Unique People to Add to Your Support Team to Manage Schizophrenia

When facing a difficult health journey with schizophrenia, you may feel vulnerable and isolated. It can be challenging to focus on managing a severe mental illness if you don't have a solid support system around you. A support team can be a group of people who provide resources, help you accomplish tasks, or simply offer you compassion. Hosts Rachel Star Withers and Gabe Howard break down who should be on your support team, how you build one and unconventional team members you may be missing out on. Dr Jerry McKee, a board certified psychiatric pharmacy specialist, joins as the guest. His work focuses on expanding the capacity of community pharmacies to support individuals with serious mental illness, substance abuse disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Dr. Jerry McKee is a Board-Certified Psychiatric Pharmacy (BCPP) specialist with more than 42 years of leadership experience across public mental health, inpatient psychiatry, residential IDD services, academia, and behavioral-health managed care in North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee. He completed both his undergraduate and graduate pharmacy training at the University of North Carolina. Dr. McKee currently serves as CEO and Chief Clinical Officer of Psychopharm Solutions LLC, a behavioral-health pharmacy consulting and management firm based in Morganton, North Carolina. In this role, he is the project manager for the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists–Alliance Health (NC Medicaid Behavioral Health I/DD Tailored Plan) Community Pharmacy Transformation Grant. His work focuses on closing reimbursement gaps and expanding the capacity of community pharmacies to support individuals with serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities. A past president of the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists, Dr. McKee has served two terms on the Board of Pharmacy Specialties Psychiatric Specialty Council and two terms on the Board of Pharmacy Specialties Executive Council. He is a frequent author, speaker, and expert witness on psychopharmacology and psychiatric pharmacy practice. Dr. McKee is also a certified Adult Mental Health First Aid instructor and has dedicated the past decade to reducing stigma surrounding mental illness within community pharmacy, primary care settings, and pharmacy education. Our host, Rachel Star Withers, (Link: www.rachelstarlive.com) is an entertainer, international speaker, video producer, and schizophrenic. She has appeared on MTV’s Ridiculousness, TruTV, NBC’s America’s Got Talent, Marvel's Black Panther, TUBI’s #shockfight, Goliath: Playing with Reality, and is the host of the HealthLine podcast “Inside Schizophrenia”. She grew up seeing monsters, hearing people in the walls, and having intense urges to hurt herself. Rachel creates videos documenting her schizophrenia, ways to manage, and letting others like her know they are not alone and can still live an amazing life. She has created a kid’s mental health comic line, The Adventures of ____. (Learn more at this link: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Fearless-Unstoppable-Light-Ambitious/dp/B0FHWK4ZHS ) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices