CommuniT1D: A Customized Virtual Peer Support Program For People Living With Type 1 Diabetes In Canada

When you live with type 1 diabetes (T1D), it is easy to feel alone. Managing your own T1D or your child's T1D takes constant effort that is invisible to most people. Often, the only people who really understand what you are going through are other people in similar situations, but it's hard to find those people, especially when there are other aspects of your life that might be different from others with T1D. For example, you might have a very young child with T1D, you might be racialized and deal with racism in health care on top of T1D, you might be going through menopause with T1D, you might be aging out of provincial or parental device coverage, you might speak a different language from most people around you with T1D, or any one of many other things that make your situation unique. This project aims to create regular, small online meetings via Zoom or similar technologies to bring together people across Canada who are managing T1D (their own and/or their child's) who have other things in common. We will create these small groups that will meet monthly as well as larger monthly webinars covering topics of interest. We will track how people like the groups, how they feel, what they like and don't like, and adjust the program accordingly. This project is led by researchers and others who themselves live with T1D. We believe that this kind of peer support can be extremely helpful to people with T1D and it will provide needed mental health support.