An Army of Normal Folks - Dr. Trina Clayeux: Therapists Aren’t The Only Answer (Pt 2)

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

For every single therapist, there are 350 people looking for that type of support. Dr. Trina and her team at Give An Hour realized that there will never be enough therapists to meet this need. And that the answer is us, their own Army of Normal Folks serving one another in peer support groups and as wellness ambassadors. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Dr. Trina Clayhugh right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. 25 years ago, I wrote my first book called The Tipping Point, all about the moments when an idea or trend crosses a certain threshold and spreads like wildfire. I've had a lot of time to think about that book and the way I thought about tipping points changed. So now I'm releasing the sequel, Revenge of the Tipping Point, where I return to the subjects of social epidemics

and the dark side of contagious phenomenon. You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History. Plus, we'll dive into a duo of narrative episodes about my favorite trial in American history and a reevaluation of the broken windows theory I explored in my first book. Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get your audiobooks and listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Bringing it back to the top of our conversation, what's amazing is, is you have peer support, which you guys give some basic tenets

and fundamentals of training to, that are now working with and giving their time to support people who are dealing with the same things the very peers have dealt with. And nowhere in that conversation is all this healing happening with a professionally trained therapist in the room. So what's the effectiveness of it has got to be the next question. Great question.

And I will add one more just layer to that because this is another area that we'll be looking at that same metric in, but it's looking at also wellness ambassadors. So we have clinical support so those are mental health professionals, their license, this is what they do, it's a one-to-one match. We can have peer support, that's people with a shared experience, could be similar, doesn't have to be the exact same experience. It can be one-to-one match or it can be in a group setting with a facilitator who has a lived experience. And then we have wellness ambassadors, which can be like friends, families, allies, like just people who are interested in showing up, but maybe don't

feel like, oh, I have this event or experience that really has touched my mental health in that way, but I want to be able to show up in these spaces. And so that's really around mental health literacy. And our team is building a really solid, I think we have more than a thousand and we just started it, I think in September, more than a thousand wellness ambassadors already. And it's a constant pour in we're trying to create these as communities, not just as like, here's a bunch of mental health professionals, and here's, you know, peer supporters, but rather, how do we create these communities of support where they can actually interact with each other?

But that, okay, a thousand wellness ambassadors. So the three levels are professionally trained therapists from back from the very beginning, giving an hour. Awesome. Then you got all these peer support people, then you got the Wellness Ambassadors, the point is you have exponentially roamed the amount of therapy and assistance that can be given to people in needs without adding one therapist to the mix. I'm saying that, yes.

Well, I mean, that's it, right? It is. It is it. So we're going to get into Wellness Ambassadors, but I do, the thing is, as you hear all this, that's great. What's the effectiveness? What's the effectiveness of peer support and wellness ambassadors against the typical model

of professionally trained therapist? Yeah, so I will say when I mentioned before that we went from you know metrics of kind of input output right we've got this many therapists we have this many hours donated and that translate in this amount of money and the cost savings to the system. What I would say on the other side is that and this has been our work that we've done with Stand Together Foundation who's been an incredible partner in this is that we had already

started looking at like what, what metrics matter? And then when we became a catalyst with Stand Together, we were able to have access to a lot more of the data scientists, where we were saying, we want to know what our customers say. Like, how did this matter in their life? And so we do measure. And I have a fantastic data scientist

now who just makes this all look very easy and it's not. But we measure now impact. So we're looking at, you know, and these are very in business world, you would even know these, but the net promoter score. So we're looking at customer satisfaction. How satisfied are they that it was us? And I always think that's important, not just are you satisfied, but is it given our would you recommend us for a friend and family because of your experience?

And then we look at a net transformation score. How much do you feel transformed? And that one tends to go over time. So a point in time score is our baseline, but we wanna keep going back and iterating with those customers. What is that point in time? Eight weeks, six weeks?

It can be after any concerted training. So for us it's like peer support. Oh, after any specific thing happened. So like a peer support training, we're doing those metrics. Clinical support, we train our clinicians as well. We offer them continued education credits at no cost to them. Well with all this science, when I ask you what's the effectiveness, you know. Yes, we know and then we also have a net empowerment score. So how empowered do you feel that

you can help friends and help yourself or help someone else when it comes to relates to mental health? One that we just did for a couple of weeks ago for active duty, I would say that net empowerment score. So if you think zero is neutral, 20 is great, 40 is fantastic, we were at a 77 of a net empowerment score and that score is coming directly from that group. Which group? Group of soldiers. Unbelievable. It was a 77. And so

you have the strength of score that they prior to afterwards feel more empowered to lean in to identify a time to do, you know, identify in someone else or themselves, lean in and feel confident or at least empowered to do that and have that sort of connection with someone, you can change the entire landscape of what we're talking about with mental health because it's all upstream, it's all protective. And I would imagine, I mean, now I'm just going off listening to you thinking, but I would imagine especially when you're dealing with folks like the military, folks from rural communities, folks from very urban communities, which ironically in this space I would expect have very much same the idea about quote mental health.

I would imagine they're a lot more readily willing to open up and talk to people in peer groups that look and think like them than they are a therapist sitting on a couch. Yeah, very much, very much. I think therapy for a lot of populations is terribly scary. Now if you, and I've had people, if I say something they're like, oh my gosh, do you have a good therapist? And I think, wow, that was such a missed opportunity. You could have asked me a connection question, like, wow, that seems really hard. What are you doing about that? Or what's your next step?

