Wow! How? Peer Warmline

This essay is part of my LinkedIn newsletter series: Wow! How? Health.

About two million people in North Carolina experience a mental health or substance use disorder crisis each year. Historically, about half did not receive treatment because of cost, leading to repercussions for families, communities, and individuals. A new Peer Warmline, staffed by counselors with lived experience, aims to change that math by connecting people with non-clinical support and resources 24 hours a day.

This is a story of grassroots innovation paired with savvy state policy changes.

Promise Resource Network Inc. (PRN) is a Charlotte, NC-based, survivor-led mental health nonprofit that has been operating for 18 years. Employees and volunteers use their lived experiences to support healing from trauma and to help people reclaim an identity not rooted in illness. Their services are a model for how a local community can respond to the mental health crisis.

As North Carolina prepared to expand Medicaid coverage at the end of the 2023, policymakers – led by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kody Kinsley – focused on behavioral health. First they created a program so counselors with lived experience could receive training and certification. Then they ensured that peer support would be covered by Medicaid, so there were good jobs available in hospitals and other treatment centers to the newly-certified workforce.

Thanks to this preparation, including a partnership with PRN, state health officials were ready on day one of the Peer Warmline with over 3,000 certified counselors.

In the lexicon of my book, Rebel Health, survivor-led Networkers and Solvers worked with state government Champions to serve, and hopefully save, vulnerable North Carolinians.

Check out more examples of patient-, survivor-, and caregiver-led innovations like PRN.