Elevate Your Impact: Master Criminal Justice Related Peer Support 
– On Your Schedule!

Exploration Unleashed 

Self-paced 
Criminal Justice Related
Peer Support

Criminal Justice Related Peer Support is a self-paced training series within the Exploration Within Master Series, created by Exploration Mastery in collaboration with Time to Heal, LLC and its founder, Aaron Wells. Designed for people who already have some foundational peer support training, this course focuses specifically on using peer support skills anywhere along the criminal justice pathway—courts, jails, prisons, remand, forensic or “not criminally responsible” settings, and re‑entry/community integration.

The series consists of six videos of varying lengths that you can complete at your own pace—whether that means binging them in a weekend or spreading them over several weeks. Each video is accompanied by PowerPoint slides and a downloadable workbook/journal with reflection questions and scenarios. 

In addition to the self-paced modules, participants have access to a live 90‑minute group session with the facilitators, offered once every two months. In that space, you can bring questions, discuss the scenarios at the back of the workbook, and explore how to apply what you’re learning in your own justice-related settings.

Content-wise, the course:

  • Reconnects you to peer support fundamentals and then applies them specifically to criminal justice‑related environments.
  • Explores why criminal justice peer support matters, including the unique impact peers can have within both justice and mental health systems.
  • Introduces and walks through the Sequential Intercept Model from a peer lens—looking at where and how Peer Supporters can show up across the different “intercepts” of the system.

Clarifies what peer support is and is not:
  •   What it includes: creating empowering, person‑directed relationships; engaging people through shared lived experience; supporting self‑advocacy; helping people explore possibilities; accompanying people through appointments and life challenges; serving as a bridge and a “challenge” to traditional language and practices when needed.
  •   What it does not include: diagnosing, giving clinical recommendations, offering advice or personal opinions, “fixing/solving/saving,” or acting as a conventional “friend” instead of a boundaried, professional Peer Supporter.
  • Emphasizes mutual, person‑directed relationships, where the person, you’re supporting is the driver of their own life and decisions, and your lived experience is used intentionally and skillfully as a tool—not as the center of the relationship.
  • Highlights key Peer Supporter tasks such as exploring options together, investing in the relationship so people learn to reinvest in themselves, assisting (like an “assist” in basketball or hockey—passing the ball so the other person can “score”), negotiating roles and expectations, and supporting people across all dimensions of wellness.
  • Identifies core Peer Supporter qualities, including being a good listener, non‑judgmental, ethical, a people person, a team player, and someone who can ask genuinely curious questions in ways that don’t communicate judgment or control.

The course uses working definitions of wellness and recovery that are holistic and hopeful. Wellness is framed as the pursuit of choices, lifestyles, and activities that support a state of holistic health across multiple, interconnected life domains (often referenced as eight dimensions of wellness, such as emotional, physical, spiritual, occupational, social, etc.). Recovery is framed as a *self‑directed* process of change through which people improve health and wellness, live self‑directed lives, and strive to reach their full potential—whatever that means for them. The emphasis is on possibility, agency, and purpose, not the absence of diagnosis, stress, or struggle.


A recurring theme is that peer support is both an art and a science of relationship. It draws on your “life résumé”—your experiences with mental health, substance use, justice involvement, trauma, hospitalizations, and survival in complex environments—and turns what might have been stigmatized or disqualifying in other professions into your primary qualification. Your thousands of hours living your own experience make you an expert in you, and, with training and ongoing development, you learn to use that expertise ethically and effectively in support of others.

About the Facilitators: Robyn Priest and Aaron Wells
Robyn and Aaron met while helping to establish forensic peer support at The Royal, a psychiatric hospital near Ottawa. Their collaboration revealed a strong alignment of values, ideas, and approach, and they have continued to develop practical, values‑based trainings grounded in lived experience.

They co‑facilitate this self‑paced course in a conversational, reflective style—moving between slides and face‑to‑face discussion—and encourage you to pause, reflect, and relate the material to your own motivations and practice. Their aim is to help you deepen your skills, clarity, and confidence as a criminal-justice–related peer supporter, while honoring your lived experience and the people you support.


Price $200 USD
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Lead with purpose, learn at your pace. Your journey in Criminal Justice Related Peer Support starts here

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Sequential Intercept Model

Sequential Intercept Model – Short Write‑Up

If you want to change outcomes, you have to know where to intervene.


The Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) is the map we use to do exactly that. It breaks the criminal justice process into six clear “intercepts”—from first crisis in the community (Intercept 0) to life on probation or parole (Intercept 5). At each point, there’s a chance to stop people from being pulled deeper into the system and instead connect them to treatment, recovery, and community.


