TTOA is a response to a call from community members with lived experience of multiple loss grief for training, support, and opportunities for practice and mentoring to address some of the hurdles to Peer employment within agencies.
Celebrate Peer Appreciation Week With Us!
Peer Appreciation Week HIV recognizes the lived experience, labour, leadership, and emotional support that Peers bring to the HIV and Harm Reduction movements every day. Peers are the bridge between service organizations and their community members who face stigma, discrimination, isolation, poverty, grief, and barriers to care. From the earliest days of the HIV epidemic to the drug toxicity crisis, Peers have started and led prevention response, education, and mutual aid initiatives.
Peer Appreciation Week creates space to:
Celebrate the knowledge, expertise, and impact that comes from lived experience
Highlight Peer leadership in HIV and Harm Reduction
Acknowledge the stress, grief, and trauma Peers carry in the work
Peer Appreciation Week is an opportunity to reflect on the history of Peer work and also the importance of “Nothing About Us Without Us.” Programs and policies are stronger, safer, and more meaningful when Peers are collaboratively involved in decision-making, program development, facilitation, and leadership.
We met with Peers in June to brainstorm the ways they want to have their contributions celebrated and recognized. Check out this list to get ideas for your Peer Appreciation Week:
Express appreciation and celebration of Peers all year long.
Thank-you messages or cards from Directors, Managers, and other staff who directly work with Peers.
Peer Awards, including an award named in honour of a Peer who has passed. Could also be a Peer Wall of Fame.
Social media spotlights and sharing quotes during Peer Appreciation Week and throughout the year.
Commemorative pins for Peer Appreciation Week designed by Ontario Peer artists.
Exhibits showcasing often unseen Peer contributions, including advocacy, crisis support, translation, systems navigation, and community-building.
Celebration party bringing together Peers, staff, and community members.
Peers write letters to themself in the future, mailed back to Peers 11 months later.
Letters from existing Peers to new Peers offering encouragement and support.
Memorial recognizing Peers or Community Members who have passed away.
Training opportunities available to Peers that are often reserved for paid staff.
Peers participating in the development and delivery of orientation and training programs for both Staff and new Peers.
Establish a Peer Advisory Committee within the agency to contribute to decision making, policies, and best practices.
Have Managers or Executive Directors shadow or perform Peer roles for part of the day.
Review agency policies and best practices that impact Peers, such as pay and hiring.
Professional headshots and biographies that highlight Peer skills, accomplishments, and leadership.
Care packages with items such as a weighted lap pad, tea, handwritten notes, or small plants.
Gift cards, especially to grocery stores.
VIP passes to movies or agency-hosted events.
Hiring a massage therapist or herbalist for a drop-in Peer clinic
Accessibility considerations including ASL interpretation, plain language, virtual participation options, and scent-free spaces, and trauma-informed celebrations with no forced sharing or surprise photos.
Peers creating a virtual or physical quilt displayed in an area of prominence within the agency.
Community rock garden with painted rocks from Peers.
Peer-led storytelling circles focused on personal interests, passions, and resilience.
Postcard exchange between Peers at different agencies.
Peer-created playlists celebrating their voices and experiences.
Agency cookbook with favourite recipes from Peers and Staff.
Agency potluck catered by staff (no pizza!).
This October ABRPO will be celebrating Peers across the province and we hope you’ll join us! Email Craig Boucher (craigboucher@abrpo.org) to talk more about how we can support your agency’s first Peer Appreciation Week.
Grief Support Call for Peers
To help support those working and volunteering in the HIV/AIDS and Harm Reduction sectors, we are launching a series of four Group Grief Support Sessions in July, September, December, and March. These sessions are designed to provide a safe and supportive space for Peers to come together, acknowledge our collective grief, and support one another.
Each session will begin with a 15–20 minute grief education module focused on topics relevant to our communities, followed by an open discussion where participants can share experiences, reflect, listen, and connect with others who understand the unique realities of grief in the HIV/AIDS and Harm Reduction sectors.
Our next session is coming up in November. Stay tuned for details.
