Compeer is a non-profit organization which matches community volunteers in supportive friendship relationships with children and adults receiving mental health treatment. Compeer provides a fun flexible volunteer opportunity that fits into your current lifestyle. Compeer offers a number of different volunteer opportunities including:
One-to-One Friendships
You can choose to spend time with an adult or a child. As a volunteer, you and your friend share activities you enjoy such as movies, sports, shopping or coffee and a chat or many of the free activities sponsored by the Compeer Program. Your role is to be a supportive friend, role model and advocate, not a social worker, caretaker, or parent. Your Compeer already has a mental health professional - what he or she may lack is a caring, consistent friend. It is important to meet with your friend on a regular basis because consistency and dependability on your part is the best way to gain a mutually rewarding friendship. Many Compeer Programs also serve special populations, such as deaf and hard of hearing and the homeless, who also have a mental illness.
Group Placements
As a group volunteer, you interact with several clients in staff supervised setting, joining in recreational activities, outings and meals. Typically group settings include group homes, supervised apartments, inpatient psychiatric hospital units, and hospital psychosocial clubs.
Compeer Calling
Compeer Calling provides interim support to those waiting for a one-to-one match. Volunteers call each of several potential matches once a week for about fifteen minutes until the matches are made. This contact can improve the interpersonal skills of the recipient and often provides the Compeer staff with information that makes it easier to match them with one-to-one volunteers.
Volunteer opportunities vary by affiliate programs.
How to Become a Compeer Volunteer