Peer support in Brazil: experiences and strategies of inclusion, empowerment and citizenship

Peer support in Brazil: experiences and strategies of inclusion, empowerment and citizenship Clarissa Mendonça Corradi-Webster, Graziela Reis, Elizabeth B.V. Brisola, Cristiana Nelise de Paula Araujo, Éllen Cristina Ricci, Lívia Sicaroni Rufato, Cristina Andrade Sampaio, Mário César Rezende Andrade, José Alberto Orsi, Rosa Alba Sarno Oliveira, Ana Lúcia Cidade, Políbio Campos, Mark N. Costa Journal of Public Mental Health, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.- The purpose of this paper is to describe six recovery-oriented peer support experiences and strategies implemented in different regions of Brazil in the past 12 years, and explore challenges to their development and potential for empowerment and citizenship.In this paper, a group of stakeholders in mental health services involving people with lived experience of severe mental illness describe their experiences with services of peer support. These were all conducted in Brazil and in partnership with the International Recovery and Citizenship Collective (IRCC) and The Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. The authors met monthly to exchange experiences, studies and practices, and six experiences were selected, described, analyzed and compared. A discussion of these experiences, their challenges, impact and potential followed.The explored experiences emphasize that peer support, lived experience leadership and advocacy are feasible in the Brazilian mental health system and can help advance the Bra...
Source: Journal of Public Mental Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research