PEER WELLNESS MENTORING TRAINING
FOR PEER HELP PRACTITIONERS
DATES TO BE CONFIRMED
The Nelson Mandela University Peer Help and Wellness Teams offer a two-and-a-half day workshop in Peer Wellness Mentoring for Peer Helper practitioners. Full attendance of this workshop will earn peer helper practitioners who are also registered as psychologists at the HPCSA, 18 CPD-points.
The objective of the workshop is to explore Peer Wellness Mentoring as an innovative process of assisting individuals, through one-on-one or one-on-many interventions, to change lifestyle behaviours towards greater health and well-being.
This approach is based on the peer education and the Trans-theoretical Stages of Change model. It revolves around identifying the stage of readiness individuals are in regarding personal lifestyle behaviour change – and then focuses on creating interventions that would assist the individual in progressively moving toward a next, more advanced stage of change, through setting stage-appropriate goals.
Where can Peer Wellness Mentoring be used?
Peer Wellness Mentoring can be used in any setting where individuals are encouraged to provide support to their peers in changing lifestyle behaviours. It is a useful tool for promoting a culture of wellness within an organisation/institution. It can be used to improve health and well-being across a variety of lifestyle behaviours and is applicable across various degrees of well-being.
One such example is change of sexual lifestyle behaviours to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS infection. Most cases of HIV are contracted as the result of behavioural choices (e.g., lack of assertive communication, unprotected sex, and drug use). Many of these behaviours are influenced by predisposing behaviours, such as alcohol use and other risk behaviours. Such behavioural choices can be addressed effectively through Peer Wellness Mentoring.
Training Format
An experiential approach will be followed that provides participants with opportunities to experience Peer Wellness Mentoring as ‘recipients’ and providers of such mentoring. They will furthermore explore the typical role the training leader / facilitator of Peer Wellness Mentoring training by means of guided reflection sessions. These sessions will focus on the contents, the training materials, the methodology and the structure of the training modules.
The aims and structure of this workshop require from participants to be present at ALL sessions, in other words not to miss any sessions, or any parts of sessions. Individuals who come late or leave early often take away valuable learning opportunities from the rest of the trainees.
Dates and times: TBC
Venue: TBC