Authored by Sarah Yousuf, MHLAC Senior Staff Attorney and Legislative Coordinator
Mental health awareness month serves as an ideal moment to highlight and celebrate the wide array of approaches to treating mental health needs. No two individuals are alike when it comes to addressing such needs. Yet alternative treatments are not sufficiently available and are too often ignored by providers who reflexively prescribe psychiatric medications, even when other less invasive options are available. MHLAC supports alternative models to treating mental health conditions, including peer respites and peer support services.
Currently, police are frequently called to deal with someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis, though they often lack the expertise and understanding to help. The person undergoing crisis will then be transported to either the hospital or jail, which leads the individual into a labyrinth of deeper systems involvement, exposing them to additional trauma and stigmatization. A different approach to treating crisis involves the peer respite model. Peer respites provide reprieve from crisis. They are safe homelike settings that are run by peer specialists – people who have lived experience of mental health concerns. These specialists are well-suited to support others undergoing mental health crisis.
Peer respites emphasize a person’s autonomy and one’s right to decide the treatment best attuned to their needs, even while undergoing crisis. These values are reflected in how peer respites are operated – people experiencing crisis can stay for up to two weeks and are free to come and go from the respite within that time frame. They are not told how to behave. They can choose whether they want to interact with staff or others in the house as they see fit. Peer respites allow someone undergoing crisis to experience the crisis the way that they need to, while in a safe setting.
Contrast this model to involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC), which focuses on mandated, court-ordered treatment for someone with mental health conditions. IOC has the potential to amplify the crisis that someone is already going through, because it suborns individual choice and threatens punishment if individuals don’t comply with the prescribed treatment (again, usually medication). It pushes individuals further into systems involvement.
Research does not support the efficacy of IOC. Instead of focusing on punitive and counterproductive models, alternatives such as peer respites embrace the right and freedom of an individual to choose how best to address their own mental health needs. We must fund models that elevate the dignity, autonomy, and humanity of the person. It is not possible to get to the root causes of trauma while we are generating more of it.
Ultimately, peer respites are better than traditional approaches in preventing new and addressing past trauma. However, they are not employed enough because too few respite centers are available. Accordingly, MHLAC is working in coalition with other organizations to pass S.1238/H.3602 – An Act Establishing Peer Respite Centers Throughout the Commonwealth. This legislation will establish a peer respite in every county within the Commonwealth. More information on this bill can be found here.
Join MHLAC and the Massachusetts Peer Respite Coalition on June 21st at 11am at the State House to advocate for the passage of S.1238/H.3602. For more information on how to support MHLAC’s peer respite work, please contact Sarah Yousuf, Senior Supervising Attorney and Legislative Coordinator, at syousuf@mhlac.org