Sisters Supporting Sisters- Peer Mentor Training

As a Peer Mentor your role is to provide social and emotional support to your assigned mentee(s). This includes but is not limited to listening to them discuss challenges, sharing in the joy of their accomplishments, providing them with understanding, sharing ideas, presenting alternate perspectives in a kind and supportive manner, and sharing various community resources with them. The overarching goal is to empower your mentees to utilize their personal strengths to move forward.

The training will occur over 12 sessions. Each session will last for an hour and a half. Participants must attend at least 4 sessions to be certified. The dates are as followed:
Monday April 9th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Wednesday April 11th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Monday April 16th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Wednesday April 18th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Monday April 23rd 6:00 – 7:30pm
Wednesday April 25th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Monday May 7th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Thursday May 10th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Monday May 14th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Thursday May 17th 6:00 – 7:30pm
Monday May 21st 6:00 – 7:30pm
Wednesday May 24th 6:00 – 7:30pm

Monday April 9th Session 1: Introduction/Role Definition
In this session we will discuss your role a mentor. We will include the benefits of taking-on this role, as well as potential challenges to overcome. This session will focus on identifying your strengths, and how you can harness your strengths to be most effective in your role as a mentor. We will also discuss your responsibilities as a mentor.

Wednesday April 11th Session 2: Introduction to Complex Grief Part 1
This session will provide an introduction to the grieving process. This includes the wide-reaching impact of grief on health and well-being. We will discuss unique aspects of grieving the loss of a child, and share some models and processes involved in overcoming grief.

Monday April 16th Session 3: Introduction to Complex Grief Part 2
A continuation of the previous session. We will delve deeper into complex grief, and the mechanisms at play.

Wednesday April 18th Session 4: Basic Helping Skills Part 1
This session will provide techniques to actively listen to your mentees in a manner that facilitates understanding, healing and relationship building. We will also discuss key elements of

Monday April 23rd Session 5: Basic Helping Skills Part 2
In this interactive session, we will use role plays to practice helping skills discussed in the previous session.

Wednesday April 25th Session 6: Building a Successful Mentoring Relationship
This session will equip you with relationship skills, activities, and tools to help create a trusting and rewarding relationship with your mentee. Additionally, we will discuss how to set parameters around the relationship to ensure maximum efficacy.

Monday May 7th Session 7: Establishing goals with your Mentor
In this session we will continue our discussion on the mentor-mentee relationship. With explicit focus on working with your mentee to set a goal that is reasonable, manageable, and in line with your mentees goals and vision.

Thursday May 10th Session 8: Crisis Management
This session will discuss ways to respond to emergency situation. Including suicide and/or homicide ideation. Trainees will know when to escalate suicidal ideation to the authorities, and how to validate the client’s experience.

Monday May 14th Session 9: Multicultural Issues
This session will involve gaining awareness of biases, and discussing potential differences, and how to work with clients who may share different beliefs and value systems.

Thursday May 17th Session 10: Self-care
This session will discuss self-preservation as a mentor. It will include ideas and tips for taking care of yourself to minimize the chances of burnout.

Monday May 21st Session 11: Effectively Terminating The Mentoring Relationship
Working with victims of loss it is important to end relationships in a manner that does not trigger the loss they are experiencing. This session will discuss and explore ways to end a relationship in a manner that reduces the chances of causing harm to mentees.

Wednesday May 24th Session 12: Wrap-up
In this session we will review training covered so far. Each trainee will work away with action steps they have generated over the course of the training to prepare them for their role as mentors.