What is Peer Support? (Part 2)

In Part 1, I spoke about how peer support team members are coworkers who are specially trained to offer support and are knowledgeable about resources.

The need for peer support is sometimes only recognized after a workplace tragedy or failing. Peer support can be early intervention. With forethought, we can often better plan for, respond to, and prevent unnecessary distress, and in some cases, a crisis. Peer support team members are trained to recognize the limits of their role and refer as appropriate to a higher level of support, intervention or care. While peer support can be utilized to respond to coworkers after a crisis, its primary function is more ordinary as in everyday interactions or encouragement.

A formal peer support team is part of a worker-centric peer support program that is intended to augment existing resources such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and internal or external professional psychological services.

Informal peer support likely already exists at your workplace. The intention of my work in peer support is to embolden workers to fully claim this domain as their important work to do, and to advance team members’ understanding of the peer role and help them develop the skills for effective peer support.