What is peer Mentoring?
Recovery is a process—a journey that involves mile-posts, mileposts that are experienced by consumer/survivors who may seen as peer-mentors. It is the mentor's duty to show someone who is less advanced in their recovery those mileposts, but it is not the mentor's duty to experience the voyage.
The concept of peer-mentor in psychiatry includes a consumer/survivor who has demonstrated keen insight into his or her own mental illness, and at the same time has demonstrated maturity in his or her relationships. In North America, the notion of peer-mentors as a consumer/survivor initiative appears to have originated in British Columbia and Ontario as early as 1988.
In the latter part of the 1980's, consumer/survivor development initiatives began when a joint venture between Health Canada and Industry Development Canada announced an anti-recession program to be given to the community mental health field. This was accomplished in the nation where a working mental health agreement existed between the Province and Health Canada.
The Venture was designed to draw on the skills, knowledge, and commitment of consumer/survivors and professional people with direct experience in the mental health services system. The underlying belief was that, consumer/survivors could, if given the tools, play an important role in both supporting themselves, and working to make the provision of mental health services and supports.
There is a well documented example of peer-mentoring, at the University of Western Ontario which the University calls Therapeutic Relationships, also called CANVOICE (a joint peer mentor program of the Therapeutic Relationships Project, London/St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre Research Inc.).
CANVOICE has operated since the early 1990's and pairs specially trained peer support consumer/survivors with freshly discharged patients who come from a variety of psychiatric hospitals in southern and southwestern Ontario. It has been well documented that this concept has greatly reduced the need for re-hospitalization within the first 90 days following discharge. By any definition, the program, CANVOICE, is peer mentoring, with a few extras added.
When a person is discharged from a psychiatric hospital they often find themselves sent to an 'approved home.' An approved home is one that is run under the supervision of the local provincial psychiatric hospital. Under these circumstances the discharged person is still guided throughout the day being told when to sleep, when and what to eat, how to dress, and how to fill their waking hours. Although this may seem to be benign, it remains intrusive and sets up an unhealthy dependency. A peer-mentor relationship by its very nature may set-up a positive relationship from the start because the freshly discharged person knows that the peer-mentor at one time was a freshly discharged person too.
Now in August 2007, consumer/survivor (peer-mentors) are still misunderstood. Debate seems endless and there are still no real standards in Ontario and precious little information from the other 10 provinces for peer-mentoring. There is a variety of names that are used to describe the service model; these include; peer-mentors, peer-to-peer support, or clubhouse support to name a few. Some of the activities that go along with these names are, coffee house, arts and crafts, and even various types of sheltered workshops. Many of these activities were not the intended outcomes back in 1989.
The financial climate of today's social services industry tells us that everything must be measured in dollars and cents, called — outcomes. After viewing one peer mentor training program training I asked the facilitator what he would consider an acceptable outcome for his schooling, "...that one peer mentor be able to advance one consumer/survivor toward a positive continued recovery," the facilitator indicated.
The answer was not surprising when you consider the number of people who fall through the cracks ending up as casualties in other hospitals, holding cells, or worse, only a short time later. Peer Mentors will lessen the likelihood of that outcome.
Recuperation from mental illness, as from any other form of illness, involves a journey. The journey inevitably takes you along a pathway past various mileposts common to a particular illness. Each and every consumer/survivor, just as each and every diabetes or cancer patient, must take the journey. There are many places for advice to come from. Some of the advice is good, and some of it is terrible. Nonetheless when the rubber hits the road the journey is taken alone. The difference between the diabetic and cancer patients is this: the diabetic and cancer patients are clearly medical patients. Everyone supports their right to complete their journey.
The psychiatric patient is still viewed with suspicion. After all there are no visible signs that anything is wrong.
"Suppose they're just faking it." Some say.
The consumer/survivor is clearly misunderstood and it seems as though from time to time they are making the journey in isolation. This then is where the skills, knowledge, diversity, and support of the peer-mentor can assist to lessen the burden of the day.
