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Central Florida drop-in center opens as peer support gains traction for mental health, substance abuse

Orlando Sentinel - 1/31/2020

Jan. 31--Yasmin Flasterstein was a young psychology student working with survivors of Orlando'sPulse nightclub shooting in 2016 when she was raped at gunpoint in her own home. Days later, she witnessed her roommate kill himself in front of her.

The trauma was debilitating at first. But not for long.

"Every single person that I had met throughout my journey of mental health advocacy before then -- every person that I had told to keep fighting and who had the strength to recover -- I just felt like a hypocrite if I didn't do it myself," she said. "So some days, fighting meant just getting up to brush my teeth and going back to bed."

But it also meant starting a new nonprofit organization. Flasterstein, now 25 and a UCF graduate, is the co-founder of Peer Support Space Inc., a grassroots agency working to empower people with mental health and substance abuse challenges through support from others who have been in their shoes.

It's also helping to lead a local movement for more professional peer support specialists -- workers who have successfully navigated their own recovery process and are trained and certified by the state. National research has found their work can reduce hospitalizations and overall costs while increasing life satisfaction and social functioning, and it can be an adjunct -- or alternative -- to traditional treatment.

Since opening a year ago, Peer Support Space has hosted 148 community events and started a network of a dozen peer-led support groups, reaching over 2,200 people. This weekend, it opens a drop-in mental health center in Kissimmee in a two-story 1906 home owned by Park Place Behavioral Health Care, Osceola County's community mental health provider, which supports the mission.

At least four days a week, the facility will offer anyone who needs it trained peer support specialists.

"They'll have a safe space where, if, say, they don't have an appointment with their therapist for a week and they just want to vent to a peer specialist, they can do that," Flasterstein said. "They can check out art supplies [or] self-care books. We have a massage chair, a swing set chair, weighted blankets, a bunch of stress balls [and] over 50 fuzzy blankets. We have a full commercial kitchen so eventually we'll have cooking classes."

The center also will have an "introvert room" for anyone who is feeling isolated and doesn't want to talk but needs some sort of human connection.

"I really felt like the hardest part in my recovery was just this feeling of being alone," Flasterstein said. "And that's why the idea of Peer Support Space was so important to me, because I know other people don't have support systems. Sometimes I compare it to the LGBTQ+ community because your parents may love you, but not affirm the fact that you're gay. And the same thing happens with mental health, where your parents love you, but just [tell you to] 'think positive,' right? Like, 'You know, we all get sad.' They don't fully get it."

But plenty of other people do, and their ranks are growing.

Once limited to volunteers -- such as sponsors in 12-step groups like Alcoholic Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous -- there is increasing demand for professional peer support specialists. Some state and federal grants now require the workers, also known as peer specialists or recovery peer specialists, when they give funding to behavioral health facilities, especially those that treat addiction.

There's also a state board for credentialing peer specialists who meet stringent requirements. Applicants must pass a background check, submit endorsements, pay fees, put in 500 hours of volunteer or paid work in the field and have at least two years in recovery.

Flasterstein herself is working toward her credential, as are some of the others from her organization who will staff the drop-in center, while some are already certified.

But elsewhere, the Level 2 background check has proved to be a barrier for applicants, particularly those working in substance abuse. The "lived experience" required of them often means they have arrest histories that disqualify them.

"Peer support is a very valuable thing," said Jim Shanks, president and CEO of Park Place Behavioral Healthcare. "We've got three peer specialists on staff now, and we'd like to have another two or three more if we can find people who have made it past these bureaucratic hurdles."

With a national shortage of psychiatrists and the expense of therapy, researchers and advocates have found peer specialists "one promising workforce to close the gap between needing and receiving treatment," according to a national analysis released last summer by the University of Michigan. The study found a quarter of mental health facilities and over half of substance abuse treatment centers offered peer services in 2018.

"I will tell you as a provider -- and I think this is true for all of us -- we all listen better to people we feel understand us and have been through what we've been through," said Katherine Schroeder, vice president of acute care outpatient programs for Aspire Health Partners, the region's largest behavioral health nonprofit. "So often they can get through in ways our clinicians can't. They can say, 'Look, I've been through the crisis unit five times' or 'I was deep in my addiction ...' and when you're a clinician, you have professional boundaries that tell you there is a limit to what you should share."

According to the Peer Support Coalition of Florida, which offers training and networking for peer specialists, there were 542 credentialed professionals in the state as of November. Co-executive director Cameron Wood said he not only supports the new drop-in center; he'd like to see more like it.

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So, too, would Flasterstein, who hopes to help establish a series of such facilities throughout Central Florida and to add a weeklong respite option to the new center in Kissimmee. But that will take money -- at least $500,000 to cover the cost of full-time employees and maintenance for an around-the-clock operation.

"The research shows that someone who stays one night at the respite has 70% less hospitalization in the course of that year," she said. "So the state would save money by paying to have a peer respite program."

Meanwhile, she has been buoyed by the response of supporters who, like her, are in their own journey of recovery.

"We couldn't have done this without the work of over 200 volunteers who have made our renovations possible so far," she said. "Our slogan is, 'Where chosen family heals together.' It's this idea of having a family that accepts all of you, including when you're not OK."

ksantich@orlandosentinel.com

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