INTRODUCTION TO PEER
SUPPORT
by
KMPT EXPERT BY EXPERIENCE
RESEARCH GROUP
WHAT IS RECOVERY?
• A deeply personal, unique process of changing
one’s attitudes, values, feelings goals, skills,
and/or roles. It is a way of living a satisfying,
hopeful and contributing life even with the
limitations caused by illness. Recovery involves
the development of new meaning and purpose
in one’s life as one grows beyond the
catastrophic effects of mental illness.”
(Anthony, 1993).
Recovery
‘There
is hope, a vision of hope that
includes no limits. That even when
someone says to us, “You can’t do
that because you have those
symptoms dear!” we know it is not
true… Those of us who experience
psychiatric symptoms can and do get
well.’
Mary Ellen Copeland. WRAP
What is Peer support
• ‘Peer support is a system of giving and receiving
help founded on key principles of respect,
shared responsibility, and mutual agreement of
what is helpful. Peer support is not based on
psychiatric models and diagnostic criteria. It is
about understanding another’s situation
emphatically through the shared experience of
emotional and psychological pain.’
(Mead 2003)
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT
PEER SUPPORT
• "Peer support offers something that can go
beyond the professional support and therapy
offered to people during crisis. Seeing a person
who has been there, and is able to tell the tale of
their own recovery, offers real hope to
individuals who may not have any at that
particular point in their life.
Gwen Bonner - Nurse Consultant East Berkshire Inpatient Services
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT
PEER SUPPORT (cont)
• “I am not a diagnosis, I am a human being
and as such I am more important than my
diagnosis. Peer Support sees the person
first, understands their distress and can offer
true solutions that the Supporting Peer has
used themselves.”
Peer Support Worker
SOME TYPES OF PEER
SUPPORT
• Peer Support Groups
• Recovery Groups
• Peer Support Workers network,
Depression Alliance
What is a Peer Support Worker?
• Someone with lived experience of mental health
issues / mental illness
• Someone who is employed specifically as a
result of their experience
• Someone who has the ability to share their
recovery journey with others
• Someone who can motivate and encourage
others
WHY DOES IT WORK?
• "When people identify with others who they feel
are ‘like them’, they feel a connection. This is
turn fosters an environment where individuals
can share suggestions and tips for their recovery
with each other, and try out different strategies,
with the support of their fellow peers."
Shery Mead, 2001
INTENTIONAL PEER SUPPORT
• One “formal” model of peer support developed
by mental health survivor trainer, Shery Mead,
New Hampshire, US
 Involves training in ways of relating to each other
 Doesn’t use diagnosis
 Purposeful - moving towards a different place
and stepping out of current story
 Linked with wellness recovery action planning
(WRAP)
RECOVERY INNOVATIONS IN ARIZONA
Gene Johnson - President and CEO
• From Crisis Stabilisation to RECOVERY
• One year after the Peer Support staff have
began working in the two hospital facilities, there
was, according to hospital administration:
– a reduction of 36% in the use of seclusion
– 48% reduction in the use of restraint,
– 56% reduction in hospital readmission rates.
PEER SUPPORT IN THE UK NOW
• Scotland
• England
AND IN THE FUTURE
• Peer support is an important component of efforts to
make services more focused on recovery (Shepherd et
all 2008). In the longer term, peer support could play a
central role in striking a new balance in the mental health
system between professional intervention and other
forms of support For this to be possible, there will need
to be considerable expansion in the number of peer
supporters. (Perkins 2010).
LEEDS SURVIVOR LED CRISIS CENTRE
• The Leeds Survivor Led Crisis Service was set up as a
place of sanctuary in 1999 by a group of service users
as an alternative to hospital admission and statutory
services for people in acute mental health crisis. The
survivors who run it have developed their service based
on their knowledge of what it feels like to be in crisis and
what helps and does not help.
• They believe that to deal with a crisis, a person must feel
safe, listened to, and connected to other people.
• It has won several awards for outstanding service.
• Savings: cost per day of acute hospital inpatient is £259
cost per day at the Centre it is estimated at £178
Acknowledgements
• Alex Williams: Valuing Peer Support literature review
www.kmpt.nhs.uk/Downloads/Gettinginvolved/Valuing-Peer-support.pdf
• Dr Jan Wallcraft
• Patricia Ronan: senior nursing lecturer, Canterbury
Christ Church University
• Nick Dent: PALS officer
• Fiona Venner: Leeds Survivor-Led Crisis Centre, for
kindly supplying articles and information highlighting an
outstanding service
Further information
• www.recoverydevon.co.uk
• www.together-uk.org/uploads/pdf/
SUID/helpinghand.pdf
• www.scottishrecovery.net/PeerSupport/peer-support.html
• www.mentalhealthpeers.com/