Empowerment Initiatives’ on-site staff members, the Peer Mentors, provide supports to help the residents of all our supported complexes manage their mental health challenges on a day-to-day basis.  Peer Mentors are available to help residents process their feelings, cope with anxiety as well as identify problems and create safe resolutions.  When residents are struggling with coping and managing symptoms, Peer Mentors are there to offer support, sometimes by giving examples from their own experiences with challenging symptoms, and to help residents identify resources and strategies for coping with, reducing, or eliminating symptoms.  They are also there to promote a supportive and inclusive environment.  They do this through modeling supportive and respectful behavior as well as intervening and mediating when residents are creating a challenging environment for each other.  Because Peer Mentors establish close, supportive relationships with residents, they can sometimes identify early when residents are struggling with increased symptoms and may be headed for crisis.  They communicate concerns to the individuals themselves as well as “activate” the other members of their support teams in order to get help in place before things reach crisis levels.  If things do elevate to the point of crisis or emergency, the Peer Mentors are also be there to help residents access crisis supports like the 24-hour Crisis Line or 911.

Read more: Peer Mentor Services

Empowerment Initiatives’ believes firmly that elimination and/or successful management of mental health symptoms is only the first step in mental health recovery.  We see true recovery as a result of creating a productive, integrated life where mental health challenges are only one part of a person’s identity.  To this end, we use Person-Directed planning to help residents create concrete pictures of what they want their lives to be like, and then help them identify manageable action steps to move in that direction.  We help residents take these steps by connecting them with resources in the community like community college classes, WorkSource programs, Vocational Rehabilitation, and Community Solutions.  We also connect residents with Benefits Planners to help them understand how their benefits work and to dispel the idea that one will lose their benefits if they are employed.  Also, simply through their presence, Peer Mentors model successful employment in spite of mental health challenges.  We continually remind the residents and their support teams that recovery and self-sufficiency are possible for all of us.

Read more: Peer Mentor Approach