Peer Support Volunteer

Peer Support Volunteer

The primary duty of Peer Support Volunteers is to provide emotional and coping support to individuals seeking support at Wellspring. They offer information from their own experience as it pertains to the concerns brought forward by the individual, as well as information about programs or services offered by Wellspring that may help meet their needs.

Peer Support Volunteers are the point-of-entry to Wellspring for members and they guide and direct the selection of programs based on the member’s needs and the program purposes. Through check-in phone calls and additional meetings over time, as appropriate, and throughout the member’s trajectory of program participation, Peer Support Volunteers assist Wellspring members in finding, then transitioning, to phase-appropriate programming and, ultimately, to transition into community programming.

 Eligibility:  To qualify as a Peer Support Volunteer, an individual:

• must be at least 18 years of age
• must have had cancer, or cared for a cancer patient, or be a health professional from a relevant discipline (e.g. social work, nursing, psychology), a member in good standing with the association which governs the profession (e.g. Ontario College of Nurses), and provide to Wellspring a copy of the registration.
• be available for duty as per Wellspring London and Stratford programs schedule
• complete all volunteer status requirements such as: Vulnerable Sector Check, mandatory training and volunteer orientation.

Primary Responsibilities: 

• Provide a warm and reassuring welcome to persons visiting Wellspring.
• Offer visitors coffee or tea, and provide a tour of the centre.
• Provide emotional and coping support to patients or their family members, in a private and confidential setting.
• Listen in an empathetic manner to the members’ circumstances and experiences with cancer.
• Help normalize feelings and experiences through reassurance and sharing information about common responses to the diagnosis of cancer.
• Share information about their own experiences with cancer if doing so would be helpful.