Introducing the Longhorn SHARE Project: a new mental health-focused peer support program in the Longhorn Wellness Center!
The application below is for students interested in becoming SHARE Support Specialists / Peer Facilitators from Spring 2022 – Spring 2023. All students selected must take HED 370K in Spring 2022 (unique # 12004, T/Th 3:30 – 5:00pm).
BUT FIRST – What is Peer Support?
Peer support is NOT peer mentorship, peer education, or clinical counseling! Those are valuable roles that can share some characteristics with peer support, but the ‘participants’ and ‘facilitators’ in peer support spaces typically have similar lived experience(s) with mental health, recovery, identity, and/or trauma and freely share their emotions, struggles, ideas, and healing processes with each other. Peer facilitators simply have the training and resource knowledge to ensure that these conversations are comfortable, safe, and judgment-free.
Peer support minimizes the power imbalances and formal structures that can make other types of support feel intimidating, inaccessible, and/or too clinical for all needs. Peer support isn’t a replacement for therapy (peers are not licensed professionals), but it can be therapeutic and validating to be share space with someone who “gets it”. It’s also a great way for students to build social confidence & emotional awareness, learn about themselves and others, and get information about other resources when peer support isn’t enough.
It is not too late to apply!