for youth involved in the Pre-Paid Inpatient Health Plan/Community Mental Health Service Provider system.

My journey into peer support began when I became a Certified Peer Support Specialist. It was a very gratifying work, but I’m in my early twenties, and there was a large age gap between myself and the peers I supported that oftentimes couldn’t be ignored. I was able to forge supportive relationships with those peers that were older, but I couldn’t help but think how being a peer could be beneficial to younger individuals.

After all, I was a youth when my mental health symptoms first presented themselves, which began my foray into the mental health system. Being diagnosed with a gamut of mental health disorders including Bipolar and Generalize Anxiety Disorder, I felt that no one could possibly understand the pain that I went through on a daily basis. I didn’t have anyone to talk to – not even my few friends in school could understand why everyday life was difficult for me. If I just had one person who could listen and really hear me… it could have made all the difference in my journey to building tools of resilience.

Around the very same time that I began considering how peer support could be great for youth, I noticed a job posting for a Youth Peer Support lead trainer through Association for Children’s Mental Health. I couldn’t believe it! Youth Peer Support! It was exactly what I wanted to do. I had to apply. Thankfully, I got the job, and while it has been hard work, it really has been a dream. I can actually help implement a service that will support youth that are where I was back then!

There is such a great need for Youth Peer Support. The service can provide better outcomes for youth, increased engagement in services, more interest in building resiliency skills, including system navigation, self-care, and self-advocacy tools, all of which are preventative of worsening symptoms. I think that if I had a Youth Peer Support Specialist, I’d have been able to start getting better, quicker. Not only can Youth Peer Support be supportive of youth, but also families, communities, and systems in so many ways. It is likely the Youth Peer Support Specialists will see some benefits from providing the services too!

Youth Peer Support is state plan service defined in the Michigan Medicaid Manual and is provided through the Pre-Paid Inpatient Health Plan/Community Mental Health Service Provider system by individuals that are between the ages of 18 and 26, and have experience receiving mental health services. Youth Peer Support Specialists have an integral place among the treatment team. I look forward to growing the number of Youth Peer Support Specialists throughout the state, and watching Michigan youth flourish.

Along with Youth Peer Support, we wanted to include a place for youth to go when they are looking for a peer experience online – thus we have created the Youth Page, right here on ACMH’s website. We’ve included some great features to this page: the graffiti wall: a place where youth from throughout their space can submit their artistic expression through any medium they prefer, an “ask the expert” section for youth with questions about resilience, and a plethora of links and videos from people that inspire us to keep going. Please take a moment to check out our youth page and share it with those you think might be interested!

– Sara Reynolds, Youth Peer Support Lead Trainer

January 05, 2016 by Terri Henrizi Leave a Comment (Edit)

It has been almost a full year now since we first launched ACMH’s new website and we hope that you have found at least some portion of it useful! We are excited to have met last’s year goal for the website which was to create a ‘sense of community and connectedness’ for families of children & youth with mental health challenges across Michigan and enhance their access to timely, relevant information that meets their needs.

We have learned a lot over the last year and are excited to be bringing new features to the site in the upcoming year including new content, regular blog posts, family leadership & advocacy tools, an updated Youth Page, additional training & interactive options and much, much more!

Remember ~ we need you to continue to make the site a success so please feel free to make posts, ask an expert, share your wisdom and provide hope and inspiration to others! Thank you again to all of the parents, youth and community partners who have interacted with and made suggestions for the site. We could not have success without your input, ideas and interaction! We would also like to thank the Flinn Foundation for providing the funding for this online adventure and Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration for their ongoing support and funding of ACMH activities including ACMH’s electronic resources!

The launching of the new ACMH website was not the only exciting thing happening in 2015 however… We also saw the birth of Youth Peer Support as a Medicaid reimbursable public mental health service in Michigan! Michigan’s Youth Peer Support Project is a Statewide Initiative in partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and provides Medicaid reimbursable Youth Peer Support to eligible youth as a part of their treatment plan. ACMH is the Statewide Coordinator & Training Partner for the project and provides initial training and ongoing coaching, supervision, support and technical assistance.

The goals of Youth Peer Support include supporting youth empowerment, assisting youth in developing skills to improve their overall functioning and quality of life, and, working collaboratively with others involved in their youth care. Youth Peer Support services can be in the form of direct support, information sharing and skill building.

The Youth Peer Support service is provided by trained youth peer support specialist. Youth Peer Support Specialists must have lived experience navigating behavioral health systems and must participate in and complete the approved Michigan Department Health and Human Services training curriculum.

ACMH has been a long time supporter of family peer-to-peer support and know the value of this unique type of support. We are excited to see enhanced opportunities and outcomes for the youth involved in public mental health services as this service and support grows across Michigan! For a first hand introduction to this new initiative click Intro to Youth Peer Support to download a blog entry from one of our Youth Peer Support Project Trainers. To learn more details about the project and youth peer support click here.

We hope that you and your families also had a successful and happy 2015 and are excited as we are to see what 2016 has in store.

Happy New Year!

