What do texting teens, bus passes and Fred Flintstone have in common?

Mental health programs that focus on personal choice, strengths, community integration and peer support may consider trying one or more the activities described below. These ideas may not be included in the evidence-based practice archives at SAMHSA. Note: I have not field-tested the first idea, but it sounds interesting.

• If you work primarily with youth, have everyone in a support group bring their cell phone and do a real-time comparison study of holding a meeting while doing half of a session via texting and the other half the traditional way (i.e. looking at and speaking with one another aloud). Depending on the outcomes and impacts, the facilitator may then want to write and submit a report to the state Department of Behavioral Health for feedback. Make sure the report is written in bureaucratic double-speak and includes a logic model and bibliography. Then apply for a small grant to do a presentation on the experience at the next Alternatives conference.
• Meet with a new program participant who does not own a car, is new in town and needs to apply for SNAP benefits (i.e. go to the County social welfare office to get food stamps). Then give the new member an assignment: learn to navigate and use the public transit system. If they ask for personal help (maybe due to anxiety about getting lost, etc.), offer to ride with them once or twice and see if your program supervisor can provide some free bus passes. Our program gave this assignment to a woman who had recently moved from out of state, did not have many financial resources, frequently had depression or panic attacks, but wanted to experience some measure of independence. We asked her to learn the bus system and give us a report on her progress. She did so by herself (though it took more than one trip), received her SNAP benefits and then with a little coaching got her drivers license six months later.
• Now try another assignment.  An older adult participant who seems very shy, isolates in his home frequently and is on Medicare tells us he wants to help others in the club. He has trouble staying employed due to troublesome symptoms and (let's get real here), age-discrimination. He is a college graduate and a good researcher. We asked him to study all the the local free and low-cost medication providers and programs in the community. The assignment was to create a simple and practical fact sheet that others could use if they have trouble paying for prescription medication. Despite only having access to a computer at the public library and often reluctant to initiate telephone conversations, he jumped at the chance to do something meaningful outside of club meetings. We gave him a mock situation involving a popular television cartoon character from the 1960s;  Fred Flintstone. Mr. Flintone has been unemployed for six months, homeless and sleeping on friend Barney Rubble's couch. He had been recently hospitalized for a suicide attempt. Ex-wife, Wilma took his cell phone away and cut off his service. Fred has a prescription from a psychiatrist and was given the name of local doctor who will help him on an outpatient basis and via a sliding fee schedule. Problem? Fred has no money and no clue as to how to get affordable (read free) medication for his mood disorder. 

Our peer researcher put together a great fact sheet that Mr. Flinstone can use. The fact sheet is written clearly, concisely and offers recommendations on which programs would be the easiest to use and what requirements had to be met in order to access their services. If Fred was a real peer in need this tool would be very helpful. The man who put it together enjoyed the activity since it was a straight-forward way to utilize his strengths and life experience.  We are putting it into our resource tool kit.

So, go ahead and field test these ideas (all of which except for the first one are based on actual events). Ask program participants, peer and non-peer staff to develop their own creative recovery activities. Recovery is serious business.  But there is nothing in the literature or the DSM-V that says it can't be fun.