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3. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just train it right. If you're building a peer support team and wondering what kind of training they actually need, this episode's for you. We're talking about the core training every team should have and why good intentions aren't enough and how to keep your people equipped to do the work without burning
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Welcome to Surviving Your Shift, your go-to resource for building strong, peer support teams in high-stress professions. I'm your host, Bart Leger, board-certified in traumatic stress with over 25 years of experience supporting and training professionals in frontline and emergency roles.
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Whether you're looking to start a peer support team, learn new skills, or bring training to your organization, this show will equip you with practical tools to save lives and careers.
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Today, we're talking about something every peer support program needs, but not every peer support program prioritizes, and that's training.
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More specifically, how to train your peer support team the right way. Now, let me start by saying this. It's great to have people who care and passion matters, but passion without training can cause more harm than good. If your peer supporters aren't trained, they may overstep, make matters worse, or, God forbid, do harm. In most cases, where peer support is ineffective or causes harm, the cause is poor or inadequate training. So today, we're going to talk through what training your team needs and why it matters. We're going to talk about how to get them prepared to offer real, lasting support without trying to be something they're not. Because peer support, as we've said before, isn't therapy, but it is specialized. Let's start with the big picture. A strong peer support training plan should cover three major areas.
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Emotional support, crisis response, and suicide intervention. If you're missing any one of those, you've got a gap in your program. And depending upon the culture of your department and the type of work you do, and even sometimes the size of your team, you may also need training in things like boundaries, confidentiality, grief and loss, or substance abuse. But at a minimum, those first three are essential. So let's break each one of these down. First, it's emotional support skills. This really is the bread and butter of peer support. Most of what your team will do day-to-day isn't high-stakes crisis response stuff. It's conversations and it's listening. It's knowing how to sit with someone in stress or pain and not rush to fix it. So your team needs solid training in active listening, validating what people go through, and empathy, and also how to respond in a way that builds trust and keeps the doors open. But we need to talk about our experiences. And I know that already happens. Officers tend to park up after a call and talk about it. Many tailboard conversations happen after a fatal fire. And there are break room conversations after a negative outcome in the ER. But my question is, what support are they receiving? I know talking is good, but are they receiving positive support and ways to alleviate the emotional pain or the struggle? It's one thing for everyone to talk about their own struggle together. But it's way more effective for someone who knows what they're going through but is separated from the incident to come in and provide skilled, empathetic support that's based on best practices and proven effectiveness. Now, some people think listening comes naturally. And sure, for some folks, maybe they're better at it than others. But real, intentional, active listening?
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That's a skill. And if your team hasn't practiced it, it's not going to show up when it counts.
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I always recommend a basic peer support skills course to start with. Something that teaches not just how to listen, but how to spot emotional distress, ask the right questions, and also recognize when someone might need more than just a peer conversation. Because your team is not made up of robots. The work you do will wear on your employees. Dangerous work or experiencing or witnessing the trauma of others on a regular basis will take its toll on the psyche. This emotional toll will manifest in a number of ways. It will show up in ways such as increased irritability and poor decision-making. You may notice more citizen complaints or maybe increased use of sick time, among other things. And the second thing I recommend is crisis response training. This is where Critical Incident Stress Management, or CISM, comes into play. You've heard me talk about it before, and it's one of the most widely used and effective models for first responders and emergency services. It teaches your team how to respond after a critical incident, whether that's a line of duty death, a fatal call involving a child, a suicide, or any major trauma. an individual's ability to cope, or, as we say, it could be anything that rocks their world or that sticks with them long after the shift. CISM includes tools like diffusing, provided within eight hours of an incident, debriefing, and individual crisis intervention. It teaches peer supporters how to stabilize someone emotionally, reduce the intensity of their stress, and then connect them with the right follow-up. The key here is structure. This is not just a conversation. It's a response plan. And it gives your team a proven framework for how to show up when the stakes are high, emotions are raw, and it helps them stay on track and provide an effective peer support. The group and individual models can be taught in either two two-day trainings or through what we call the GRIN course, and that is the combined group and individual crisis intervention.
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We teach this in three days. And what we do is we take the group and the individual, which normally takes four days, and we combine those because there is some overlap, and then we teach it in three days. CISM has really become the foundation for peer support programs in fire, police, EMS, and hospital systems across the country. And I've taught in all of those and then even more. This is where I recommend emergency services organizations begin Because this training teaches both emotional support skills as well as crisis intervention skills. Now, the third piece, and I believe this is non-negotiable, and that is suicide intervention training.
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Specifically, I recommend QPR. I like it for its simplicity. It stands for Question, Persuade, Refer. It's it's powerful, and it's designed for non-clinical folks, people just like your team, and it's evidence-based.
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QPR teaches your peer supporters how to recognize warning signs, ask the direct question, are you thinking about suicide, and take appropriate next steps. It's not therapy, just like CISM is not therapy. QPR is not about diagnosing anything. It's about keeping someone safe and then getting them connected to help.
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And it works. If you're interested, we can also talk about getting some within your organization trained as trainers.
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This way, you can offer ongoing training within your organization without additional cost, except for the materials, of course. So if this is something you'd be interested in, schedule a discovery call by going to the link in the show notes, and we can make this happen. Another suicide intervention protocol I recommend is ASIST training.
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That's A-S-I-S-T. And it's a two-day training. As I said, I believe suicide intervention training is non-negotiable.
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First responders and others in high-stress occupations are taking their own lives at an alarming rate. We need to stem the tide. I'm sure everyone on your team knows CPR. Why?
