# Peer Support Session Frame > Activate whenever the task involves structuring, preparing for, documenting, or improving peer recovery support work — peer specialist (PRSS) session planning, group facilitation for recovery communities, veteran peer support, mutual-aid meeting structure, or training peer supporters. Trigger on "peer support session," "recovery group," "peer specialist," or any request to design how lived-experience support gets delivered. Fire on structure and process questions — this skill governs the FRAME of peer work, and it holds the line that peer support is a discipline with a scope, not clinical care with a discount. - Skill: `forexgod21/peer-support-session-frame` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add forexgod21/peer-support-session-frame` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/forexgod21/peer-support-session-frame/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Productivity - License: CC BY 4.0 - Author: Forexgod21 (https://skillmd.com/u/forexgod21) - Updated: 2026-09-21 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/forexgod21/peer-support-session-frame --- # Peer Support Session Frame **Attribution:** YourVisionYourCreation LLC — yourvisionyourcreation.com **Doctrine class:** YVYC original — recovery category --- ## Universal So-What Peer support's power is the thing no clinician can prescribe: I have been where you are, and I am still here. That power survives only inside a frame — scope honored, structure held, hope offered without advice inflated into authority. A peer session without a frame drifts into amateur therapy, and amateur therapy harms the exact person the peer showed up to walk beside. --- ## Core Doctrine ### 1. The Peer Lane — What Peer Support IS and Is Not The lane is the doctrine. In the lane: - **Lived experience, offered not imposed:** "here is what happened for me" — never "here is what you should do" - **Hope with evidence:** the peer IS the evidence that recovery happens - **Navigation:** knowing the system's doors — services, benefits, meetings, programs — and walking alongside through them - **Mutuality:** two people in recovery, one further down one road — not provider and patient Out of the lane — always referred, never absorbed: - Diagnosis, treatment planning, medication opinions, clinical judgment calls, trauma processing sessions - The referral is a peer support SKILL, not a peer support failure — "that question deserves someone with training I don't have, and I will help you get to them" is the lane held perfectly ### 2. Session Architecture — The Four-Part Frame | Part | Purpose | |---|---| | **Arrive** | Settle in, check-in question, how the person is NOW — presence before agenda | | **Focus** | The person names what matters today; the peer follows the person, never a curriculum over a crisis-of-the-day | | **Work** | Shared experience, options explored, next steps the PERSON chooses | | **Anchor** | Close with one concrete step, one strength named, and the next contact confirmed | The frame is a container, not a script — held firmly, filled by the person, never by the peer's agenda. ### 3. The Story Discipline The peer's story is a tool with rules: - Shared for the PERSON's benefit, never the peer's processing — the test: whose need does this disclosure serve? - Dosed: enough to build connection and evidence hope, never so much the session becomes the peer's meeting - Current struggles the peer has not stabilized are not session material — the peer's own support system holds those - The story never becomes prescription: "this worked for me" and "this will work for you" are different sentences, and the second one is out of the lane ### 4. The Person Drives — Self-Direction Doctrine - Recovery pathways are plural: abstinence-based, medication- supported, faith-based, secular, harm-reduction informed — the peer supports the PERSON's chosen pathway, and pathway disrespect is the fastest trust-kill in peer work - Goals are the person's goals in the person's words — a peer pushing their own recovery template is a missionary, not a peer - Ambivalence is met with curiosity, not correction; the person who is not ready gets a peer who is still there, not a lecture - Setbacks are met as data and dignity: "what did we learn" — never punishment, never told-you-so, never withdrawal of regard ### 5. Documentation and Confidentiality Frame - Document what the ROLE requires (attendance, goals worked, referrals made, next steps) in the person's own goal language — peer notes are not clinical notes and should never cosplay as them - Confidentiality honored within its REAL limits, and the limits stated plainly at the start of the relationship, not discovered at the breach: safety concerns and mandated reporting duties are disclosed up front — honesty about the limits IS the trust - The person's story belongs to the person: it is never shared in trainings, marketing, or advocacy without explicit consent (see the consent doctrine in advocacy-campaign-doctrine) ### 6. The Peer's Own Oxygen Mask - The peer's recovery comes first — a peer pouring from an empty vessel harms two people - Supervision or peer-consultation cadence is scheduled and kept, not saved for after the overwhelm - Caseload and intensity boundaries are set in writing; the peer who cannot say no to one more person eventually says no to all of them at once, by burning out - Warning lights (sleep loss, dread of sessions, own-recovery slippage, compassion fatigue) trigger the peer's OWN support plan — written in calm, like every good protocol --- ## Common Failure Modes | Failure | Cause | Correction | |---|---|---| | Peer drifts into amateur therapy | Lane never defined | The peer lane doctrine; referral as a skill | | Session becomes the peer's meeting | Story undisciplined | Whose-need test on every disclosure | | Person disengages after pathway pushback | Peer's template imposed | Self-direction doctrine; pathways are plural | | Trust shattered by a report the person never saw coming | Confidentiality limits hidden until the breach | Limits stated plainly at relationship start | | Notes read like clinical records | Role confusion in documentation | Peer notes in the person's goal language | | Peer burns out, caseload orphaned | No oxygen mask protocol | Supervision cadence + written boundaries | --- ## Non-Negotiables 1. The lane is held: out-of-scope needs are referred, warmly and without shame — referral is a skill, not a failure. 2. The person names the focus and owns the goals. 3. Every self-disclosure passes the whose-need test. 4. Pathway choice is respected — all of them. 5. Confidentiality limits are stated at the start, plainly. 6. The peer's own recovery and support cadence are protected first. --- ## Boundary Note This skill governs the structure and professional discipline of peer support work. It is not clinical guidance, and it does not replace training, certification, supervision, or organizational protocols. Anyone in immediate crisis should be connected with professional crisis services — see `crisis-boundary-protocol` for the escalation frame. --- *YourVisionYourCreation LLC — yourvisionyourcreation.com* *Licensed under CC BY 4.0*