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Personal Reflections from the Peers for Progress June Conference
Clayton Velicer, MPH
On June 17th and 18th, I had the wonderful opportunity to hear speakers and engage with experts on peer support when Peers for Progress and the National Council of La Raza hosted a meeting of Peers for Progress investigators and the National Peer Support Collaborative Learning Network in San Francisco, California.
Projects from all over the world were showcased, representing Argentina, Cameroon, Hong Kong, Thailand, Uganda, Australia, the United Kingdom and across the United States. These presentations summarized cutting edge research on peer support for diabetes self-management provided by community health workers, promotoras and peer supporters through a variety of mediums.
One of the topics that I was particularly interested in discussing with this diverse and accomplished group was the role of technology in peer support moving forward. Recent news has covered a peer support app for diabetes care and a number of organizations launching…
Program Protocol: Describing the Delivery of Training and Ongoing Support for Peer Supporters
In our previous analysis of a systematic review by Dale and colleagues, we discussed the degree of variation in the amount of peer support delivered during an intervention as well as the method of delivery. The Dale review analyzed programs that delivered peer support through the following modalities: face-to-face, in groups, individually, over the telephone, and on the web. The evidence suggests that all of these methods of peer support delivery can be effective, but it is often difficult to evaluate the individual components of a peer support program without a detailed protocol paper.
Fortunately, a recent article published by Riddell and colleagues provides a strong example of the kinds of information that can be elucidated in a well-written protocol paper. Based on an Australian project supported by Peers for Progress, this paper presents the protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial of group-based peer support for people with type 2 diabetes in a community setting….
