What is PSR?

PSR is short hand for psychosocial rehabilitation. PSR's work with children and adults with severe and persistent mental illness to develop the social and life skills necessary to become fully functioning and contributing members of society. PSR (and mental health care in general) has shifted quite a bit since the health care overhaul and the takeover by Optum Idaho. I am very lucky in that I work within the school district and I am therefore not under Optum (I am under the Medicaid umbrella, which is under the Idaho Department of Education umbrella) so I cannot speak as to my own personal experiences. My husband, however, gets to experience Optum every single day, as he is a PSR out in the community. So I know quite a bit about it, without having to experience it. I will attempt to keep my soapbox in the closet for now.

I recently attended a training from an organization formerly known as USPRA, now called PRA. I earned a certificate in Children's Psychiatric Rehabilitation and also found that there are so few resources out there, all in one place, for PSRs to gather helpful information from. Most of us were given the opportunity to shadow with an experienced PSR at our agencies, but sometimes, it seems, we were just thrust into the world of mental health with little more experience than our bachelor degrees. And in the state of Idaho, that's all you need to do psychosocial rehabilitation! SCARY!! So that's what I want this to be about - offering up lesson plans (this was huge in my training) to use with clients and their families to have the most impact during the limited amount of time you have with your clients.

Something to take into consideration... I work in a school. I teach an 82 minute social skills class to (currently) 6 students at a time. I also have a special education teacher who assists me. The skills that I present here may not be applicable to what you want to do. If there is something specific you would like to see, please let me know! I am all about broadening my knowledge base and the knowledge base of my fellow PSRs. Please email me or comment on my blog if there is anything you would like to see featured.

Have a wonderful day!