See You at The Arc’s National Convention

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been invited to present at The Arc’s National Convention in Denver, CO. The conference takes place November 10-12, 2022, at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel.

Our session is called Building Better Lives Together: Peer Support that Works! We’ll be sharing some of the great work being done by peer support specialists at our Beaumont pilot site. Senior Peer Support Specialists Lisa Simmons and Ashley Sattler and Peer Support Specialist Katie Sheffield will lead the team. Hope to see you there!

First Peer Support Specialists Trained!

Our first group of peer support specialists was trained last month. Self-advocates from ARC Beaumont had four days of training over Zoom, including courses on:

– Talking and listening

– Being a strong self-advocate

– Helping others through peer support

These amazing self-advocates learned valuable skills like active listening, keeping conversations going, problem solving, and handling conflict. Courses were presented on Zoom using content we created in Moodle, an online learning tool.

Peer support specialists will now start providing services to clients. They will meet with clients matched to them several times a month. They will help clients:

– Explore their needs, wants, hopes and dreams.

– Set goals and make plans to reach them.

– Make decisions and solve problems as they work toward their goals.

– Find needed services to help reach their goals.

Participants were surveyed to see how they felt about the training. All parts of the training received high marks. Peer Support specialists especially liked learning how to believe in yourself and learning how to do the job of a peer support specialist. Contact us for more information about our program.