Promoting Community Inclusion

Our goal is to promote and advance community inclusion and peer support services.

The Copeland Center for Wellness & Recovery and Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion have partnered together to develop and offer a training and technical assistance package to assist health care systems in the implementation of practices and tools to promote and advanced community participation for people in recovery through the intentional skills of Peer Supporters. We use a 3-step approach including a core 3-day Community Inclusion and Peer Support course. A key focal point of implementation is the support, development and training of the peer support workforce.  With the increasing awareness of the positive relationship between self-directed community participation, recovery and quality of life, we have developed this peer support certification course as a vehicle to develop and define critical roles and responsibilities for the peer support workforce to support the recovery and increased community participation for individuals receiving services in the public mental health system.

Step 1 – Introduction to Community Inclusion and Preparing the Environment

This is a full day or half-day (depending on group size) course for policymakers, supervisors, agency leaders, peers and non-peer staff.  This presentation will be provided by Copeland Center Executive Director in collaboration with Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion via Mark Salzer PhD.  The objectives for this training is to provide:

1)  Presentation and discussion about the fundamentals of community inclusion based on our document entitled Well Together (http://tucollaborative.org/sdm_downloads/wellways-well-together/).  The goal being to ensure that all people in the system are working from the same conceptual framework and understanding of its importance.

2)  Presentation and discussion about peer support and the unique role of peers in promoting community inclusion.

3)  Presentation about specific strategies that other parts of the service system can do to support community inclusion

4)  Presentation and discussion of strategies for how the service system, supervisors, etc. can best support peer specialists in promoting community inclusion.

Step 2 – Experiential Training of Peer Support Staff in Promoting Community Inclusion

This is a 3-day, experiential training for the peer support workforce.  Through the learning objectives for this course participants will:

1) describe the community inclusion fundamentals that guide recovery;

2) apply 1:1 facilitation skills in supporting a peer in recovery to increase their participation and contributions in the community of their choosing;

3) utilize tools for identifying, addressing and improving policy and organizational changes to improve community inclusion outcomes;

4) expand their community connections and supportive networks to promote community wellness.

5) and identify experiential exercises involving the use of the TUCP and other tools to facilitate the community inclusion journeys of individuals through peer support.

The end result of this 3-day training would be receipt of a “Certificate in Peer Facilitation of Community Inclusion” from the Copeland Center.

The third component in the certification process is the offering of time-limited technical support via teleconference to those who complete the certification program. This technical assistance will be provided in partnership between the Temple University Collaborative and the Copeland Center. Certification graduates will receive at least two group telephone technical assistance calls post completion to get assistance and feedback on their work within their agency and/or within the community with persons in recovery.

For more information on implementing this training at your organization, please contact Katie Wilson by email or phone: 802-451-0140