EmBRACE Peer Support Program

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Emory's Building Resilience and Compassion Enculturation (EmBRACE) Peer Support Program is a free and confidential emotional support program avaialble to all Emory employees experieincing work-related stress. EmBRACE was developed to address stressors typical for healthcare and health sciences settings, such as:

  • Adverse patient safety event
  • Balancing work and family responsibilities
  • Employee/team interaction (e.g., incivility, bullying)
  • General burnout/work-related stress
  • Manager responsibilities (either experiencing stress or wanting to better support your team)
  • New to role and experiencing anxiety/stress
  • Workplace safety event (e.g., physical, psychological, verbal, emotional injury/assault)

Request a Peer Support Session

Employees are matched to trained peer supporters with the same role (nurses with nurses, etc.) for one to three peer support sessions.

Request a peer support session for yourself or refer a colleague

Become a Peer Supporter

If you are interested in becoming a trained Peer Supporter, recruitment is now open for all Woodruff Health Sciences Center Employees, including Emory Healthcare.

Apply to become a Peer Supporter

ABOUT EMBRACE PEER SUPPORT

EmBRACE is an interprofessional, systems approach to decrease the lasting burdens of secondary trauma and moral distress experienced by Emory Healthcare and Emory University employees.

What sets peer support programs apart is the idea of shared experiences. Individuals are typically paired based on their role (e.g. physicians with physician peer supporters, nurses with nurse peer supporters, etc). The sessions are facilitated by Emory employee volunteers who went through EmBRACE training. Because peer support is not therapy or counseling, peer supporters may suggest connecting with employee assistance programs as needed.

Our mission is to build an organizational culture conducive to a resilient and compassionate workforce by:


• Decreasing burnout
• Increasing resilience and well-being
• Improving employee engagement/satisfaction
• Increasing resilience and compassion leadership skills
• Increasing/sustaining employee retention

REQUESTING PEER SUPPORT FOR YOURSELF OR A COLLEAGUE

EmBRACE Peer Support is available to all Emory employees, including Emory Healthcare and Emory University. Emory employees can request a session for themselves at any time by completing the simple confidential EmBRACE form. Emory employees can also refer their colleagues.

Examples of referrals:

  • Self-referral from an employee who is experiencing work-related stress.
  • Leader or supervisor who is aware of an adverse event that happened and may have had an impact on their direct report
  • Colleague who is noticing that a colleague is "off"

    EmBRACE Peer Supporters have training in compassionate and reflective listening, psychological first aid, and secondary trauma. They are also trained in various methods of dealing with stress including Community Resiliency Model (CRM) and Cognitively Based Compassion Training (CBCT).

    EmBRACE is NOT therapy or counseling, and our peer supporters are not there to give you advice or solve the issues. They are there to hold space as you share your concerns and reflect what they hear, provide perspective, they might share their own experience and suggest additional resources. They are more "guide on the side", and less "sage on the stage."

    To be matched with an EmBRACE Peer Supporter, please fill out this form. In this very brief form – should take less than five minutes – you will be asked general questions. This includes your name, role at Emory, reasons for reaching out and preferred contact information. All information will remain confidential, and will only be shared with our small team to match you with an appropriate peer supporter.

    Once we received your request you should see a confirmation email within 24-36 hours. You will receive another update within three days with the name and contact of your peer supporter, who will be reaching out proactively to find a time to chat.

    Your session with the EmBRACE Peer Supporter will last 30-50 min. The format is flexible to whatworks for both of you (phone call, zoom, or an in- person meeting). You may choose to have one or two follow up conversations. After the third session, if more help is needed a peer supporter will typically refer you to the employee assistance program (Revive and Thrive for healthcare employees, and FSAP for university employees).

BECOMING AN EMBRACE PEER SUPPORTER

To become an EmBRACE Peer Supporter, you must go through the EmBRACE training. There are typically two training sessions held every year (spring and fall). All employees of Woodruff Health Sciences Center, including Emory Healthcare, are eligible to apply. We will contact your direct leader to approve your participation.

To apply, please fill out the EmBRACE Peer Supporter Application Form

Peer supporters possess and demonstrate:

  • Self-awareness, reflective practice
  • Ethical behavior and practices
    • Caring
    • Compassion
    • Discernment
    • Trustworthiness
    • Integrity
    • Conscientiousness

  • Complete EmBRACE Peer Supporter training
  • Facilitate peer-to-peer support sessions
  • Attend and participate in debriefing sessions
  • Provide timely updates on their engagement
  • Contribute to continuous quality improvement efforts
  • Engage in networking and continuous learning/professional development

For questions, please email embracepeersupport@emoryhealthcare.org