CPS Blog: Five Things We Learned from Dana Foglesong, MSW, NCPS
When Dana Foglesong first worked with a Peer Support Specialist, she felt a spark of hope for the first time in a long time – she finally had an example of someone who had experienced similar mental health challenges. Since becoming a peer support specialist herself, she feels her insider perspective has given her the ability to make real change. Through her work in Florida and on the board of directors for the International Association of Peer Supporters (iNAPS) she has been able to “expand the peer support workforce in a meaningful way.”
To hear her perspective as a leader in mental health, we sat down with Dana to get her thoughts on the current state and future of peer support. Here are some of the key takeaways from our discussion:
- There has been a huge shift in the way people talk about peer support. Disinterest has turned into “more and more people in positions of leadership, power and connections being the cheerleaders.” It’s become more acceptable for leaders to support peer support, and more acceptable to start telling our mental health stories. “We’re not separating ourselves from other people by our lived experiences – we’re distinguishing ourselves by what we do with it.”
- There is a need for a federal standard occupational classification for peer support specialists through the Department of Labor. With no specific definition for peer support workers or peer specialists, the workforce data (pay, number of peers in the field, etc.) is being rolled into data on community service workers or social workers, meaning there isn’t good data on the specific peer support profession. Recently, she’s been working with others to fix this, developing a definition to submit to the Department of Labor that’s been vetted by over 900 supporters from iNAPS.
- When it comes to supervision, the requirement of a licensed professional can be a significant barrier, particularly if there is no real understanding of the peer specialist’s role. Medicaid-reimbursable peer support requires peer specialists to be supervised by a mental health professional (as defined by the state). When working with providers, she found supervision to be a key tension and area for improvement. In any field, a supervisor needs to deeply understand what the role they are supervising. “The best practice is a peer specialist supervisor who has direct experience with the values and practices of peer support, which ideally would be a peer specialist in a leadership position,” said Dana.
- The ultimate win for the peer support profession will be peer specialists making a living wage. She had a former boss who viewed her lived experience as equivalent to having a four year degree, if not more, and set her salary based on that viewpoint. “Employment for people with lived experience should be breaking the cycle of poverty, not continuing it,” said Dana. To accomplish this, policy makers and providers will need to value lived experience in a way that translates into more pay.
- Mental Health America’s National Certified Peer Specialist (NCPS) certification is an important part of giving legitimacy to the peer support profession. It provides consistency in standards of training, knowledge, and experience that distinguish advanced peer specialists. She values the NCPS certification’s focus on understanding the role of physical health in mental health and working with the medical and clinical side of the field.