FolkTime

History

Folk-Time, Inc. is a non-profit community service agency whose ongoing commitment is to provide a culture of inclusiveness.

Founded in 1985, FolkTime was a unique program that was brought to life by Joann Seeger with the Community of Christ Church in northeast Portland and a grant from the Presbyterian Woman’s Association. The dream was to provide a space where adults living with mental health issues could socialize and give each other support. Over 30 years later FolkTime still embodies those simple principles.

Those early gatherings turned into the FolkTime’s oldest social program, Free to Be Me. Our programs now include other social programs, some clinical programs, and encompass two counties in Oregon. We provide in house peer support for clinics and hospitals as well as bridging peer support for those exploring recovery in the community.

FolkTime is the epicenter for training in Oregon for Intentional Peer Support Certification. Peer support is a quickly growing movement empowering people with lived experience to share their stories in support of others who are going through similar experiences.

By promoting a recovery-oriented support system that focuses on hope, choice, and connection FolkTime provides training, support, and advocacy for the most vulnerable in our communities.

What we do

At FolkTime, we endorse SAMHSA’s 8 Dimensions of Wellness, and design our programs to support individuals in addressing these areas of wellness. We believe that wellness is a holistic endeavor and we must see the individual as a whole being. We are not a diagnosis.

What is RECOVERY?

Mental health recovery and substance use recovery are each a journey of healing and transformation enabling any person living with a mental health challenge to live a meaningful life in a community of his or her choice while striving to achieve his or her goals.

What is peer support?

Peer support is a way of connecting that leverages shared experience, fostering trust, decreasing stigma, and creating a sustainable forum for seeking help, sharing information, and garnering self-esteem. Peers share support resources as well as positive coping strategies. Peer supports “speak the same language” enabling hope and change.

Peer support can:

  • Cultivate social networks
  • Improve quality of life
  • Role model recovery
  • Promote Wellness
  • Support acceptance
  • Reduce stigma
  • Increase satisfaction
  • Share understanding

What is a peer support specialist?

Peer support specialists are people who share the experience of mental health challenges, substance use challenges, or both. They are people who have sought recovery for themselves and decided to give back to the community by sharing experience, strength, and hope. Peer support specialist go through rigorous training to become certified on how to assist others who are in various stages of their recovery.

Peer support specialists offer nonjudgmental support and validation by sharing personal experiences and skills. They offer genuine empathy having traveled similar roads of trauma, distress, or discomfort. They are able to assist individuals as advocates and supports in the community.