The majority of your services will be live video based support group meetings and/or one-on-one coaching sessions. So it’s important that you understand the ins and outs of creating your own group meetings and one-on-one coaching sessions.
Before we go into detail on how to actually schedule a meeting here are some tips to consider when you’re deciding on what services you will offer.
First, lead with your experience and your strengths. What Peer support interest did you designate in the Connection Preferences for your public profile? Select an interest, and think about how you could create a monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly meeting. An example would be you’ve selected stress & anxiety as a peer support interest. You could create a group meeting specifically around stress management and reduction. You could go into even greater detail and create a group meeting called - Stress Management and Reduction for Mothers Working at Home.
HeyPeers users are looking for support so the more clear and concise you are about the intention, structure, and “goals” for the meeting the better.
Another approach to consider is if you are a Peer Supporter who is certified in peer techniques or protocols you can create meetings around those certifications. An example would be WRAP - Wellness Recovery Action Plan. WRAP has a clear structure and process in guiding peers to create their own Wellness Recovery Action Plan. You can follow this wellness process to structure your meetings.
Another approach to consider is are you a peer who led (or still leads) face to face peer groups? Can you offer those groups virtually? By bringing them to the virtual online peer support community, you will be able to offer peers who struggle to make in-person meetings due to time constraints, etc. the ability to join a meeting from the comfort of their home. You can also expand your reach! You will be offering these groups to a GLOBAL audience, and not just to a regional in-person audience.
Finally, dream a little bit! Be creative. What peer support group do YOU wish you had access to when you were in need of peer support? What “holes” do you see around specific topics and conditions that you have lived experience with that need to be addressed? We want your Peer Supporter services to thrive on HeyPeers and one way of ensuring that is creating group meetings and one-on-one coaching services that give YOU life just as much as the HeyPeers users attending.
Our second tip when planning to create meetings is to create a Word or Google doc where you will save all of your meeting descriptions. This will help you synthesize the purpose and focus of your meeting. It will help you work through grammatical typos.
A reminder the majority of American adults read at a 7th or 8th-grade reading level. Please be sure to shape the description of your meetings to stay within the boundaries of an 8th-grade reading level. Grammarly is a great online tool and resource to review your descriptions.
A Word or Google doc will also make it easier for you to copy and paste the meeting information when you go to schedule multiple meetings in HeyPeers. Here are our recommended items to include in your meeting information:
- Meeting Name - This will be consistent every time you schedule a meeting for this specific meeting type
- Meeting Description - Create a general meeting description
- Support Type - This should be based on the peer support interest you have designed the meeting around
- Support Topic - Does this meeting have a series of different topics? If yes, then write the topic list out and write a sentence or two about each topic.
- Group Meeting or 1 to 1 Meeting? - Some meetings are best being only a group meeting or a 1 to 1 meeting. Other meetings could be utilized in both structures.