Peer Worker

**PROGRAM AREA: Integrated Programs - Emergency Treatment Fund**

**Position: Peer Worker**

**EMPLOYMENT STATUS: 10 month contract, until March 31, 2026**

**HOURS/WEEK**: 25-30 hours per week**

**What We Live By**:

- **Our Vision**:
A community without barriers to health and wellbeing.
- **Our Mission**: We reduce health inequities by providing interprofessional primary health services and community programs, focused on the populations we prioritize, in collaboration with community partners.
- **Our Values**: Innovation, Accountability, Person-Centred, Health Promotion, Excellence, Sustainability, Accessibility

Guelph Community Health Centre prioritizes people who face barriers to health and accessing services, and people who identify as:

- Homeless or at risk of homelessness
- Living on low income
- Newcomers to Canada with language barriers
- Having moderate to severe mental health and/or addiction issues
- Having moderate to severe disabilities
- Indigenous First Nations, Inuit and Métis
- Black, mixed race and racialized populations
- Experiencing intersectional oppression
- 2SLGBTQIA+
- Vulnerable children and their families experiencing conflict, isolation or attachment struggles

**Program Description**:
The Emergency Treatment Fund (ETF) is a funding initiative offered by Health Canada to municipalities and Indigenous communities to address urgent substance use needs.

The HOME Team is a joint initiative between the Guelph Community Health Centre, the Sanguen Health Centre, and the Mount Forest Family Health Team, which will provide mobile wrap-around support services to individuals struggling with substance use who face barriers to accessing traditional services. The HOME team will expand on existing programs to operate two mobile outreach vehicles - one in the City of Guelph, and one in Wellington County, and offer additional place-based supports.

Reporting to the Allied Health Supervisor, the HOME Peer, working with the HOME Outreach Worker, will provide support and education to individuals struggling with substance use health needs in community. They will use their unique personal and lived experiences to build positive relationships and connections with clients. They will work with folks along the substance use continuum and will act as a part of the integrated team providing wrap-around care for clients.

**Knowledge, Skills and Abilities**:

- Lived experience with addiction, mental health challenges, and/or homelessness
- Experience working with people along the substance use continuum
- Experience supporting clients with high levels of complexity related to their physical health, mental health, substance use and access to basic needs
- Emergency First Aid (or equivalent) and CPR level C
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
- Strong ability to work with and build rapport with members of our priority populations
- Demonstrated ability to work well under pressure, to work independently with mínimal direction, to multi-task, to problem-solve, to take initiative, and to meet the needs of the client.
- Understanding of Indigenous Cultural Safety principles and trauma-informed care.

**Principal Job Duties**:

- Provide outreach-based connection opportunities for clients in community, alongside allied health and nursing supports
- Build positive relationships and rapport with clients to establish trust
- Support access to basic needs provisions (i.e. shower program and other supplies)
- Provide opportunities for therapeutic listening for clients, drawing on their lived experience, where appropriate
- Support client problem-solving and system navigation
- Provide crisis intervention and de-escalation support on-site, as required

We thank, in advance, those who apply, but will contact only those who qualify for interviews.

If at any stage in the selection process you require accommodation, please let us know the nature of the required accommodation.

We require that all finalist applicants undergo a Criminal Record Check and Vulnerable Sector Screen through their local Police Services Branch prior to start date.