Using Autoethnography to Reflect on Peer Support Supervision in an Irish Context

Abstract

Peer Support Workers and Family Peer Support Workers have been in place within an Irish context since the early 2000s. In February 2017, the Health Service Executive – the Irish health body - created a new grade of Peer Support Workers who were directly employed by the Health Service Executive to provide support for individuals with mental health challenges. To support this, specific training was co-produced and co-delivered by Dublin City University to these new students. Supervision at this time was provided by the Irish Advocacy Network to ensure the integrity of the supervision process. Despite the growth of the peer support movement both nationally and internationally in the past few years, there has yet to be a clear model of supervision for Peer Support Workers identified as suitable for implementation within an Irish context. A model of supervision for Peer Support Workers is imperative as these professionals specifically utilises their past lived experiences of mental health challenges to support others in their recovery. Additionally, supervision is also required to ensure fidelity to the values and ethos of the profession. This paper has gathered a wide variety of experts in peer support including former and current Peer Support Workers, educators of Peer Support Worker students and service management to begin conversations which will hopefully lead to a clear model of supervision for Peer Support Workers in an Irish context. This will be achieved using autoethnography – which is a methodology that puts the authors at the heart of the research process by allowing them to become participants in their own study. Resulting from this process, it is hoped that several key themes will be created to support further study that will lead to the creation of a clear model of supervision for Peer Support Workers that is applicable to community and statutory services within the Irish context.