You Gotta Nourish to Flourish: Self-Care Isn’t Selfish

Since 2010 Jean Dukarski has served as the Senior Trainer with the Appalachian Consulting Group, providing consultation and facilitation in 42 states. Training curriculum topics include Peer Support Specialist certification, Peer Support Whole Health and Resiliency, Supervision of Peer Specialists, and Whole Health Action Management. She provides train-the-trainer support and training to local facilitators. Continuing education in accompanying curriculum involving ethics, recovery goal setting, group facilitation, peers, suicide, trauma, and self-management.

Jean Dukarski is the Program Director for the Justice in Mental Health Organization (JIMHO) in Lansing, Michigan. She has worked at JIMHO for over 29 years in a variety of roles, including Associate Director of Project Doors. She provides leadership training for board development in consumer-run programs across the state. In addition, Jean has been instrumental in providing technical assistance in developing policies and procedures, bylaws, articles of incorporation and acquiring 501 c 3 status for consumer-run agencies. She secured funding to establish a statewide peer-run warm line in response to the pandemic. Employing 22 peer responders to provide a listening ear to an average of 90 callers each day. This work is dedicated to developing a strong peer support workforce in the behavioral health field. Jean has presented at various state and national conferences as a keynote and workshop speaker. She is a contributing author of several journal articles in the area of consumers as providers. Jean has served on many state-level committees with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, including the Quality Improvement Council. She served as a consultant to the University of Michigan, School of Social Work, ACCS Research Project and collaborated with Michigan State University, School of Social Work, Projects for Community Inclusion. In addition, she serves annually on the Michigan Consumer Conference Planning Committee and serves on the Michigan Recovery Council. As a frequent public speaker, she has presented at several annual IAPSRS Conferences and served five years as facilitator of the Michigan Consumer Conference, Open Forum. She has testified before the Michigan Senate Appropriations Committee and spoken at numerous sensitivity presentations to mental health professionals and community organizations. Jean enjoys making things for her self-care, from woodworking to blacksmithing, from sewing to painting. She also spends a lot of playtime with her three grandsons and furry companions, including a three-legged dog and a three-legged cat.

Deborah Monroe has been a Michigan Certified Peer Support Specialist since 2009; because of her experience, she became a Certified Recovery Coach and Community Health worker. She is the founder and CEO of a peer-owned and operated nonprofit organization Hope365 and Recovery Concepts, a for-profit peer-run organization that provides consultation, training, and recovery-based support services at the local, regional, and statewide levels. She is an Advance Level WRAP facilitator and has provided guidance and implementation of a peer-to-peer suicide study as a research assistant conducted at the University of Michigan. Consulted and supervised Michigan Peer warmline and implementation of the first peer-run respite in Michigan.

Appointed by Governor Rick Snyder, and Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Deborah served on the Human Trafficking Commission for three terms. She provides workshops and keynote presentations sharing lived experiences on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Incarceration, and Human trafficking and role models that recovery is possible. She is the lead Independent Support Broker for Michigan’s Transfer Transformation Initiative in Self Directed Care. She mentors peer support brokers and assists individuals served by the public mental health system in developing individual budgets and having choice and control over their lives. Deborah is a lead trainer that has trained and certified 102 men and women currently serving time in the Department of Corrections as Peer Support in Prisons and continued to mentor and provide continuing education.

Working with people is a passion, and it has given her meaning and purpose in her life, but she has had to learn to balance work and home life so that when she is not working, she enjoys time with her kids. She is a basketball mom and a cat mom, she enjoys home improvement projects and trying new things, except cooking.