Transcript ROLE TRANSFORMATION

ROLE
TRANSFORMATION
Key Elements to Successfully Shifting from
Being a Client to Becoming a Staff Member
Presenter: Cynthia Smith, CAC/CPSS, Aiken
Barnwell Mental Health Center
Objectives
The learning objectives for CPSS’s are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
To understand the benefits seeking services
from outside the mental health center
To develop a framework for setting personal
and work boundaries
Developing an “Work” vocabulary
Key Components for Maintaining Your
Recovery
History of Clients as
Employees at SCDMH
Hiring “clients” or self-identified employees
began as an empowerment initiative to bring
current or former users of mental health
services to the management tables of
mental health systems as planners, policymakers, program evaluators, community
educators, and service providers.
Two Types of Self-identified
Client Employees
1.
Client Affairs Coordinators are internal agents
of change who voice the client perspective
during key meetings and policy sessions.
2.
Certified Peer Support Specialists are persons
who have successfully demonstrated their own
efforts at self-directed recovery and who
provide recovery skill building services to
clients.
CPSS Employment Challenge
One of the toughest
moves for some peer
support specialists to
make is the shift from
the client to the provider
role.
WHY Is It A Challenge?
Because staff may still look
at you as a “client” and clients
may see you as “staff”.
They both may do this without
understanding that you did or
still do receive mental health
services.
Employment – Service Policy
Although there is not a SCDMH departmental
policy that states you cannot work where you
receive services, many centers have adopted
policies that does not allow this to happen.

It is NOT a good idea to work where you receive
services for several reasons.
Reasons for Seeking
Services Elsewhere
Allows you to identify
yourself as a staff member
at the agency you work
and be treated accordingly.
1)
Reasons for Seeking
Services Elsewhere
2. Allows you to keep personal and
professional life separate.
If you receive services where you work,
your personal information is available and
may be known to staff.
Receiving services outside the agency
allows you to keep your personal business
private.
Reasons for Seeking
Services Elsewhere
Ethics and policies become
difficult to enforce and are blurred.
3.
As a client you are entitle to all services
and guidelines as any other client;
however, as a staff member you have to
abide by the policies and procedures of
all DMH staff.

This can become a gray area.
Reasons for Seeking
Services Elsewhere
4.
Returning to “client role” in the event
employment does not work out.
In the event employment does not work out the transition
back to the client role can extremely difficult and
awkward.

You now know private information about
your peers and staff.
Setting Personal & Work
Boundaries
Boundaries: Some Key Points
Your recovery expertise and experience
got you where you are today.
1.
Using them to demonstrate a broad
point or recovery concept is an appropriate
use of your experience.
2.
Five Ways You Can Minimize Problems
1.
2)
3)
4)
5)
Don’t bring up personal questions about your
illness, symptoms or medications.
Develop a crisis plan or recovery plan.
Develop a strong support system.
Continue to use the recovery tools you learned
in treatment.
Continue with your treatment if needed.
Boundaries & Your Job
Remember you are a
role model for the clients,
helping them to discover
recovery tools they can use
to move forward in their
personal recovery.
Boundaries for All Employees
Employees should
not discuss their
personal problems
with clients.
Boundaries & Clients
Sharing your recovery experience does not
include giving out information about your:




