PEER SUPPORT
Peer Support:
A major barrier to independence occurs because people have been isolated in various treatment programs which focus on the problems of their disability rather than on their identity as a disabled person and their affiliation with a positive group. They see their experience as unique and do not realize how much they can learn about living with a disability from others who have positively assimilated into the larger disability community.
The experience of planning, organizing, implementing and cooperating with other consumers for our group activities, one-on-one counseling and social and challenge activities becomes the vehicle for self acceptance. Self acceptance is necessary to move forward to self sufficiency and community reintegration. To understand what having a disability means in general, is to understand the experience of people with different disabilities and to proudly affiliate with them as a community.
The Peer Support Program became a formal program, offering both individual and group support, in 1990 with the hiring of two former CPWD clients. The program has been very successful in setting up groups which become self sufficient with the facilitation services offered by staff. By self sufficiency, CPWD means that clients run the meetings both administratively and in content. In addition, many clients of the Center receive peer support either knowingly or unknowingly because the majority of the staff who deliver services have disabilities.
Formal support groups include the following:
- Brain Injury Peer Support Group
- Independent Living Peer Support Group
- Cross Disability Support Group
- Women's Cross Disability Support Group
- Older Blind Groups
- After School Club
Activities through this program which contribute to the maintenance and increase the independence participants include:
- Peer support group meetings
- Recreational activities
- Transportation to group activities
- Coping skills
- Self advocacy
