Certified online practicener
A peer support specialist is someone who works in a mental health capacity as someone with lived experience of mental health difficulties. In my case I wanted to work with people who had varying degrees of depression, which I also have had off and on. Most of them were assigned to me by a local mental health clinic. They needed this help far more than I ever did. I became a Certified Peer Support Specialist by taking two series of courses on this. It fit in well with my nursing background, and as I had previously done home care as an RN it fit even better. My job, was not to just go to these peoples home, but to find things of interest to do away from home, because most of them were so depressed, they really didn’t want to leave their bedrooms. I was able to create a core group of people who met together with me and went to various places together. This also helped them to socialize. What I learned in my courses were things like identifying stressors, learning to ask for help, learning...