Peer support can be a hugely effective intervention for people going through complicated life circumstances. Being able to receive empathetic support from people who have been through similar situations can reduce feelings of isolation and not being understood. It can also help people improve their knowledge, confidence, and ability to take control of their situation by learning from the experiences of others who have overcome, or who may still be struggling with, the obstacles and barriers they are facing.
Aims
How To Design a Peer Support Service outlines how to consider, plan, and troubleshoot the introduction of peer support programmes.
Objectives
By the end of this workshop, participants will:
- Have a better understanding of peer support and the different forms it can take
- Recognise what skills and knowledge peer workers require to undertake the role
- Be prepared for the consideration and risks of implementing peer support
- Have confidence in the stages of developing a peer support programme
Our workshop includes:
- What peer support is – definitions of peer support, different forms of peer support, qualities of peer volunteers, and limitations of peer services
- Organisational considerations – the coordination, recruitment, promotion, development, and evaluation of peer services
- Action planning – writing an initial action plan for how you are going to proceed including purpose of the service, model of support, and inputs and outputs
- Risk assessments and contingencies
Who is it for?
This workshop is for voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations (VCSEs) across the UK. Participants will not require any prior knowledge of peer support to participate. There will be a maximum of 15 participants per workshop.
Some feedback from our participants:
A well-structured workshop, delivered by a knowledgeable course leader who ensured the session was engaging and interactive with plenty of opportunity to ask questions and to speak with other course attendees.
It is invaluable to learn from a professional who has lived experience of setting up a peer support model.
It was great and gave much food for thought. It was very important to know that mentoring needs to be properly resourced as I don’t always think it is within my organisation.
I’ve learned lots and I’ve come away with a better understanding of how we can develop a new peer mentoring programme for a specific group, but hopefully in other service areas in time. I will now be working on a detailed action plan using the structure and ideas shared!
The session was extremely inspiring and it made me really want to get mentoring up and running at my org so that we can make such a huge impact on our service users as The Peer Partnership has in theirs.
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