With our Peer Sectors and our Team Collaboration
We can build the Right House - with Lived Experience leading Recovery for All
Peer Programs to stop the costly uphill battle
Unhealthy systems are costly in many ways including lives lost. Instead, connection, belonging, knowledge sharing, healing and recovery from trauma, sharing leadership skills create cost saving, healthy systems.
Evidence shows Peer co-developed, co-designed, and co-facilitated programs promote change. They forge a path of inclusiveness for urban adult housing environments. They inspire, motivate, and empower co-operative living among residents from intake.
Without built-in Peer Programs in independent living environments, a fresh new start - even with the most empathetic Supportive Housing Workers - quickly become unintended ‘dependence’ communities, with ongoing ‘homelessness’ through oppression.
Instead, Peer Support offers holistic Programs that are ready to pilot in your organizations evidenced as effective by service users who have recovered and thrived through their developmental organizations. Peer programs are mutual learning and sharing, safe environments to empower autonomy and navigate the best services and resources for safety, wellness, and financial wellness.
VIRTUAL HEALTHY HOMES, HEALTHY LIVES is a mandatory intake program for Living Experience individuals coming from non-transition house environments to new supportive housing. Peers model co-operative living-style healthy homecare and nutrition through their own home environments.
VIRTUAL BUDGETING and SUPPORTING STEPS TO FINANCIAL WELLNESS THROUGH EMPLOYMENT AND STEP EMPLOYMENT for those transitioning to housing. Moving from government benefits and the Housing Stabilization Fund to seasonal employment placements for income management and to remain housed.
Peer programs are evolutionary in their anti-oppression approach and Peer Leadership intent.
VIRTUAL TRAINING FOR RECOVERY-BASED EMPLOYMENT IN PEER SUPPORT is an in-demand training program for Peers to be employed as professional Peer Supporters in Outreach, Drop-Ins, Shelters, Harm Reduction, Out of Law Involvement services, Gender Based Violence services and Shelters, Mental Health, and Hospital Units. The comprehensive training is foundational for healthy professional communication and relationships, and ongoing wellness in transition to employment in the Peer connected community. The training prepares the Peer (living or lived experience person) to work in a large organization, a union environment, and a collective, collaborative team. Pilot a Peer Support Program through Peer Support Training.
Peer Specialties-transforming systems from within
How can you build lived expertise and wellness into your organization? “Through training a couple of key Peer Specialists” - Paula Verrett, PEER HOUSE: Leadership from the USA Panelist, March 25th, 2022. Peer specialties include mental health wellness and Peer supported harm reduction - but many more. Peer specialty roles can transform organizations to meet the challenges of complex clients and residents currently lacking support of disorder healthcare connection or support of core root issues of trauma and harmful coping, with long wait lists to clinical supports, or avoiding clinical supports due to common stigma. Lived Expertise skilled listening and responding from personal understanding of core issues of trauma and sharing from multi-system service use - and recovery - is the response needed to start system transformation.
Peer Supporters do not ‘assess’ or advise in Peer roles, but communicate depth of understanding and support recovery goals through being system navigators. Peer support Client self-determined goals in what is known as the Ontario Common Assessment of Need, the OCAN - a client care plan. The OCAN is a measurement tool for Clients recovery in housing environments. It’s also informs program adaptation for client needs, and measures outcomes of service and care.
The OPOC (the Ontario Perception of Care) is another measurement tool that is a Peer role developed by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Ontario. The OPOC is modified for use in housing environments to collect organizational performance data according to service users. Both the OCAN and the OPOC are positive steps forward in continually improving Client care, Staff engagement, and program adaptations to accelerate Client recovery in systems.
As more housing organizations onboard the OCAN, and utilize the OPOC as engagement and organizational improvement tools Peer surveyors and interviewers can both lead data collection and support implementing changes through client’s who have been listened to and involved in system improvements as well as their own recovery.
Lived experience people have specialties of mental health and substance use safety and wellness can relieve residential services largest challenges. These include deadly substance use, mental health crisis and hospitalization, and behavioural outcome of eviction and increased trauma.
Equitably employing Peer specialties in supportive housing (staffed) environments, and allowing Peer Support roles to expand to data measurement tool input, not assessment but analysis, can change even the spike in substance dependency, and life loss regularly experienced in systems. Lived Experience Peer Support specializations help get to root causes that block wellness. These include pain education and management, family peer support, exiting gender based violence, and successful reintegration.
Starting from leadership training of Peer Support onboarding to supporting Staff to understand and work with Peer Support, Mentor/Mentee Canada can help us build transformative system recovery. Please Contact.
Peer Employment in Membership supportive housing
The future of ending homelessness from the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness in 2022 is “building new supportive housing units and supports, including case management, primary care, and mental health and substance use treatment.” Co-operative supportive housing lives the mission statement of Membership involvement in all levels of care and include essential Peer Support service. Housing specialist Peer Supporters are the tenancy and behavioural care specialists to engage and support safe housing and wellness skills following street and emergency service homelessness.
Peer Supporters have a solely Client supportive role to maintain tenancy and work toward personal wellness. Documenting engagements as a Supportive Housing role priority for Management and Funders - including documenting to team members, supervisors and multi-external partners - take the large percentage of SHW working hours. In addition to the role of recovery agent and external partner liaison, as a minimum in the Supportive Housing Worker role responsibilities, the SHW must also represent the Landlord (Management) of a supportive housing organization. This as the primary role of the Supportive Housing Worker can, and often does, ‘break’ the trust and recovery relationship with their entrusted Clients.
Peer Supporters have much of the same training as Supportive Housing Workers - combined with the innate credibility of health, mental health, addictions, and homelessness first hand knowledge of recovery. Peer Supporter’s flexibility and ability to support a wide range of person-centered goals with their rich first hand knowledge of resources from crisis to community - can strongly benefit Supportive Housing Organizations as a Client service to end ongoing ‘homelessness’.
Peer Supporters are the future of behavioural health needed to prevent eviction which is largely based on behaviours. Day-to-day funding and legal obligations are improved through Peer connection and communication directly impacting successful housing and employment, while relieving over-burdened supportive housing workers and case managers, and supporting primary care, mental health, and harm reduction.
With opportunities through meaningful programs of Resident involvement, supportive housing communities will evolve to overcome the often lasting trauma of homelessness - isolation, harmful coping through addictions and poverty.
Connect to Peer Services in 2023.