Name: Peer Support Group
Start: 2024-10-14T17:30:00-05:00
End: 2024-10-14T18:30:00-05:00
Location: Grace United Church of Christ

NAMI Wisconsin Peer Support Groups are free, confidential, and safe groups open to any individual who identifies as living with a mental illness or mental health concern. Groups follow a flexible structure and include an educational activity. Individuals join a caring group of peers that offer support through their learned wisdom and participants can share as much or as little personal information as they wish. Groups may range from 60 to 90 minutes and may be offered on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.
Research has shown that having someone to talk to is instrumental in the mental health recovery process. Too often, mental illness is an isolating experience. Individuals often face feelings of helplessness that can be addressed to a degree by a supportive peer community that offers support, encouragement, and insight through shared experience. Recovery is possible for individuals with a mental health diagnosis, especially with the support of others. NAMI Wisconsin Peer Support Groups are informal sources of support and guidance. Groups do not recommend or endorse any medications or other medical therapies and promote all aspects of recovery.
Peer Support Group Goals
To support and empower. The goal of NAMI Wisconsin’s Peer Support Group is to offer a regularly occurring opportunity to share the challenges and successes of living with a mental health condition and receive support and informal recommendations through a truly peer environment. Groups offers respect, understanding, encouragement and hope.
Peer Support Group Leaders
A NAMI Wisconsin Peer Support Group facilitator is a trained NAMI leader. They play an important role in ensuring that all participants feel welcomed and supported. NAMI Wisconsin Peer Support Group facilitators are uniquely qualified to lead support groups because they live with a mental health condition. Facilitators therefore can empathize with and encourage those who are just beginning or continuing their journey of recovery. A NAMI Wisconsin Peer Support Group facilitator ensures that the group shares responsibility for maintaining guidelines, sustains clear participant boundaries, clarifies goals, and reinforces communication skills that encourage group participation.
NAMI Wisconsin Peer Support Group facilitators are volunteers who become certified by attending and graduating from a 2-day training. The training is designed for facilitators to learn and practice specific skills that will guarantee a meaningful support group experience for all participants.