How Peer Mental Health Coaching Works
Faith-based support that walks alongside your congregation in partnership with pastors and professionals.
Pastors are often the first person someone turns to in a hard season, but no pastor can meet every need alone. Peer mental health coaching offers another way: trained, compassionate members of the community who walk with people through life’s burdens, and who help connect them to professional care when it is needed.
What Is a Peer Mental Health Coach?
A peer mental health coach is a mature, empathetic believer trained to provide structured, nonjudgmental emotional and spiritual support. Coaches are not therapists, and they are not a replacement for your pastor. They are a trained, steady presence who helps carry the load.
How It Will Work
1. Someone reaches out to their pastor.
A person in your congregation shares that they are struggling, as they often already do.
2. The pastor contacts us.
With the person’s permission, the pastor contacts our organization to request a coach. Pastors may contact us via email, a phone call or text.
3. We match a trained coach.
We will match the person with a coach who has completed our training and screening.
4. The coach walks alongside.
The coach or a leader will call the person to determine their support needs, then listen, encourage, and teach practical coping strategies as needed.
5. We bridge to professional care when needed.
If a person needs a licensed therapist or other clinical care, the coach helps them find and connect with one, and continues to offer support while they wait for an appointment and throughout treatment.
What to expect from Peer Mental Health Coaches
What Coaches Do:
Walk alongside:
Offer non-judgmental, structured emotional and
if the person wishes, spiritual support through difficult seasons.
Teach coping strategies:
Help people build healthy emotional, relational, and spiritual habits.
Bridge to professional care:
Help people find and connect with licensed therapists and support
them throughout the process.
They help the client feel seen, heard, and understood.
What Coaches Do Not Do:
They do not make a clinical diagnosis.
They do not give psychiatric treatment.
They are not psychotherapists.