Becoming the rainbow in someone else’s cloud

My name is Jenny and I have a psycho-social disability (mental health condition). I have recently completed all three Team Up workshops – Introduction to Peer Support, Peer Mentoring and Peer Facilitator training.

I have really enjoyed the experience of being in a group with people that have a wide variety of disabilities; hearing & vision impaired, intellectual, physical and many more.

We learnt a lot from each other and the skills required to be a good peer supporter, mentor and facilitator.

The facilitators were very knowledgeable and they used their own stories of lived experience to enhance the training.

The Introduction to Peer Support was split into three half day sessions, Peer Mentoring was four full day sessions and Peer Facilitator was two full day sessions.

Topics covered encompassed building a peer movement, skills for peer support, key skills in one-to-one mentoring, handling difficult conversations, differences and similarities between facilitators and trainers, skills to become a facilitator of a peer group and general tips and tricks for facilitators.

At the end of the Peer Mentoring course we had to present a pitch to the rest of the group and receive the gift of feedback. Mine went really well and I appreciated all of the positive feedback that I was given, which surprised me because I was not sure about how well I would do.

It was a challenge for me. Public speaking has never been one of my greatest strengths in the past and I do get very nervous before speaking, but doing this in a very supportive environment really helped.

The Team Up workshops are great fun, and I have made a lot of new friends. The skills and knowledge I have learnt can help me “be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud,” as Maya Angelou urges us to do.

Find out more

If you want to learn more about peer mentoring, email us at info@cid.org.au or call us on 1800 424 065.

See our peer support resources to find out more about peer support.