A Journey of Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing

A first in a series of 10 Panel Discussions 'On the Road to Recovery' brought 50 participants of mostly staff: Directors, Managers and Front Line workers together from 30 Shelter organizations across Toronto to connect with Peer professional models and their value as a pathway to intersect poverty and the labour force - in a shared vision of recovery beyond our own individual efforts. Mentor/Mentee Canada, as the presenting organization, is tracking our collaboration together over the 10 monthly discussions leading to the People With Lived Experience Connection Conference, November 17, 2020. We are answering what the key items are that we can do together - People With Lived Experience and Shelter system organizations, to become a team in the work of ending homelessness. We are designing for impact and measuring our efforts by sharing our knowledge and our resources as in a Peer Model, the weaker learning from the stronger to truly succeed.

The expert Panelists informed from their unique Peer organizations, Peer support teams, training standards and models from an urban Toronto perspective; an Ontarian Peer Collective perspective; a clinical mental health perspective; and American perspective. The audience unanimously wanted to know more: What is the evidence base for Professional Peers (Lived Experience Peer Supporters) impact in Toronto - in a recovery based workforce where people from homelessness and poverty are able to sustain and thrive in employment? (Recovery is self-determined wellness). Who are the Peer organizations in Toronto from the homeless sector - from the clinical sector? How can we learn from each and work better together?

The Panel introductions, pictured above, included Jonathan John, Manager of Community Initiatives, St. Stephen's Community House, who "believes in the importance of integrating Peer Workers in an organization’s identity, strategic plan, and as an essential component of services delivered in the community.' Jonathan told us, "St. Stephen’s hires over 200 Peers across 7 different programs, continuously invests in the positive growth and development of Peers and its newly opened Peer Leadership Centre." Stacey Bowen, CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) Forensic Peer Supporter, is a winning combination of Peer Supporter and Front Line Shelter worker - who advocates the human voice for her patients in her clinical team of Doctors and Nurses as her professional voice as a Peer Supporter; Laura Pearson, Executive Director of the Ontario Peer Development Initative (OPDI) leads her Peer Support training organization under the umbrella of Peer Support Canada - a collective of about 40 successful Peer organizations all across Ontario, and hosts the OPDI Conference with awards given for exemplary Peer Support in high functioning Peer Models in the clinical sector. Director of Seed of Hope Foundation, Wayne O'Brien, rounded out the Panel as trained through the leading Copeland Centre in America in Peer Support and co-facilitates Peer prevention and recovery WRAP courses at universities and hospitals, and facilitates thousands of hours of Compassion Courses for Peers at Seeds of Hope.

Approximately one third of the audience above on January 29th were Peer Supporters or asking the question, where can they be professionally trained? Moreover, where can they walk in and be provided with a Peer Supporter in Toronto? Mentor/Mentee Canada offers free recovery based and pre-employment Peer Support training, and in a cycle of small group training will lead the answer to that question through the Peer Movement. For now, it remained largely unanswered.

Peer support was organic within the Lived Experience audience who told us of resources and reality. Together we heard about the high funding success of The Community Healing Project organization supporting Black youth out of Violence, and we again heard the financial desperation of Peers accepting 20 dollar tokenism pay from organizations with gratitude when non-peers are paid fairly as Consultants for similar work. The audience questions of “who can help implement a Peer Model?” and “where can I walk in and get a Peer Supporter?" lies with our ability to evidence Peer work impact for our City and Policy change toward Peer professional training and work to become a future standard in the Shelter sector. Mentor/Mentee Canada is facilitating and proposing that work, and collaboratively we can measure it.

St. Stephen's Community House Peer work is being evidenced in Supportive Housing with other Peer organizations. Cota is at 220 Oak Street where numbers of tenant evictions are down since Cota implemented its' offsite Peer office there, and importantly calls to 911 and incidents of violence are down through Peer Support intervention and Peer led programs. In the 10 recovery based Panel Discussions presented by Mentor/Mentee Canada we will track this kind of impact which can lead to further societal main stream dollars saved, not to mention lives. As employers, we asked what opportunities are we are creating within our organizations to hire Peer Supporters? What funding are we securing for Peer Supporters to be paid as equitable Staff? What housing evidence are we securing from Peer work? We have an opportunity to join in coordination and collaboration. Should we do this with the Shelter Network or with the robust Peer collective of the Ontario Peer Development Initiative, and gather our data as evidence for policy change there, or seperately?

Peer Support can be a huge success. Success takes Peer support training as connection and education in life transferable skills for trauma and struggle reduction, and it takes implementing Peer Models by training the competencies needed to understand, sustain and develop Peer Models. Collaboration and sharing resources without fear is Peer-like. Stacey Bowen from CAMH says, "when we work on ourselves, fear is no longer an issue." We NEED to know what each other is doing as organizations to be bright spots as the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness encourages us to become, as our new coordinated access system encourages us to become. Peer Support models encourage connection, accompany and show the way forward. Mentor/Mentee Canada is a Peer led organization encouraging your participation at our coming Panel discussions and the Connection Conference. First Nations define us as all Peers - as equals in society learning from one another. That also defines professional Peer work in main stream systems.

Elizabeth Tremblay, Peer Consultant and Founder, Mentor/Mentee Canada email: elizabeth@mentormenteecanada.com Website: https://mentormenteecanada.com/

"We all have a past as Peers, but the difference may be that some of us are still living those experiences or traumas that keep us from moving forward… financially, emotionally, physically or mentally, due to fears of the unknown, not asking for help, or being in denial of a situation that we find ourselves in... To start even the most difficult healing process is to help ourselves, and then we’re able to move on to help others who are still feeling stuck."

"When we’re learning and gaining new life skills, we know instinctively how get through life’s ups and downs, while still maintaining respect from our fellow Peer Supporters and Work Agencies. Lived experience moves forward in a healing and recovery process - and then we look like, and sound like a Peer Supporter."

 - Stacey Bowen, Forensic Peer Supporter, CAMH.