May 9, 2024

Cascadia’s Molly Griggs Honored With Oregon Peer Award

Cascadia Health’s Director of Peer-Delivered Services, Molly Griggs, was recognized as the state of Oregon’s Homegrown Peer Leader of the Year at Peerpocalypse 2024, a four-day event organized by the Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon.

The annual conference brings together peer support workers, who draw on lived experience to provide help and support to those struggling with mental health and substance use challenges. This year’s event ran from May 6-9.

Griggs, a longtime peer provider and manager of non-profit peer services, joined Cascadia from MHAAO in 2023. In that time, she has increased the numbers of peer providers and certified recovery mentors on staff; implemented the program Building Community with Peer Providers, which places peers at some of Cascadia’s affordable housing sites; and championed a more robust system of connecting prospective clients with peer services as an alternative or addition to the intake process.

MHAOO opened nominations for peer leader awards earlier this year. Griggs was honored with Oregon’s “Homegrown Peer Leader of the Year” award on the second day of Peerpocalypse.

“I would say that I am humbled and honored to be recognized as Oregon’s Homegrown Peer Leader 2024,” Griggs said. “I am grateful to all of those who came before me in the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement which has brought lived experience and peer support into the conversation. I feel blessed to be at Cascadia Health working to help center the voice of lived experience in the way we deliver services.”

This year, peers had both in-person and virtual options to attend workshops, keynotes, and engagement activities focused on sharing and developing skills in the peer support space. Around 34 Cascadia Health peers attended either in person in Seaside or virtually—twice the number of Cascadia attendees in 2023.

This year’s conference theme was JEDI: Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and many workshops and learning opportunities were available to explore the theme.

“I attended some workshops I wouldn’t have otherwise based on personal connection and a connection to JEDI work,” said Christopher Curry, a peer support specialist working as an employment specialist at Cascadia’s Talbert Heath Center. “I have found through Peerpocalypse that JEDI work and the willingness to explore cultures outside of my own are incredibly important in loving greater through a greater understanding.”

Oregon Health Authority Behavioral Health Director Ebony Clarke presented a keynote at the outset of the event emphasizing that peers are a vital link in the state’s response to an ongoing addiction and mental health crisis. Peers, she said, are a requirement in meeting the needs of Oregonians struggling with behavioral health and substance use.

For media inquiries, contact communications@cascadiahealth.org.

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