The goals of wellness and recovery programs are to help members understand and apply recovery and wellness principles to their everyday lives. Wellness and recovery programs and activities provide safe opportunities to experience successful recovery from serious mental illness, substance abuse, and other disabling conditions. These program areas are comprehensive and incorporate best practices in social and psychiatric rehabilitation, health awareness, and adult education. Social and recreational programming is open to all Peoples Oakland members and is constantly changing to stimulate the active involvement of our members. Social supports are key to a successful life for anyone. Peer support is a critical ingredient to the success of all Peoples Oakland programming. These recreational activities give a variety of opportunities for members to practice and form social skills, develop friendships & relationships with peers, and provide ways for members to escape isolation and stigma.

To carry out the holistic approach to mental health Recovery, Peoples Oakland has constructed a facility with a multipurpose social center; a commercial kitchen; a fitness center equipped with fitness machines and space for yoga, dance, and exercise classes. The facility also has meeting rooms and private offices; a large outside deck and a resource and information center staffed by peers and equipped with computers with up-to-date software and access to the internet.

Every member at Peoples Oakland is assigned to a Master's level counselor. Upon intake and then annually, members complete an assessment and service plan with their counselor, this provides a snapshot of where they are at in their mental health recovery, and a document outlining where they would like to focus their recovery efforts and how People Oakland can assist in their recovery goals. Members meet with their counselors as regularly as they like. In addition to individual counseling, we provide daily group counseling opportunities. We offer daily recovery groups, these groups are general support groups that give members an opportunity to discuss the challenges they are facing and how their peers can offer support. Our counselors also provide regular crisis intervention. If a member comes to Peoples Oakland (or calls) and reports a mental health crisis or crisis of any kind, that member's counselor will work with them to help them return to baseline. We document our crisis intervention outcomes as a measure of the relief we provide to other mental health crisis services. Because we are able to mitigate client crises within our facility, we reduce repeated psychiatric hospitalizations and incarceration while reducing the burden placed on services such as Re:Solve, CTT, and other treatment team services which are more costly to provide. Our employment assistance program offers on-the-job training, resume development, job search and interview assistance, and referrals to benefits counseling. Our Peer support services include member panels, peer tour guides, member co-facilitated groups and activities, and Peer-to-Peer counseling.

Peoples Oakland recently implemented a reentry program to address the needs of individuals suffering from SMI who are being released from the Allegheny County Jail. The Peoples Oakland Reentry program is an extension of our existing programming, aimed at addressing the disparity between the criminal justice system and the mental health system to help to bridge the gap between mental health services. One of the nation's most prevalent social injustices is the function of jails and state prisons as the largest institution for individuals suffering from mental illness. This disparity is perpetuated by the lack of connection to community support and mental health services upon reentry, increasing vulnerability to declining mental health and recidivism. Our corrections system also perpetuates the socioeconomic disparities and systemic barriers faced by communities of color. Communities of color are more likely to be uninsured and lack access to mental health services, preventing them from accessing the resources and treatment available to others. Peoples Oakland seeks to improve the quality of life and future outcomes for individuals who are re-entering society after incarceration.

Most importantly Peoples Oakland is committed to cultivating a culture of love and respect for the individual and the community of which they are a part; features of the community that people marginalized by mental health disabilities rarely find. While members come to Peoples Oakland to pursue a variety of personal goals, they are brought into an environment that fosters a sense of belonging and promotes the well-being and dignity of the person. Guiding all of Peoples Oakland services and activities is a philosophy of recovery, based on real-life experiences, nurtured by peer support, hope, self-help, and collaborative relationships with community partners and professionals.