Facilitating With a Peer Approach
Mutuality is a core value of this work. This means that anyone who facilitates this training, must facilitate in a way that honours this value.
In community-based mental health and substance use peer support programs, facilitators of peer support training are co-facilitated by people with lived experience. It is this way for a few reasons;
- The philosophy of peer support is not based on a clinical paradigm. Peer support is relationship-based in a way that clinical services are not designed to be. It can be challenging for a clinician to deliver a training that is so different from the paradigm they work within.
- Someone with lived experience knows what it feels like to feel despair, and work through really hard times. This is at the heart of peer support.
- It is often easier for someone with lived experience to embody the mutuality that is at the center of peer support. Mutuality doesn’t negate the need for strong boundaries and professionalism.
We recognize that peer support in Post-Secondary Institutions works differently than peer support in the community. Peer support in PSIs is broader, and includes a wider demographic. People move through the program faster than in community programs, therefore PSI staff will most likely be the facilitators of the training.
We encourage facilitators to embody the core value of mutuality while facilitating. This means taking a peer approach through sharing personal stories, letting go of the need to be an expert, and intentionally breaking down hierarchies as much as possible. If you are able to bring in students to support the training process, that will support a peer approach.
The following section comes from the Peer Support Services in Post-Secondary Institutions (PSI): An Overview
While taken directly from PSI Peer Support Training modules, we are including the following sections in the guide in order to bring context to different roles and to highlight different training recommendations for each role.
Peer Services in Post-Secondary Institutions
British Columbia mental health and substance use peer support services have a long history. Today, most government and nonprofit clinical mental health and substance use services include peer support services. This includes both community care, and in-patient hospital care. Here in B.C. some of the earliest formal, health authority funded peer support programs began in the 1990s. Although some agencies are further ahead than others, in general peer support in the community is now viewed as a valid career choice. Peer support workers receive competitive compensation and benefits. There is a common understanding of what peer support is, and what it isn’t within the healthcare sector.
Currently, peer support in post-secondary campuses is not standardized, and there is much variance between programs. Some peers are volunteers and others are paid.
Peer support can mean varying things within each post-secondary institution. The p