Hi All! Was just looking for some advice or experiences. As many know I'm a student mental health nurse and work as a support worker. I've also had long experience with mental health services. My psychologist has asked if I'd consider doing 1-1's with people currently doing STEPPS and being their skills reinforcer, and separately if I'd do peer Mentorship. I was just wondering if anyone could tell me their experiences of working with or as a peer mentor? What did you find helpful? Or unhelpful?
With STEPPS, was there anything you felt your reinforcer did well or could have done better?
I'm really excited about doing both these things but I want to make a difference and really help!
I've had peer mentors for drug and alcohol support, they can be very good, but something I found a lot, was that they'd struggle to maintain a peer mentorship on a longer term basis, as they'd often let my and other people's issues affect their thinking, and quickly move me on to yet another peer mentor, it is a very big ask, and very big commitment, if you are going to be a peer mentor, please ensure you're ready, and have someone who can support you if you begin to struggle, helping and supporting others through similar experiences as you've already been through can be quite rewarding, but can also unearth emotional issues that you yourself find difficult, I miss a few of my peer mentors, and still think about how their experiences have helped me, and am working towards becoming a peer mentor myself now.
I don't think any one peer mentor for me has been the same as another, and each can have very different views and experiences, I'm not familiar with STEPPS, so can't really comment on that, I hope you enjoy it, and find it rewarding if you do go ahead with it
Hmmm, thanks for the advice Stumpy and for the kind words Jodie. Actually I'm slightly concerned I'd be the opposite to your peer mentors Stumpy and not be emotionally involved enough! I know that sounds weird, but because of working as a support worker where nobody knows my connection with services and also my course and on placement, I worry more that I would be too 'removed'. I guess they will cover boundaries etc in the training but at the moment, because I don't really understand exactly what the role entails, I can see myself going into it with 'student nurse' or support worker hat. I've done some STEPPS stuff and seen clients 1-1 as a student nurse and had no issues with boundaries and not getting emotionally involved. I just worry that peer Mentorship will be about balancing the two and it will take some practice to do that!
Hmmm, thanks for the advice Stumpy and for the kind words Jodie. Actually I'm slightly concerned I'd be the opposite to your peer mentors Stumpy and not be emotionally involved enough! I know that sounds weird, but because of working as a support worker where nobody knows my connection with services and also my course and on placement, I worry more that I would be too 'removed'. I guess they will cover boundaries etc in the training but at the moment, because I don't really understand exactly what the role entails, I can see myself going into it with 'student nurse' or support worker hat. I've done some STEPPS stuff and seen clients 1-1 as a student nurse and had no issues with boundaries and not getting emotionally involved. I just worry that peer Mentorship will be about balancing the two and it will take some practice to do that!
Actually being able to be very removed is a good thing, this shows strength, and means you may be able to give better advice in difficult situations, I don't think it's a bad thing, so long as you're able to build a trusting rapport no matter how removed, it should work, if you've done 1-1's with clients, this shouldn't really be all that different, one of the reasons I was accessing and seeing Peer mentors, was like an interim measure, between counselling appointments, to try to keep me positive and well, so for all intents and purposes, my peer mentor's were just yet another 1-1 counsellor, with their own experiences, but who could also interact on a bit more of a personal level, helping with goal achieving, pointing towards therapeutic courses, and keeping me focussed until some of us go too in depth about feelings, which would then cause them to feel triggered, and trigger a move on to someone else, so I guess they were kind of removed in a sense, but they did take a break if triggered, hence the move on, I'm guessing the only reason they'd become triggered is because the organisation responsible wasn't keeping a close enough eye on them, and ensuring they had someone to talk to in the event something somebody discussed with them, effected them emotionally. It actually sounds like you're perfect for the role of peer mentor, I'd say go for it
