The Youth and Young Adult Peer Support training was developed to train peer supporters on the topics of youth voice and issues specific to youth navigating mental health or substance use challenges. The Youth and Young Adult Peer Support training is available for anyone who works as a peer support provider. This training provides participants with a foundation for supporting young people (ages 12-30) experiencing mental health and trauma-related challenges, exploring the unique issues for youth navigating trauma, distress, recovery, and youth-serving systems. This training offers best practices and tools for peer supporters who are working with youth and young adults. The training will also encourage participants to consider how to use their own lived experience when supporting youth through structured reflection, group discussion, and interactive activities.

Training Format:

This training is a 24-hour course that can be completed virtually over six 4-hour sessions or in three 8-hour days of in-person training. 

Prerequisite:

It is required that you have taken some formal training in peer support practices before enrolling for this training. This includes Intentional Peer Support Core Training or the Certified Peer Support Provider Training.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this training, it is envisioned that participants will be able to:

• Define the term “youth.”

• Identify and practice effective ways of meeting youth and young people “where they are”

• Build authentic connections with young people based on lived experience, regardless of differences in age or other experiences

• Identify stigmatizing language used to describe young people and effectively reframe such language through the lens of peer values

• Understand how resistance or other actions may be forms of self-advocacy, communication, or responses to trauma

• Identify common responses to trauma that young people experience

• Support young people in exploring different ways to heal from trauma

• Utilize foundational knowledge of power and privilege to support youth experiencing oppression

• Assist young people in learning to advocate for themselves within the settings that young people must navigate

• Set and hold boundaries with persons served and coworkers

• Identify challenges and ethical boundaries for supporting family members of a young person