The only peer recovery program offered locally in Spanish is set to resume after receiving $50,000 in state funding.
Through the SMART Recovery Program, Ibero-American Action League trains people who have experienced mental health or substance use problems to serve as peer counselors.
Ibero already had a peer recovery program in place, but had to put it on pause due to a lack of funding. Lucia Colindres, the agency's chief program officer, said peers play a powerful and important role in behavioral health, especially since they can reach people in ways no other type of provider can.
"The value is that they have lived experience versus some of us who have the training skill set, but we're not necessarily connected to those communities," Colindres said. "So they're able to connect in a different way."
Hector Rosario is a community health worker at Father Tracy Advocacy Center, a human services organization on North Clinton Avenue. He's also a peer support specialist, trained through the SMART Recovery Program.
He said being a peer counselor is all about building relationships.
"You got to have that bond with them," Rosario said. "Because sometimes they hide things, and they don't want you to judge them. So by you building a relationship with them, every day they feel more safer and safer and calmer and comfortable with you. And that's when they ask for the help, and we help them out. If we see it, we help them out with no problem."
During a news conference announcing the funding, state Sen. Samra Brouk said trained peer counselors should be a core component of New York's mental health sector. Brouk chairs the Senate's Mental Health Committee.
"They're often able to create trust and build trust with an individual quicker," Brouk said, adding that the peer counselors can then help connect struggling individuals with a provider, psychiatrist, counselor, or other forms of care.
Colindres said that because Ibero previously had a peer recovery program, it has the structure and staff ready to pick the work back up.