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GREENSBORO — Sheri and “Alexandra” spend a couple of hours each week on the phone, chatting about work, friends, life.

Sometimes, Alexandra calls to vent. Sheri is always there to listen. And, more important to Alexandra, her friend doesn’t judge her.

Alexandra, 37, is bipolar with bouts of depression and anxiety. The Mental Health Association in Greensboro paired her a year ago with volunteer Sheri Pickens, 29, a Jamestown resident who manages a Winston-Salem business.

The two women make up one of 42 matches in the agency’s “Compeer” program, which stands for companion-peer. Volunteers undergo special training and a criminal background check and commit to spending at least four hours a month with their peer for one year.

Pickens is Alexandra’s second companion.

“Sheri doesn’t look at me any bit differently,” said Alexandra, who asked that her full name not be used. “She doesn’t judge me. There’s no hesitation in her whatsoever about what my issue is.”

Alexandra, who is unemployed, has called her friend when the panic attacks get so bad she has trouble getting out of the house to go pick up her children from school.

She wasn’t comfortable with the idea at first, but now calls the program “the best-kept secret in Greensboro.”

Pickens said she volunteered because she recognized “the isolation people experience when they suffer from mental illness.”

Kristin Norden sees that isolation often in her patients at the Moses Cone Behavioral Health Center. They typically don’t have good social support systems or “just have a hard time figuring out how to make a friend,” she said.

Norden, manager of clinical services at the center, has been sending patients to the Compeer program for a couple of years.

“It’s a two-sided deal,” she said. “They learn how to be a friend as well, not just how to receive good friendship. And that’s invaluable.”

Some who had trouble working found part-time jobs after finding a friend through the program, said Rhonda Outlaw, volunteer coordinator for the Mental Health Association.

“A lot of them gain that confidence that they need to get back out there,” she said.

The program has been successful this year with pairings, Outlaw said. Only three peers and three volunteers remain unpaired at this time.

Each volunteer and peer interested in the program fills out a form so that Outlaw can match them based on their likes and dislikes. Not all pairings work, but some have stayed friends for years, Outlaw said. The biggest difficulty is finding men to volunteer, she said.

Lindy Beauregard, 59, became involved while looking for programs that might help her clients at Family Service of the Piedmont.

“It just sounded so wonderful when they described this I said, 'Sign me up,’” she said.

She and her friend meet for coffee or dinner, and look for fun outings on the weekend. The training provided helped prepare her for some of the issues her partner might face, Beauregard said. And that learning goes two ways.

“We’ll share with each other different challenges and try to learn from each other how the other one might handle that,” she said.

Pickens recommends the program for anyone looking for something meaningful in their lives.

“This definitely does it because it’s listening, it’s understanding. It’s a caring relationship,” she said. “And it goes beyond mental illness. You definitely don’t think about that very much. It’s been a fulfilling relationship.”

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com