There's the training right there. It is, right? Because as soon as you tell me, first of all, you don't know my history with therapy. You don't know if I've, you know, you don't know my family history with therapy. You don't know how I feel about therapists. I could be afraid of them. I could think that it's a non-science, but you also aren't taking into account that you just escalated our interaction. You just told me that my stuff's way too big for you. You just let me know that something's possibly wrong, even though- It's not what I said, but it's what I communicated. Right. Absolutely. And you threw out, you know, if you have access to

a therapist and, and you're talking about, you know, again, stressors in your life, but it doesn't translate well. I always think like, you're always looking for the opportunity. What is opportunity? And, and, you know, we talked about the seven minute conversation. This isn't like you have to go into their entire history and their family and all. You know, we're not trying to do that. We're really trying to say the connection is what will matter. That's what matters. And it's not having the right answer. It's not giving advice. It's not whether or not they did what you thought that they should do. It's how did you show up in that moment? And can you sustain that without jumping ahead and trying to solve the problem or tell them what to do or give them advice or tell them about

your great big story as well. And I think that what I have found is that we are we struggle struggle with staying in that space for a minute and doesn't have to be an uncomfortable space. Like I think as soon as I know what my role in a conversation is, I'm dead. Like I'm like thinking, okay, am I coaching? Am I mentoring? Am I and you would okay, am I coaching? Am I mentoring? You would appreciate that. You're coaching, you're mentoring, you're educating, you're directing. You kind of have a role to play when someone's talking. And sometimes I'll even ask if they're starting to

say something, I'll be like, I just want to make sure. Do you want me to just be a sounding board or are we solving a problem together? Because that'd be really helpful. So I know what I'm listening for. And usually people are like, really, like, mostly they'll say I'm just one event. You're like, great. That's great. And then I'll know when to lean in to further that conversation. Yeah, it's really obvious. People want to be understood before they want to be anything else. Absolutely. And I'm understood better by a peer who has gone through the same things

I've gone than anybody else. And so Ned, the first reader is, why wouldn't this work? Why wouldn't this work? And why hasn't this work? I think of that like, go ahead. I'm sorry, but, and I just thought something else. If I know you're giving an hour, I know that's the name, but if I know you're actually giving an hour, you're also not doing this because I'm paying you, doing this because you have empathy for me. Which I don't care, I mean, maybe not everybody thinks that way,

but I would imagine when you know you're talking to somebody who understands you because they have lived what you've lived, and then you understand that the people that you are communing with and discussing your traumas and issues or depression or anxieties or whatever with are also there simply to give up their time for you. That's got to make you feel more understood and more willing to open. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that part of this kind of retraining the way that we even talk about mental health, I mean, we've been experimenting again, you know, we say that a lot,

we've been experimenting again, because, you know, we're going out in these different spaces to talk about mental health to see how can we really shift this conversation. It's so heavy right now. It's so pathologized right now. Everything's mental health, but nothing's mental health, because, you know, we're all experiencing it. Everything's mental health, but nothing's mental health. Does it feel that way? Yes, I get exactly what you're saying.

And people are getting fatigued about it. And you know, it's starting to get the eye roll. And so- And there's some pop culture, pop culture psycho babble words that I think write on people's nerves, frankly. Yeah, I've got a list of them. Yeah, I mean, but seriously, I mean, Trigger.

I mean, yeah, all of those words. Yes. Yeah. So I mean, they're starting to mean nothing, right? That's what I mean, I mean, yeah, all of those words, you know, yeah. They're starting to mean nothing, right? That's what I mean is they become whatever. We'll be right back. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. 25 years ago, I wrote my first book called The Tipping Point.

All about the moments when an idea or trend crosses a certain threshold and spreads like wildfire. I've had a lot of time to think about that book, and the way I thought about Tipping Points changed. So now, I'm releasing the sequel, Revenge of the Tipping Point, where I return to the subjects of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon. You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History. Plus, we'll dive into a duo of narrative episodes about my favorite trial in American history and a reevaluation of the broken windows theory I explored in my first book.

Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get your audio books and listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And so we've been working and again, I've taken this in like these, all these different spaces, but there's a, in mental health, there's a continuum of care, right? So there's this continuum if you kind of visualize it and on the left side you have like education and awareness, low stigma. That's just good information out there about mental health. You go all the way to the other side, you have, let's say like inpatient mental health

treatment. And in between is peer support, clinical care, and then you get into more of like an inpatient situation. So if you think of someone on a continuum of care journey, if you wanna call it that, I don't think it's a great experience, but you have to one, identify that you need to be on the journey. So you have to kind of self identify like,

oh, I need something. And then usually the way the system is set up is that everybody in that system is the one who's telling you what it is you need. Oh, you need some peer support or you need to come to a clinician. There's nothing empowering about that. And it gets very bogged down in where people are kind of pushing you, but it's not where you're pushing yourself. And you're not necessarily creating the environment that you're looking for. So we, I've worked and I'm super grateful for this with Stand Together is that they

put together a group of organizations, their leadership. We got together, we're from all different, we work with all different populations and started to lead with a mental health advisor, Tali Told, and she was able to start this conversation about what is it that we would do if we could do anything in the mental health space and we all pick peer support? As we said, again, even if we put more clinicians in the pipeline, we don't know that these clinicians

