I have a question from a hospital based program for new mothers, mostly
first time or single parent or teen, inother words they service "at risk"
populations.
I did an inservice for them on supporting the breastfeeding mother and
they all want to become peer counselors.  Actually their question was
"how do we become WIC peer counselors"?  I think they want to be able to
help the WIC program.  They are not WIC participants but they are
community peers for the most part.   Has anyone done anything like this?
Is it possible?
How I understand it is I would be administrating the WIC Peer Counselor
Training program.  I would be using WIC work time to do this and then
they would be "official WIC Peer Counselors".  They would be able to see
WIC participants right away in the hospital when they give birth.
The catch here is they would not be paid by WIC and they are not on WIC
themselves (some have been in past).  They do not all meet the criterion
of having successfully nursed a baby  for 6 mos or more.  Yet they want
the training but also want to come out of it able to say they are
breastfeeding counselors.
My feeling is that the LLL Peer Counselor Training is more fitting for
this situation.  I am not an administrator, yet, of this program, so it
is not currently an option for me to do this sort of training.
I don't really know how to answer them, they really want to help.

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