Community support programs are increasingly establishing paid service positions designated exclusively for consumers. Project WINS (Work Incentives and Needs Study), a hybrid case management-vocational program for individuals with severe mental illness, used consumers as peer support specialists (PSSs) to supplement professional roles. Semistructured interviews were conducted with PSSs about 12 months after their employment ended. They identified substantial personal benefits specific to consumer-designated roles (e.g., a "safe" employment setting with accommodations) and general benefits from employment. Problems described were just as numerous, encompassing attitudes toward assigned peers and costs to their own well-being. Critical commentary addressed program operations (structure, supervision, and training needs) and problems in the mental health system. The authors discuss the changed sense of self that service provider roles can create for consumers and suggest that mental health administrators provide anticipatory socialization for this service innovation throughout their agencies and ongoing supports for consumers in their new roles.

Using data from a CSP-funded research demonstration project designed to expand vocational services offered by case management teams serving people with serious mental illness, this paper examines the issues created by employing consumers as peer support specialists for the project. Roles and benefits of these positions are analyzed. Challenges experienced by specialists created by serving peers, the structure of the position, the mental health system and the community, and personal issues are analyzed using data from focus groups and the project's management information system. Implications for consumer role definition, supports for role effectiveness, and the structuring of these types of positions are discussed.

For older people with disabilities environmental design will become increasingly important to their quality of life as they expect supportive structures within community settings to facilitate their functioning, independence and well-being. This paper reports on photovoice research to amplify the issues one older woman with mobility limitations as a result of visual and neurological challenges experienced in a small city located in the south central part of the USA. The use of photovoice to illuminate these issues was one substudy of a larger scale project focusing on positive aging in this small city, the home to a large state-assisted university. The authors, which includes Linda, the principal photovoice researcher, offer a rationale guiding photovoice, describe the photovoice method the participatory research model incorporated, identify the environmental inequities the participant experienced in her community and immediate living situation, and document the affordances she developed to support her mobility, safety and quality of life. The authors then discuss how a community exhibit supported dissemination of the participant's photovoice content to the general community, and the outcomes the participant experienced in the form of empowerment and environmental enhancements ensuing from the combined influence of photovoice and community-based dissemination of her findings.

Using an action research method to study the vision-based strategic planning processes of four nonprofit human service organizations, the author identifies factors that influence the successful initiation of the planning process, the formulation of a vision-based plan, and the use of the plan to guide organizational performance. The author identifies transformational leadership and an organizational commitment to cultural change as important to the mobilization of these success factors and to the subsequent achievement of viable vision-based strategic plans.

Recognizing the complexity o f planning supported education programs, the authors outline an approach to making these programs a reality through a systematic process o f program planning, conceptualization, and initiation. Six planning steps are identified, the aim o f which is to promote interagency and intergroup collaboration in the formulation o f a supported education program that meets consumer needs within local community contexts. Five program initiation steps are then identified, all o f which contribute to early implementation o f the supported education initiative. Specific tasks and activities that program planners and stakeholders must accomplish in order to put the program plan into action are discussed. The authors conclude by discussing the implications o f supported education for psychosocial rehabilitation practice and service delivery.Higher education has emerged as a vital resource for people wishing to advance themselves in a postindustrial society (Reich, 1991). In fact, in contemporary America, the difference between a marginal lifestyle and one which promotes quality of life may, in substantial part, lie in the successful pursuit of not only formal degrees but in lifelong learning (Reich, 1991). Historically, people coping with mental illness have been at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to advancing themselves through postsecondary training or educational programs. The illness itself may emerge during the very years people in our society are most likely to pursue higher education, and resulting disabilities may require the individual to muster supports to participate in postsecondary education which are not ordinarily available in these settings (Moxley, Mowbray, & Brown, 1993). People with psychiatric disabilities and their families may be fearful of failure, stigma, and discrimination. Rehabilitation and mental health professionals may dismiss successful participation in postsecondary This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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