Special Groups Formed at Brooklyn Peer Advocacy Center
The Brooklyn Peer Advocacy Center (BPAC) provides information, referrals, and hands-on assistance to adults with severe and persistent mental illness who are seeking benefits and other community resources. BPAC also offers self-help programs, empowerment and self-advocacy training in nurturing and non-threatening environments. Our services are available to people 18 years of age and over diagnosed with severe and persistent mental illness.
The Benefits of Self-Help
BPAC's Self-Help and Socialization Program mission is to develop groups that will help you tap into a new kind of power to create more personal success and happiness in your life, overcome fear, relieve stress and improve your self-esteem and confidence. Our groups can provide an escape from your daily routine. They are fun and you can learn, grow, and share experiences and points of view.
When we seek to make changes in our lives, it's important that we not just look to make changes in what's going on outside of us but that we also focus on what's going on inside of ourselves. We must focus on what changes we want to make to our thoughts and our feelings. We must seek out ways to learn and grow. What goes on inside you is really much more important than what goes on outside of you.
Self-help groups are based on the premise that sharing with others who have similar problems can be emotionally healing. Our groups are offered to consumers by consumers. Medical and mental health professionals agree that self-help groups can lessen feelings of isolation; increase practical knowledge; sustain coping efforts; replace self-defeating thoughts and actions with wellness-promoting activities; contribute greatly to empowerment; offer realistic hope for the future; improve self-esteem; and decrease hospitalizations.
Self-Help groups have proven to be effective on a number of levels: the act of joining together with others who have walked in our shoes enables us to recognize that we are not alone, that others have had similar experiences and feelings. Often people with mental health diagnoses often do not have the support of family and friends. Our groups can provide some of the support that is missing. Self-help groups can offer a safe place for self-disclosure. They encourage personal responsibility and control over our own treatment. Because group members are actively helping others, we can gain a better sense of our own competence. In addition, in contrast to the professional/client relationship, members of self-help groups are equals.
Our Groups
Our weekly Self-help and Socialization group meets on Tuesday afternoons from 2-3pm in the 3rd floor conference room of 250 Baltic Street in Brooklyn. Some of the recent topics of discussion have been De-Stressing the Holiday season, the place of religion in recovery and negative self-talk. In honor of the holiday season, we took a trip to the Winter Wonderland exhibit at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. At our next meeting, we will decide what movie we would all enjoy seeing and plan the date.
Every other Wednesday, from 12:30-1:30pm, we hold a Housing meeting where clients who are interested in applying for supported housing can obtain the proper applications, get hands-on assistance in completing them and to learn about the types of housing that are available.
Starting Thursday, February 9, 2001, we will be starting an Expressive Arts group where we will explore the wellness benefits of music, movement, writing and art. This group will run on a weekly basis and will be held in the 3rd floor conference room at 250 Baltic Street in Brooklyn.
The Freedom Self-Advocacy Workshop is a three-part training that will educate consumers in how to represent themselves to the benefits agencies. Space is limited but this workshop will be held periodically. Call the BPAC office at (718) 875-7744 for more information.
Future Plans
We are in the process of formulating new groups based on your input, interests and needs. Our immediate goal is to have a group running each day. If there is an area of interest you wish to explore or if there is something that interests you that you would like to share, please call Sara at the BPAC office at (718) 875-7744.
You are not alone -- we know what you are going through, we have gone through it, too.