This webinar will present on a new category of peer support endorsement training—the digital peer support specialists. The presenters will discuss the latest scientific evidence regarding digital peer support services including telephone-based, video games, smartphone app peer support services, the current landscape of offerings within the United States, how to select technologies that promote recovery, and discuss ethical challenges and opportunities to the future of peer support.
Karen Fortuna, PhD, LICSW & Robert Walker, MS, COAPS, holds a doctorate in Social Welfare and a master’s degree in Social Work. Dr. Fortuna is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. Her primary research interest is service delivery strategies for older adults with serious mental illnesses and chronic health conditions. Dr. Fortuna is using community-engaged research methods to develop and implement peer-supported mobile health (mHealth) intervention.
Dr. Fortuna was awarded the NARSAD Young Investigator Grants from the Brain and Behavior Foundation and the Alvin R. Tarlov & John E. Ware Jr. Award in Patient Reported Outcomes for her work. Dr. Fortuna served on the International Standards Advisory Committee to develop the first-ever international accreditation standards for behavioral health care for older adults. Dr. Fortuna’s work can be seen in numerous book chapters on digital peer support, in peer-reviewed journal publications, and in Forbes Magazine and Innovators Magazine. She currently serves as editor of the Journal of Participatory Medicine.
