Virtual Training: Discomfort as Opportunity

Discomfort is inevitable. Discomfort is also an opportunity for meaning-making, growth, and transformation. In this interactive workshop, peer supporters will explore ways to move through discomfort in their relationships while focusing on the following values: humanity, authenticity, collaboration, humility, curiosity, and hope. Through this practice, peer supporters vulnerably embrace and investigate their discomfort, deepen their practice of empathy and compassion, and build powerful, meaningful connections with those they support.

About the presenter:
J Helms (they/them) is an educator, advocate, writer, and psychiatric survivor. J works as Director of Training & Advocacy at Pathways Vermont, an agency committed to ending homelessness and offering innovative mental health alternatives in Vermont. They previously worked as a service coordinator in Pathways’ Housing First program and as a peer support advocate at a designated community mental health agency, supporting folks with experiences related to anxiety, sadness, extreme states, self-harm, suicide, and trauma. J is a certified Intentional Peer Support trainer, Alternatives to Suicide group facilitator, and Hearing Voices group facilitator. J develops and facilitates trainings and workshops on various topics including Pathways Vermont’s Relationship-First Practice, Housing First, Intentional Peer Support, Harm Reduction, Person-Centered Service Planning & Provision, Conversations About Suicide, and Mad Movement Histories.