Intentional Peer Support Core Training (IPS)-Eastern Shore

The Behavioral Health Administration and the University of Maryland is pleased to partner with the Intentional Peer Support Organization to bring to Maryland the IPS Core Training.

Dates: November 3-7, 2017

Location: Eastern Shore Hospital Center

What it is:

Intentional Peer Support is a powerful framework for thinking about and creating transformative relationships. Partcipants learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things. IPS is used across the world in settings ranging from peer-run programs to traditional human services. Intentional Peer Support training come from a history of grassroots alternatives that focus on building relationships that are mutual, explorative, and conscious of power.

For nearly twenty years, IPS has been inspiring and training people in community, peer support, and human services settings all over the world to be intentional about the way they connect and build mutual relationships. Based on Sheryl Mead’s book, Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach, the Core Training is a 5-day introduction to this innovative framework and is designed to have you practicing right away. In a highly interactive environment, participants learn the tasks and principles of IPS, examine assumptions about who they are, and explore ways to create relationships in which power is negotiated, co-learning is possible, and support goes beyond traditional notions of “service.” IPS is all about opening up new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing, and here we examine how to make this possible.

During the Core Training participants learn to:

• Seek ways to connect, become aware of disconnects, and work to reconnect

• Explore how we have “come to know what we know”

• Strive for mutuality in relationships

• Stay curious, question assumptions, and own judgements and opinions

• Open up new ways of listening

• Use experience to relate and build trust

• Name and negotiate power in relationships

• Approach crisis as an opportunity to grow

• Share risk and responsibility

• Focus on the quality of relationships instead of fixing one another

• Pay attention to the impact of clinical and labeling language

• Understand how trauma affects lives

• Keep the energy in relationships moving towards what we want

• Understand peer support in the context of social change and social justice

As part of our commitment, we are pleased to provide you with this five day training. The training will be November 3-7, 2017. ( the 4th and 5th is Saturday and Sunday). Registration is from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. with the class beginning at 9:00 a.m. and ending at 4:30 p.m. You can not come late or leave early.

CEUs.- This class provides 30 CPRS CEUs:

If you are unable to attend all hours of a training, please let us know immediately so we can offer the spot to another peer. If you do not notify us 48 hours prior to the specific training of your inability to attend you will be assessed a $25 fee for non- attendance and not be able to attend any other training until this fee as be paid.

If you have any question please contact Linda Oney at loney@som.umaryland.edu

Thanks,

Linda