In the United States, there is a program called the Women, Infants, and
Children Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (WIC).  Although in the
past WIC was accused of undermining breastfeeding by liberally supplying
artificial infant milk to women of low or moderate income, the WIC
offices with which I have had professional contact in the last 10 years
are making a powerful attempt to support, promote, and protect
breastfeeding.

One of their avenues for doing this is to train and provide peer
counselors for WIC clients, in order to increase woman-to-woman
promotion, disperse basic knowledge about breastfeeding, and increase
the contacts a breastfeeding woman has with someone who is trained to
know when she needs help and to whom she should be referred.

Other countries also have utilized the peer counselor model, often with
great success.

My question to those who have conducted peer counselor training is: what
advice do you have for someone who is about to train peer counselors?

How many hours of training should a peer counselor receive?

What specifically would you incorporate or choose not to incorporate, if
you were to do a training today?

How satisfactory have the peer counselor training programs been in your
area?

Does your program always have an IBCLC conduct the trainings?

Do you feel that this is an effective outreach to change our community's
perception and acceptance of breastfeeding, and improve the level of
knowledge in the community?  Why or why not?

Arly Helm, MS, IBCLC

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