Train to Become a Peer Helper

Your Story Has Purpose

From Receiving Help to Giving It

If you're in recovery — long-term or early — your lived experience can become a lifeline for someone else. Our Peer Helper Training equips you to walk alongside others with humility, healthy boundaries, and real tools — without ever pretending to be the expert.

We train peers to be helpers, not authorities. You'll learn how to listen well, hold space, share your story responsibly, and know exactly when to connect someone with deeper care.

The Pathway

Three Simple Steps

01

Share Your Story

Tell us about your lived experience and why you want to give back. No recovery "resume" required — just a willing heart.

02

Peer Helper Training

Complete our humble, practical training: active listening, healthy boundaries, when to refer, and how to hold space without fixing.

03

Walk With Someone

Be matched with a peer, co-lead a skills group, or serve as a community helper — with ongoing support and supervision.

How We Train

What Guides Our Peer Helpers

Lived Experience Is Enough

You don't need credentials to care. Your story is the credential.

Equipped, Not Expert

Training gives you tools and boundaries — not a platform to lecture.

Community, Not Hierarchy

Peers help peers. We walk alongside, never above.

Safe & Accountable

Supervision and clear escalation pathways keep everyone safe.

Peers Help Build the Curriculum

Peer helpers don't just deliver someone else's material — they help create it. Doctoral-level providers and researchers mentor peers in shaping the curriculum, ensuring the meta truth comes through and the heart of the work is actually accomplished.

That mentorship comes from curiosity and wonderment — never from authority or ideology. We stay humble, stay curious, and let the truth meet people where they are.

Why Community Matters

The Science & Stories of Connection in Recovery

Curated videos that help explain why peer support, belonging, and community are not add-ons to recovery — they're the heart of it.

Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong

Johann Hari · TED

The opposite of addiction is connection. Hari reframes addiction around bonding, belonging, and the environments that make recovery possible.

Watch on YouTube

Beating Drug Addiction — The Rat Park Experiment

The classic Rat Park experiment: how environment and connection change the whole story of addiction.

Watch on YouTube

Rethinking Recovery: Community, Connection & Belonging

Why purpose, social value, and human connection play a vital role in true recovery.

Watch on YouTube

Why Staying Connected After Treatment Matters

Addiction thrives in isolation; recovery flourishes through connection. Building a supportive network that lasts.

Watch on YouTube

Building Community in Recovery

Healing Minds

The profound impact of giving back and building real community as part of sustained recovery.

Watch on YouTube

What Causes Addiction & Depression — Johann Hari

Rich Roll Podcast

A long-form conversation on the roots of addiction and depression, and why connection is central to healing.

Watch on YouTube

These videos are curated from public YouTube channels to support learning. RHM does not own this content; always use discernment and consult a qualified professional for clinical decisions.

Ready to Give Back?

If you're in recovery and want to help others, we'll walk with you through training and placement.

Care That Is Measured — Because People Are What Matter

Restoring Hope Ministries tracks the well-being of every participant in our clinical and faith-based services using empirically validated screeners, clinical interviews, behavioral analysis, and self-report — so we can honestly see whether the people we serve are getting better.

This rigor reflects the training of our founder, Dr. Jeffrey Gross, who earned an M.S. in Clinical Psychology from the Wisconsin School of Professional Psychology and is continuing his Psy.D. studies in Clinical Psychology, with completion anticipated in 2028. His Th.D. in Theology and Ph.D. in Christian Counseling complement that clinical education with theological preparation for Christ-centered soul care.

At Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin, he served as a Student Psychologist and later Chief Student Psychologist, supporting veterans and first responders with traumatic brain injuries through the BRAVE program. His work included assessment, individualized treatment planning, multidisciplinary rehabilitation, psychoeducational and process-oriented groups, and peer supervision. His experience also includes supervised psychological testing of clergy at Milwaukee Psychotherapy Collaborative, recovery-focused group development at The Manor by Windrose, and case management and peer-support supervision at Biehl Bridges to Recovery.

Continuing education in assessment, trauma, neurobehavioral conditions, supervision, ethics, and risk management further informs this approach. Together, these experiences help shape RHM’s commitment to careful assessment, responsible documentation, collaborative care, and attention to each person’s spiritual, relational, emotional, and practical needs. His clinical psychology doctorate remains in progress; this background does not replace the qualifications or licensure required for regulated clinical services.

Empirically validated screenersClinical interviewsBehavioral analysisSelf-report
See how we measure outcomes and steward your support
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