would be the most effective use for the populations we serve for all the reasons that you and I've talked about. And what I loved about it is that we have re-imagined a continuum of hope and not hope is like as you said like did you say squishy before? Used another word but like not hope and like just a sentiment like oh my god I hope you feel better, I hope things are good. But hope is a tool for thinking about where would you place yourself on a continuum of hope? I'm hopeful, hopeless. Like, I could think about anything in my life,

but like how hopeful am I that I can stick to a diet and exercise plan? I could put myself on a continuum, which is also a grounding experience that we're not having in the mental health conversation right now. Right now we're talking about anxiety, we're talking about depression, we're talking about depression, we're talking about

post-traumatic stress. Those are not terribly productive conversations, but anyone could be on a hope continuum. You have hope for anything that you're trying to accomplish and it allows you to start to see how can I generate hope that can move my condition one way or the other. And the goal isn't to be like the most hopeful, joyful, you know, person there, but it's to be slightly different than you are right now. And it's part of it is the education, the literacy, it's the it's knowing, do I need a clinician? Is this a time where I can do appear? Is this a friend that I just need? And it's having some of that empathy for yourself and for others. And I really think that it can have a very different way of talking about mental health that is less pathologized by a long shot and is more productive

and more empowering where I can think like, how can I generate hope and what are the things that I need and making those things accessible? I think part of this is the journey that people would come on if they come to give an hour is you're on a journey with our belief that you know what you want and need. And our job is to try to help connect you to those and create those scenarios for you to be able to access the kind of care that you want. Also got to believe that being a peer person, not being on the peer group, being one of those, that's also part of the word you didn't like, journey.

I love journey. Acting as a peer is also therapeutic for the peer. It is. So it's part of their journey as well. That's a continuum of care in and of itself. It is so, it is very reciprocal. So as I help you and connect with you, I'm helping me and connecting with me.

And you can feel the energy that comes from that. I bet you can sitting on the wall in one of those rooms. Absolutely. All right, so we didn't talk much about, you dropped them, but we didn't go into them. So the three things to give an hour are therapist, beautiful, great, just not enough of them. Right. Love therapists.

Be a peer, be in a peer group. Beautiful. Love it. And you're going to get the five things and you're going to get a little training and then you're going to get certified. And then you're going to immerse with people who deal with similar trauma or experiences that you have and talk through it because those people are going to be more readily open to you because of your common experience and bond.

What's a wellness ambassador? A wellness ambassador, that is a person who really doesn't fit in the first two, but they really are friends, family, allies, colleagues who want to learn more about mental health, want to learn more about how to talk, want to learn the five signs and like how can they be more effective? And I think of like colleagues at work, especially like places that have a lot of veterans, you know, and we have again, a very, I think, narrative, a bit of a distortive narrative about veterans and mental health that gets hurt, you know, that mental health that comes out before the veteran even walks in the door. And again, we want to understand their experience, not just,

oh my gosh, veterans are at higher risk of suicide, veterans have post-traumatic stress. They are true. But you don't want to form that before you ever meet the human being. These things are on a dial, right? And so the dial right now is really high and it's encompassing, and it's harming veterans. It's harming people to think that you think that, you know, I have a mental health condition that makes me at higher risk for something. It's not how you want to lead these things, right? You want to put processes and supports with like benefits and things in place, but they have to be in place in context of that whole development. So is a wellness ambassador also up here in terms of shared experience?

It's not required. And that's why I think, you know, in like Las Vegas would have been a great example. How do we, you know, again, we were developing these, but I can think now in an experience like that where how different would the experience of the individuals be if in a community you had therapists, access to therapists, access to peers who have been in a similar experience, who are further downstream from their experience than the one that you're in,

and had people in your day-to-day life, people to brush your hair, people who cut your hair, who had more education about mental health and how to support people. And now you're going through your life in Ventura County. So you can just be a wellness ambassador and you want to stand up and learn how to be a wellness ambassador and you just employ that in general in your life. All the places and spaces you occupy. But you get trained to recognize stressors. You get trained as to how to open conversations without making a personal or off-putting at the beginning. And then you are a wellness ambassador. And if you see these stressors from these five things, now you know how to approach somebody

who may be struggling and provide a safe place for them to talk about those struggles to then find therapy or a pair of group. Armham also equipped them with good resources. And again, not overcomplicating these resources are already in, are accessible. 988 would be a great one. Everyone should be- This guy could be a barber. There you go. This 988 would be a great one. Everyone should be in that. I mean, this guy could be a barber. There you go.

This guy. This is a great place to do this. And candidly, every football coach should be taught that. Yes, coaches for sure. And part of the journey. Basketball coach, baseball coach. I know, but we only talk about football.

But coaches. Coaches, yes. But I mean, a coach, who else is around a large group of at-risk people all day long? And you will see a change in behavior. You're going to be the first one to observe it. What if you trained police to be wellness ambassadors?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Can you imagine the way that could change the narrative on that whole thing? Right. Because I really think that part of it is we're helping people. You think we could change Congress to be one of the ambassadors? You think we could do that? Maybe the get senators in the house to get in a wellness ambassador training program. No. Oh, my God. Come on, give an hour.

Some peer support. A little bit of support. We definitely need peer support. Absolutely. Actually, the wellness ambassadors need to be the staffs of the congressmen and senators so that... They would have an amazing peer support group. That way they could have their own peer support group. Absolutely. Because lord knows there's plenty of trauma up there.

