The Peer Placement Program
SCBHN’s largest program recruits, selects, trains, and places people in long-term recovery from mental illness and substance abuse into jobs as peers at behavioral health agencies. The agencies pay SCBHN a fee which covers the peer’s salary, insurance, training, overhead and supervision. Our 30 peers currently work in a wide variety of jobs at 7 agencies. They serve as peer counselors in an outpatient program, staff the crisis unit waiting room at a mental health center, work with people newly released from prison and hospitals at transitional housing and scattered site housing projects, run groups for people in early recovery, provide a listening ear to people in crisis at a psychiatric emergency room, etc.
The peer program has evolved over 10 years into a cost effective service for agencies while improving their ability to help people who trust others who have experienced the problems they are going through more than professionals. Our success is based, we think, on our dual supervision model. Each peer employee has two supervisors. One works for the agency in which he or she is placed and provides daily task supervision. The other supervisor works for SCBHN and meets with the peers to improve their skills, handles problems that arise on the job, as well as facilitating group peer supervision sessions in which the peers share experiences and advice.
The Safe Harbor Warmline Is Here to Keep You Company
The peers at the Safe Harbor Warm-line talk to people who have psychiatric or substance abuse problems in the New Haven area. Our line is open every night of the year from 5:00 until 10:00 p.m. We are there at our phone even on holidays. People can call us and talk about almost anything. We are a "warm-line� and not a "crisis line�. A warm-line is just for company and to help off-set the most lonesome time of the evening. All phone calls are confidential. You can give us your name or choose not to.
All of our operators are in recovery and have been so for several years and have had special training. They know what it is like to be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness or substance abuse. They "have been there and done that," so they have an idea of what people are feeling and living with. Because they are peers they bring a special understanding and perspective to a conversation.
Each operator has a regular night on duty. Every caller can talk for 15 minutes and can call back again after 8:30 and talk for an additional 10 minutes. We know that this is not a long conversation but it does help to break up those long empty evenings. Also it is often a good way to get feedback on something that you might have on your mind. Our number is (800) 258-1528.
Yale-New Haven Hospital and Connecticut Mental Health Center Peer Support Team
The Peer Support Program (PSP) is based in Acute Services, located in the lobby of the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC). It is staffed by peers who are successfully managing their own recovery from mental illness, substance abuse, or both. They try to relate to the clients' experiences and to provide them with information about various psychiatric illnesses, programs at CMHC, and a multitude of community resources. The Peers also engage in conversations with the clients at CMHC, where they listen to and support people on their path to recovery. The PSP also provides the Yale-New Haven Hospital's Crisis Intervention Unit (CIU) with Peer Support services each weekday; like Peers located at CMHC, these Peers also provide information, support, and encouragement to people hospitalized in the CIU.
A current Peer in this program states: "It feels so good to be able to help people and to be a walking example that, if I can do it, they can too.�
Treatment Access Program (TAP)
TAP is a multi-agency program coordinated and funded by SCBHN. It provides opportunities for homeless people living in shelters to move into sober houses, where A.A. meetings, employment counseling, and the help of other people in recovery are available. Case management is provided by Columbus House, the Outreach and Engagement Team of CMHC, and other participating agencies. SCBHN coordinates weekly rounds and makes payments to the sober houses.
South Central Crisis Program
The crisis program takes over answering the phones of the 15 participating agencies in the New Haven area at 5pm each night as well as on weekends and holidays. People who call those agencies and state that they are patients in crisis are passed through to master's level social workers who help them figure out what makes sense for them. Most people can talk through their issue with the clinician, but for those who can't an ambulance can be dispatched or they can be told to go to the Emergency Room. A mobile crisis clinician is also available to go to people's homes from 5pm-10pm during the week and 9am-10pm on the weekends.
Grants Program
SCBHN makes grants to both mental health and substance abuse consumers for projects they want to do. Grants can be for paying for school, taking a trip, starting a new business. a community service project or for most worthwhile projects. An application can be downloaded from this site and should be mailed to SCBHN or faxed
