Mental Health Parity Day celebrates work of Carter Center and Georgia leaders

Caption

Then-first lady Rosalynn Carter chairs a meeting in Chicago for the President's Commission on Mental Health in 1977.

Credit: Courtesy of the National Archives

Work at the Carter Center helped make Georgia the leader when it comes to certified peer specialists, who are trained to counsel others from a perspective of shared experience, Wendy White Tiegreen said.

She worked alongside former first lady Rosalynn Carter and others to show people that recovery from substance misuse is possible. 

"In the 1990s, no one used the word 'recovery' for mental health," she said. "Folks would sometimes use it for addiction, but almost never for mental health. They talked about it as if it was like a terminal label and a terminal illness."

• MORE: Council wants better definitions, resources and support for peer-led recovery programs in Georgia

Tiegreen helped 44 states build their peer support programs before she retired last year from the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.

The Carter Center hosted its second annual Mental Health Parity Day Jan. 22 via Zoom after winter weather closed the state Capitol. That same day, the Carter Center's senior associate director, Samhita Kumar, participated in a panel on mental health in Davos, Switzerland.