First Class of Peer Supporters Graduates from the Peer Advocate Pilot Project
The process of recovery — from addiction, from mental illness, from homelessness — is long and complicated, and it involves an enormous amount of hard work, patience and determination. It also requires the best possible support, which is the goal of Lamp Community’s Peer Advocate Pilot Project.
Monica Potts, who has been Lamp’s Mental Health Peer Advocate for two and a half years, launched the project in October, designed to train Lamp member volunteers to offer guidance and counsel to other members. Potts brought 10 aspiring peer supporters together with managers and staff to go through the training, and earlier this month the program’s first class graduated, ready to take on their new roles.
Having peer support helps the therapy and recovery process to be more effective, Potts says, “because we can show hope by the results we get — not by what we say, but by what we do.”
These peer supporters will offer newer Lamp members a different kind of relationship — a perspective that comes from having been there themselves.
In their training, supporters learned how to work with staff both so they can act in partnership with managers and so they get the assistance they need to help others, Potts says. And that consistent level of care enables peer supporters to “encourage peers to make their own choices about what works best for them,” she notes.
Lamp Community is proud to congratulate these 10 new supporters, and with Potts’ guidance, looks forward to more graduates to come.
Browse a gallery of more photos from the PAPP graduation
Lamp Peer Advocate Pilot Project Inaugural Class:
- Levonna Lacey
- Greg Mikens
- Gwen White
- Terry Detroit Hughes
- Amanda Ruiz
- Joanne Van Buren
- Wes D Coast
- Taunyett Thompson
- Tracy Kennedy
- Robert Curriston
