Urgent care for Behavioral Health/Substance Abuse Mental Health Services!
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Substance Abuse and Mental Illness CORE CONCEPTS for Direct Support Professionals (DSP)
- Value the concepts of personal wellness and how these concepts apply to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health DSP.
- Understand the reasons for, and methods used, to self-monitor their own Behavioral Health wellness.
- Can define and demonstrate how to communicate (written, verbal, etc.) to the right people when issues of personal wellness interfere with the DSP’s ability to do their job.
- Are able to define and use person-first recovery language at all times to support personal recovery and empowerment.
- Can show understanding of how the DSP’s personal wellness impacts agency standing in the community.
- Know the effect of their personal limits (e.g., when confronted with another individual’s trauma) on their own wellness, and how to maintain their personal wellness.
Substance Abuse and Mental Illness RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
- Value the importance of trustworthiness, how to develop and maintain trust, and the impact of failure to maintain trust.
- Understand and can demonstrate the ability to listen empathetically without judgment (e.g., without presumption of wrongness or formal Behavioral Health assessment), accepting the Substance Abuse and Mental Health individual as he or she is right now.
- Are able to understand and demonstrate the importance of clear verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and how different situations may require different communication skills. Can demonstrate the process of active listening, especially the use of open-ended questions.
- Are able to define and use person-first recovery language at all times to support the development and maintenance of community wide regard for individuals served.
- Understand and can demonstrate the importance of developing and maintaining mutual respect, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard in building personal connections.
- Are able to demonstrate that the DSP knows when and how to share their personal recovery story (e.g. comfort with disclosure, sitting comfortably with silence) in order to establish points of commonality to offer hope and acceptance of recovery.
- Can communicate with coworkers, community members, etc., the importance and creation of a wellness identity, by stripping away the old “illness identity” through open sharing and challenging viewpoints.
- Can define and communicate alternatives to prevent hospitalization and to support individuals served in the community whenever possible.
Substance Abuse and Mental Illness PEER TO PEER INTERACTION
- Can define and demonstrate outreach and engagement skills with individuals served, being aware of such issues as gender, culture, etc., to begin building a relationship.
- Can demonstrate their skills to support the Substance Abuse and Mental Health individual served to develop a wellness identity in order to support the individual’s goals and dreams.
- Can understand their role and the role of others, in accordance with a variety of plans (e.g., WRAP, crisis) and trauma-informed practices, to support the individual served during crisis.
- Can define, model, and mentor recovery values, attitudes, beliefs, and personal actions in order to encourage wellness and resilience for individuals served, and to promote a recovery environment in the community, including home and the workplace.
- Can explore with individuals served, the importance and creation of a wellness identity full of potential and possible futures, by stripping away the old “illness identity” through open sharing and challenging viewpoints.
- Can promote an individual’s opportunity for personal growth by identifying teachable moments for building relationship skills (e.g., assertiveness, conflict resolution, risk taking), in order to empower the individual and enhance personal responsibility.
- Can understand, model, and share, a variety of decision making tools to enhance an individual’s healthy decision making (e.g., harm reduction, pros and cons, etc.).
- Can help individuals served to reestablish themselves as a valued member of the community by providing examples of healthy social interactions and facilitating familiarity with, and connection to, the local community.
- Can discuss what is and is not peer support and how it is different from other therapeutic relationships, with individuals served, team members, and the wider community.
- Understand the value of discussing, documenting, and continuously defining obligations around “safety” and “support” (e.g., issues around self-harm) with the individual served. Are able to build and preserve the relationship between the DPS and the individual served by exploring what has worked and not worked in the past in order to identify effective peer support interactions.
- Understand personal limits and value the importance of the PSS sitting with discomfort and staying in their role as a peer when confronted with an individual’s ability to feel safe, their emotional state, vulnerability, and ability to risk relationships.
- Can recognize and appropriately respond to conditions that constitute an emergency situation to include both physical and behavioral health crisis.
- The DSP is aware of the need to be knowledgeable of and understand the importance of following an employer’s emergency response procedure.