Be Well Do Well Peer Mentor Program at Mohawk College

Peer support staff

Please refer to Appendix C for the job description of peer mentor at Mohawk College.

Training

A number of training topics are embedded into our 2-day introductory training for the mentor team and a few additional topics are delivered as on-going training throughout the year. The 2-day training program includes: Mentoring Skills & Relationships, Assisting Students in Distress, Mentor Meetings and Making Effective Referrals, Campus Resource Tour, Mentor Program Protocol Review, Boundaries and Confidentiality, Wellness Wheel, Learned Optimism, Intro. to Positive Psychology & Resilience. The on-going training topics include: safeTALK, Koru Mindfulness, and Positive Psychology Continued.

Program funding

The Be Well Do Well Peer Mentor Program is funded by the Mental Health Services Grant from the Ontario government. Operating costs for this program are fairly low and most of the budget is spent on programming supplies for the mentors to conduct outreach events. The operating costs are kept at a minimum as peer mentors (second year social service worker students) are unpaid placement students.

Program integration

The Be Well Do Well Peer Mentor Program is an initiative run by the counselling department. It is co-ordinated by the student wellness coordinator and supervised by a member of the counselling team. The program is viewed as an extension of the services offered by the counselling team, as an attempt to offer support to students who identify as being affected by mild to moderate stress/anxiety/ depression. This peer support program aims to cast a much wider support net across campus to help prevent students from falling through the cracks. All students who express interest in the Be Well Do Well mentor program fill out a mentee application and attend a preliminary screening, meeting with the counselling supervisor. The counselling supervisor then determines if the program is a good fit for the type of support the student is seeking. If the mentor program is not appropriate (for instance, support offered by the mentor team falls outside the scope of support the student is seeking), then appropriate referrals are made to connect the student to the right resources/support on or off campus. To see an example the mentee application, please visit www.mohawkcollege.ca/BWDW-mentee.

Physical space

The space itself is located in the athletics centre and is used by the mentor team as a main hub when they are not seeing students (answering student emails, booking mentee appointments, planning outreach events, additional training delivered by co-ordinator/supervisor, team meetings, group supervision, etc.). Mentors are encouraged to meet their mentees in quiet spaces around campus (indoors or outdoors). Mentees can request to meet in a private space, in which case the mentor is responsible for booking a room (such as a private study room in the library).