A moment you may recognize
Someone asks to hear a little of your experience. How might you share it while leaving room for their own path?
Illustrative example. Your daily conversation appears after signing in.
FOR THE PEER & FAMILY CAREER ACADEMY COMMUNITY
Motivational Interviewing (MI) for peer support.
Your lived experience belongs in the conversation.
Explore how MI can support the way you listen and connect as a peer specialist or family support worker. Practice in your own words, with room for your perspective and the other person’s choices.
An invitation prepared by AMIGA for the PFCA community.
What is Motivational Interviewing?
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative way of talking that helps people explore their own reasons for change and decide what they want to do. It combines careful listening with questions that draw out what matters to the person, while respecting their choices.
In peer and family support, these skills also help you build understanding and share experience in ways that respect each person’s perspective. Here, you practice the skills that fit the purpose of the conversation.
TODAY’S PEER & FAMILY PRACTICE
A conversation to step into.
Meet a fictional practice partner. Respond as you would in your role, then review what your words made room for and one useful point to carry forward.
You can finish early. Listening can be worthwhile even when the conversation ends without an agreement or a plan.
PEER SUPPORT STAYS AT THE CENTER
Bring the way you show up.
You can share a relevant part of your story, keep personal details private, ask a direct question, or take time to understand. Feedback looks at the MI purpose of your words within that conversation.
Situations include sharing lived experience, reconnecting with community, clarifying support, and making room for a family member’s own voice. The daily practice rotates through the peer and family collection.
BECOMING WITHIN YOUR WORK
Grow in your peer identity while staying connected to yourself.
Your lived experience, values and relationship with the person are part of the work. Intentional MI practice helps you consider when to share, how to preserve mutuality and how to leave room for a different path. Your boundaries, support and life outside the role matter, too.
A question to carry into practice
How can I bring my experience in a way that supports this person’s voice and choice?
Explore professional identity and practice resources
SAMHSA · Federal workforce resource developed with peer input
Core Competencies for Peer Workers (opens in a new tab)
Explore collaborative relationships, sharing lived experience and continuing development within the peer role.
National Association of Peer Supporters (N.A.P.S.) · Peer professional association · resource hosted by PeerTAC
National Practice Guidelines for Peer Specialists and Supervisors (opens in a new tab)
Explore peer-support values and how supervisors can support their expression in practice.
Explore the resources that fit your role, alongside your organization’s guidance and local credentialing requirements. These independent resources are offered for learning; their inclusion does not imply affiliation or endorsement.
WHY BECOMING MI
What the two chairs mean
One chair is yours. The person in the other chair knows their own life. In practice, their reply gives you something to work with, especially when it changes your first understanding.
What stays with you after work?
Functional Closure is a separate guided reflection for a moment you are still carrying. You can consider what is yours to do, what support you need and what can wait.
Explore AMIGA’s approach to becoming →Return to what you practiced.
Each completed exchange is saved to your account. Your completed review stays with it, so you can return another day and pick up what you learned.
During signup, you can choose a daily reminder around midday in your time zone. You can skip it or change that choice later.
Practice with clear choices.
This invitation connects your account with AMIGA’s PFCA invitation group. Before starting, you’ll choose whether to share saved peer and family conversations and AI feedback with authorized AMIGA administrators—including unfinished attempts—for learning support and review.
Your personal reflections, takeaways, journal, and Functional Closure conversations stay private. Use fictional details in practice. AI feedback can miss context; it is something to consider.