Peer Support Specialist – experience as a profession

By anne.plathe | 6. February 2019

A Peer Support Specialist is someone with personal experience as a service user who now works in healthcare. Many Peer Support Specialists work with patients/users, while others are advisors at different service levels.

Whether you are an employer or a Peer Support Specialist, you will get questions about the content of this relatively new profession. This course provides insight into exactly this!

Target Group

  • Employers who have hired/want to hire Peer Support Specialists
  • People who are employed as Peer Support Specialists
  • Colleagues and Managers of Peer Support Specialists
  • People who want to become Peer Support Specialists

Content

Some topics we will look into are how to be professional as a Peer Support Specialist and how to make a difference in this line of work. We’ll look more closely at how employers can facilitate Peer Support Specialists. This course will be based on Norwegian and international experiences, but also the experiences of the course participants through dialogue and group work.

Astrid Weber and Morten Brodahl, both working as Peer Support Specialists, will talk about their experiences with professionalism and confidentiality, and about the line between the “duties of loyalty”, the freedom of speech and confidentiality.

“Pasient- og brukerombudet” (patient and user commission) at the County Govenor’s office will be there to teach us about the duties and rights associated with being a healthcare professional. In addition, other people with relevant practice experience will learn us about reflection on practice and the roles and tasks of Peer Support Specialists. KBTs Dagfinn Bjørgen and Juni Raak Høiseth will talk about Norwegian and international trends in the field of Peer Support, and Karl Johan Johansen will talk about guidance/supervision.

Learning Outcomes

This course will give you an introduction to subject relevant for Peer Support, such as duties, rights, professionalism, loyalty, guidance, and understanding roles and tasks.

You will learn about the history of Peer Support

You will get the opportunity to build a network with Peer Support Specialists and other people in this field.

Organization

This is a two-day course.

This course consists of introductions and lectures from people in the field. A lot of time will be spent on group work and breaks, so as a participant you will get the opportunity to build a network with each other.

This course is arranged in Trondheim, annually every autumn. The course can be arranged on request for larger/smaller groups, municipalities, organizations, health services etc.

Prerequisite skills

No prior knowledge required.  It’s recommended you have some prior knowledge of Peer Support.

Course Leaders

This course consists of lectures from:

Astrid Weber, Peer Support Specialist at Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norge

Morten Brodahl, Peer Support Specialist at Nasjonal kompetansetjeneste ROP

“Pasient- og brukerombudet” (patient and user commission at the County Govenor’s office)

Dagfinn Bjørgen, Manager at KBT

Juni Raak Høiseth, Project Coordinator at KBT

Karl Johan Johansen, Project Developer at KBT

Course certificate and material

All participants will receive a course certificate.

All participants will receive a participant list and program. Presentations will be sent out after the course.

Next course

Will be announced.

Where

This course will be held in different parts of Norway. The next course will be held in Tromsø.

Contact/registration

For questions about this course, please contact Anders Asphaug at anders.asphaug@kbtmidt.no or tel. 412 00 552.

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