Examples of Peer Support

Peer Support In Action

 Check out these Peer Support Success Stories:

 

Peer Educator Networks "P.E.N." in Cambodia

MoPoTsyo, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Cambodia, organizes Peer Educator Networks (P.E.N.) to reach people with diabetes who are not receiving care. It’s estimated that 90% of people living with diabetes in Cambodia receive no care because of the limited number of health care professionals and prohibitive cost of services.

MoPoTsyo began with an urban P.E.N of five Peer Educators in five urban slum areas, serving more than 500 people with diabetes, which is supervised by a Diabetic Program Manager. In June 2007, the first rural P.E.N. was started. There are now well over 1,700 people with diabetes served by MoPoTsyo, which includes three networks and more than 40 trained Peer Educators. Each trained peer educator is responsible for approximately 60 people with diabetes in the rural areas. In the urban slum areas, they are responsible for almost double that number because they have been working for longer. All peer educators report to their Diabetes Program Manager, who reports to a Provincial Program Manager in their province.

MoPoTsyo’s Peer Educators have diabetes and understand the challenges of living with the disease. They undergo training and must pass an exam in order to return to their villages and begin working. Peer Educators take an active approach to recruiting people with diabetes through a community-based intervention linked to select Service Providers. They reach out to people in their homes to find new patients and invite them to join the community of diabetes patients they have created.

 Peer Educators facilitate weekly group sessions at their own homes where they routinely give one of six lessons about diabetes management, including Biology, Diabetes, Balance, Food, Drugs and Self-Testing. Peer Educators offer lifestyle advice on food and physical activity and teach patients how to perform a urine glucose test. Old and new patients talk with each other and provide advice and support about living with diabetes.

Peer Educators formally assess each patient by filling out forms, which are compiled in the NGO database. As they follow each patient’s progress, Peer Educators make referrals with the doctor at the local hospital as needed. Peer Educators often accompany the patients to the appointments with doctors at local hospitals.  If a doctor writes a prescription for the patient, the Peer Educators brings the patient to a contracted private pharmacy, where he or she can buy medicine from the Revolving Drug Fund.

Two years after the first rural P.E.N. began, there is now one trained Peer Educator in every health center coverage area of the whole district, which means that the entire population of 133,000 is covered. The program has resulted in lower fasting blood glucose, improved self urine glucose control, and better knowledge and self-reported lifestyle.  Currently, the program is expanding to include peer education for patients with high blood pressure.   

The Peer Educator Network relieves the stress on the health service providers and resources by having the Peer Educators serve as gatekeepers to medical services. The P.E.N. systems lead to early diagnosis and care, which results in less catastrophic health expenditure. The model works because Peer Educators are credible and trusted members of the communities in which they work.

Click here to view a recent presentation on MoPoTsyo’s work from the International Diabetes Foundation’s 20th World Diabetes Congress in October of 2009. To learn more about MoPoTsyo, please visit their website: www.mopotsyo.org

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Building Community Support for Diabetes Care - Campesinos Sin Fronteras

The Campesinos Diabetes Management Program (CDMP) is offered by Campesinos Sin Fronteras (CSF). The program assists medically underserved and poor migrant and seasonal farm workers and new immigrants who have diabetes and who live in the rural border communities of Somerton, Gadsden, San Luis, Wellton, Dateland, and “colonias” surrounding the City of Yuma in Yuma County, AZ.  To reach these communities, CDMP sends out several Promotoras de Salud, or community health workers, who have proved to be a credible and effective resource for health information and advocacy.

Most CDMP promotoras are ex-farm workers or members of a farm worker family. They have the trust and respect of their community and represent the cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic and educational characteristics of the population they serve. Their primary purpose is to provide support, education and advocacy for people with diabetes and to help them manage their condition. Promotoras recruit new participants for the program throughout the community in schools, churches, faith-based organizations, stores, neighborhood events and health fairs.

Promotoras check in with participants at least once a week, either in groups, in the person’s home, or by phone. They remind participants to attend their weekly support groups and/or cooking classes. They inform them about community resources and refer them to other services they may need. Promotoras also help participants order supplies for their glucometers and translate letters they receive from their medical providers or insurers. Most important are the “little things” promotoras give to participants like attention, care, kindness, compassion, understanding, confidentiality and respect. They call and visit participants who are sick or in the hospital and celebrate their birthdays, too.

CDMP began in 2002 and continues to hold six weekly promotora-led support groups throughout the county.   To aid the promotoras, CDMP implemented the “Animadora” model through which long-term program participants are trained to help promotoras conduct the support groups. Together with the promotoras, participants have created a strong social support network through the CDMP and consider the meetings a social activity not to be missed.

The goal of CDMP is to build strong collaborations among medical providers and community resources to advance the care and self-management of type 2 diabetes among the target population. CDMP has been instrumental in developing and providing community resources and self-management education and support services by creating strong partnerships among CSF, Sunset Community Health Center, the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension and the Arizona College of Public Health.

To learn more about Campesinos Sin Fronteras, please visit their website:  www.campesinossinfronteras.org/index.html

To learn more about the Campesinos Diabetes Program and view documents, presentations, and publications related to the program, visit: www.diabetesinitiative.org/programs/DICSF.html

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