Sometimes, one of the most helpful things we can hear is: “I have faced something similar. Let’s talk about what might help.”
That is the value of peer mentoring. At LIFTT, we want to strengthen opportunities for people with disabilities to connect, share experiences, and support one another as they pursue their own goals.
What Is Peer Mentoring?
Peer mentoring brings people with disabilities together to share practical knowledge, encouragement, and perspectives shaped by lived experience. A mentor listens, shares what they have learned, and supports another person in exploring choices and making their own decisions.
Conversations may involve navigating community resources, communicating needs, developing everyday skills, or finding confidence after a difficult change. Each person’s experience is different, but shared understanding can make it easier to imagine a way forward.
Above all, peer mentoring reminds us that we do not have to face every challenge alone.
Learning From the People We Serve
Each year, LIFTT prepares a Program Performance Report, or PPR, for the Administration for Community Living. The report documents whom we serve, the services we provide, and progress toward consumer goals.
Demographic information, including age, race, ethnicity, and sex, helps us understand who is accessing our services. Reviewing this information alongside consumer goals and experiences helps us identify gaps and consider where additional outreach or support may be needed.
Peer support is one of the five core services Centers for Independent Living provide. The other four core services include information and referral, independent living skills training, advocacy, and transition services. Together, these services support people in making choices and participating in community life.
Finding Your Voice and Supporting Others
Peer mentoring also connects naturally with advocacy.
Self-advocacy means expressing your needs, understanding your options, and speaking up about decisions that affect your life. Individual advocacy involves supporting a person in addressing a particular concern or barrier.
Systems advocacy seeks broader improvements in policies, practices, and community access.
As circumstances change, these skills remain essential. A conversation with someone who understands can help a person prepare questions, consider possible solutions, and feel more confident taking the next step.
This fiscal year, strengthening peer mentoring is an important goal for LIFTT. We welcome conversations with people interested in sharing their experience as mentors and with those who would like peer support.
To learn more about peer mentoring or advocacy, contact LIFTT in Billings at 406-259-5181, in Glendive at 406-948-8500, or send us a message at liftt.org/contact.
Your experience matters. It may help someone else discover new possibilities.
About Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT): LIFTT is a Montana 501(c)3 corporation organized as a Center for Independent Living (CIL). With team members based in Billings and Glendive, LIFTT provides people with disabilites and aging indivduals with programs, services, resources and advocacy that help empower them to break down the physical, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that prevent them from being fully independent participants in their lives and communities throughout 18 counties in southeastern and south-central Montana: Big Horn, Carbon, Carter, Custer, Dawson, Fallon, Garfield, Golden Valley, McCone, Musselshell, Powder River, Prairie, Richland, Rosebud, Stillwater, Treasure, Wibaux, and Yellowstone. For more information, please visit liftt.org
Our Vision: Empowering aging individuals and people with disabilities to LIFTT themselves above the barriers of life.
Our Mission: Living Independently for Today and Tomorrow (LIFTT) mission as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Center for Independent Living serving Southeastern Montana is to empower aging individuals and people with disabilities to live independently through education, support, and opportunities.
You can donate to LIFTT by clicking here.
For federal and state funding information for Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT), a Center for Independent Living, visit: liftt.org/funding-acknowledgement/