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This past year has been one of challenge and opportunity for my co-worker, Linda Goldman and myself. January 2000 we were hired to promote self-help techniques at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens County. Concerned Citizens for Creedmoor/Federation of Organizations, a not-for-profit organization based on Long Island, employs us as Self-Help Advocates. We try to lead by example and let the in-patients here know that there is a life for them outside the community; that a diagnosis of mental illness is not a life sentence of hospitalizations.

Prior to being employed at Federation of Organizations and working at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Linda and I received training to become Peer Specialists at the Howie The Harp Peer Specialist Training and Advocacy Center. We reviewed topics such as Conflict Resolution, Stress Management and Group Dynamics. All of this training, as well as the fact that we both worked at clubhouses have prepared us for our careers here. Howie The Harp, I would say is a valuable asset for any peer's resume. It made a difference in our getting hired.

Linda worked at a clubhouse prior to working at Federation: Community Access-Cooper Club. There, she helped people with their housing needs, coordinated the Speakers Bureau and put together the Advocacy/Assertiveness Workshop, which she does, on all the inpatient wards at Creedmoor. I was previously working at Transitional Services for New York's New Challenges Community Center, which is a psychological club in Jamaica, Queens. There I helped members prepare meals and facilitated an Exercise Group and Stress Reduction Group.

Some of the groups Linda and I facilitate at Creedmoor are Goal Setting. Communication Skills, Coping Skills and Problem Solving. We do these groups in different sites in the hospital and with different groups of patients.

We've gotten positive responses from the staff and patients here. The patients see us as people who have "been through the same situation." They look at us as role models that have successfully negotiated the system and are now sharing our strengths and success stories. The staff values our addition in the hospital as well. They see us as bridging the gap in the treatment team. We offer an understanding of the patients the other staff doesn't have.

Some of the committee assignments that Linda and I have gotten are the MICA Committee and the Aggression/Fights Committee. Once again we are valued for the insight into the patient's way of thinking.

One other committee assignment I found interesting was The Preventing and Managing Crisis Situations Committee. We were asked to participate in training all the ward staff on how to become aware of issues that lead to crisis and how to de-escalate them before they require restraints. In this role we are introduced to the ward staff of every floor and tell them our ideas. At first I was reluctant to have this be the vehicle that I am introduced to the hospital. I thought I should be presented as just another employee. I didn't want anyone to recognize me as the "patient staff."

I now see this differently. The staff and patients have for a long time seen the staff as all knowing and the patients as weak and in need of care. In fact many of the patients we meet are positive, articulate, intelligent and determined. We have received plenty of advice from them as to our roles here. I have been introduced as the patient that is recovering from mental illness as supportive of the goals of all the patients here, which is discharge.

I enjoy working with Linda and my supervisors Jo Nuzzo of Concerned Citizens for Creedmoor/Federation of Organizations and Ellen Gordon, the Self-Help Liaison at Creedmoor. Our team is competent and functional. Jo and Ellen give us lots of encouragement and there is always something new and positive coming up. In the future I see us continuing our work with the inpatients while expanding to work with some of our outpatients at Creedmoor's clinics in Queens.