They would be a great care study. Go back to the shooting in Vegas. I guess it's called a shooting. What do you call that thing? Mass shooting in Vegas. I guess it's called a shooting, what do you call that thing? Mass shooting in Vegas. You said of that group that went back to LA that was two thirds of the people affected, which is incredible, that through a couple of years of the Peer Support Group and all that 13 of those very people

then became certified peer support people, which could also now, or a group of those people, also be trained to be wellness ambassadors as well. And they could facilitate groups, so they can, so we do- Wellness ambassadors? The peer supporters. Can facilitate groups.

So we would actually train them to become a group facilitator. So we generally, because we offer group support. And so what it would allow them to do is then lead a group. And so you think again, there's a, there's a. And it's not all about costs, but there's a better way of investing dollars that I think are more effective. And so having a group of, let's say, 20 individuals who have had a mass violence event experience from across the country come together,

and we offer this weekly, that group can be led by a peer supporter who's had an experience with a mass violence event. The cost of that over a year for us, and these are real costs, and I would say, because we don non-profit, we don't have these big margins built in, but it comes out to about $1,200 per person,

and we put, for a year, for a group, and we put clinical support around it, and so I think, again, when I go back to, there's some magic here, rather than putting the clinician in the group, which then again, changes dynamics, right? Who's the expert now? The clinician.

It's hard to keep that they're the experts of their mental health, they're the experts of their experience and they're there to help each other. But when we put clinical support around it, so we get a clinician, we contract with them, we make sure that they're meeting with that individual. Now they're also getting a chance to engage with that clinician about the group,

about their reactions to the group, because again, they're still having their experience, ways in which it could show up. And then our team actually creates really great, we'll always be known for this, really great psychoeducation materials that we bring back to the group. So the group ends up on a conversation about sleep disturbance, just use an easy one like that. About what? Sleep disturbance, like difficulty sleeping easy one like that. About what? Sleep disturbance, like difficulty sleeping, which again, we know is a huge component,

right? Huge like boulder of good mental health is getting good sleep. We would then through that conversation, we would actually create some one page materials. And it's not again, it's not like we're Googling like how to do good eight hours of sleep. What we're trying to understand is what are they experiencing? How much sleep are they getting? How can we increase that by a small amount? And then bring those things back through that peer supporter who's the trusted person and bring it back into the group and really use that as a way to try to, again, bring more education materials in there and spark a different conversation

where they can support each other. And I think with that clinical support and then having psychoeducation materials reintroduced that has been created for that group. Again, it goes back to you heard me, we were just talking about this six days ago, you came back in, we can pick up that conversation. And now they can talk not about, oh, you solved my problem, but rather, how do I feel about this? Did I do it? Have I tried it? What worked for me? What worked for you? It sparks conversation. And that's why I think this is such a low cost over time and more enduring than the one hour you get with a therapist once a week, once a month, still got 23 hours of the day where other things could be happening that are just

as effective, if not more, and peer support has been proven to be an effective way. Now there's literature that could tell you one side or the other, but it is effective. And I can tell you, I have stood in those spaces and watched it happen and you can see it be effective. We'll be right back. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. 25 years ago, I wrote my first book called The Tipping Point.

All about the moments when an idea or trend crosses a certain threshold and spreads like wildfire. I've had a lot of time to think about that book, and the way I thought about Tipping Points changed. So now, I'm releasing the sequel, Revenge of the Tipping Point, where I return to the subjects of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon. You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History. Plus, we'll dive into a duo of narrative episodes about my favorite trial in American history, and a reevaluation of the broken windows theory I explored in my first book. Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get your audiobooks and listen to

Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm sitting here thinking about, you know, we've talked about the military, we've talked about the military, we talked about victims of shootings, but, and then you talked about sleep. So I mean, there is no issue out there that this can't encompass. And I'm thinking about, I mean, it's terrible to think about, but I can't, this is what my brain's going to, is victims of rape. And you talk about stigma and an unsafe thing to talk about, or molestation or childhood trauma, all of it. It feels like you create a safe place by putting peer support people that have been through that with people suffering from the same stuff. And it only makes sense that people would be more comfortable

and get more out of that. It does. And in Washington, DC, we have a program there that's a mayor's initiative through the Office of Victim Services and Grants. And we offer this. We have access to clinicians. And again, it was not a simple task to find clinicians. That would give an hour. And it wasn't just just to give an hour, but it was like trying to find the right clinicians for people who've been both perpetrators of crime and victims of crime. Because as you said before in something earlier, many people who've been incarcerated have also been victims of crime. So again-

The vast majority. The vast majority. So you have to- I've done enough shows and enough research on that, that literally it's in the 90s- You can draw a line. ... of the people that are in prison were victims of something before they ever started their criminality. Right, right.

So we offer that as a service in the District of Columbia where you can get clinical care and we've started peer support. And so again, I think that part of it- Do you have peer support in prisons? So funny, not funny, but interesting. I'll say interesting instead. In Montgomery County, Maryland- Montgomery County. I'm sorry, Maryland, we're just starting one right now in a partnership there where we will be doing peer support for individuals who are formerly incarcerated who are job seeking. So we're

working with the work source and with the corrections facility. These will be currently this first year is a group of people who are job seeking. And again, I made a call out through another catalyst community to say, do you have people in Baltimore or in Maryland who would want to facilitate who are formerly incarcerated? I had like 22 people reach out to say, I would like- They were formerly incarcerated, know what it's like to look a job, but now have a job. And have a job. Who can now be a peer to say, I know exactly what you're going through, but there is light. Right.

