If you plan to include IPS training in your grant application or research planning, please contact us at info@intentionalpeersupport.org prior to application being submitted.
This will ensure effective coordination and a better application. ~ IPS Team
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We can travel to your area or you can access training online. Contact us for information.
We also host a few open registration “pay-per-seat” trainings each year that are open to anyone to attend. View upcoming training and events .
by e.m. filson / www.emfilsonsurvivalart.com
“If I had only a single training to send staff, it would be IPS without hesitation. A must for anybody currently in this field or aspiring to be. To characterize it as a training is a disservice. It was a life-changing event.” – Jack Bennett, Regional Director, Hudson Valley Recovery Center
“For me the IPS Training was like someone dropping a fistful of pennies. It truly is a life-changing experience, like being taught how to play one of the most beautiful instruments known to man: a mutually beneficial conversation.” – Dan Cole, Queensland Australia
“A life-changing, perspective-altering, mind-opening experience. I now have the tool kit I instinctively knew I needed.” – Llewellyn Cumming, Regional Recovery Specialist
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IPS Core Training (5 days in-person / 10 days virtual)
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 Shery Mead’s book, Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach, our Core Training is a 40-hour 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.
The IPS Core Training is for anyone interested in mutual support and has been widely used as a foundation training for people working in both traditional and alternative mental health settings. Specific topics covered include:
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
View a flyer with more information about the IPS Core Training
Sign up here if you are interested in learning about future Core trainings you can attend or visit our Eventbrite page to see trainings we have listed: IPS Central Eventbrite
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IPS Advanced Training (3 days in-person / 6 days virtual)
Intentional Peer Support requires an ongoing commitment to learning and growth. Once participants complete a Core Training and begin practicing IPS in their relationships, lots of questions emerge—most commonly, “How do I make this stuff work in my particular environment?”
Deepen IPS Practice.
We developed our 24-hour Advanced Training to take IPS practice a step further, play out the principles and tasks using real-life scenarios, heighten self-reflection, enhance ways of building mutual connections, and sustain the practice. Our Advanced Trainings are for anyone who has completed a Core Training, and are tailored to fit your organization or community’s needs.
Learn the Art of Co-Reflection.
Co-reflection is a vital practice where people regularly come together to reflect on their relationships using the IPS framework. Here is an opportunity to examine relationships, look at assumptions, and sustain the tasks and principles. Our Core Training gets you started with Co-Reflection, and our Advanced Training helps you master it. Click here for our free Co-Reflection Guide.
Explore Crisis as an Opportunity.
Traditionally, crisis in mental health has been viewed as something undesirable or harmful, and risk assessment has led to fear-based responses that keep people stuck. In the Advanced Training, we focus on using crisis instead as an opportunity to connect, maintain mutuality, and create a culture of healing. Respite programs will find particular use as we further explore what it means to be trauma-informed, work with conflict and challenging situations, develop flexible boundaries, use pro-active crisis planning, and prepare for program evaluation.
View a flyer with more information about the IPS Advanced Training.
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IPS Train-The-Trainer (5 days in-person / 11 days virtual)
People often complete an IPS Core Training feeling inspired to share the material with others. We welcome this enthusiasm and have developed a system for passing along the content of our Core Training. With an intent to spread IPS and ensure fidelity, the Train-the-Trainer Course is a hands-on seminar that prepares and designates IPS Organizational Trainers to teach the Core Content within the organization where they work.
The IPS Organizational Trainer pathway is intended for organizations of 25 or less employees to increase sustainability of IPS after that organization has been trained in the IPS Core Training. At larger organizations, the scope of an IPS Organizational Trainer may be limited to specific programs or regions. Please contact us for more information.
These are the basic steps to become an IPS Organizational Trainer:
| 1 | Complete an IPS Core Training |
| 2 | Practice IPS for at least a year |
| 3 | Submit a Train-the-Trainer Application |
| 4 | Complete an IPS Train-the-Trainer Course |
| 5 | Become designated as an IPS Organizational Trainer upon demonstrating the IPS tasks and principles, strong communication skills, and a willingness to self-reflect |
| 6 | Regularly engage in Co-Reflection |
| 7 | Complete an IPS Refresher Course every two years to re-designate as an IPS Organizational Trainer |
More information about becoming an IPS Organizational Trainer can be found on our Trainers page (click here). Train-the-Trainer Courses can be arranged in your area by contacting us directly. .
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Other IPS Trainings
In addition to the above trainings, we offer Refresher courses, one- and two-day IPS overviews, and customized trainings to suit your organization’s needs. We can also deliver the above trainings in alternate scheduling formats. Please contact us for information.