Global Peer Support Celebration Day 2025
A moment to honour the people, programs, and progress that continue to redefine mental health and substance use health across Canada.
First and foremost, we extend a heartfelt salute to the thousands of peer supporters working every day on the front lines — in hospitals and clinics, community organizations, workplaces, and every environment where human connection changes lives. Your courage, empathy, and commitment are the heartbeat of this movement.
At Mental Health Innovations (MHI), we’re deeply committed to advancing peer support as a cornerstone of care — not just by delivering programs, but by shaping the future of how peer support is understood and implemented. With over a quarter century of dedication to this field, MHI continues to drive innovation and transformation in peer support across workplaces, clinical systems, and communities nationwide.
This year, we also celebrate the leaders and organizations who have entrusted us to help embed peer support in meaningful, sustainable ways. Your trust and vision have made it possible to create change that is measurable, compassionate, and lasting.
Many advancements have been made in peer support across the country.
Here are a few key milestones we’re especially proud to highlight:
• National Collaboration: Our strong partnerships with Peer Support Canada and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and we extend our heartfelt thanks to them for once again locking arms with us and partnering in this important work. Together, we’re preparing to co-host the upcoming Power of Peer Support Conference 2026, a national gathering that will bring together leaders, practitioners, and peers from across the country to share insights, evidence, and innovation.
• Expanding Access: We are honoured to have been asked by the Government of Nunavut to work collaboratively with community organizations to explore how peer support could be embedded across the territory as a complement to existing mental health and substance use supports. This groundbreaking work reflects a shared vision of creating accessible, culturally informed, and community-driven approaches to care, and we look forward to the next steps in this journey.
• System-Wide Leadership: Our continued partnership with the Toronto Police Service has focused on modernizing the Critical Incident Stress approach, aligning it with the latest evidence base, and embedding peer support principles throughout their system. We believe this work is groundbreaking and represents a major shift in how psychological health and safety are supported within first responder organizations.
• Integrated Care: We’re also proud to see a growing intentional focus on developing peer support capabilities in the substance use health space. A long-overdue and transformative evolution in the field. At MHI, we’ve experienced this firsthand as more and more of our clients ask us to help them strengthen and embed peer support within substance use services. This shift reflects a broader understanding that mental health and substance use health are inseparable, and peer support must serve both equally. This will also be a key theme at the Power of Peer Support Conference 2026, where we’ll explore how organizations across Canada are advancing this integrated approach.
How Peer Support Transforms Mental Health Care in Nova Scotia
A Groundbreaking, System-Wide Approach
While peer support within clinical systems is not new, what’s happening in Nova Scotia is truly distinctive. Over the past seven years, we’ve witnessed a deliberate, strategic, and province-wide effort to embed peer support into the entire continuum of mental health and substance use services — from hospitals to community-based programs.
Nova Scotia’s health system has made intentional integration a cornerstone of its approach — a coordinated, province-wide commitment that we believe is groundbreaking. It stands as a model that demonstrates what’s possible when lived experience is recognized as an essential part of care, not an optional add-on. We hope this example continues to inspire and inform similar efforts across Canada, as provinces and organizations strengthen their own approaches to embedding peer support within healthcare systems.
Through Peer Support Nova Scotia (PSNS), our team of peer supporters work alongside Nova Scotia Health across hospitals, outpatient clinics, Recovery Support Centres, and the Peer Support Phone Service. Across all these settings, the impact is clear: peer support transforms mental health and substance use health care.
✨ Meeting People Where They Are
Whether someone’s focus is on abstinence, harm reduction, wellness, stability, or simply being heard, peer supporters honour self-defined goals and walk alongside peers in a way that clinical services often can’t.
✨ Turning Lived Experience into Leadership
Every member of our PSNS team brings not only their personal story but also the honesty, empathy, and emotional intelligence that lived experience makes possible. This creates trust and connection in places where stigma and fear might otherwise stand in the way.
✨ Creating Hope and Shifting Culture.
Time and again, peers tell us that the presence of someone who has “been there” helps them see recovery as possible — on their own terms. Clinical teams also notice the difference. With peer support integrated into services, staff often share that the culture feels more compassionate, more collaborative, and more human.
Celebrating Our Peer Supporters
What we know at MHI is this: peer support is never one-size-fits-all. It is as diverse and adaptable as the people it serves. Every day, our PSNS team shows how authentic connection can be life-saving, how recovery can be self-directed, and how systems can be reshaped when lived experience is at the center.
Today, we honour the entire Peer Support Nova Scotia team and all the peer supporters we have worked with throughout the year. Your work reminds us — and everyone around you — that a better, more compassionate future for mental health and substance use health is not just possible. It’s already happening.
💙 Want to learn more about becoming a certified peer supporter? Visit Peer Support Canada.
💙 Want to contribute to the future of peer support? Join us at the Power of Peer Support Conference 2026 — whether by attending, presenting, or partnering as a sponsor.