1. pg. 1 Peer Connections Summer 2011
IPS EMPOWERS PEERS ON THE PEER RECOVERY WARMLINE
Matthew M. Doherty, Peer Specialist, Peer Recovery WarmLine.
For many decades now, the 12‐Step Programs have been grounded in a fellowship‐
based, peer‐to‐peer oriented method of recovery, and this has shown positive results.
With the advent of Shery Mead’s Intentional Peer Support (IPS) for mental health, this
peer‐based model is now inching towards having a bigger role on the stage of the
mental health community, whereas it took center stage in addiction recovery some time
ago, and has saved the lives of many.
As information about peer delivered mental health services becomes available, both
mental health workers and individuals dealing with their own mental health issues are
watching the outcomes. Many are hoping these services will show the efficacy in mental
wellness that the 12‐Step model demonstrates in addiction recovery.
IPS is not about solving someone else’s problems, nor is it about giving advice on how to
solve another’s dilemma. It is about communication, and learning as peers about how

2. pg. 2 Peer Connections Summer 2011
and why mental health consumers feel the way they do, and what they share in
common as regular people, as opposed to “bipolar” or “schizophrenic” people. IPS is
about discovering the uniqueness and novelty in every thought to be had, focusing on
the thoughts that are shared, and also giving attention to the thoughts that remain
“unspoken.” It’s about asking the question, “What happened to you?” as opposed to
asking the more negatively‐slanted and stigmatizing question, “What’s wrong with
you?”
IPS is about trust, and Mead has delineated several different steps one must take in
order to establish a true trust between the peers, rather than reenacting the procedures
mental health consumers undergo when they see licensed professionals, where they
may frequently experience some intimidation. Connection, Worldview, Mutuality, and
Positive Growth towards the future are some of the staples ‐‐ or mainstays ‐‐ of IPS. IPS
should ‐‐ and does ‐‐ create a peer‐based atmosphere where peers can learn and grow
with one another, with virtually no threatening overtone, nor undertone, to the
conversational endeavor.
In IPS, a standard is maintained where the peers are not moving away from the
negativity in their lives but, rather, are moving towards living positive and manageable
lives. As with any type of interpersonal relationship, some peers get along better with
specific peers, and on the Peer Recovery WarmLine of the Mental Health Association in
New Jersey (MHANJ), specific callers frequently, patiently await their most trusted call

3. pg. 3 Peer Connections Summer 2011
center personnel to pick up the phone with a warm “Thank you for calling the Peer
Recovery WarmLine.”
Callers use the Peer Recovery WarmLine for varying reasons, and with a varying degree
of urgency concerning their issues. One caller frequently describes her state of being as
akin to a sailboat on rocky waters. In her case, the peer specialists oftentimes focus on
her wellness tools, adding new skills to help her recognize her own assets in life, and
also on how to focus and build on her many successes. A specific example here is that
the caller has an autistic daughter; whereas the caller can and sometimes does choose
to focus on the hardships involved in this, she makes progress by choosing to focus on
her daughter’s successes, including that her daughter has been invited to become
involved in a program where she will ready herself to enter the workforce. Another
caller, who has issues that would be considered far more serious by many mental health
professionals, is learning to avoid sharing her most serious dilemmas with people with
whom she cannot trust 100 percent; and, instead, is becoming more adept at allowing
her paid mental health providers to help her with these more serious problems. At first,
when she began calling, she was very focused on rehashing tragedies of the past; but as
she became involved in IPS, she began to recognize, on her own, that bringing these
issues up in social settings puts a rift between her and others, and recently she
proclaimed that she would prefer to live in the solution rather than in the problem – to
avoid burdening others who are not prepared to help her cope with the issues.

4. pg. 4 Peer Connections Summer 2011
Hopefully she will find new successes in making friends with her improved strategy –
only the future will tell.
Something else IPS does, for the Peer Specialists working on the WarmLine, is that it
allows for a feeling of empowerment in reestablishing that they, too, can do valuable
work in mental health, and that the years (for some, many years) they have spent
learning about mental health from professionals via their own treatment can be put to a
good use, and can help them…to help others!
IPS is about doing the best one can, and striving for “progress, not perfection,” to use an
old 12‐Step mantra.
Most of all, it is about equality.
http://www.mentalhealthpeers.com/aboutshery.html