Peer Engagement
Peers are the experts in their own experience and provide important perspectives and a reality check. To learn more about various peer engagement projects and resources, see the below peer project pages.
Background
A peer can be defined as a person with equal standing in a community who share a common lived experience1. Experiential workers use their lived experience with substance use in their professional work.
Experiential worker engagement uses a community-based approach to decision making, as engaging the community in the process is far more likely to lead to effective and acceptable service delivery.
Experiential worker engagement can address equity of harm reduciton services and interventions by fostering communication, building trust, increasing knowledge and reducing stigma and discrimination to reduce barriers and increase utilization of services.
- Ti L,Tzemis D, Buxton JA. Peer engagement in the context of policy and program development: A review of the literature Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy (2012) 7:47 http://www.substanceabusepolicy.com/content/7/1/47
