Mental Health & Substance Use Peer Inclusion Program

The Interior Health (IH) mental health and substance use (MHSU) peer inclusion program brings together people with lived and living experience to help improve mental health and substance use services.

Your experience matters! The ideas, feedback, and insights you share can help make services more welcoming, accessible, and responsive to the needs of people who use them. By working together, we can help shape programs and services that better support our communities.

We welcome people who:

• Live in the Interior Health region and have experience with mental health and substance use challenges, either personally or as a family member/loved one
• Are youth (ages 12-24) or adults (19+)

Health-care planning and improvement as a peer advisor

As a peer advisor, you can help improve services by sharing your experiences, feedback, and ideas. Your input helps guide how MHSU services are planned, delivered, and evaluated across Interior Health. Participation is flexible, and you can choose opportunities that are meaningful to you and fit your experience and availability.

Engagement topics may include harm reduction, reducing stigma in healthcare settings, improving treatment and support services, and other issues that affect people accessing care.

Opportunities may include:

• Participating in one-time engagement sessions
• Joining longer-term working groups or steering committees
• Co-facilitating educational groups or peer engagement sessions
• Presenting to staff or community groups

Complete online application 

Local service delivery as a peer volunteer

Peer volunteers use their lived and living experience to support people accessing Interior Health MHSU services in their local communities.

We offer peer volunteer opportunities in communities across the Interior Health region, including Kelowna, Vernon, Penticton, Kamloops, Williams Lake, Merritt, Grand Forks, and Trail. Most roles require an ongoing commitment, while still offering flexibility and choice.

Service delivery opportunities may include:

• Co-facilitating clinical groups
• Providing one-one or group peer support
• Supporting outreach and harm reduction services
• Supporting overdose prevention/supervised consumption sites
• Helping people find information and resources and community supports.

Complete online application