Because- Providing hope. Hope, absolutely. through, but there is light. Right, because it's providing hope. Absolutely. And people, when you've been incarcerated from people that I've known, you have a whole narrative of how your life's about to be when you're going to get out, and the reality does not match. And what a benefit of saying, we're going to do a job search,

and we're going to be talking. And again, we're not talking about mental. I mean, it's so hard to say. But you're bringing a group of people together who have a similar background and a similar goal, and you're working through that as a team. And so I think that I'm incredibly excited. I'm super heartened that the county invested in this. This is again, something they've never done.

And we talked to the prison there about doing the same. And we're going to start with the staff as you always have to. We're going to go with the staff first, and we're going to start with the staff as you always have to, we're going to go with the staff first and we're going to provide this training and support to the staff because you can't just go in and train people like you know their business. So we're going to go in and do listening sessions and we're going to learn about what their unique stressors are. And then we're going to do a training and peer groups. So you're not having conversations, you're having listening discussions.

That's what you justify. It's fantastic. I love that. Because you learn the corporate narrative of what the stressors are. And when you talk to people, you really learn how it operates. Again, you're not trying to solve for all the problems.

You're really trying to help equip people with how do you reframe your experiences, but how can you also do it knowing that the person next to you has got their struggles too? equip people with how do you reframe your experiences, but how can you also do it knowing that the person next to you is got their struggles too. And so the insights are incredible. And that's why I go back to the nuances where this is at. And that's why I think systems programs don't work as well. Now this is population based, so you can scale and you have a certain amount of things that can be generalized. Like you said, sleep, it's going to go across the thing. But also when we were doing some work with veterans after the withdrawal,

they were working 22, 23 hours a day, no longer in uniform. They were doing this because we were continuing to run missions because that's what they did. And we walked alongside them and in no way am I going to bring you a one pager talk about getting eight hours of sleep. Like that would be ridiculous. So you have to try to really listen to like what people are needing. But as soon as we put a group of people together, first thing they did was said, I can't show my wife the videos I'm getting. She's pregnant.

Like I can't bring all this into my life. And someone else is like, here's my phone number, call me. And you just start to watch the magic. There's like an organic magic and then you're curating a lot of it as well. There's a parallel here I just can't get over, which is my great aunt and uncle, Sid and Shirley Farnsworth, both have passed, but they started in Memphis in the fourth, they met at and then started the largest chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous in Memphis and continued to run those things until very close to their does, which they both were in their 80s.

And it seems to me the power of, well, certainly with AA, there's accountability and all of that, which is different. But just saying, I have a problem, I need help, is the first step to getting help. And the secret sauce behind all that is you're much more willing and safe to do that in a room full of alcoholics than you are anywhere else. Even if you're recovering alcohol, right? Or addict or whatever. And so it only makes sense that I would be so much more willing to discuss my depression,

my trauma, my whatever, when I'm in a room full of people who understand by exact depression, anxiety, trauma, and then training the people in those peer groups to understand what to look for and how to respond. I don't know why this hasn't been done before. I mean, frankly, why did it take us so long to figure it out? Well, why did it take you guys so long to figure out for somebody? I mean, and then the added benefit of it's truly philanthropic because the very people that are the peer groups are quote, giving an hour and anybody can do it. Yeah, giving an hour and getting back. Like that's the thing. Yeah, they're getting back the hour too, aren't they?

Yeah, they're getting back through that service. It's not just a strain. That's what I've said about the therapist. We're not just asking you for an hour. We are pouring into whatever it is you want and need. You want training on EMDR? Got it. We'll take care of that.

You need to get continued education credits for something? We got it. You want to be a contractor and make some extra things on the side? Got it. You want to be a contractor and make some extra things on the side, got it. You want peer support, we started peer support for our providers because they were struggling. And so that's again, you're in relation and you can't do that for people you don't even know, invest, talk to, have any kind of relationship with. And so our entire, we have a year of the provider this year and our program manager for that created an entire strategic plan

based on their feedback. You could just cross from this is what therapist said they want to do, this is what I'm providing want to need. And there's then the spirit of how she's showing up. It's not just like we offered 17 trainings and now they're good. It was, she was like calling, she made an advisory of therapists who can like really help keep eyes on like any of the things that we can't see trend-wise that's coming. I mean, it's just been incredible because there's a whole spirit of showing up for people that I think you can't, again, block in a structure or in a system. You have to be in relation. I'm a sum it up guy. The goal was eight million by what?

Eight million by 2025. You wanted to? Impact eight million. And that means eight million people. Individual people. And that means actually have some sort of effect on their life. By 2025. And it's early to mid 2024.

Yeah, we're already at three million. It was like 2.9 million. 3 million people. Yes. Since when? What's the start date of that? 2021. So 2021. So you have literally impacted. I felt confident about our numbers. Because you have the science behind the data. Right, right. And I know.

