Category Archives: PROS Services

PROS programs offer individuals a customized array of recovery-oriented services, both in traditional program settings and in off-site locations where such individuals live, learn, work or socialize.

NYAPRS PROS Implementation Academy in Albany on November 15-16, 2012

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

The 3rd Annual NYAPRS PROS Implementation Academy, Meeting the Challenge: Developing the Tools for Today and Tomorrow,  will be at the Holiday Inn – Turf on Wolf Road in Albany, NY on November 15 and 16, 2012. NYAPRS develops the PROS Implementation Academy curriculum in collaboration with the New York State Office of Mental Health,  the Center for Practice Innovations and PROS providers from across New York State.

Every PROS program that registers to attend the PROS Academy will receive a free copy of the NYAPRS Employment and Economic Self-Sufficiency Workbook for People in Recovery and Curriculum Provider Guide. 

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Posted in PROS Services

WE Can Save Campaign Participant Workbook: A Workbook for People in Recovery Seeking Economic Self-Sufficiency

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment


 

 

NYAPRS is pleased to announce the release of the WE Can Save Campaign Participant Workbook: A Workbook for People in Recovery Seeking Economic Self-Sufficiency.

Poverty and dependency are two of the most important barriers to psychiatric rehabilitation, recovery and wellness. Our conversations with hundreds of people in recovery have shown us that most of them have a strong desire to work, earn higher income, gain control over their personal finances, build assets, and achieve greater levels of self-sufficiency. Our surveys with practitioners also tell us that many of them want to help but do not necessarily know how. This 104-page workbook offers individuals in recovery practical information, useful worksheets, and inspiring personal stories of recovery and economic self-sufficiency; and provides practitioners with tools to support individuals to develop their readiness, create an individualized plan of action, and develop their financial skills (e.g., budgeting, accessing work incentives, filing taxes, saving, clearing and building credit).

The price of the Participant Workbook is $17.00 (for practitioners, organizational purchases and mail-in purchases). Individuals in recovery may purchase a copy at the subsidized rate of $8.00 at onsite exhibit tables, events, or when purchased directly from NYAPRS staff.

Download the WE Can Work/WE Can Save Order Form

View the Participant Workbook Table of Contents and Introduction

View a sample of a Participant Workbook Handout

View a sample of a Participant Workbook Worksheet

View a sample of a financial education Skill module

View a sample of a Personal Story of Recovery and Economic Self-Sufficiency

If you are a service provider, we have some other good news for you. Our team has also developed A Provider’s Guide to Promoting Economic Self-Sufficiency: A Recovery-Oriented Approach. The goal of this companion provider guide is to offer practitioners a recovery-oriented service framework, tools and curricula to work with people in recovery either in one-on-one or group settings. This Provider Guide will be released and available in mid-September 2011.

View the Provider Guide Table of Contents and Introduction

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Posted in Benefits and Financial Management, Intensive Rehabilitation Goal Acquisition, PROS Services

Inspired to Be Hired: Genuine Community Circles Curriculum

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out Noelle Pollet’s suggestions for experiential group exercises in PROS that support people to explore their biggest ideas!

Gem for the day:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and

don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather…

teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

-Antoine deSaint-Exupery

Hello!

…So you’ve got your team, your flexible format, some experience facilitating and debriefing Alternatives to Violence Project (A.V.P.)-type exercises, and a measure of comfort among people having “voice” (see first four articles).  Now onto specific (PROS and beyond) outcomes!

A Quick Note on “Growing Your Own”:

 There’s joy to be had in the creative process of building an exercise or agenda, whether done with a team or on your own.  (If done on your own, expect, invite and honor team feedback!)  Growing skills to tailor-make experiences is especially useful for PROS… the mission of which involves honoring the needs of each “crop” of individuals being served.

My method is to imagine what is needed to achieve a specific outcome (perspective shift, skills development, energy release, etc.) and then ask for guidance from Transforming Power! (Article #4)  Using knowledge of other exercises, sometimes flipping through the manuals, and doing my best to access an open mind, the ideas start to come…

This may sound unreasonable; as though I’m attributing my unique talents to everyone…   And I am!  But it’s not unreasonable!  I have been facilitating prison and other workshops for 20 years and most A.V.P. facilitators (if not all?) develop skills to create agendas, and often, exercises.  Some, immediately!  If you’re at all drawn to be a facilitator, odds are you’ve got the goods!

