Peer Healing in Just 7 Days

Welcome to Brain Stories Connections! Now available in video format available on our Youtube channel, linked above.

When you get an infection, you're liable to take a 7 day course of antibiotics. Get a mental health issue and you might take an hour of therapy. But what if instead, you got 7 full days of empathy - with people who have been there. That's the promise of peer respite. Lindsay Mesa tells us how it works at Rosewood Cottage, a peer respite program in Vermont. In their first year, the results have been astonishing. And at a much lower cost than a psychiatric hospital. 

To learn more about Pathways Vermont in general, click here. Our last episode highlighted another of their peer-based programs, Soteria House. Find that here!

To find out more specifically about Rosewood Cottage Peer Respite, click here. See the preliminary findings of their first year evaluation here. 

To read an excellent feature piece by MindSite News on a peer respite program in Georgia, click here. MindSite is the only national news organization dedicated to covering mental health.  

Oh, and this episode is released on October 10th, World Mental Health Day. We hope you take some extra time today - and every day - for yourself or your loved ones. 

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This episode was edited and co-produced by Kate Rusk-Kosa. Theme music comes to us from Paul Swartzel. It was executive produced by Frank Kosa and Janet Yang.