The purpose of TTOA is to work with Peers (people with lived experience) and staff of member agencies across Ontario to concretize the experience of meaningful involvement for Peers. Currently, TTOA is working with 25 partner agencies from across Ontario. Within the next year, we be offering our Peer Facilitator Training as an online learning course, which will be complemented by virtual practice workshops throughout.
In 2021, TTOA grew from 14 member agencies to 25. With the recent move to online meetings and workshops TTOA member agencies requested growing the network to other agencies that have been not been able to join previously. To those 11 new agencies, Welcome, we are so happy to have you here with us!
Over the past year, member agencies have been meeting online and sharing in workshops to help build their knowledge, capacity, skills and abilities on a variety of topics that affect the lives of Peers in the province of Ontario. Peers are encouraged to present workshops that they have developed to share their knowledge with others; some recent topics have included Harm Reduction during Covid 19 – A call to Action; Successfully Managing Change; and Group Dynamics just to name a few.
The TTOA Quilt
The TTOA Quilt was a gift from a former TTOA Peer Worker that solidified the heart and soul of TTOA. Past participants have written inspirational messages on it for future TTOA Peers. The quilt symbolizes the strength and resilience of those that came before us, to remind those in the future, when we are no longer able to share our own stories, that we were here and we mattered. Today the quilt plays an integral part in our TTOA gatherings, and is present for all opening and closing activities.
Together We Stand – Online meetup for Peers and Engagement Coordinators
A networking and learning space for Peers and Peer Engagement Coordinators from across the province to network, build solidarity, discuss agency updates, and learn from each other. These sessions often feature a workshop delivered by a Peer or other invited guest on topics that are relevant to our work. Join us every 3rd Wednesday of the month from 1:00 PM till 3:00 PM.
Our next session is Wednesday October 21 from 1-3pm. Topic is Grief in the Body.
To register yourself or your Peer team, email Craig at: Craigboucher@abrpo.org
*** These sessions are only open to Peers and Peer Engagement Coordinators (or similar positions) ***
TTOA Peer Engagement Facilitation Training
The Peer Engagement Facilitator training is a 3-month blended learning cohort for Peers in the HIV and Harm Reduction sectors.
Participants learn some core skills for Peer Support and group facilitation, and have an opportunity to apply their learning through a practicum at the end of the cohort where they design, plan, and deliver a workshop.
This training prepares Peers to take on group facilitation and education roles within their agencies as a a way to share their experience and knowledge.
Part A: Essential Skills for Peer Support
In Part A, we learn foundational practices for facilitation:
Holistic Check-in, a useful tool for the beginning of workshops to ground and focus everyone into the space.
The four general categories of emotions (Sadness, Fear, Anger and Joy) and the effects each emotion can have on the group and facilitator, and Emotional First Aid for each
Essential Tools for Peer Support including Active Listening, Bracketing and Debriefing.
Multiple Loss Journey and the concept that not only current grief and loss can affect participants, but also historical grief and loss.
Part B: Group Facilitation
In Part B, we learn the basics of group development
Knowing about adult learning styles, and how to facilitate to accommodate different styles.
Increase your awareness of what is necessary to provide a mutually respectful intercultural space for participants.
The importance of co-facilitation, and recognizing & responding to a group’s interpersonal dynamics.
Supporting the group process through the Five Stages of Group Development, with appropriate shifts in your role as a facilitator.
Part C: Practicum
In Part C, we apply what we’ve learned in Parts A & B
Collaboratively design, deliver and evaluate a workshop or learning session.
Work with agency staff and other community members by using your practicum event to engage with other Peers on a topic that is of interest to you.
Learn directly about your own processes, priorities and needs as a facilitator by mobbing from in initial idea into actual delivery.
Experience processes of debriefing, reflection and evaluation as an invaluable element on the ongoing learning about facilitation skills.
Welcome to Peer Engagement Facilitation Training! This Peer Engagement Facilitator Training process originated between the years of 2008-2011 through our collaborative partnership with PHA Programs at the Ontario AIDS Network (OAN).
