Recovery – Promoting Heart Healthy Lifestyles

The Main Place has been promoting ‘heart healthy’ practices as part of its overall programming for a number of years. We, (our board, members and staff), adopted the use of numerous tools that promote recovery and well-being (i.e WRAP, WMR, etc…), and as we have, we have taken quiet and persistent action to improve the overall health of persons who choose to work on their recovery at TMP. We have paid more attention to the food that we serve, implemented ‘portion control’ and limited ‘seconds’, made sure there was color in each plate (fruits and vegetables), and limited carbohydrates. We provided education and support for managing diabetes and smoking cessation.

Since June 1, with the help of a grant we received from SAMHSA, TMP has collaborated with The P.E.E.R. Centers in Franklin County, and Safe Harbor Peer Support Services in Delaware and Morrow Counties, seeking to educate consumers and providers about the importance of promoting and living heart healthy lifestyles. Recent data from multiple sources points out the sobering fact that persons experiencing severe and persistent mental illness are likely to die 20-25 years younger than the average person in the US. With that knowledge, our centers sought to do what our brothers and sisters in 12 step programs do to achieve the goals of their recovery.

To achieve change: 

1) We had to have a clear goal and we had to work a program, 

2) We had to replace old habits with new habits so that our mind and bodies adapted to and embraced this change, 

 3) We had to come together frequently to increase our commitment to achieve and maintain these changes, and 

 4) take what was learned from each other in coming together and practice that in our lives.

In June 2012 more than 100 consumers from throughout central Ohio, members of The Main Place in Licking and Knox Counties, The P.E.E.R. Centers in Franklin County, and Safe Harbor Peer Support Services in Delaware and Morrow Counties, made a commitment to achieving a personal wellness goal of their choice. They have worked on their goals at least three times per week over the past three and a half months. On September 5 and 6, 2012 they will be recognized for their progress and the commitment they have made at the Region 9, OEC Annual Conference.

As part of the SAMSHA grant, we will be making videos of consumers at the OEC conference as they tell personal stories of the challenges and successes they have had while working to achieve their recovery goals. These videos will be posted to each center’s Facebook page and website. The center’s websites will be linked to each other for peers and other interested parties to view.

As Consumer-Operated Services our biggest challenge will be to keep the momentum generated by these initiatives alive and thriving. Our biggest asset in doing so will be that by coming together, COSs and their members build better lives for ourselves. And, in doing so, we increase the likelihood that persons experiencing serious and persistent mental illness can and will recover.  

Beyond Serendipity

Our blog, Beyond Serendipity, came about as the result of The Main Place, a consumer operated mental health recovery center located in Licking and Knox Counties in Ohio, experience with helping thousands consumers with their recovery. We define recovery as a deeply personal process over overcoming the impact of a psychiatric disability despite its continued presence. Most of our members struggled with having to figure out how to recover on their own, and for most, the process involved having to ‘reinvent that wheel’ for themselves.

Over the past twenty-five TMP has sought to increase the likely hood that persons experiencing serious and persistent mental illness could and would recover. First we asked, what do people need in order to recover? In focus groups, surveys, and by tracking what consumers were working on in their recovery, the top four unmet needs, in order, were the same every year: Peer and Family Support, Work or Meaningful Activity, Access to Resources and Clinical Care.

Research funded by the Ohio Department of Mental Health had shown that the degree to which consumers felt their needs were being met correlated most with the likelihood they would recover. So combining this knowledge and information TMP has sought to insure that members do recover, and to improve upon ‘serendipity’ as the means by which we recover. Beyond Serendipity will be a collection of stories from peer specialists, members and other interested parties, about their observations and experiences in achieving and facilitating Recovery.