Youth and Young Adult Peer Support Training - VERMONT ONLY

Thursdays & Fridays starting January 23rd through February 7th
About this Event

Logistics:

This is a 24-hour course scheduled to occur virtually, over six 4-hour sessions. These sessions will occur on Thursdays & Fridays on the following dates: Jan 23rd, 24th, 30th, 31st, Feb 6th and 7th. You must attend all sessions in order to complete this course. At this time we are only offering this course to those who live or work in VT.

Please note that there is a small $20 fee for materials and shipping for this course. If this fee is a barrier to you, please email us at [email protected] for additional options.

Prerequisite:

This course is meant for those who have already taken an Intentional Peer Support or Recovery Coaching Training. It is reccommended that you have taken some formal training in peer support practices before enrolling for this training.

General Course Information:

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 specialist. This six-session training provides participants with a foundation for supporting young people experiencing mental health and substance use challenges, explores the unique issues for youth navigating recovery and youth-serving systems, and offers best practices and tools for peer specialists looking to support youth. 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.

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

Addtional Note:

This training was developed and updated in 2023 by the South Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, a SAMHSA-funded initiative under the Texas Institute on Excellence in Mental Health at The University of Texas at Austin. The Pathways Vermont Training team has made some revisions to this material to provide relevance to Vermont services and systems.