Challenges for Peer Providers, Essay Example

It is imperative that with work of the peer providers notwithstanding, they face a myriad of challenges. These challenges are 3-fold mainly in their occupational path, work environment, and personal mental health. It is noteworthy that carrying tag of a peer provider especially for people with mental challenges creates a negative impression in the perception of other people in the society. This portrays the peer providers in bad light hence their interpersonal relationships with other people reduce significantly. It is also important to note that the peer provider job lacks detailed job descriptions in that one will be dealing with clients with diverse problems. As a peer provider one has to possess the ability to use the patient’s life history as well as one’s past lived- experience. In most cases, the patients may be unable to provide such information hence rendering the provider’s ability to get to the root of the matter difficult. The unavailability of such information makes the diagnosis of the patient’s problems difficult. The work environment- bound challenges also dent the performance of the peer providers. In many cases peer counseling is not taken as a serious noble profession and thus inadequate facilities affect the service delivery. It is also important to note that the peer mental counseling is likely to cause harm to the providers’ mental health because of the nature of the cases they deal with on daily basis. Therefore, it is also important that the peer providers undergo peer counseling on regular basis too. In addition, the traditional beliefs also affect the service delivery of the peer providers. This is because some patients may attach their conditions to some traditional beliefs hence failing to adhere to the provider’s guidance and instructions.