Boston Globe  2007

Jesse J. Chatmon  Ph.D.  MCSE  CNA was  in a Clubhouse therapy group last year, but this time as a leader-Mayor of New Dimensions Clubhouse in Simpson County Mississippi, listening carefully as members laid bare the pain of their fears and compulsions. When he delicately pointed the way, it was often in the first person, using his own hard lessons learned:

"Our lives are at stake," he told members. "It takes a lot of courage to walk a path of recovery, and each one of us develops our own path."

Mississippiis beginning to develop a corps of people like Dr. Chatmon who have been through the depths of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression, and recovered enough that they can help others with mental illness.

Such comradely aid has long been exchanged informally, or scattershot at mental health venues. But now the state of Georgia and Maine has launched a new job category -- certified peer specialist -- meant to formalize these relationships and gradually, they hope, get peer counseling reimbursed routinely by insurers and Medicaid.

"There's something about receiving support from someone who's gone through exactly what you're going through now that people find invaluable," said Dr. Chatmon, a long time  advocate for mental health services.

A few handfuls of X-Mental Patients including Dr. Chatmon, have completed the eight -day training session and exams to be certified as peer specialists.

The new field must work through many possible problems, from the potential for relapse among specialists to the potential for resistance from more traditional mental health staffers. But We expect the state's corps to grow to hundreds.

Massachusetts is redesigning its mental health system to be more user-friendly, he said, and "peer support is a fundamental element of that redesigned system." In the coming months, Massachusetts will be setting up six regional centers where peer specialists will work with clients and support each other in their fledgling vocation, Dr. Chatmon said .

The concept has taken off in 30 states. In half a dozen, Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor and chronically ill, pays for the services, said Paolo del Vecchio, associate director for consumer affairs at the federal government's Center for Mental Health Services.

"Over the past five years, we've really seen the development of a new mental health profession emerging," he said.

The growth of the peer specialist profession comes against the backdrop of a sweeping national shift toward greater optimism that those in dire condition may improve or recover, and toward giving people with mental illness more control over the help they get. People with mental illness are not passive patients, the thinking goes; they can help themselves and as they get better, they can help others .

Jason's House is such a Place....