Mount Sinai Hospital's Peer Support Program

Peer support workers have to be well enough into recovery for us to feel confident that we're not going to expose them to something that is going to derail their own health. They get hired, they do the hospital onboarding, and then they have eight sessions of specific peer support training in the emergency department. The program really starts with identifying people who have had those challenges and then are in recovery. With our program, they only work when a social worker is on shift as well, so that they have an ally to go to should something come up that triggers them or they're uncomfortable with.