EDUCATION & TRAINING

TRANSFORMING MENTAL HEALTH THROUGH PEER WISDOM

Our education and training programs prepare the next generation of peer leaders to reshape mental health and social services in Oregon and beyond. By centering queer, disabled, and chronically ill wisdom, we’re building a training model that doesn’t just certify peers — it changes the culture of care itself.

Launching January 2025

Beginning in 2025, we are proud to launch Oregon’s first OHA-certified peer trainings designed and delivered entirely by peers:

  • Peer Support Specialist (PSS) Training — 40 hours

  • Peer Wellness Specialist (PWS) Training — 80 hours

What makes our trainings different?

  • Rooted in queer and disability justice frameworks.

  • Designed for people navigating trauma, neurodivergence, and chronic illness.

  • Taught by peers with lived experience, for peers with lived experience.

Peer-Led Supervision & Mentorship

Certification is only the beginning. To truly sustain a peer workforce, we are creating Oregon’s first peer-led internship and supervision pipeline:

  • New peers are mentored by seasoned peers.

  • Supervision emphasizes resilience, collective care, and preventing burnout.

  • Internships provide real-world practice in safe, affirming environments.

This model ensures that peers don’t just graduate — they thrive.

Stay Connected

Our trainings will open for registration in late 2024, with the first cohorts beginning in January 2025.

✨ Want to be the first to know when applications open? CONTACT US

  • A smiling woman with curly red hair and blue glasses wearing a turquoise tank top and layered necklaces, standing in a warmly lit wooden interior.

    Mars Aqueous (they/them)

    LEAD FACILITATOR

    Mars is a creative strategist, energy worker, and psychiatric survivor working at the intersections of story, spirit, and systems change. They guide strategy, fundraising, design and communications, ensuring programs are rooted in lived experience, collective care and community wisdom.

    With over a decade in culture-shifting activism and community education, Mars is focused on expanding peer-delivered services and seeding a future of care that is just, imaginative, and liberated from colonial frameworks.

  • A man with a beard and piercings wearing a pink shirt, taking a selfie indoors against a wooden background.

    Nautilus Torello (he/they)

    LEAD FACILITATOR

    Nautilus Torello (he/they) has over a decade of experience transforming peer-delivered services into practices of justice, liberation, and collective care. With deep roots in queer and neurodivergent communities, he has served as peer supporter, director, and consultant, centering mutuality and shared power.

    As a certified trainer in Intentional Peer Support (IPS) and Queer IPS, Nautilus challenges pathologizing frameworks and builds culture-shifting approaches rooted in solidarity and community care.

 "Transformative mental health is about remembering we are not problems to be fixed, but people who need love and connection."

Support our WORK

TendWell is reimagining community well-being in Oregon. We provide integrative health, peer training, education, and project support that center accessibility and equity. With financial hardship options and trade-based care, we remove barriers and empower communities to create lasting change. Support TendWell and its projects today!