The following agenda was created for a mental health conference and went on to be a staple training.  It always engaged and encouraged loads of positivity.  While outwardly addressing the “outcome” of employment, on a deeper level it calls up passion for the greater mission we all have inside us…  I know of one person who participated in the “King of the World” exercise and achieved his dream!

Continue reading →

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Posted in Engagement, Group Facilitation Techniques, Intensive Rehabilitation Goal Acquisition, PROS Services

Draft Curriculum for Developing Readiness for Change

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| 3 Comments

This post is offered by Cynthia Monares at Mental Health Association of New York City. She is still in the process of drafting sections of this curriculum to include support for developing self and environmental awareness with people considering a life role goal in PROS. She welcomes your feedback and support and has started a topic in PROS TALKS! about it. Please feel free to join the dialogue.

I am working on “Am I Ready to Change?” course curriculum, which is based on the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Readiness Determination assessment. Since our agency will be converting to PROS around September this year, we are still working on the first month’s curricula and hoping we’re on the right track.

Creating a curriculum from scratch is pretty intimidating, and I really wasn’t sure if I was doing this right, but I tried to stick to the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Readiness form I was given and made sure I included all the factors in there—what changes the individuals I work with would want in terms of living, working, learning, and socializing.

Continue reading →

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Posted in PROS Services

Revised Health and Well-Being Curriculum

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment

The following update is shared by Lesley Fine, PROS Facilitator at Community Access’ East Village Access PROS program.

The University of Minnesota’s Health and Well-Being Curriculum is Being Revised.

The curriculum, Developing a Personal Plan for Health and Well-Being with the Circle of Health, will be removed next year.  For those who would like to print out aspects of this curriculum while it is still online, it is unfortunately not available in PDF.  However, a revised version of this curriculum has been developed that allows for easier printing of materials.

On this site, under the Create a Healthy Lifestyle heading, you will find 10 tools on topics such as Diet & Nutrition, Stress Mastery, Relationships, and Self-Care & Prevention.  There is also a tool that helps people create goals – with sample goals provided that are based on where someone is according to stages of change principles.

When you click on a particular tool, you can print out the various subject categories listed on the left.  It is not possible to print out the accompanying assessments.  Our program invested in a projector and screen to do the Health and Well-Being curriculum, which has minimized the need for printing and made the groups more interesting.  Having a projector also allows for showing short relevant video clips to be used as the basis for discussion (for this or any other curriculum), which participants have greatly appreciated.

If you are interested in checking out the newer version of the Health and Well-Being curriculum, play around on the above-mentioned site to get familiar with it.  If you find that it doesn’t completely meet the needs of your participants, you can always incorporate bits and pieces into your existing curriculum – i.e., take what you like, and leave the rest.

A last note:  the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota is currently revising all of their online modules, so down the road we can expect even further changes and improvements.

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Posted in PROS Services, Wellness self-management

Personalizing Wellness Self-Management Curriculum

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment

This Wellness Self-Management Curriculum post comes from Lesley Fine, PROS Facilitator, at Community Access’ East Village Access. Click on the link at the end of this post to download her module in MS Word.

Course Overview: This course is designed to supplement the standardized Wellness Self Management Curriculum. This course will expand upon topics which have been touched upon in the WSM curriculum, and will cover the topics in more depth. It will focus on the concepts of stress,  and triggers,  as barriers to all aspects of recovery, including behavioral issues, substance abuse, physical well-being, and emotional recovery. The focus will be on how good stress management can break down barriers to reaching identified goals in the different recovery domains.

Description: Each person has a very individual, personalized path in recovery. This is their own Path to Wellness.  These sixteen modules include various exercises, activities, techniques, and assignments, designed to identify stressors and triggers, and the skills needed to recognize them and avoid the consequences of reacting. Modules will use an initial self-assessment by each participant in the group, as a starting point for the work of that module. The same self-assessment will be revisited at the end of the sixteen modules to evaluate progress.  Homework is sometimes assigned at the end of a module, and then reviewed at the start of the next module, and evaluated.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Coping Skills Training, PROS Services, Wellness self-management

Free Anger Management Curriculum from SAMHSA

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| 2 Comments

This post is shared by Susan Frielander, LCSW from the New York State Office of Mental Health’s New York City Field Office.

