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Question: Hello,

My name is Chelsea Crockford and I work as a Recreation Therapist at a neurorehabilitation center in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Myself and co-worker, Dr.JoAnne Savoie, Neuropsychologist, were successful in a grant from the Chalmers foundation to do a project on health and wellness for persons with disabilities. The proposed project will involve a series of six 90-minute classes (offered quarterly) where persons with disabilities can learn tools and activities that aim to promote emotional well-being, connectedness to their families and communities, and healthy living. Each class will have an educational component, exploration of barriers to participating in new wellness activities and sharing of community resources to open doors to new connections. Classes will be facilitated by a health professional and trained persons with lived experience (identified as mentors in the proposal) who can offer knowledge, expertise and support. Topics are still being considered but we were thinking it might include Goal Setting and Motivation, Physical Activity and Sport, Emotional Well-Being and Coping, Use of Technology to Enhance Well-Being, Social Connectedness and Finding Purpose, as examples.

We are hoping to not have to reinvent the wheel to provide online training for our mentors who will be providing peer support. Do you know of any peer support volunteer training services we can use ? Or do you have any materials to share that could be helpful/relevant?

Thank you very much,

Chelsea

Answer:

Hi Chelsea,
Congratulations on your grant! The opportunity to serve your community and those with disabilities is amazing. I have a few suggestions that I hope help you as you are preparing for your classes. Conceptually, I think it may be helpful to take an assets development approach as you design your classes. Here is a link from the community toolbox that can introduce you to some of that framework: /en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-he...
Another resource I would recommend in establishing some programming around goal settings, etc. is positivepsychology.com. There are a lot of worksheets related to coping and goal setting, specifically located in the solution focused materials. Additionally, here is some information from the community toolbox on peer mentoring with links at the end to more resources which can help you in pursuit to find more information to train your peer mentors: /en/table-of-contents/implement/improving-services/pee...
I hope this helps you. Best of luck.
In Community,
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Question Date: Mon, 11/15/2021