I can’t tell you how exited we at ACMH are to welcome you to the new ACMH web page. I thought it might be helpful to use this very first blog entry as a way to tell you what we hoped the site would offer when we started off on this grand venture. Later this area will host guest bloggers including parents, youth, community partners and other ‘experts’ in children’s mental health who wish to share their wisdom.

For years we at ACMH have wrestled with the reality that even though we know how incredibly valuable easy access to information and connection to other families who have ‘been there and done that’ is to families of children and youth with mental health challenges; The stark reality is that there will never be enough people, time or dollars to make information and individual family-to-family support readily available to all families across Michigan.

There are over 2 million children under the age of 18 in Michigan and of those 2 million at least 200,000 are children living with a significant mental health disorder. While ACMH has supported thousands of families raising children and youth with emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs across the state in its 27-year history, there are thousands of others that still need support.

We wanted to find a way to increase our capacity to provide statewide parent support education and advocacy in the areas across Michigan where we are not and hope our new website gives us a way to at least have an electronic means to reach out and offer information, connection and support on an on-going basis.

By increasing the number of families who are able to access ongoing information and support on our website, we hope to one step closer to our overarching goal and mission, that All Michigan children and youth with emotional, behavioral, or mental health disorders and their families live in a safe and welcoming community with access to needed services and supports.

Our main goal for the new website was to create a ‘sense of community and connectedness’ for families of kids with mental health challenges in an effort to help them to feel less alone, more supported and hopeful, as well as, give them easy access to timely, relevant information that meets their needs.

We wanted a visit to our site to feel like sitting down with a fellow parent who has “been there, done that.” We tried to take a parent-to-parent approach throughout the site and provide the same types of information you might find while sitting down to coffee with a group of families or attending a support group. We understand that no website can ever replace or compete with real life ‘live’ connections but wanted to have an alternative available for those times and situations when you cannot easily access in-person support.

ACMH understands that a unique connection is formed between parents/caregivers who have walked the walk, experienced blame, shame or the immobilizing fear of not knowing how to help their child, those who have experienced the process of coming to terms with parenting a child with significant mental health needs and those who have found their voice and triumphed. This unique connection has helped hundreds, maybe thousands gain the skills, knowledge, and abilities they need to meet the day-to-day challenges of raising a child with mental health needs. ACMH wants to help families have access to connections!

ACMH also understands that families of children with mental health issues face challenges every day—from behavioral outbursts to homework struggles to navigating the complexities of basic social situations. Sometimes just getting kids off to school, dinner on the table or the kids to bed without incident is considered a major triumph! So when families are searching for information and/or support, finding it should be simple. This new website will allow us to be available to families when they need us, even if the only free time they have is 11 p.m. or in the middle of the night after a crisis when they need a little information or reassurance.

Other Goals of the Website Include, Creating:

• An interactive online community with real time opportunities for families to come together, share information and get support. We wanted the site to have places for you to contribute hoping you’ll feel like an integral ongoing part of the ACMH family and what we do.
• A venue that will help to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues by continuing to raise awareness about children’s mental health and the real issues that youth and their families face.
• A platform for parents and youth to share their story and expertise with others as a way to inform, reduce stigma and ‘normalize’ situations others are facing.
• The capability to host online trainings for family members, community partners and staff.
• A place for feedback where families and others can tell us how we can better serve them and support their needs!

We also hope our site can help you to find the tools you need to better advocate for yourself or your family and empower you to become strong advocates for children’s mental health in your community.

We would like to offer a special heartfelt thanks to the Flinn Foundation for providing funding for us to work with a website company to design and create our new site with all of the wonderful interactive options it contains for families and youth.

We would also like to thank Michigan’s Department of Community Health and SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration for their ongoing support and funding of ACMH activities and electronic resources such as our Website!

We would also like to send a special thank you out to all of the parents, youth and community partners who gave us input on what would be most useful to them on the ACMH website. We could not have created this without your input and ideas!

We will continue to ask all of you for your feedback as we travel along on this great adventure. We will need to know what portions of the site you like, what is missing and what you would like to see more of. The site also provides us with an opportunity to post weekly polls and surveys to get ‘your take’ on important issues, as well as, real time interactive opportunities to meet and share information about important issues related to children’s mental health. We will be counting on all of you to help make our online and real time interactive opportunities to connect to other families and youth a reality.

I’m excited to share that the website has some awesome features that will allow you to easily interact with the website on an ongoing basis. We invite you to share your thoughts and your wisdom, ask questions and provide hope and inspiration to others. There are several parts of the site where you can share including: Ask the Expert, the Manual, Online Discussions, and the Youth Page where young people can showcase creative writing, artwork or photography. You can also join us as a Guest Blogger.

Please know that this website was created for you! We want it to meet your needs and for you to feel like you are a part of it’s success. So please be sure to let us know your thoughts and participate. With your help we can reach our dream to have an online community that connects, supports, inspires, and provides hope and that authentic family-to-family support that we all know is so valuable!

Again, welcome everyone and please enjoy exploring the site!