Peer Navigators play a key role in engaging and connecting with participants. Through their lived experiences, they demonstrate a certain credibility and ability to relate that is unmatched by professional staff. They offer a level of acceptance and understanding that is just not available to someone who has not lived it.
Who are they?
They are people who believe in the importance of relationships for themselves and others. They have spent time building their own network. They show leadership skills through different styles; some are bold and outspoken while others take a quiet and subtle approach. Peer navigators lean into vulnerability and are comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Our Staff Peer Navigators for example, are former youth in care who have participated in HEERO™ and demonstrated skills as youth leaders.
What is their role?
Peer Navigators act as co-facilitators of HEERO™ workshops and staff trainings. They lead activities, share lived experiences and offer hope regarding the process of building a network while validating participants’ worries from a place of knowing. Peer navigators often take on the role of helping to engage, re-frame, and constructively challenge participants in both group and individual activities.
Peer navigators have described working with participants as walking alongside “real life superheroes” (Raven B.)
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