Canadian Peer Support Network for Healthcare Organizations

Purpose of the Canadian Peer Support Network

The Canadian Peer Support Network aims to assist in the design of peer support program within Canadian healthcare organizations. The Network is a community of people with lived experience establishing peer-to-peer support programs. The Network is a platform to share learnings and guide members through the various stages of peer-to-peer support, from developing a business plan to leveraging internal experts for participation and endorsement.

The Network is intended to assist health care organizations with insights on how to support a Peer Support Network, grow awareness of peer support programs, and writing business plans. The Network also provides advice on how best to leverage internal experts and champions to establish and sustain a peer support network.

Disclaimer: The Canadian Peer Support Network is not intended as therapeutic support between, or amongst members. It is for informational purposes only.

Background

In the fall of 2019 CPSI partnered with the Mental Health Commission and a committee of stakeholders across Canada to identify and review peer programming in healthcare in order to establish standards of best practice to guide organizations in their development and implementation of a peer program. Further objectives of this project were to create a peer forum for organizations and providers to network and a webpage in which to share resources and enhance knowledge

Audience

The Canadian Peer Support Network was developed for providers from health and social care institutions of all sizes. This Network is open to anyone interested in learning more about building and sustaining peer-to-peer support initiatives.

Links

For more information on existing peer-to-peer support programs and guidelines on how to set them up, please refer to Best Practices manuscript and Tool Kit.

Another key resource is the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace