Services

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.

In addition to offering day-to-day supports for coping with mental health challenges, Peer Mentors also provide planning services that facilitate recovery by helping residents create the lives they want.  Empowerment Initiatives believes that for most of us, managing or eliminating symptoms is only one component of mental health recovery.  We have seen many times that real and lasting recovery comes from creating whole and integrated lives for ourselves.  One tool Peer Mentors use for helping residents create recovery is Person-Directed planning.  If a resident is interested in having a Person-Directed planning, he/she and the Peer Mentor will gather together the important people in the individual’s life such as friends, family, and their other mental health support staff and invite them to a Person-Directed planning meeting.  During this meeting the group supports the individual to identify what is working and what is not working in his or her life, to develop a big picture of what he or she wants his life to look like, and to identify and outline action steps to create that life.

In addition to facilitating goal and recovery planning and emotional support, Peer Mentors provide the skills training, advocacy, and resource referral that help residents achieve goals and make recovery a reality.  This is shown through the following outcomes:

• Maintaining housing:  Peer Mentors support residents to understand and meet the requirements of their leases.  They help residents understand communication from the property management company, and work with the mental health team to create and implement housing support plans when housing is in jeopardy.
• Increased Employment and productivity:  Peer Mentors help residents with achieving work, volunteer, and education goals by role modeling successful employment while having mental health challenges as well as assisting residents with finding and accessing community resources (Community Solutions, WorkSource, Vocational Rehabilitation, community colleges etc.) that help them achieve these goals.  We also provide Person-Directed planning that creates step-by-step action plans to help residents achieve and maintain employment.
• Healthier Lifestyles:  Peer Mentors provide wellness support by role modeling wellness, helping residents to coordinate with their medical service providers, and helping residents identify wellness resources in the community.  We provide wellness groups on-site and provide peer-led tobacco cessation supports.
• Increased self-sufficiency in daily living skills:  Peer Mentors will offer 1:1 skills training around daily living skills, such as cooking, money management, hygiene, and housecleaning.  They also help residents find community resources that provide these supports such as Independent Living Centers or classes at community centers or colleges.
• Socialization: Peer Mentors provide on-site groups and activities that offer opportunities for socialization and creating community amongst residents.  They also help residents get integrated into the community by getting them connected to activities like classes at the community center and library.

Empowerment Initiatives provides documentation of services and monthly reporting of outcomes to Clackamas County Community Health.  Documentation includes keeping a daily log of services and activities provided, as well as completing incident reports in the event of crisis or emergency.  The Program Coordinator provides a monthly report to Clackamas County Community Health detailing the number and types of supports provided, the number of incident reports, and usage of emergency or police services.

Finally, Empowerment Initiatives is responsible for coordination and communication with other support providers and community stakeholders.  The Program Coordinator meets weekly with the on-site case manager from Clackamas County Community Health and the Peer Mentor staff.  These meetings and regular communication via email and phone are imperative for successful coordination of services available to residents.