NAMI of Eastern Oregon
Peer-to-Peer Information
Click below or contact NAMI of Eastern Oregon for additional information, media and resources on NAMI's Family-to-Family education program.
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Peer-to-Peer Recovery
NAMI's Peer-to-Peer recovery program is a unique, experiential learning curriculum for people with any serious mental illness who are interested in establishing and maintaining their wellness and recovery.
The course was written by Kathryn Cohan McNulty, a person with a psychiatric disability who is also a former provider and manager in the mental health field and a longtime mutual support group member and facilitator.
An advisory board of NAMI consumer members, in consultation with Joyce Burland, PhD, author of the successful NAMI Family-to-Family education program, helped guide the curriculum’s development. Since 2005, NAMI’s Peer-to-Peer recovery program has been supported by AstraZeneca.
Peer-to-Peer consists of nine two-hour units and is taught by a team of three trained 'Mentors' who are personally experienced at living well with mental illness.
Mentors are trained in weekend-long training sessions, supplied with teaching manuals, and are paid a stipend for each course they teach.
Participants come away from the course with a binder of hand-out materials, as well as many other tangible resources including:
An advance directive; a “relapse prevention plan” to help identify tell-tale feelings, thoughts, behavior, or events that may warn of impending relapse and to organize for intervention; mindfulness exercises to help focus and calm thinking; and survival skills for working with providers and the general public.
