My Role in Promotion

How Can I Strengthen My Role In Promoting Peer Support?

No matter your role – peer mentor, primary care doctor, program manager, or organizational leader – you can play a significant role in the lives of people living with diabetes by offering peer support and raising awareness about peer support to get others on board.

To begin strengthening your role in promoting peer support, you will need to know the evidence for peer support.  Visit the Learn section to find out more about what science says about the value and contribution of peer support. 

• Read this article by Wim Wientjens called “Peer Support in Diabetes Management – Time for a Change” which provides an overall rationale for peer support. 

Another key aspect of strengthening your role in promoting peer support is knowing what avenues to utilize in getting the word out to colleagues, funders, and the community at large. 

• Considering doing some community outreach? View the various tools to implement promotional activities provided by the National Diabetes Education Program.
• Considering working with the media? Check out the General media advocacy tools  found at The University of Kansas Community Tool Box.

To promote peer support, peer supporters can:

• Continue learning and refreshing skills to be a stronger peer supporter and maintain a higher quality standard for practice. 
• Read this article by MacNeil & Mead to learn about the seven fidelity standards of peer support and their related indicators which may help to define “What is Good Peer Support.”

Resources for Peer Supporters:

• Learn about how to promote a culture of peer support in “Tools of Transformation. Peer Culture/Peer Support and Peer Leadership” from The Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services.

To promote peer support, program managers can:

• Assess barriers and facilitating factors (e.g. community, organizational structure, funding, culture) to developing and maintaining a peer support program. 
• Consider the “DBH/MRS” Checklist as a program manger to think about how you can promote peer support in your daily work in the “Tools of Transformation. Peer Culture/Peer Support and Peer Leadership” from The Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services.
• Seek buy-in from key stakeholders (e.g. community leaders, organizational leaders, health care providers).
• Building the Business Case for Self-Management is a resource from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Diabetes Initiative for program managers looking to present a financial and nonfinancial business case.
• Since community partnerships are essential for promoting, establishing, and sustaining peer support programs, Tools for Building Clinic-Community Partnerships are helpful resources from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Diabetes Initiative organized around a framework for supporting chronic disease control and prevention. 

 To promote peer support, health care providers can:

• Identify community resources and make information on peer support program available to the patients and partner with peer support programs.
• New Health Partnerships website provides a handout on how to identify community resources, make information available and partner with community-based organizations.
•  Initiate and lead peer support programs or involve volunteers, office managers, NGOs representatives to take on the program.
• The provider checklist in “Tools of Transformation. Peer Culture/Peer Support and Peer Leadership” from The Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services helps providers think about their own health care practice supports or doesn’t support the development of peer support.
• Advocate for integration of peer support services into the continuum of community care.

Resources for Health Care Providers:

• Tools for Building Clinic-Community Partnerships are resources from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Diabetes Initiative organized around a framework for supporting chronic disease control and prevention. 

Health Care Organizations may support the development of peer support groups within the community by:  

• Encouraging health care providers and program managers to support those individuals who wish to develop peer support groups.
• Providing a grant for newly formed peer support groups to help with start up costs.
• Providing training opportunities to assist in the development of peer support.

Resources for Health Care Organizations:

• California Health Care Foundation provides recommendations to health systems to make peer support interventions more successful on pages 35-37 of the report called “Building Peer Support Programs to Manage Chronic Disease: Seven Models for Success”.

We invite you to raise questions, engage and network, and share resources with others on the Discussion Board.

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