MHANYS CarePath™ Coaching Program
Note: contents for this page are in-progress.
A CarePath™ is a blueprint you create during our work together that will help you achieve better overall health & well-being — by your own individual definition. A CarePath™ consists of the roadmaps, tools, and new habits of building wellness and self-care you build — as a plan-ahead rather than something overlooked in the hustle of life. We help build the habit of checking in with yourself and making deliberate choices to take better care of yourself.
The MHANYS CarePath™ program provides coaching assistance for 90 days to youth or adults ages 12 & up who can use to raise their self-care, communication skills, and improve their wellness.
MHANYS CarePath™ provides an opportunity to work on wellness & resiliency to build up yourself in partnership with your support system. Each participant — both client & supporters — will work on their own CarePath™.
Introduction
The MHANYS CarePath™ Coaching Program provides small group coaching designed for an individual (the client) to choose a few of their own supporters (other participants), such as family or friends, to join them in their coaching group to create a CarePath™ of their own alongside the individual being coached. This way both they and their supporters also are working on wellness in parallel, and establishing a better bond, common language and experiences, and getting to know their own and each other's needs better.
For example, you could have your spouse, siblings, chosen family, best friends, a coworker, parents, or children in your CarePath™ group for the program.
The curriculum is founded on the principles of trauma-informed care, wellness, belongingness, inclusion, relationships & building resilience.
Who Is This Coaching Program Suitable For
This is a group coaching program for persons who are:
- starting a mental health journey (newly diagnosed, seeking diagnosis or therapy)
- losing interest in life (but not in crisis yet)
- struggling to get to work & motivate yourself to work (burned out, checked out)
- feeling more and more alone, even when someone is in the room
- starting to wonder what the point is
- wondering if you might need mental health assistance (but not quite there yet)
- struggling to come down from the hustle of the pandemic (frontline health workers)
- feeling unsupported but still trying to communicate your needs with your supporters
We work only with adults in our program, but other CarePath™ coaches are available for ages 12+.
Program Goal
By the end of the program, our goal is that participants will all have more hope, resilience, wellness skills, shared language around wellness, better self-awareness, increased belongingness and sense of community with each other and that you all can take care of yourself and support each other better.
You & your supporters may have your own goals for the program.
If you're interested in the CarePath™ program, you and each of your supporters will create your own CarePath™; you can think of it as building an individualized plan for how to work towards your own better health. This is what makes MHANYS CarePath™ unique; it recognizes that relationships are central to achieving and maintaining wellness — because when a loved one is not doing well, it also impacts everyone who cares about them.
Our role as your Certified CarePath™ Coach is to support you and your supporters in learning about how wellness operates on a continuum, and to help each participant define your own journey of health & wellness. You and your supporters each create your own CarePath™ and share the experience of learning, selecting support tools to enhance your mind-body health — and as a result, everyone in the group builds their individual resilience together.
Getting Started
You can schedule a 30-minute informational meeting to ask preliminary questions and determine whether or not you're interested in one of our MHANYS program offerings. We can discuss what supporters you might want to have in the program, any other preliminary questions you have, before booking a meeting for you and your supporters.If you can't think of anyone you'd trust or rely on to participate with you, we will step into the supporter role as your Certified CarePath™ Coach and do the program along with you.
Use this link to book a MHANYS Program Pre-Session Meeting for you (and your supporters, if any). This is scheduled as a 45 minute meeting to make sure that there's enough time to address questions for you and your supporters, and we'll send you (and your supporters if any) some materials and agreements to look over before the session.
Program Background
MHANYS CarePath™ was originally developed to assist people in transitioning from intensive treatment environments (such as inpatient, intensive outpatient, rehab, incarceration, etc.) and their supporters or family to help rebuild relationships and improve everyone's health.
The program has been adapted for folks who are on the verge of burnout, frontline healthcare workers (including non-medical staff, home health aides, caregivers for aging persons, hospice staff, behavioral health care staff, staff within hospital & psychiatric settings, residential centers, supportive housing, school nurses & school counselors — especially given their work and dedication during the COVID-19 pandemic), and their supporters or families. We're also willing to share this program with others — so it's not limited to those folks.
What are the program meetings like?
We — you, your supporters (if any) and your CarePath™ Coach (us) — will meet for 10 sessions during the 90 day program — about once a week. Sessions are 1 hour long, and have the same basic agenda:
- Welcome back!
- read the Communication Guidelines together
- share where we are on the Wellness Continuum
- share our Wellness Temperature
- work on 1 or more new skills together
- new skills include aspects of wellness, self-care, and tools we may want to implement between our meetings
- share our tools we want to implement before the next meeting
- set the time & date for our next meeting & conclude any other group business
How We Offer this Program
Rev. Criss is a Certified MHANYS CarePath™ Coach, and due to health restrictions:
- program offerings will be 10 sessions of about 1 hour each online in either a Zoom room, or in a Jitsi Meet fully encrypted video call environment. We can accommodate participants in other ways if necessary.
- Rev. Criss will participate with screen sharing for materials, but will not be on camera. Other participants are welcome to utilize their cameras if they wish to. (This is due to our own trauma, no other reason.)
- Rev. Criss will do their best to accommodate people of all abilities. Please let us know if you have any accessibility needs or concerns.
Program Fees & Scholarships
Here's our suggested sliding scale fees, and we're happy to work out payment plans and other arrangements that make sense for participants:
| Participants | Full Program Fee (sliding scale) USD |
| 1 | $700-$1250 |
| 2 | $1000-$1800 |
| 3+ | $1225-$2100 |
We understand that not everyone has the means to meet our requested fees, so please do ask about scholarships & partial scholarships if needed — also ask your supporters if they can chip in. Paying part of the fee for the program preserves a partial scholarship for others. We have set aside a few full and partial scholarship opportunities for this program. We also have set aside 3 full scholarships for frontline healthcare workers in New York State — if you fall into this category and can cover even part of your fees, a partial scholarship remains for others.
Also, other CarePath™ coaches may be available for you if you are in New York State: please check with MHANYS or do a web search — once they have a directory we will list it.
What is covered?
The MHANYS CarePath™ Coaching Program consists of a pre-visit (no charge), over 10 hours of meeting time over a 90 day period and all participants can reach out to the Certified CarePath™ Coach by email for between-session support, plus administration time. Some phone support may also be available. Note: We are not available for crisis support: please call 911 for emergencies, 988 for crisis support (in the US), or see our Resources page for information for crisis resources (mostly US resources), or utilize your local emergency support team or national/regional help lines for assistance if you have a crisis situation.
