Pilot Peer Support Program for the Corporate Services Branch at Health Canada

1. Introduction The Corporate Services Branch (CSB) at Health Canada (HC) requires the development, delivery, implementation, and overall management of a Peer Support Program for its employees.  Peer support is defined as a trusting relationship between an employee living with mental health issues or illness and an employee trained to offer volunteer peer support. Volunteer peer support is the idea of one employee helping another. This approach assumes that people with similar experiences can better understand each other and thus offer more genuine empathy and validation.  Volunteer peer support is considered to have value, either on its own or as a complement to clinical care. The voluteer peer support relationship may be the first step that an employee takes towards recovery, or it may be introduced years into the employee’s journey towards wellness.  2. Objectives of the Requirement The succesfull development, delivery, implementation, and overall management of a Peer Support Program at HC-CSB means employees will have the ability to seek support from their peers.  Volunteer Peer Supporters (employees within CSB) will be recruited across Canada and selected for training by a training facilitator qualified in the area of mental health and wellness. Volunteers offering support will be trained to be a supportive listener and to direct their peers in need to the appropriate resources (e.g. Employee Assistance Program, Conflict Resolution, Respect in the Workplace Office, etc.). Approved Volunteer biographies will be available via a user-friendly, cloud-based platform (e.g. datatbase). Employees will read the available biographies and choose the person they would like to connect and interact with for support. The same user-friendly, cloud-based platform will be available for input by Volunteer Peer Supporters and enable CSB to quickly retrieve information such as program utilization rates, etc. The Peer Support Program will be governed by established principles, best practices, and other procedures for quality assurance, all compliant with the National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace and the Guidelines for the Practice and Training of Peer Support. 3. Project Schedule The services of the Contractor will be required for a period of three (3) years commencing from the date of contract award with the option to invoke the optional services during that time frame as well as the option to extend the period of the contract by up to two (2) additional one (1) year period(s).