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Deni On Peer Education
Editor's note: Deni Cohodas is a long-time M-POWER organizer currently involved with the Peer Education Project. Nutshell editor Andrew Palmer interviewed Deni for this report on her current work with the Peer Educators. Andrew Palmer: Tell me about the Peer Education Project. Deni Cohodas: The Peer Education Project is a unique new project where people can learn and discover themselves as— instead of being the helpee— being the helper. So many of us have the experience of being helped, but so many of us don’t. And I mean, in hospitals a sort of natural culture forms; where patients help each other. In any community of people with mental illness that I’ve ever seen people come together and they help each other sort of naturally. What Peer Education does really is put a form around that; it allows people to join a group where the main focus is both to help other consumers, and to be helped. So the person is not just in the role of being more important, or more of an authority, or better than, but in fact an equal to other people who participate in the groups; and I think that makes it really cool. One of the things we use to facilitate the groups is, umm, people come in and learn about being a peer advocate by just going to a couple of groups. And, Umm, then, it’s just y’know, a baptism by fire after three or four groups. Or in fact, however many groups the person is comfortable with, there’s no one set training period for a peer educator. Andrew Palmer: Are there different components to it? There’s a twelve step component.... Deni Cohodas: Yeh there is. There’s double trouble, which is people who have substance abuse histories, and have been labeled with psychiatric disorders; will go to those groups; y’know if they so choose. And for that group there’s a specific sort of requirement: that a peer educator have a year out of the hospital, so that they have some of their own sobriety stuff down. Moe always says the Peer Education Project is about being sane, stable, and sober. so all of the people who facilitate double trouble groups are in a space of being, y’know, feeling better about themselves and now wanting to spread the word. What double trouble does, that’s sort of atypical—that twelve steps may do possibly informally but not always formally—is it accepts the role of medication as a part of the discussion. So in some twelve step groups—but not all, I don’t want to make a judgemental blanket statement—if you talk about your medications you may be told you can’t do that. You can’t talk about the side effects of your medication possibly; or how it feels to be a mental health consumer. But in double trouble groups you can both talk about the alcoholism, the drug abuse, or whatever, and the psychiatric disability. So it opens up a wide array of discussion; where people really want a place where they can talk about that. Naomi is the principal person who finds double trouble leaders in the state. And she does, I think, a very good job of choosing good leaders for those groups. Andrew Palmer: There’s a list of meetings right; a current list of meetings? The winter list is that still current? DC: Yeah, she has a current list, Naomi has a current list, I don’t know if the winter list is current there might be updates. AP: It’s the last one we have for the Nutshell and the website. (Ed. note: see page for the latest double trouble meeting list) DC: There may even be an updated one for that, you should check it out with her. Umm, but there’s a current meeting list. Umm, y’know it’s particularly, the groups can focus in different ways; I know that, umm, I facilitated the CAB recovery meeting at Tewksbury for a while; and what people really needed there, was not just to talk about substance abuse, and not just to talk about drug abuse, but to talk about “I don’t even know where to go to get therapy. I don’t even know what is the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychopharmocologist; I don’t know very basic questions about my own recovery; like where to go?” And so, the person who leads that group generally, umm, Gilda is her name, umm, Gilda Marks, has a lot of basic information in that general area. Like well: “ this is where the day treatment program is; if you want to check it out; and you’re interested in finding out about that; this is where the local therapists are; these are the therapists who deal really good with people with PTSD.” (Ed. note: PTSD stands for: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) She might tell people that information and then they can choose for themselves. AP: How are people made to feel safe in terms of—y’know if it’s held in a mental health facility—are (non-consumer) staff allowed in the meetings? DC: As a rule the way we run the groups is: if staff want to come into a group they’re welcome. Umm, but we ask that everyone who comes to a group be part of the group, which means self-disclosure about your own personal life. AP: Right that’s what I mean; If there’s a staff person where you go; or, whatever, if you’re an inpatient and you’re in a twelve step group discussing very personal issues. DC: Well we expect that person to disclose like anybody else. We tell them that everybody who comes is part of the meeting, so, therefore they’re part of the disclosure. And then some people automatically don’t want to disclose at work; because it doesn’t always fit their therapeutic paradigm. So they don’t choose to attend and share. So they don’t often stay; but some people have; and y’know, often when that has happened it’s actually been really good. AP: So it can be positive when staff attend and show their vulnerable side? DC: When people do, umm, y’know, it can be a good thing. At one group a staff person shared what it felt like to be a single parent and a mental health worker. That actually was a very good thing. When people are willing to disclose about their own lives it helps. Anyone is invited who chooses to become part of the group; not just an observer. The three other of types of groups that happen are 1.) The B.U. Recovery Workbook. This resource is used extensively, especially in the Boston Area. People come and read the workbook or do the workbook. It kinda depends on the group: where they want to be. Y’know, some people really want to do the workbook; other’s want to read the workbook but don’t want to do the homework. So it’s based group by group on individual group needs and desires of that particular group. Umm, so we might read a couple of paragraphs and then talk about how does that paragraph relate to our own recovery and our own lives; and our own experiences. Another format I’ve used is poetry. AP: Oh wow! DC: There’s a lot of ways to do Peer Educator’s! Moe Armstrong wrote a book of poetry which is published by B.U. (title) At the Point After Club in Lawrence we actually read poetry and then discuss the poetry and how it relates to our recovery. Umm, Webster House does puppets; a puppet show. And they talk about these puppets they work with. Umm, there are some groups which sometimes use The Experience of Recovery, it’s a book published by B.U. with diffierent people’s stories of recovery in it. I think that Ray ??? is in there; Judi Chamberlin is in there; I think Dan Fisher’s story may be in there. The book has personal experiences of recovery. A lot of people who’ve been involved in the consumer movement have written stuff in that book about their recovery. And that can be really helpful; because you go through so many different stages. Some of the book’s stories might have just exactly what you’re going through today. That’s the really cool thing that there’s often a common thread that seems to happen in every one of the groups. AP: That’s really good for people who’ve felt isolated. DC: Yeah! And people come and go as they please; y’know, come for fifteen minutes of the group; come for an hour as they’re comfortable. And one of the things that we do is we try to hook people up with their needs. Because I have an advocacy bent if somebody has a practical advocacy situation with a question like “what do I do about this?” One guy had a question about taxes and he hadn’t filed his taxes because he was too sick with his disability and he wanted to know what does he do now? I was trying to get him info who should he call to find out if in fact he could file his taxes late. There’s another person I’m going to be working with to get some language classes some one-to-one tutoring. AP: So would Moe and Naomi have different specialties where a task would go to them. DC: We share info so whoever who happens to be good at a particular thing. Y’know we ask Peer educators hey do you know anybody who does this or anybody who does that? We share amongst ourselves as Peer Educators. We try to help each other if someone needs a small piece of advocacy referral. AP: It’s more about recovery though? DC: Yeah the approach of Peer Educators is recovery, But whenever a group of consumers gets together to talk about recovery there’s always a question about “what can I do, I want to go back to school, or I’m interested in this.” Y’know those questions always come up so we end up trying to find out what we can do for people in their situations. Largely though the focus is on us as a community getting together and trying to be healers to each other. Y’know there’s no one who is any more important than anyone else. I’ve seen facilitators have a bad day. And the group rally’s around this person who has always been there and been helpful. As a community I’ve seen that it’s not at all a one way street and I think that’s very productive. Every time I walk out of a peer educators group I feel happy, sometimes light hearted y’know, umm, because you always feel you’ve accomplished something by sharing, and it’s all about sharing with each other.
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