INTRODUCTION
Below is a list of recommended reports, guidebooks, tools, and other resources about employment of staff with lived experience of homelessness, staying in shelters, or other experiences common among shelter clients/residents, such as mental health or addictions challenges, or refugee experiences.
The research on employment of people with lived experience in shelters and homelessness services is limited, so we’ve included resources about employment of PWLE in other related social service and health sectors, such as supportive housing, mental health, and harm reduction.
These resources can help shelters to learn about:
The benefits of hiring staff with lived experience (staff WLE), for the shelter organization and its clients.
Best practices for recruiting, hiring, supporting, and promoting people with lived experience.
How to start, improve, or expand peer worker programs and positions in their organization.
These resource may also be interesting for
People with lived experience (PWLE) who are interested to work in any type of job in the homelessness, housing, social services, or health sectors, who would like to learn about:
Benefits, challenges, and experiences that PWLE face when working in these sectors in Toronto and elsewhere, and when searching for jobs in these sectors
What it’s like to be a peer worker in shelters, homeless services, and other social service sectors
2. Employment services providers who would like to assist people with lived experience to gain employment in these sectors
For details about each resource, see annotated bibliography at the bottom of the page.
RESOURCES ON RECRUITMENT, HIRING, AND ON-THE-JOB SUPPORT FOR STAFF WLE
Toronto-based research and recommendations:
Lived Experience @ Work: Recommendations for Organizations (report by Health Commons Solutions Lab for the City of Toronto)
Trusting Potential: The Benefits and How-to of Hiring People with Lived Experience of Homelessness (report by Change Toronto)
Social Service Traineeships: A guide to developing paid training opportunities within the social service sector for people with lived experience of homelessness. (report by Fred Victor)
Canada-wide and international resources:
Toolkit for Employing Individuals with Lived Experience Working Within the Public Mental Health Workforce (toolkit and report by Working Well Together Technical Assistance Centre)
Understanding the Needs of Workers in the Homelessness Support Sector (report by Hub Solutions - listed under author Justine Levesque in bibliography)
Resources on Peer Work in the Homelessness Sector and Other Social Services
Note: there is currently no universally agreed-upon definition of “peer worker” use in Toronto’s shelter system, nor in the Canadian and international social services sector overall.
A peer worker, under TSN’s definition, is a paid staff member WLE who:
works at an organization that supports or engages people with lived experience similar to the peer worker’s
Is expected to identify themself to clients as a PWLE and
Is expected to draw on their lived experience to inform their work
We have thus selected resources that would be relevant for these types of positions. However, each resource may define peer work a bit differently, or use other terms such as “peer support worker” to describe positions that are very similar to our “peer worker” definition.
Toronto-based research and recommendations:
Learning By Doing: Peer Project How-to Manual (guide by St. Stephen’s Community House)
Breaking Ground: Peer Support for Congregate Living Settings (community-based research report by Habitat Services).
Lived Experience @ Work (project website with reports and infographics, by Health Commons Solutions Lab for the City of Toronto)
Canada-wide and international resources:
Making the Case for Peer Support: Report to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Mental Health Peer Support Project Committee (by Céline Cyr, Heather McKee , Mary O’Hagan and Robyn Priest)
Peer Support: A Tool for Recovery in Homelessness Services (report by European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless)
Supervising Peer Workers: A Toolkit for Implementing and Supporting Successful Peer Staff Roles in Mainstream Mental Health and Substance Use/Addiction Organizations (guide and toolkit, by K. Phillips and J. Harrison)
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
This bibliography provides details about the resources listed above, alphabetized by the name of the author (organization or individual, as identified above).
Change Toronto. (2010). Trusting Potential: The Benefits and How-to of Hiring People with Lived Experience Of Homelessness.
Recommendations for increasing and improving equity and employee success when employing PWLE of homelessness in social services. Includes recommendations for:
all stages of the employment pathway
all types of stakeholders who would be responsible for making changes (organizations, funders, etc).
diverse types of jobs
Based on:
consultations with PWLE in Toronto who faced barriers to moving into careers in the homelessness and social services sectors
interviews with leadership/management and frontline staff.
Cyr, Céline; McKee Heather; O’Hagan, Mary; and Priest, Robyn. (2010 first edition / 2016 second edition). Making the Case for Peer Support: Report to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Mental Health Peer Support Project Committee. Mental Health Commission of Canada.
(general website: www.mentalhealthcommission.ca)
Nation-wide Canadian research project to understand the value of peer support in mental health, and identify best practices (148-page report)
Primary research with 600 PWLE participants, combined with extensive literature review
Included a group of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit participants from downtown Toronto.
Excellent summary (on p. 7) of essential guidelines and strategies needed to enable peer support work to become widespread and successful in mental health care; could be adapted to shelters and supportive housing.
European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless. (2015). Peer Support: A Tool for Recovery in Homelessness Services. https://www.feantsa.org/download/peer_support_policy_paper2951723577548485776.pdf
Practical overview of key concepts/definitions, benefits, challenges, and best practices around peer support in the homelessness sector, including roles that are formal and informal, paid and unpaid.