3 million. Yeah. And part of it is we- At no cost to anybody. Well- No cost to the people being- None of the people who are there, absolutely. It's all about giving an hour. Yeah, it has been the investment from philanthropy

and business. Yeah, from your fundraising efforts and whatever. And of that, we also are looking at growing a provider network of 50,000. Now that's a much slower move, because you're not, again, like I said before, you're not just trying to get 50,000. We say fighters trained therapists, mental health providers. Yeah. It's 50,000 and that is 10% of about the amount of

licensed mental health providers that you're trying to get 10% of all the therapists. Yeah. I say to get an hour. Yeah. To get. And again, where are you now? Well, we're nationally. And no, no. Where are you on? I'm sorry. We're sorry. We're just under five thousand. And part of it. So you need 45,000. Are you therapists out there listening? Now's your chance. Now's your chance to step up. What I think is interesting about that, though, is about that though is that we're losing a generation of therapists through retirement. So we're again trying to affect that to say, how can people retire and still stay engaged with give an hour?

That's interesting. But there's also like, I'll just use an example, malpractice insurance. They'll have to carry that. That's terribly expensive to be given an hour and be paying your malpractice. They're incongruent. So we don't have solutions necessarily for that. But I do see that as policy level things if we're really trying to keep therapists engaged, but maybe they're going to go down to part-time. But we don't want them to leave the workforce completely. And so how do you do that? And then again, the influx of early career therapists coming in just aren't enough. And they're often like psychiatrists as an example.

I mean, that's a unicorn. It's very, very difficult to find psychiatrists. So you really have to be intentional about getting individuals into your network. And so this is where I think part of ours is getting relationships with university programs. And so how could we possibly the hour that they give in therapy, they're actually going to give to supervision of early career therapists. So then you make a match there because it's hard to find a good supervisor. And our clinicians may actually, many of them have volunteered.

We did a survey and we have thousands say that they would do that. And so that would allow those early career folks to actually have exposure to, let's say, veterans. My fear is that we're going to have an entire generation of mental health professionals, or professionals period, who are going to come into the workforce who are going to have no connections in the last 20 years. And we are already not meeting the needs of veterans. What are we going to do in five, 10 years, especially-

Well, not just veterans, but everybody. Everybody, for sure. But I think that because of know, because of the highlight of like coming out of a 20 year war, which we've never done, what are the downstream effects? And that that's also gonna become an aging population, which there's hardly any mental health resources around aging.

There's very little research, which again, is an area that we're looking at intersections. So how could we get more people into Q and train them about what we learn from about the military and veteran population so they can provide that and have those connections because military very specific. If you don't know anything about them and you're the therapist, you're probably not going to be a great match. Do you have a sense of the number of peer groups that exist? Yes, I do. We just started the full peer program in September. And I believe we've trained more than a thousand of the peers done training. And these are across different populations.

And then we've had more than 600 more reach out for interest. And so again, those are like people who reach out to say that they want to be involved but for us we did it and I think it's a very conservative multiplier effect so we said for every person that we train they are gonna affect at least two so if we train you you're probably gonna use it somewhere in your professional life and somewhere in your personal life are you gonna use it somewhere but I think that's conservative, but I think it's a good conservative multiplier effect to say every one person that we can help here can help themselves, help someone else,

and then help someone else kind of a little bit more in their tertiary environment. Trina, since 2021, you have pivoted to this creative, out of the box thinking plan, and you have a thousand or so peer groups. Oh, peer groups. I'm so sorry. Peer trained persons.

Right now we run seven peer groups and we have other peer groups stood up all over. Sorry. Right. I'm sorry. A thousand peer group people, a thousand wellness ambassadors, five thousand providers, and you've helped three million people with a goal of forty five thousand providers, eight million people served, and I guess growing all the peer group and wellness advisors you can. That's significant numbers.

It already is. It is fantastic. And again, probably, you know, when you're in it day to day, it's like, you know, you're, you're like trying to get all the traction, right? And you're thinking of like all the different places and spaces. And I also want to make sure we, we have this kind of prototypes really well as we look at what does scale look like, what does replication look like, but I will say of the people that we've affected, I have no doubt. I see the messages. I see what they write to us. I see what they say or I hear

what they say to us. I know that when people have come to us, they've already tried other avenues to get help. And when you have this warm, friendly Ashley on the phone who said, you know, I'm here to be on your journey. I'm going to get you where you want and need. I'm going to make sure that this is going to work for you. Oh, by the way, we have a peer group that starts in two days. You can get into. So our peer group is six days or less. You can get into a peer group.

So think about right now, if you're waiting 30, 60, 90 days to get in therapy, what if you can connect in peer group, which the research says can be as good if not better for your mental health. And you can pop right into that while you're getting therapists with us, which on average to get connected doesn't mean that's your first appointment, but to find a match, she's averaging between like five and eight days. We'll be right back.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell. 25 years ago, I wrote my first book called The Tipping Point. All about the moments when an idea or trend crosses a certain threshold and spreads like wildfire. I've had a lot of time to think about that book and the way I thought about Tipping Point's changed. So now I'm releasing the sequel,

Revenge of the Tipping Point, where I return to the subjects of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomena. You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History. Plus, we'll dive into a duo of narrative episodes about my favorite trial in American history and a reevaluation of the broken windows theory I explored in my first book. Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you get your audiobooks and listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. What, um, beyond the really applicable story of the folks from Los Angeles who endured the Las Vegas thing, give me another example.

You got another example of something we might recognize that this kind of stuff has had a profound effect on? Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's always just fascinating about how these things come about. But we were introduced several years ago and probably one or two years before I came on and then I kind of picked up the torch from that was a rare disease community. So you-

A rare disease community? That's interesting. That was my phase because I was like, what? that was a rare disease community. So you... A rare disease community? That's interesting. That was my phase because I was like, I don't know quite what this means. And there is a community of individuals who across the country, I believe it's about 10,000 now, but it used to be 7,000 rare diseases. And so these are diseases that don't have a lot of research behind them, a lot of drug therapies behind them. And. That must be lonely.

