Society

Tori Martin

The Power of Peer Support: Supporting Transitional Aged Youth with a Peer-to-Peer Led Approach

Tori Martin is a fourth year professional communications student with a background in social work.

With 3+ years of field experience as a peer support worker working with youth ages 16-29 in Toronto, Tori aims to blend her strengths as a professional communicator and a peer support worker by incorporating her communications skillset into her individualized client care plans.

Tori hopes to continue supporting youth in working toward their personal goal-based outcomes, and grow to one day establish her own peer support program.

This research was modeled using an applied research approach, with the overarching goal to gain perspective on the current effectiveness of peer support groups from both the peer support workers and youth by having them complete a series of surveys after participating in a recurring weekly peer support group. 

Occurring over a 5 week period, three youth attended an hour long weekly peer support group on Saturdays facilitated by two peer support workers. Two separate surveys were created and completed by project participants on a weekly basis, with each participant completing five surveys in total by the end to capture qualitative data on both the peer end and client end. 

Youth surveys analyzed how youth were feeling before and after the group concluded, how impactful peer support was after specifically attending today, and how likely they are to continue to attend the group in the future.

Peer surveys also addressed how peer support workers’ were feeling after group facilitation, as well as how they felt after group in terms of preparation with certain topics or potential issues that arose during group to highlight any knowledge gaps they feel may be present within peer support group facilitation.

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