Peer Support leaders and trainees participated in their annual overnight retreat at Camp Ramah in Ojai from Sept. 8 to 10. Peer Support partnered with Fulcrum Adventures to host bonding activies such as building boats and racing them, a ropes course and team games led by the four Peer Support coordinators Olivia Baradaran ’24, Jordan Dees ’24, Casey Reims ’24 and Stella Stringer ’24.
Peer Support Trainee Savvy Mahoney ’25 said the retreat helped her feel comfortable with other leaders and trainees.
“[The retreats] just offer a chance to get to know better the people that you’re going to be working with for the rest of the year,” Mahoney said. “That’s such a necessary part [of the program], just being able to be open with each other and know each other well. Also, because you’re in that environment, it allows you to share super personal things and get really close with each other in a way that we wouldn’t be able to do in school.”
Each Peer Support group is led by four to five leaders and trainees. Dees said the coordinators take many factors into consideration when creating groups during retreat.
“We first go through conflicts, which are just when someone writes [up to three people] that they would not want to work with,” Dees said. “And so we go through that and filter through all of those and match up the rest of the people. That’s a big deciding factor, but then we also just go based off personality and leadership styles and people’s different skills within a group.”
Head of Peer Support Tina McGraw said the retreat is meant to build a strong foundation for relationships between trainees and leaders.
“[Retreats] are important because the work of Peer Support leaders is often challenging and requires a lot of trust and commitment to the program,” McGraw said. “The bonds that are created during retreat serve as the starting point for the year. Activities are aimed at team building and connecting on a personal level so that trainees and leaders have a strong foundation from which to start their work together.”
