Wellness—it’s essential to living a full and productive life. We may have different ideas about what wellness means, but it involves a set of skills and strategies that prevent the onset or shorten the duration of illness and promote recovery and well-being. It’s about keeping healthy as well as getting healthy.

This May is Mental Health Month, the Mississippi Department of Mental Health is spreading the word about why pathways to wellness are so important.

Pathways to Wellness— this year’s theme of May is Mental Health Month—calls attention to strategies and approaches that help all Americans achieve wellness and good mental and overall health.

Wellness is more than an absence of disease. It involves complete general, mental and social well-being. And mental health is an essential component of overall health and well-being. The fact is our overall well-being is tied to the balance that exists between our emotional, physical, spiritual and mental health.

Whatever our situation, we are all at risk of stress given the demands of daily life and the challenges it brings—at home, at work and in life. Steps that build and maintain well-being and help us all achieve wellness involve a balanced diet, regular exercise, enough sleep, a sense of self-worth, development of coping skills that promote resiliency, emotional awareness, and connections to family, friends and the community.

These steps should be complemented by taking stock of one’s well-being through regular mental health checkups. Just as we check our blood pressure and get cancer screenings, it’s a good idea to take periodic reading of our emotional well-being. One recent study said everyone should get their mental health checked as often as they get a physical, and many doctors routinely screen for mental health, which typically include a series of questions about lifestyle, eating and drinking habits and mental wellness. But a checkup doesn’t necessarily require a special trip to the doctor. There are also online screening tools you can use. While conditions like depression are common—roughly 1 in 5 Americans have a mental health condition—they are extremely treatable.

Fully embracing the concept of wellness not only improves health in the mind, body and spirit, but also maximizes one’s potential to lead a full and productive life. Using strategies that promote resiliency and strengthen mental health and prevent mental health and substance use conditions lead to improved general health and a healthier society: greater academic achievement by our children, a more productive economy, and families that stay together.

For more information, click here.

Wendy D. Bailey

Director of Public Information

Mississippi Department of Mental Health

601-359-1288

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Sandra Parks and Pam Smith of DMH wrote the proposal with collaboration from Judge Bill Skinner at Hinds County Youth Court, August Patton and Marva Clark from Hinds Behavioral Health Services, Ray Simms and Zach Pattie from the Department of Public Safety, and Annie Gray from MS Families As Allies.

These eight individuals traveled to Washington D.C. in June to develop a plan for:

• increasing communication among local agencies in Hinds County;
• maximizing existing funding streams and explore grant opportunities;
• improving the screening and assessment of youth at the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center; and
• improving follow-through for those youth referred to other agencies/programs.

The first “home” team meeting was held June 13 and included participation from the Department of Human Services, Division of Medicaid, Henley Young Juvenile Justice Center, Hinds County Youth Court, Hinds Behavioral Health Services, MS Families As Allies, Department of Public Safety, DMH’s Division of Children & Youth Services, and DMH’s Bureau of Alcohol & Drug Services.

The CPSS Training is an intensive 34 hour course followed by a written exam. The CPSS curriculum was developed by Ike Powell and Larry Fricks of the nationally and internationally-recognized Appalachian Consulting Group (ACG). Larry Fricks’ recovery story was published by HarperCollins in the New York Time’s best-selling book Strong at the Broken Places by Richard M. Cohen and was featured on the Today Show.

The CPSS training was attended by 23 individuals who self-identify as a family member or an individual who received or is currently receiving mental health services. Upon completion of the training, successfully passing the CPSS examinations, and obtaining employment by a DMH certified provider, participates will become Certified as Peer Support Specialists. The CPSS Program provides acknowledgment that the peer has met a set of requirements necessary to provide support to individuals with mental health, substance abuse, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and or family members. The training and certification process prepares CPSSs to promote hope, personal responsibility, empowerment, education, and self-determination in the communities in which they serve

Under the general supervision of a mental health professional, a CPSS may perform a wide range of peer support services. Peer support services include advocacy, education, development of natural supports, and support of work or other meaningful activity of the person’s choosing. Services may also include crisis support, wellness activities, effective utilization of the service delivery systems, service coordination and linkage to other service providers.

Key to the successful implementation of CPSSs in service delivery roles is the understanding of what creates recovery and how to build environments conducive to recovery. This role is not interchangeable with traditional staff that works from the perspective of their training and status as licensed health care providers. Certified Peer Specialists work from the perspective of “having been there.” Through their lived experience with recovery, they lend unique insight into mental illness, substance abuse, and intellectual and developmental disability and what makes recovery possible.

Certified Peer Support Specialist are first degree family members and/or people living in recovery with mental illness, substance abuse, and intellectual and developmental disabilities that provide support to others who can benefit from their lived experiences. Mississippi defines recovery as “a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.”

CPSS Training participants are preparing for the upcoming CPSS examination and excited about the opportunity to provide peer support to others. Del Pilar Clemente stated, “The CPSS training is a beautiful opportunity to be a part of the solution. Society as we know it will be taken by storm with this new concept.”

After successful completion of the training, the participants will join 17 CPSS certified by the DMH PLACE Review Board.