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The Peerakeet Pulse

Peer support trends, behavioral health policy, and what we’re learning as we build.

Policy

The implications of cutting behavioral health funding, even when peer services prevail

When behavioral health budgets get cut, peer services are often the first casualty — even when they're the most cost-effective intervention on the table.

By Peerakeet

Insight

The origins of peer services: The movement before the workforce

Peer support didn't start as a workforce — it started as a movement. Tracing the history from self-help groups through activism to certified peer specialists.

By Peerakeet

Policy

Making the Financial Case for Peer Services Without Losing the Point

How to make the financial case for peer support without reducing peers to a cost-saving lever. Talking ROI while keeping the work human.

By Peerakeet

Policy

Medicaid 1115 Waivers and the Expansion of Peer Support

How Section 1115 Medicaid waivers are expanding peer support coverage across states — and what the expansion means for people in recovery and the peers who serve them.

By Peerakeet

Insight

Who is a Peer? The Workforce Built on Shared Experience

What makes someone a certified peer support specialist — lived experience, certification standards, scope of practice, and the operational gaps still facing the field.

By Peerakeet

Insight

From Paper Charts to Portals

How health records evolved from paper charts to modern EHRs — and why they still can't capture the work peer support specialists actually do.

By Peerakeet

Insight

Running on Fumes: Addressing Burnout in Mental Healthcare

Clinician burnout isn't a personal failing — it's a systems problem. Why mental healthcare is running out of workers, and what peer support can absorb.

By Peerakeet

Insight

Navigating Change and Isolation in Your 20s

Loneliness, transition, and identity loss in your 20s. Why this decade hits mental health so hard — and how connection through shared experience helps.

By Peerakeet

Policy

When Healing is Negotiable: The Instability of Mental Health Funding

Mental health funding is politically contingent and chronically unstable. What that means for people in recovery when budgets get cut mid-cycle.

By Peerakeet

Insight

The New Year Pressure Nobody Talks About

Why New Year resolutions drive shame and disengagement for people in recovery — and why sustained peer connection beats willpower as a protective factor.

By Peerakeet

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