OnTrack: Building Trust, Supporting Recovery: The INSET Approach
For decades, the mental health system has grappled with the complex challenge of supporting individuals labeled with serious mental illness (SMI) who are disconnected from support; many of these individuals have been historically marginalized due to the intersecting impacts of trauma, systemic inequities, housing instability, repeated mental health and criminal legal systems involvement, poverty, discrimination, and more. Too often these experiences contribute to mistrust of services and create barriers to meaningful engagement. The Intensive and Sustained Engagement Team (INSET) model is a voluntary, peer-led approach to engagement that recognizes authentic relationships as the foundation for support and recovery. This session introduces INSET and explores how intensive peer support can strengthen connection with individuals who are historically marginalized, under- and unserved by traditional mental health service models through sustained community-based outreach, mutuality, lived experience, and relationship-centered practice. Presenters will share the core components of the model and peer support practice, implementation strategies, preliminary outcomes, and examples that demonstrate how peer-led engagement can foster trust, expand access, and support recovery.