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Because it saves lives. Why not equip your team with the same life-saving ability for those with thoughts of suicide? And I'll tell you right now, your team needs to be ready for this.
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Not because every conversation is going to be life or death, but because one might be. And you don't want that to be the moment they realize they weren't trained. If they're going to wear the peer that includes needing to understand and how to intervene with someone having thoughts of suicide. Alright, so those are your three core training areas. Emotional support skills, crisis response, and suicide intervention. And while I'm on this subject, let me add one more training that I believe will round out the skill set for your peer support team.
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And that's what I call comprehensive peer support training. Most people think peer support training is only about critical incidents. But comprehensive peer support goes much further. It prepares your team to support peers, not just after a traumatic call, but through the everyday stressors that wear people down over time.
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Things like burnout, divorce, financial stress, other family troubles, addiction, grief, and more things just like this.
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Comprehensive peer support training teaches your team how to be consistently present and helpful. Not just reactive after a crisis. What it does is it combines foundational emotional support skills with proactive engagement, clear boundaries, and referral strategies. It also emphasizes long-term wellness, and it builds your team's ability to support coworkers across all seasons of life, not just in emergencies. This training includes active listening and relationship building, recognizing early signs of distress, handling everyday issues with professionalism and care, knowing when to refer to chaplains, clinicians, or EAP, support framework that protects both the peer and the supporter.
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We also talk about role clarity, boundary setting. We deal with things like substance abuse, self-care, resilience for peer supporters themselves, among other things. So if your current training plan only includes CISM or crisis response, I believe you might be missing the bigger picture. Comprehensive peer support is the foundation of sustainable support cultures, and it equips your team to help people before things get critical. And for many departments, I believe this is the missing piece. We can offer this training as well. Now, let's talk about a few optional, but I believe equally valuable trainings depending upon your setting. You may want to include education on grief and loss, especially in departments with frequent exposure to death. Then substance use and recovery, particularly if your agency has seen struggles with addiction.
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Things on family stress, because we all know the job doesn't stay at work, and we bring much of our job stress home. And then burnout and compassion fatigue.
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This is so your team knows how to spot it in others and, as well, in themselves. Another valuable area to cover is legal and ethical boundaries, especially around confidentiality. What stays between you and a peer? What has to be reported? What if you're subpoenaed? I mean, these are real questions. These are things that come up fairly regularly for many teams. And what your team needs is clear answers and department policy backing them up. And here's one more area that I think is important. That is taking care of the peer supporter. They're not immune to stress. In fact, being the one everyone comes to can be exhausting. So build training into your program that addresses team health. How to debrief each other, recognize burnout, and also when to know to take a step back when it's time that you've kind of reached your limit. And you need to take a break and step back for a little while because if your team is burned out, your whole program will suffer. let's talk a little bit about how to deliver the training. You've got options.
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You can host in-person workshops, bring in certified instructors, people like me who train in CISM, QPR, emotional support, comprehensive peer support. And you can also partner with local clinicians or chaplains who understand first responder or emergency services culture. And then they can bring in specialized training as well. I always recommend starting with live in-person training for the core topics. It's, I think, impossible to get the same dynamics and real-life scenarios with virtual training. I mean, oh, we can do it. And I do many of these. It's just not the same.
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Then you could supplement with online refreshers, videos, and case reviews. Training really should be ongoing, not a one and done. And what I do is I utilize scenario-based training where peer supporters practice with role plays or real-world case examples. And what it does is it helps them apply the training in a safe space and prepare them for the unpredictable nature of real conversations. It's not just lecture. We don't just tell people what to do. We show them how to do it. And then we let them practice it in a safe place, safe environment, where if they get it wrong or if they make a mistake, you know, no harm, no foul. And we can offer some advice, a little bit of correction. And then when we're sure that they can do it and then they are able to do it well, then we can allow them to go into... don't forget documentation and continuing education. Keep a record of what training each member has completed.
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And then we'll have to do it.
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And we'll have to do it. And we'll have to do it. And we'll have to do it. And we'll have to do it. And we'll have to do it.
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Now, you might be wondering, how much training is enough before someone starts supporting others?
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And that's a great question. I'd say probably a minimum of 21 hours of initial training across the three core areas. More, if possible. And then commit to ongoing support, supervision, and also continuing education.
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If your team is already operating but hasn't been trained, don't panic. But don't ignore it either. Start now.
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Build a plan. Identify the gaps.
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And then what you can do is prioritize what's most urgent.
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And usually that ends up being suicide prevention because often it's an afterthought. And then you work your way from there.
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And finally, remember, training isn't just about skills. It's about building confidence. When your team is trained and they practice their skills regularly, they're more likely to be confident and be able to provide effective support. When they're not trained, they don't have a protocol to follow. And they might end up doing more harm than good. Don't put your people in that position. Give them the tools and teach them well. Then keep walking with them as they serve others. through it with you. Head over to StressCareDoc.com and schedule a free discovery call. I offer certified training in CISM, QPR, and more. And we can design a plan, if necessary, to fit your agency's size, needs, and goals.
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And if you found today's episode helpful, would you share it with someone who oversees wellness in your organization, or maybe another organization that you're familiar with? Because training matters, and it's easier to get started than most people think.
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Thanks for joining me today on Surviving Your Shift. We talked about the training your peer support team needs to do the job well and to do it safely. With the right tools and support, your team doesn't have to guess.
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They'll be ready. Come back next time, and we'll talk about how to build a culture of confidentiality and psychological safety that makes peer support work. And until then, God bless, and have a great day.
