PREP: Peer Recovery Employment Program

Are you ready to explore meaningful employment, volunteer opportunities, or personal growth goals?

PREP is A-Way’s strengths-based employment program for adults with lived experience of mental health or substance use challenges. We offer one-to-one employment coaching and a welcoming weekly peer-led group where participants can build confidence, develop practical skills, and move toward their goals at their own pace.

A diverse group of colleagues in a meeting room, with a woman shaking hands with a woman sitting at a table, in a professional office environment.

With more than 38 years of experience employing people with lived experience, A-Way understands that recovery and employment journeys are not always linear, and that’s ok. PREP provides a safe, structured, and supportive space to explore next steps in a way that is practical, encouraging, and grounded in lived experience, where participants can: 

  • Navigate job search anxiety with practical tools

  • Process and acknowledge trauma from past workplaces

  • Reframe resume gaps with confidence

  • Identify strengths in non-linear work histories

  • Build strategies for requesting accommodations

  • Develop personalized job maintenance plans

  • Balance work and recovery in sustainable ways

PREP services include:

  • 1:1 coaching to create a personal employment plan

  • Résumé support and interview practice

  • Work and job-search related learning opportunities every month

  • Regular emails about current job openings

  • Job retention coaching

  • Short term work placements available at A-Way from time to time

A person with dark hair in a green shirt holding a white circle in one hand and a brown box in the other.

PREP group meetings

  • Every Friday from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

  • A-Way Express Office - 2168 Danforth Avenue, Toronto (Woodbine & Danforth)

Three diverse smiling professionals in an office, holding notebooks and tablets.

Together, PREP Group participants explore practical employment strategies in a supportive, recovery-focused environment that values lived experience, builds resilience, and celebrates every step forward.

To learn more about A-Way Employment Services or to join the PREP group, contact Melina at melina@awayexpress.ca or call 647-323-5859.