This manual was designed for use by qualified substance abuse and mental health clinicians. The manual describes a 12-week cognitive behavioral anger management group treatment.  Each of the 12 90-minute weekly sessions is described in detail with specific instructions for group leaders, tables and figures that illustrate the key conceptual components of the treatment, and homework assignments for the group participants. An accompanying Participant Workbook is available (see Anger Management for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Clients: Participant Workbook, Reilly, Shopshire, Durazzo, & Campbell, 2002) and should be used in conjunction with this manual to enable the participants to better learn, practice, and integrate the treatment strategies presented in the group sessions.

You can order this curriculum for free through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

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Posted in Coping Skills Training, Wellness self-management

My Experience with the Health and Well-Being Curriculum in PROS

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment

University of Minnesota’s curriculum, Taking Charge of Your Health – Developing a Personal Plan for Health and Well-being with the Circle of Health

This post was contributed by Lesley Fine from Community Access.

I found this curriculum, developed by University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing, while researching ideas for PROS groups. It encompasses eight major life realms that I thought were highly relevant to most PROS participants:

  1. Stress Mastery
  2. Healthcare & Self-Care
  3. Emotions, Attitudes & Self-Esteem
  4. Life Purpose & Service
  5. Exercise & Fitness
  6. Relationships & Family
  7. Spirituality, and
  8. Diet and Nutrition

Thus far, this has been a highly informative, gratifying and user-friendly curriculum to work with. Each module offers a logical and useful sequence (consisting of: Introduction, How Are You Doing, Goal & Action Sheet, Resources, and Reevaluation) that make it very easy to use.

Aside from being user friendly, I like this curriculum for several other reasons. Continue reading →

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Posted in PROS Services, Wellness self-management

Working On Wellness: A Practical Guide to Mental Health

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| Leave a comment

“Working on Wellness: A Practical Guide to Mental Health” is a manual designed for mental health consumers as well as their loved ones. It covers such topics as Potential, Spirituality, and Support Groups, to name but a few. Author, Karl Shallowhorn, has lived with bipolar disorder for 30 years. He is a mental health clinician and NY State Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor.

“WOW is very compelling. Karl Shallowhorn has shared his journey ,including his most difficult challenges with insight and hopefulness. Nothing sugarcoated, yet he has offered a real and tangible roadmap to recovery.” Michele Brown, Executive Director, Compeer Greater Buffalo

“Karl Shallowhorn has given those who suffer with mental illness a gift. Based on his experience, he has created a working plan that is both concrete, practical and manageable. Hope is what emerged for me as I read “Working on Wellness.” Mental illness need not be a point of no return, but rather a journey that one can navigate with wise guides such as Karl.”
Nancy Kehoe, Author, Wrestling with our Inner Angels: Faith, Mental Illness, and the Journey to Wholeness

Order Working on Wellness directly from Amazon.

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Posted in PROS Services, Wellness self-management

WE Can Save: A Workbook for People in Recovery Seeking Economic Self-Sufficiency

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Chacku Mathai| 3 Comments

 

NYAPRS is pleased to announce that our community and economic development division has completed a full draft of the “WE CAN SAVE: A Workbook for People in Recovery Seeking Economic Self-Sufficiency.” Our designer is already working on a cover and layout style. We hope to have these for our Executive Seminar on April 27 and 28, 2011. Although it is 120 pages long, we are encouraged by the engaging language and exercises we have in it.

A 100-page provider companion guide will follow. See the next post for a preview. For more information on how to access this great resource, please e-mail Oscar Jimenez at OscarJ@nyaprs.org.

Synopsis

This workbook is for people who want to become more self-sufficient. It has been developed by a partnership of people in recovery and practitioners with experience in helping individuals achieve self-sufficiency. For many of us, the issue of poverty is a personal one. Continue reading →

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Posted in Benefits and Financial Management, PROS Services