Workers at Centerstone’s Peer Run Support Center know how to help individuals suffering from mental illness and addiction. They know because they’ve been through it themselves.
Peer Run is relatively new. It opened this August after Centerstone, an organization focused on providing mental health services and substance abuse treatment, received a $100,000 grant from the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction.
The center itself looks much like a house. The walls of the hallway leading into the kitchen are lined with full-page biographies highlighting the addiction-riddled pasts of the staff. Alcohol, marijuana, cocaine or mental illnesses once plagued nearly every staff member working there.
People working toward recovery filed into a small room and fellowshipped. They laughed and sipped coffee while sitting on the couches, talking to one another.
“The $100,000 grant will enable the center to operate for a year,” Christina Murphy, a certified recovery specialist, said.
After the year expires, however, the center hopes to have enough clientele to sustain its own operational costs.
The center is staffed by certified recovery specialists, recovery coaches and peer recovery specialists, most of whom are recovering from addictions, according to Murphy.
“We have once suffered through our own afflictions, so we all have a shared experience,” Murphy said. “But we are here to provide support, encouragement and hope.”
The center and its employees assist the guests in the recovery process by providing structured, scheduled activities that promote human interaction and socialization that can translate into their everyday life
Open 3-8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, the center offers a range of different groups and activities for guests to participate in.
Throughout the week, the staff hosts group sessions to discuss grief, depression, PTSD and addiction.
The center also hosts a job club where guests receive assistance in finding jobs, filling out applications and editing their resumes. Additionally, the center has karaoke nights the first Friday of every month.
After overcoming a tumultuous past of substance abuse and schizophrenia, Ray Flanagan was inspired to become a peer recovery specialist.
Flanagan said he relishes the opportunity to provide guidance and counsel to those in need.
“That’s why I took this job,” he said. “Centerstone helped me and I thought I could come back and help other people that need my help. It’s about giving back to the community.”
The center’s main goal is to reinforce the recovery process while removing barriers that inhibit its guests from gaining access to resources within the community.
“We want them to gain knowledge of what their options are and what resources are here locally,” volunteer coordinator Heather Randle said. “Because a lot of people don’t know what their options are.”
The goal of these support services is to assist in developing healthy relationships and developing new life skills, Randle said.
“Everybody pulls together and grows together,” she said. “Through recovery, a natural development occurs and that brings nothing but positive outcomes.”
