Peer support resources

Here are some statements we gathered for our January 2015 discussion on peer support:

 

  • ‘Peer support can include: befriending/buddying, peer mentoring, facilitated peer support, peer led support groups’ (From: ‘Peer support in long term conditions- the basics’ Nov 2013 – Guidance from the Mental Health Foundation)
  • ‘In informal peer support anyone can be supportive to anyone – someone can be going through tough stuff themselves and say or do something that’s supportive to someone else’ 
  • ‘Peer Workers are important as part of the move towards personalised, recovery focused services in mental health services’ (From: the Peer Worker Research Project www.peerworker.sgul.ac.uk )
  • ‘Peer support workers help new people arriving on a psychiatric ward on a section’ 
  • ‘A place of rest where I can have a conversation to learn about what is mental illness and why we are all taking pills.’
    ‘Without it I would have hardly any friends and nowhere to go to which means that I could wind up spending all day indoors seeing and speaking to no one.’
    ‘I can share and listen to stories from my peers free of professional monitoring’
    ‘Friendly and non-judgmental contact with other people with mental health problems’
    ‘A place of safety where you can be honest and have supportive interactions’
    (From: the Bridge Collective peer support presentation April 2013)
  • ‘Elefriends is a supportive online community where you can be yourself. We all know what it’s like to struggle sometimes, but now there’s a safe place to listen, share and be heard.’ www.elefriends.org.uk
  • ‘Peer2Peer’s vision is that everyone will have access to good quality, authentic peer support. This kind of support is led by lived experience, and based on a mutually beneficial relationship where both people understand and support each other to achieve their hopes and aspirations.’ http://peer2peernetwork.org/ www.nsun.org.uk/about-us/our-work/peer2peer/
  • ‘Peer support is about social change’ 
  • ‘Peers come together around shared experiences and often a desire to change lives. But without a new framework to build upon, people frequently re-enact “help” based on what was done to them. IPS offers a foundation for doing something different. We come from a history of grassroots alternatives that focus on the possibilities that emerge when relationships become mutual, explorative, and conscious of power.’ www.intentionalpeersupport.org

 

Here are some further Peer Support resources:

  • Using Personal Experience To Support Others With Similar Difficulties  – A Review Of The Literature On Peer Support In Mental Health Services – Julie Repper and Tim Carter – (2010)
    http://www.together-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/11/usingpersexperience.pdf
  • ‘Peer support takes place when people with experience of mental distress support each other towards better wellbeing, as people of equal value and on a reciprocal basis, using their own lived experience as a tool for support.’ http://www.together-uk.org/peer-support/
  • ‘Peer support is getting support from people who are equal to you your peers. In a peer group you are able to talk to other people who truly have first hand experience of similar situations. This ‘toolkit’ is to aid the set up of peer groups.’ http://www.plymouthmind.com/info/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Simple-Steps……pdf
  • ‘Our project found an enormous range of different models and approaches to peer support, from self-organised groups meeting in someone’s front room to well established projects and organisations employing peer workers’- Mental Health peer support in England: piecing together the jigsaw – September 2013 https://www.mind.org.uk/media/418953/Peer-Support-Report-Peerfest-2013.pdf
  • ‘People go to support groups for many different reasons.  Some simply want information and will then move on, while others may want to make sense of what is happening to them by sharing with those who have been through something similar’. – Bipolar UK – Group Support Manual – ‘This manual has been put together to help you and your fellow group facilitators run a Bipolar UK Support Group’ https://www.bipolaruk.org/groupmatters
  • ‘There are many different types of peer support, each of which has its own benefits and limitations. Below we look at three types of peer support: informal and naturally occurring peer support, peer-run programmes, and the employment of service users as providers of support within traditional services’ – Student Minds – Peer Support Report http://www.studentminds.org.uk/uploads/3/7/8/4/3784584/peer_support_for_student_mental_health.pdf
  • ‘The Institute of Mental Health’s Peer Support Training team has a range of training courses available to help equip organisations to embrace the recovery agenda in mental health and support the development of skilled and informed Peer Support Workers. Our courses include the first nationally accredited peer support training module in the UK.’ http://www.institutemh.org.uk/-education-/peer-support

 

 

Click Here to open our post which includes Peer Support Presentations we made in 2013