Fred Victor (2013). Social Service Traineeships: A guide to developing paid training opportunities within the social service sector for people with lived experience of homelessness
This report on Fred Victor's social service traineeships program outlines an excellent model for a social service traineeship program designed for PWLE, for roles not requiring them to disclose or draw on their lived experience (ie, not peer worker positions). The document includes:
Detailed program description
Evaluation of participant experiences and outcomes
Easily-adaptable sample tools such as:
job descriptions for trainees
traineeship program application form
best practices guidelines for supervisors
evaluation forms for supervisors to assess trainee performance
surveys for organizations to use to learn about lived experience in their staff team and understand the workplace experiences of their staff WLE
Habitat Services (2010). Breaking Ground: Peer Support for Congregate Living Settings. Wellesley Institute.
https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/Breaking_Ground_final_report.pdf
Community-based research about formal and informal peer support in supportive housing settings in Toronto, including:
Residents’ perspectives on the benefits and challenges of having peer support at their residence
Peer support workers from supportive housing sites, sharing their experiences and recommendations
Perspectives of management at organizations with peer support workers
Recommendations for designing peer support work jobs/programs that best meet the needs of the residents, the peer workers, and the supportive housing organization
Recommendations for major systemic changes organizations could make to maximize the effectiveness of peer work
Not one-size-fits-all; provides a variety of options for organizations to consider.
Health Commons Solutions Lab (2021). Lived Experience @ Work. City of Toronto.
https://www.healthcommons.ca/project/peer-work-dte
This is a research project website with a number of excellent infographics and reports about:
the experiences of peer workers in diverse social services organizations in Toronto’s Downtown East End (DTE)
recommendations for improving the experiences and impacts of peers
Recommendations for expanding peer work in Toronto social services
It was produced as part of the Lived Experience @ Work project, conducted for the City of Toronto as part of the Downtown East Action Plan.
Infographics include:
A Dynamic Landscape of Employment
A summary of types of peer worker positions in Toronto
Peer Journey Map: Many Pathways, Many Obstacles, Many Rewards
A map of the benefits and challenges peer workers experience along their pathways from lived experience, to peer work, to other social service careers (if the peer wants to pursue that)
Reports:
Recommendations for Organizations
Recommendations for the City
A New Peer Employment Pipeline (creative visions for the future)
Levesque, J., Sehn, C., Babando, J., Ecker, J., and Embleton, L. (2021). Understanding the Needs of Workers in the Homelessness Support Sector. Hub Solutions. https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/HubSolutions-Understanding-Needs-Oct2021.pdf
2021 study of the experiences and support needs of homelessness sector workers across Canada.
Focused on
needs for improvement of working conditions and supports on the job, including the non-standard needs arising due to COVID
overview of homelessness sector labour market.
In all sections of the report, it considers the unique experiences and needs of PWLE, and people of different gender, Indigenous, and racial identities. It also identifies needs for future research on these topics.
Conducted cross-sectional national survey of frontline staff, interviews with executive directors.of homeless-serving organizations, : analysis of job postings.
Mental Health Commission of Canada, National Consumer Panel of the At Home/Chez Soi Project. (2011). Stigma, discrimination, and PWLE knowledge: Discussion report. http://housingfirsttoolkit.ca/wp-content/uploads/Stigma_Discussion_Report_ENG.pdf
A collection of pieces by PWLE about:
The value of including PWLE in all types of roles in projects and programs in the homelessness sector
stigma and descrimination experienced by the authors when serving as advisors or staff for the At Home / Chez Soi project, a national homelessness research and action project
recommendations for reducing stigma and creating more meaningful inclusion for PWLE in advisory and employment roles in the homelessness sector; and facilitating their career advancement.
Phillips, K., & Harrison, J. (2019). Supervising Peer Workers: A Toolkit for Implementing and Supporting Successful Peer Staff Roles in
Mainstream Mental Health and Substance Use/Addiction Organizations. Centre for Excellence in Peer Support and Centre for Innovation in Peer Support.
Guide on how to effectively supervise peer workers
Also addresses organization readiness, hiring, and onboarding.
Includes many practical tools such as:
organizational readiness checklist
sample job description
worksheet for developing role clarity for peers at your organization
Aimed at mental health and substance use organizations, but largely applicable to shelters as well.
St. Stephen’s Community House (March 2017). Learning By Doing: Peer Project How-to Manual.
https://www.sschto.ca/About-Us/Social-Action/Peer-Toolkit
Practical guide for social service organizations interested to launch or expand peer programs within their organizations.
Includes many practical tools such as:
worksheets to use in the planning process
sample job descriptions
sample interview questions
Relevant to peer work roles with a diverse range of:
responsibilities, from advocacy to counselling,
levels of formality, from casual volunteering to full-time jobs
time period, from a few months to a few years
Oriented primarily toward peer programs - ie, where a group of peers are selected, trained, assigned placement or jobs within an organization (or multiple organizations) and provided with supports throughout.
However, it has many tools and tips that are useful for any peer worker position, related to:
job design
recruitment
inclusion
during-employment supports
Working Well Together Technical Assistance Centre. (2014). Toolkit for Employing Individuals with Lived Experience Working Within the Public Mental Health Workforce. https://children.wi.gov/Documents/wwt_toolkit_final_6-10-14.pdf
This 300-page toolkit has a wealth of recommendations and practical tools that shelters could adapt for use in all stages of the employment pathway including:
setting the stage for successful employment:
creating a healthy work environment
Developing accommodations policies
stigma reduction initiatives
job position development and job description preparation
recruitment
hiring
supportive supervision
This document is from the United States, so there are sections related to the policy environment that are not relevant, but most content is applicable in the Canadian context