Peer counseling in health care: a collaboration of social work and voluntarism

Professional-volunteer collaboration is a growing trend in social work practice in health care. The social work profession can benefit from partnerships with volunteers to extend, enhance, and maximize the scope and quality of patient care. This article examines a program of social work collaboration with volunteers, trained as peer counselors, in a hospital setting. A model is described which provides long-term social support to chronically and terminally ill patients and their families during hospitalization and after discharge. Implications for replication in other settings are discussed.