What a lonely, exactly. You are one of a very small group. Doctors don't even know what the hell it is that's wrong with you. Yep. Pharmaceutical isn't necessarily right up front on it because again, there's some whole exchange there of where you put your money. And it has been one of the most profound experiences of working with rare disease communities and getting in deep.

And so we came through a horizon, which is now MGen and Alexion, which are both pharmaceutical companies who work in this disease space. And they were very interested in like our approach of like going to people because this community has been under-resourced. It's hard to find good mental health and hard to find therapists who know much about the

journey. And I will tell you, honestly, when I say it's been one of the most interesting because we were able to work with individuals. So we were trying to look at a caregiver community. What's it like to be a caregiver or a care partner in a community that has rare disease? So let's say your child has rare disease, and you're the parent, but a rare care partner might be somebody like you've married into someone and they have a rare disease. So it was really, and again, language matters to the community. So we were really trying to understand that. And so we started working with the community and learned like just really like deep listening and learning and showing up in spaces and trying to understand and started curating

what that group was doing naturally, but also like how can we push in a little bit more? And then we worked with a company who's been incredible called Trend Community and they do AI for medical. So they have a medical AI and they do social listening. So we worked on a contract with a foundation who was just glorious enough to like really see that this could be something. And so she was able to go into a community that has something. And so she was able to go into a community that has a high caregiver burden for rare disease and pull 11 years worth of history of sorting out mental health key, mental health phrases and words. And we were able to create a journey map that really shows

the mental health and wellness journey of a rare caregiver, so a parent, as they go through the first five years of not knowing what's wrong with their child, it's all the testing. And then it made these natural touch points. And the next touch point was when the child goes to school. The next natural touch point will be like a puberty kind of era. And the next touch point could be going into independence. And what it allowed us to do is then go back to the community with this representation, this visual representation of this is what we think

we've learned in addition to all the listening we've done. Can you talk about what you would have wanted and needed at these different points on your journey? And they've been able to really talk about like, what would it have been like to have a doctor like really understand and be able to give me another resource. What we created a thing for dads, rare dads.

It was like, what do you give a rare dad when so much of the focus is on, let's say in a traditional family, the child and the mother. But the dad is having to show up in these places and spaces differently. And what does that look like when he's trying to take care of the family and navigate the emotions? And so we interviewed a bunch of dads and we created a, like a field guide for rare dads. And it was very much in a language and in a phrase of how men have told us they think about this and their responsibility.

And it's their give back to men who haven't yet found out they're in this community. So you just have this generative thing. And all we did was go in, we got the blessings from this great community of biotech who extended their social capital with these individuals that they built these trusting relationships and brought us in and allowed us to do this. And now we are just walking alongside. So we're doing a podcast for one community that wanted to do like 10 podcasts and didn't have a tiny foundation. So we're doing a podcast for one community that wanted to do like 10 podcasts and didn't have their tiny foundation. Now we're doing it. We're producing the podcast. We're doing the interviews we're taking. So now they can use that to reach in their community. They both

became their two parents. They became peer supporters and now they're going to facilitate groups. We've brought their adult daughter into it and now she's going to reach into like the emerging adults. And that's just one community of this rare disease. And when we go to another community, it's going to look different. And then they'll have this peer group to lean on eventually. It'll be more sustainable, that you won't constantly have to be looking at, like, where are we going to get funding to do?

How are we going to do this? Because then they can train people to become, or we can train them to become peer supporters, which then means you can run another group group and they're not always the one. I think that is so interesting. And as I listened to you, I think, you know, traditionally one of the primal male instincts of a father is protection, is to protect your wife and protect your child. And when something like that happens, I've got to believe that one of the things the men felt were powerless and probably inadequacy. And that may be one of the more difficult things for a man to face is inadequacy. And who could understand that really, unless you've been through it. I mean, I'm just sitting here listening

to it. I mean, I'm going off on a tangent of supposition and really ignorance, but that is exactly what I would think. I don't think it is because I think you're keen in on where the tension is, right? And the tension, and that's the space where, again, if you can help people connect on that, because the gentlemen that we took, the dads we talked to, they didn't feel that they could take... They have great relationships with their wives and family, but they couldn't take that, what you just talked about, to them because they already felt they were protecting...

No. How do you say that to your wife or child? You're supposed to be the strong... Right. And are you going to go to work? And is that say that to your wife or child? You're supposed to be the strong... Right. And are you going to go to work? And is that going to be your place in space? So you're going to have this other group of men, but someone has to be brave. Someone has to be able to step in that space.

And unfortunately, in this particular situation, the gentleman we talked to, I mean, he's been doing this for 20 some years. He's lost two children already. Oh gosh. Yep. He has a daughter who's still struggling with this with this disease, and a wife who also has has effects of this disease. And the again, the way in which he showed up and you

could have a conversation and he would just really talk through because he wasn't doing necessarily only for himself, although I could feel it like you can feel it when you're talking to him like when you can kind of reflect back to him, like my God, that is amazing that you, that nugget is gonna help this man who doesn't even know yet he needs this kind of help. And so-

It's gotta give him some kind of purpose in the middle of the misery. It does, and you know, and again, this is a very purple, so he's very educated, man's had an incredible career. And, but the giving back is also the fuel. You can see that. And that's just part of the therapy for him.