Medications
Personal Telephone/Cell Phone Numbers
Home Address
Personal Family Issues or Problems
More on Medications…
Never make jokes about
your medications
Statements such as “ I should
have doubled up on my meds
today” or “ Excuse me today I
forgot my medication”… may be
taken seriously by staff and/or
clients and can “blow-up” on
you.
OOPS!
Your Medications…
NEVER use your medication
or symptoms as an excuse at
work.
NEVER allow anyone else the
opportunity to use them
against either!
STOP
Boundaries: All Employees &
Clients
You never have the
right to give out the
personal, private
information of other
employees including
other CPSS’s.
Phone
Address
Personal Information
Danger of Breaking Boundaries
Seeing you as a
“buddy”, can damage
the therapeutic
relationship because
you may no longer be
seen as part of
the treatment team.
Boundaries & Supervision
Boundaries & Supervision
Understand That Your Supervisor
Is NOT Your “Therapist.”
Supervisors have policies to follow. They are
encouraged to refer employees to Employee Assistance
1)
Program for mental health issues.
Boundaries & Supervision
Supervisors cannot
provide therapy in the
supervisor role.
2)
They are available to provide
direction and assistance with your
job duties, provide feedback
regarding your job performance,
lead team meetings and handle
clinical issues.
Boundaries & Supervision
Due to nature of the job, supervisors may not have
time to address your personal issues. Many are caring
people who want to see you get help and ensure you get
the time you need devoted to your problems.
3)
Boundaries, Supervision & Crisis
Response
At any time employees may need to
respond to crises that may involve
threats, police, verbal outbursts,
and other situations which may
make you feel threatened or
uncomfortable.
Before responding you should
know & understand your limits.
Boundaries, Supervision & Crisis
Response
If you feel threatened or uncomfortable, let
someone else handle the situation and
leave. Staying can endanger your safety and
the safety of others and there is a potential
that the client’s agitation can be escalated.
Boundaries & Supervision
All staff may to “debrief”
after an incident. This is
when staff can talk
about the incident, how
it made them feel and air
concerns.
This is not to therapy.
Developing an “Work” Vocabulary
I’m Manic
Developing an “Work” Vocabulary
If you have been a client
of you have probably
developed a “client
vocabulary”. We get
comfortable using these
terms like triggers, off
track, manic, and overwhelmed.
I’m Sorta
Overwhelmed
Today
Developing an “Work” Vocabulary
These are “symptom”
words and should be
used only with your
personal therapist.
Developing an “Work” Vocabulary
When you use a client “ vocabulary”,
staff and other clients may respond to
you as such and question your
wellness.
If you want to step from the client role and
be treated as any other staff member you
have to change your vocabulary.
Developing an “Work” Vocabulary
When responding to codes or
stress you need to be able to
verbalize what you are feeling in a
more appropriate manner.
Instead of “Triggered” you may
say..” That code was a "tuff one”
to describe how it effected you.
Codes can have an effect on all
staff…..
Developing an “Work” Vocabulary
Learn and use appropriate the diagnoses and
symptom vocabulary to:

Aide you when diagnosis and symptoms are
discussed at team meetings.

To help you more accurately describe to the
treatment team problems or issues that the
clients you work with may be experiencing.
Components for Maintaining Your
Recovery
Danger!
The “ I am all better syndrome”…
Your Recovery
The “ I am all better syndrome” has cost more
CPSS staff their jobs than most all other reasons.
When moving into a staff position it can be easy to start
wanting to prove you are like everyone else. In the effort to
“ FIT IN” some Peer Support Specialists have stopped
seeking treatment, stopped taking Medication.
WRONG!!!!
Key Components for Maintaining Your
Recovery
The only way to be able to provide clients with the
tools they need to move forward in recovery is to
be able to effectively stay in recovery.
Components
Not discussing your
treatment & not using
your symptoms as an
excuse will earn you
acceptance and
respect by staff and
clients.
Your Recovery
Staff know that you have to
be, or have been in the
past, a client to get this
job.
Stopping Treatment Will
Not Earn You the
Respect of Staff or Clients.
Points to Remember
Seek treatment outside of your center it keeps your
treatment issues separate from your work responsibilities.
1.
2.
Allow yourself to stay well
Do not assume that because you are a self -identified
staff that other staff do not also seek treatment. We are not
the only staff within DMH that may get mental health
services nor are we the only staff to openly uses our
treatment and recovery skills to help others.
3.
Remember
One of the greatest
thing about being a
CPSS is that probably
for the first time you did
not have to hide your
diagnosis to obtain
employment.
Mental Illness
Recovery Keys
Don’t start being ashamed about
being a client now.
To keep the client part of you
healthy you will never need your
coping skills more than you do
now.
Remember…
Staff and clients will treat you the
by the way you act today.
QUESTIONS
What I always wanted
to ask but was afraid
to……..
Finally Remember…
All self-identified employees serve as
recovery role models for each client,
staff, family and community
member they come into contact with.
The willingness to publicly disclose
their mental illness and triumphs
associated with recovery go a long
way in dispelling the stigma of mental
illness and prove that treatment
works.
Self-Identified
Employees Are
HEROS!!!
THANK YOU!!!
ROLE TRANSFORMATION: Key Elements to
Successfully Shifting from Being a Client to
Becoming a Staff Member
Cynthia Smith, CAC/CPSS, Aiken Barnwell
Mental Health Center