Magellan Health Services Offers E-Courses for Providers, Consumers And Families

E-Courses Focus on Critical Role of Peer Specialists

 AVON, Conn. – May 20, 2010 - Magellan Health Services, Inc., an industry leader in specialty health care management, has joined with the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) to offer a new series of online learning opportunities to consumers, families and providers that address the pivotal and growing role of peer specialists in helping individuals work through and recover from mental illnesses. DBSA, which is considered the leading patient-directed national organization focused on prevalent mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety, designed the four new e-courses.

As individuals recovering from mental illnesses themselves, peer specialists are trained and certified to help others with mental health challenges gain hope and move forward in their own recovery. Magellan employs a number of peer specialists, directly and through its provider network, and regularly offers educational opportunities about their role through community presentations and provider-specific trainings.

“The Magellan/DBSA e-courses are unique in that they highlight the advantages of working with peer specialists for providers, consumers and families, in addition to those who supervise peer specialists,” said Anne McCabe, senior vice president of Magellan’s public sector behavioral health business unit. “To our knowledge, these are the only online courses that serve to educate a broad group about peers’ role in mental health recovery.”

Facts

The e-courses are offered free of charge at www.MagellanHealth.com/training.

• There are four e-courses that aim to help participants better understand the peer specialist’s role in helping others recover from mental illnesses:
  • #1: Research, Core Competencies and Ethics
  • #2: The Five Stages of Recovery and the Role of Peer Specialists
  • #3: Using your Recovery Story
  • #4: Effective Supervision of Peer Specialists
• The e-courses offer greater convenience than traditional on-site training programs, and each takes 30-45 minutes to complete.
• Each of the four new e-courses is tailored toward the beginner or intermediate skill level and offers providers in the Magellan network the opportunity to earn 1.0 Continuing Education (CE) credit hour. All other health care professionals who complete the new trainings will be issued a certificate of participation. Magellan is approved as a continuing education provider/sponsor by the American Psychological Association (APA), Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) and the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC).
• These e-courses join 10 other interactive, self-guided training e-courses in the Magellan Resiliency and Recovery e-Learning Center, developed by Magellan in 2008.  Since their launch, more than 8,400 e-courses have been completed by individuals spanning all 50 states. When asked about their value, behavioral health providers in particular reported that the e-courses were helpful in refreshing their skills, providing ideas to implement in their area of practice and generally in helping them to do a better job serving consumers.

“Peer specialists are an integral part of the recovery process, as they’re able to empathize with consumers and understand their experiences in a very personal way,” said Lisa Goodale, vice president of training at DBSA, who is also a featured trainer in the new e-courses. “With the extensive behavioral health expertise of Magellan and DBSA as their foundation, we expect the e-courses will be a powerful benefit not only to consumers, families, providers and peer specialists’ supervisors, but to the behavioral health field, overall.”

Every Tuesday at 1 pm
150 Union Street, Bangor

As many of you are aware, on July first the operation of the state-wide warm line will move from Amistad to Sweetser.  The agencies have been working closely together to ensure that this is a smooth and transparent process for callers and staff.  The toll-free number (1-866-771-9276) will remain the same!  70% of the Peer Support Specialists answering calls will be a familiar voice!  The management of the warm line, Scott Metzger and Simonne Maline, are from the original team that started the state-wide service five years ago.  Detailed below are the answers to many questions I have been recently asked. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions not covered below and thank you for your continued support of this valuable service to peers.

The key elements of the Intentional Warm Line service are: 

• Access:                       24 Hours a day - 365 days a year (see time schedule below)
• Staffing:                      Two trained Peer Support Specialist at all times
• Locations:                   Portland and Brunswick
• Belief:                         In the hope and potential of Recovery
• Commitment:              To practice and model Intentional Peer Support
• Encourage:                 Community Integration 
• The Warm Line name will change July 1^st from the Maine Warm Line to the Intentional Warm Line.
• The 1-866-771-9276 state-wide toll-free phone number will remain the same.
• The Greater Portland Area Phone Number (772-9276) phone will be unavailable.  Use 1-866-771-9276.

Operational Hours:  Current:    5:00 pm to 8:00 am the following day

       July 1^st:     4:00 pm to 9:00 am the following day           

       Currently we are not advertising a date for 24/7 access but are working towards August 1.                               

Outreach:  We do not plan to create outreach materials for, or promote, 24/7 hours until we are fully confident that we will have the infrastructure to deliver that service smoothly.  We are sharing our plans with you, and will update you as the service progresses, but we ask that you do not tell potential callers the service is available 24/7 until you receive word from us.  What would be helpful is to let clients know about the extra hours of 4:00-5:00 pm and 8:00am – 9:00am as that will serve to smooth out the current demand. 

We will be distributing new materials at a later date, but remember that you current materials are still accurate and usable, with the exception of the local Portland phone number, and Amistad has agreed to put up a phone message directing callers to the toll-free number.