Urban Matters is collaborating with the City of Kelowna and community partners to introduce peer navigators into the social serving sector. The systems change project began in 2018-2019 with the creation of PEOPLE Employment Services, a supported employment agency that supports people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) to maintain paid work in meaningful roles within the social serving sector. The Indigenous Peer Navigator Program builds on that success by refining a training program for Indigenous Peer Navigators and working to embed those roles within with host organizations.

Impact:

In the first year of the program, Indigenous Peer Navigators worked in the Downtown Kelowna Library Branch, Parkinson Recreation Centre, and the Ki Low Na Friendship Society. As a community-driven systems change effort, the project is building the capacity, skills, and confidence of peers, helping to remove stigma within host organizations, and embedding cultural knowledge in unlikely spaces. As part of these efforts, Urban Matters has convened a group of community partners who have a shared interest in building relationships to develop strategies that support meaningful reconciliation, as well as remove barriers to accessing culturally safe services.