As the helping professions continue to evolve, we find person-to-person help available for a wider range of issues and problems and at more times and locations than we have ever seen before.  While credentialed experts still lead the field and have important roles to play in treatment and problem-solving, the democratization of help-giving has ushered waves of peer mentors, peer specialists, friend-advocates, and the like into the helping field, giving those who are seeking support and guidance in health, education, finance, and daily living the access to trained mentors just like them whose power and accessibility stems from "having been there" and having faced and overcome the challenges they now offer information and support for.

This peer-to-peer approach levels the field by basing the relationship in shared experience, usually without the barriers of class, credentials, or language.  While the mentoring movement is often associated with education and the goal of keeping high school and higher education students engaged and enrolled in school by tackling their everyday motivation problems, a quick scan of our service environment shows that the mentoring approach is alive and well in a variety of other environments:  health and finance in particular.  Early childhood parent-to-parent mentoring through Parents As Teachers, based here in Erie County at the Union City Family Support Center and other locations, has been thriving around the world for over 20 years, based on home visits between parents who share the bond of child rearing.  In the mental health arena, "a natural outgrowth of the 1999 Surgeon General's report on Mental Health has been the realization of the value of peer-to-peer support in the acquisition of real recovery."  Certified Peer Specialists lend unique insight into mental illness and what makes recovery possible because they have lived it.  Certified Peer Specialists offer their complementary support function in Erie County from the Mental Health Association of Northwest Pennsylvania. 

To help individuals with the challenges of finances and daily living, a growing number of programs are springing up in Erie County to meet this need through peer-to-peer support.  A new program supported by the Erie Women's Fund and nurtured by GECAC will pair ten "Community Partners" who will serve as guides and advocates for families who are working toward economic self-sufficiency.  Erie DAWN program that fosters financial and housing independence.  The trained mentors assist in stress management and share parenting and life skills knowledge and five insights into home maintenance.  These mentors and peer supports derive their strength from personal experience, their desire to help, and a capacity to quickly form a strong relationship with individuals and families moving toward greater self-sufficiency.