The therapy, absolutely. It's like, oh my gosh, I went through this really challenging thing and now I can help other people who can, I can help them see around corners that even if it could just soften the edges of this experience will be, you know, just changing. That is phenomenal.

It is phenomenal. And I bet he has no problem giving an hour. Oh, he doesn't. I mean, they are the ones, he's the one who literally said, I love this, I can see it. What we're all talking about doesn't fully relate to me because a lot of, it was a lot of the moms who were talking,

again, they were talking very much about like the logistics and stuff, and he goes, like, I can't say what I need to say in this group, but I can help you, he's saying this group, but I can help you. He's saying this to us. I can help you make this for men and for dads. Usually when I rap, I say something to the terms of now you've got all these thousand peer people and thousand wellness and 5,000 therapists and you've already helped three men towards

your goal eight men, do you ever take a second? But I get the sense that that's not an appropriate question for you. Because I don't think you're taking stock of where you are. I have the sense that you're on a frontal assault against this thing. That you're charging, that you don't, you haven't even reached the quarter mile in the marathon yet. I mean, I get the sense that you're not even worried about what you've done. You're more, you seem to have a lot of energy about where you're going. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would say we're a small team. We're a small organization.

I have 12 staff members who do all of this. But what I will say is that, I think the formula is part of that spirit, but it's also part of when you involve a community in solving for challenges. You mean an army of normal folks? Yes, they will do it. They will rise to it.

Just a literal army of normal people. They will do it. And that I really believe this is the only way we're going to address any of this. This is the only pivot we have. I'm not just saying given hours is the only pivot. I'm saying this approach is the only pivot because there's so many organizations doing incredible stuff. We have to be able to. And there's so much need against one and only 350 therapists.

There's only so much the current community of therapists can do. This is the answer for how do we bridge the gap of the deficit of therapy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we all have a role to play. And I think that is to me one of the most beautiful. It's not your problem. It's not them doing it. It's like this is something every one of us can and should do. If someone wants it's a first of all, if you are a therapist, and you're listening to us, and you are not unwilling to give an hour and get involved and do this. I'm really not sure why you listen to the show, frankly. So listen up. If you're a therapist or if you're someone who has struggled and been through it and

wants to be a wellness ambassador or start a peer group or someone who wants to just give an hour and recognizes now after listening, you don't have to be classically and professionally trained and have a doctorate in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychology, or even just a degree in social work, but you have empathy, you see a need, and you're willing to give an hour. This is an absolute place that anybody listening can have a positive effect because we've all experienced some form of trauma or depression or anxiety.

So there is somebody out there in need that you can relate to. Or if you're somebody in need and you need a peer group or you need a wellness ambassador, this literally applies to everybody listening to us. How do they find you? So easiest one is givenhour.org. And honestly, our landing page, you're going to... Givenhour.org. And on the landing page, they'll have a little contact me. And I mean, we have

our free resources on there, of course, but that's the quickest quickest easiest way and you're going to get a real live person back. A real person. A person will talk to you. So whether you're in need, you're in the middle of it, you want to give you want to your. If you're a therapist and listening this, would you please reach out to them? There's they need 50,000. They got five and there's only 12 of them. So they can't call you. They don't have enough people to call you. You call them.

You will be well taken care of. You'll be well taken care of. Trina, what a phenomenal organization. You've got to be encouraged every day by the work you're doing. Aren't you proud? I'm so proud of the way in which people show up. I think that is the most humbling piece of this is to see how hungry people are for this, how much they're willing to do and how much they need it. And I think that I am inspired constantly about it. I mean, I just, over the weekend, I had to like hold myself back from calling people after just experiencing peer support training.

And I mean, for days it's just taken, you know, I feel inspired just by the people who show up. It's more than a job for you. Oh God, yeah. Yeah, this is, it's all consuming in the best ways possible. Do you not think in some small way that the excitement for this, the understanding of the need and the empathy for all of it comes in some way from that 17-year-old kid that

decided to leave home? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And now I think we're all in positions to make, to clear the way for other people. I think, I can't think of a better benefit you can do to do for and with someone else, but when you get to do it in relation with them, there's nothing stronger and more powerful. Trina Clay U, Dr. Trina Clay new, givenhour.org. Y'all reach out to her, give an hour, help people.

If you need help, reach out to give an hour and they will help you. Trina, thanks for coming to Memphis to share your story. It is awesome and it is applicable to every single human being on the face of this planet. And I cannot think of a more appropriate army of normal folks call than give an hour. It's just an hour. I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks for being excited about this.

And you'll get far more out of it than you put into it. It's just the key to all of these things, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for being here. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Dr. Trena or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, inspired you to take action by giving an hour with them,

joining a peer support group, becoming a wellness ambassador, donating to give an hour with them, joining a peer support group, becoming a wellness ambassador, donating to give an hour, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at billatnormalfolks.us, and I promise you, I will respond. Guys, if you enjoyed this episode, help us grow it by sharing it with friends and on social. Guys, if you enjoyed this episode, help us grow it.

By sharing it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the army at NormalFolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there. All of these things that will help us grow. An army of NormalFolks. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs. I'm Bill Courtney.

I'll see you next week. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rajon. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? And like what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season we're taking an even bigger bite

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