In this course, SIM becomes a practical tool, not theory. Robyn and Aaron show you what each intercept looks like in real life and where a Peer Supporter can stand: to de‑escalate crises, support people through court and jail, plan re‑entry, and keep recovery going in the community. You’re guided to map all six intercepts for your own area, spot the gaps, and see exactly where your role can have the most impact.

Reflections

Information changes nothing. Reflection changes practice.

The course workbook is your private lab notebook. It turns six videos into something you can actually use on the ground. Instead of tests or grades, you get sharp, pointed questions that make you stop and think: Why am I doing this work? What does my role really look like at each intercept? How will I respond when the court wants information I shouldn’t give?

You’ll map your own community’s services onto the Sequential Intercept Model, walk through real‑world scenarios, and test your ethics against messy situations. You can write, sketch, or just think—what matters is that you wrestle with the questions. The workbook also sets you up for the live 90‑minute session with Robyn and Aaron, so you arrive with concrete examples and real questions from your own practice.


6 Videos

The course is delivered in six tight, connected videos that move from “big picture” to “this is what I do on Tuesday morning.”

  • Video 1: Foundations of peer support in justice settings—what it is, what it isn’t, and why lived experience is your primary qualification.
  • Video 2: What makes criminal justice peer support unique: culture of incarceration, trauma, stigma, and the real intent of the role.
  • Video 3: Common challenges, how peers reduce recidivism, and how to influence systems from the inside.
  • Video 4: The Sequential Intercept Model explained in plain language—and why it matters to your day‑to‑day work.
  • Video 5: Intercepts 0–2 in practice: community crisis response, law enforcement contact, and first court/jail touchpoints.
  • Video 6: Intercepts 3–5 in practice: specialty courts, re‑entry, probation/parole—and how to stay true to peer values in all of them.
Each video pairs with specific workbook pages and pause points, so you’re not just watching training—you’re actively designing how you’ll show up as a criminal justice Peer Supporter in your own community.

Session with
Robyn Priest

Included is a 90-minute live group session, personally led by Robyn Priest and Aaron Wells. This is your direct opportunity to engage with a leading expert, bringing your questions specifically from the self-paced training and discussing real-world challenges you face in your supervision practice. Get clarity on supervision concepts, receive expert guidance on your unique supervisory dilemmas, and gain practical insights in an interactive group setting. This session is designed to deepen your understanding and equip you with confidence in applying what you've learned to your daily work.

Certificate

Upon successful completion of the EXPLORATION UNLEASHED WORKSHOP SERIES: Criminal Justice Related Peer Support course you'll not only gain invaluable knowledge but also earn a Continuing Education Unit (CEU) Certificate. This certificate, recognizing 7 hours of professional development, is a testament to your commitment to excellence in peer support supervision.

Facilitated by

Robyn Priest

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The Co-creator
Robyn Priest has been working in the fields of positive psychology, coaching and mentoring for the past 9 years. 
Robyn is a straight-shooting Aussie who is known to be a nonconformist! They are the co-founder of Robyn Priest LIVE YOUR TRUTH, mental health and peer support education and strategy firm.

As part of an international team of consultants, they have completed the Mental Health Commission of Canada's "Making a Case for Peer Support - a report that recommended developing national guidelines for Peer Support programs. They are acknowledged as one of the premier experts on peer support internationally.

In 2016 they won the International Association of Peer Supporters (iNAPS) Lifetime International Achievement Award. Known as the horse whisperer for mental health advocates, they are a highly sought-after public speaker.

Their signature strengths are authentically connecting with people, making fun and simplifying the message. Robyn's passion is helping people go from surviving to thriving.

Facilitated by

Aaron Wells

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Aaron Wells is the CEO and owner of Time to Heal, LLC, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
Time to Heal is focused on helping people live “life at the next level” through recovery and wellness. A proud Philadelphian and dedicated Eagles fan, Aaron is also a parent and partner who brings his whole self—not just his résumé—to this work.

Aaron has more than 20 years of experience as a Peer Supporter. His professional background includes serving for nine years as the Director of Peer Recovery and Peer Support in the Charlotte‑Mecklenburg recovery courts. He has contributed to peer support initiatives and training in both Philadelphia and Charlotte, working with adults and youth, and helping to build training materials and programs across settings.

Aaron’s lived experience includes long‑term recovery from substance addiction, depression, and PTSD connected with growing up and living in urban environments such as Philadelphia and Oakland, California. He describes his lived experience as his “badge” that grants him entry into people’s lives to support their wellness. Aaron talks about peer support as the “science of relationships,” emphasizing the intentional, skillful way peers build relationships, ask curious questions, and support self‑advocacy. For him, nothing in your life story is wasted; everything counts and can be transformed into a tool for helping others.

Course Lessons