Train Peer Supporters
Please see Disclaimer: Peer Support Resources below.
Examples of Peer Support Training Curricula
Please note: While the target audiences and topics of these resources vary, they do illustrate how to bundle important competencies and skills together to create a comprehensive approach to training peer supporters. Users would need to tailor sample curricula and agendas to best meet the needs of your specific setting or population.
- Diabetes is Everybody's Business - This curriculum was initially developed by the Australian Centre for Diabetes Strategies and was adapted for use in the Pacific Islands by the Public Health Programme of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. This manual is focused on using community education to address diabetes self-management among Pacific Islanders.
- Diabetes Self Management Education Manual - A manual developed by the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council to help trainers to teach diabetes educational sessions to a group
- Lay Health Educator Manual - This is a guide for implementing lay health educator interventions and training educators for settings and program models similar to Maine's Move More project. The manual includes policies and procedures, change models of particular importance, sample forms, and information about exercise.
- Peer education: training manual - This training manual describes ways in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may design, deliver and manage training programs for peer educators. Its purpose is to assist NGOs to design and implement strategies and work-plans for peer education, as part of comprehensive sexual health interventions.
- Peer Support Training Manual - This training manual was written for Trinity College's Peer Support Project. The manual is a result of years of experience with building a peer support program through the college's student counseling services. This training manual contains 10 workshops focused on building skills and competencies of peer supporters.
- Peer Support Training Manual - This training manual was developed by the Canadian Mental Health Association as a guideline for peer support training in the Okanagan (British Columbia) Health Service Area.
- Lay Health Advisor Manual - This manual from the NC Breast Cancer Screening Program prepare older African American women working within their local communities to encourage friends, families, and others they meet to have regular mammograms and pap smears.
- Trainer's manual for effective training in reproductive health: Course design and delivery. - Part 1: Core Training Principles and Skills includes sessions on the principles of adult learning and adult learning styles, communication and facilitation skills, varied training methods, and the 12 steps of planning effective training courses. Part 2: Clinical Training Approaches and Coaching Skills includes sessions on individualized clinical training approaches and clinical coaching skills.
- Training of Trainers Manual - This peer education in HIV prevention manual was used extensively for two years in 27 countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia and was translated into 15 languages, including Arabic. In particular, Section 2 provides Guidelines for Training of Trainers, and provides general team building and communication exercises.
- Ohio Advocates for Mental Health Peer Support Training - This collection of materials comprises a short course for consumers to further peer support among individuals, to gain skills for use as Peer Support Specialists, to advance the use of warm lines and partnering activities, and to form and sustain peer support groups. The expectation is that people giving and taking this course will have heightened awareness of effective communication skills and resources to assist them as they provide peer support.
- Peer Mentor Support System - This Peer Mentor Support System addressing mental health provides a series of peer support training modules, guidance documents, other resources, and exercises in various chapters.
Disclaimer: Peer Support Resources
Peers for Progress aims to serve peer support programs around the world by providing a compilation of web-based resources for developing and enhancing these programs. Framed by peer support's core functions as outlined in Learn, we selected these materials from varied sources and from materials provided to us. In doing so, we have sought to include materials that reflect state-of-the-art knowledge of diabetes, peer support, diabetes management, and health promotion. Users should exercise their own judgment in assessing the appropriateness of materials for their own setting and population. Peers for Progress assumes no responsibility for the quality of evidence on which materials are based or consequences of their use.
Peers for Progress has no financial interests with specific websites or organizations listed in this section. For a full listing of our partnerships, please read About Us.
If a user would like to suggest additional resources, please Contact Us. As you use and possibly adapt resources, please give credit to the developing organization.


Peers for Progress is a program of the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation and supported by the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation.