Peer Support Practices Research Articles

Peer support needs, preferences and experiences of adults with acquired neurological disability: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionPeer support is a promising adjunct to traditional rehabilitation methods for helping adults with acquired neurological disability adjust to and navigate life with a disability. However, there is limited guidance...

정신장애인 동료지원활동 경험에 대한 개념도 연구

The purpose of this study was to explore the peer support experiences of peer support for persons with mental illness using concept mapping methodology to derive key concepts in peer support for people with mental illness and to suggest directions for the expansion and development of peer support. To this end, interviews were conducted with 11 mental illness who had completed the peer support for persons with mental illness training educational program and had experience in peer support activities, and 79 core statements were derived. The research participants then sorted and rated the final derived statements, and the data were generated in a Group Similarity Matrix and Multidi- mensional Scaling and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and Hierarchical Clustering Analysis (Ward method). As a result, the peer support practice experiences of peer supporters with mental illness were divided into practice efforts factors and practice effectiveness factors, and peer support practice direction factors and peer support practitioner factors, and were categorized into six clusters: “Perspectives on peers,” “Necessary competencies as experience experts,” “Continuous learning process,” “Promoting life recovery,” “Mutual growth of self and peers,” and “Positioning as a profession”. The study participants rated the sixth of the categorized groups, “Positioning as an Occupational Group,” as the most important. Based on these findings, recommends directions for promoting peer support, including institutionalizing peer support for persons with mental illness.

Staff Perspectives: Defining the Types, Challenges and Lessons Learnt of University Peer Support for Student Mental Health and Wellbeing

In university settings, peer support brings people together based on their student identity. Peer support has been advocated as an innovative intervention to aid student mental health and wellbeing as part of a whole university approach, especially post-pandemic when student support is critical. While the literature describes three types of university peer support for student mental health and wellbeing, peer-led support groups, peer mentoring, and peer learning, the sector lacks agreed definitions for these interventions. Formal reporting on peer support initiatives is rare, suggesting further types of peer support practice may exist. This qualitative study, comprising semi-structured interviews with 16 university staff members at 14 different institutions, aimed to generate comprehensive definitions of the types of peer support used in the sector through template analysis. The study also sought to understand the current practice, experiences, and challenges around implementing peer support interventions for undergraduate and postgraduate students’ mental health and wellbeing from the perspective of the staff who support and coordinate these programmes. Five types of peer support were identified and defined. In addition, the challenges of engagement, resource and capacity, and evaluation were highlighted. Finally, lessons learnt provided potential ways to address the challenges outlined and provided sector guidance for further developing peer support as part of a whole university approach to student mental health and wellbeing.

Explaining job satisfaction among mental health peer support workers.

Peer support practice has seen exponential growth during the past several decades. While there exists a body of research on job satisfaction among this emerging workforce, many studies had limited sample sizes and demographic diversity and focused on few facets of job satisfaction. The present study examines multiple factors associated with job satisfaction and compensates for limitations of previous smaller studies. A convenience/snowball sample of 645 peer support staff was recruited via National Association of Peer Supporters and Academy of Peer Services listservs. Eligible participants were at least 18 years of age, currently employed for a minimum of 6 months, and residing in one of the 50 states or one of U.S. territories. Global and multidimensional facets of job satisfaction were measured using the Indiana Job Satisfaction Survey. Data from an anonymous online survey were analyzed using hierarchical linear regression. The main hypothesis was supported; coworker support, perceived organizational support, supervisor support, and job empowerment explained 71% of the variance in overall job satisfaction, Adj R² = 0.71, F(9, 271) = 77.77, p < .01, with age and status as a certified peer specialist significant contributors. Perceived organizational support and job empowerment explained most variance in overall job satisfaction. As this workforce continues to burgeon, it is crucial to promote peer support values, role clarity, certification, diversity, and optimal organizational and empowerment resources to sustain a satisfied and effective peer support workforce. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Ex-Convicts in an Official Role of Peer-Supporters: Toward Convict Therapy.

The present paper focuses on the strengths-based role of the wounded healer, as exemplified by current or released incarcerated people who desist from crime and recover through professional practice of peer support, in the community or in prison. The paper has two purposes. One is to review criminological approaches and models related to peer-based rehabilitation and to encompass them under a single term proposed here-Convict Therapy. The second is to review research on peer support programs currently implemented in in various countries, in a bid to discern their hallmarks and strengths. This to enrich and promote the discourse, research, and practice of this evolving field, and to offer new research directions for examining the effectiveness of peer support in the long run, for the aid providers, the recipients, and the community.

“You can kind of just feel the power behind what someone's saying”: a participatory-realist evaluation of peer support for young people coping with complex mental health and substance use challenges

BackgroundYouth peer support, as a practice that aligns youth engagement and participatory approaches, has become increasingly popular in the context of youth mental health services. However, there is a need for more evidence that describes how and why youth peer support practice might be effective. This study was designed to examine a peer support service for youth experiencing complex challenges with mental health, physical health and/or substance use to better understand key features and underlying mechanisms that lead to improved client outcomes.MethodsWe applied a hybrid realist-participatory approach to explore key issues and underlying theoretical assumptions within a youth peer support approach for young people (age 14–26) experiencing complex mental health and substance use challenges. We used semi-structured interviews and focus groups with staff, including peers (N = 8), clinical service providers and administrative staff (N = 15), to develop the theories and a client survey to validate them. Our qualitative thematic analysis applied a retroductive approach that involved both inductive and deductive processes. For the client survey (N = 77), we calculated descriptive statistics to examine participant profiles and usage patterns. Pearson correlations were examined to determine relationships among concepts outlined in the program theories, including context, mechanism and outcome variables.ResultsOur analyses resulted in one over-arching context, one over-arching outcome and four program theories. Program theories were focused on mechanisms related to 1) positive identity development through identification with peers, 2) enhanced social connections, 3) observational learning and 4) enhanced autonomy and empowerment.ConclusionsThis study serves as a unique example of a participatory-realist hybrid approach. Findings highlight possible key components of youth peer practice and shed light on the functional mechanisms that underlie successful peer practice. These key components can be examined in other settings to develop more comprehensive theories of change with respect to youth peer support and can eventually be used to develop guidelines and standards to strengthen practice. This research contributes to an expanding body of literature on youth peer support in mental health and connects peer practice with several social theories. This research begins to lay a foundation for enhanced youth peer support program design and improved outcomes for young people experiencing complex mental health and substance use challenges.

Me too! A case study of gendered victimization and feminist development in a Swedish peer support organization for people with experiences of criminalization and substance abuse.

Even if peer support is commonly defined as horizontal in contrast to the more hierarchical relationship between client and professional, peer support is not free from power dynamics. This article considers feminist organizing in the context of peer support for people with experiences of criminalization and substance abuse and addresses questions of (un)equal peer support, sexual victimization, (re)integration, and organizational change in the #MeToo era. Drawing on qualitative interviews with support organization representatives and discussion material from a study circle and a men’s group, this article analyses one organization’s framing of, and responses to, allegations of sexual victimization of female members, and their ongoing work toward increased equality. The study shows that a number of measures have been taken in the organization in order to give voice to women whose lives are affected by crime, imprisonment, violence, and drug abuse. Interview participants put strong emphasis on the need to counteract what is described as a “macho culture” embedded in the peer support organization (PESO), which is seen as repeating structures of masculinity and power from the previous criminal lifestyle as well as reproducing specific gendered vulnerabilities. The organization’s patriarchal structure is understood as connected to a culture of silence that has allowed for sexism and marginalization of female members to continue. The women’s lived experiences of trauma within peer support practices and their struggles to redefine the foundations of their organization emphasizes the lived gendered emotionality of peer support, and uncovers how power structures can be challenged by putting the gendered lived experiences of women with a history of criminalization and substance abuse in the center of ex-offender peer support.

Scoping Review of Peer-Led Support for People Bereaved by Suicide.

Suicide bereavement support groups are a widely available format of postvention service. Although other reviews have addressed peer-led bereavement interventions, no review has focused specifically on peer-led support for people bereaved by suicide. Informed by a framework for undertaking scoping reviews, we conducted a systematic review according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Searches conducted in May 2021 of peer-reviewed literature in MEDLINE (EBSCO), CINAHL Complete (EBSCO), PsycINFO (EBSCO), EMBASE (Elsevier), AMED (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), Web of Science (Core Collection), ASSIA (Proquest), and Global Index Medicus. The search was not limited by language, and all studies were included to full text screening. The search identified 10 studies conducted between 1994 and 2020 in five countries. The selected papers were subjected to quality assessment. The interventions included face-to-face groups, telephone and online groups/forums and were evaluated using a variety of methodologies, which made comparison and synthesis challenging. Thematic analysis resulted in four themes: motivation, impact, aspects of intervention which hindered/enhanced outcomes, and recommendations for the practice of peer support made by the authors. While there were methodological limitations to most studies included in this review; the studies do indicate the potential benefit of peer-led support to those bereaved through suicide. Future studies should provide a definition of ‘peer’ and a clear description of the intervention being evaluated. As the field matures there is a need for more rigorous evaluation of peer interventions with representative samples, studies that compare the impact of various types of peer interventions, and studies of the peer group processes.

Non-profit breastfeeding organisations' peer support provision in areas of socio-economic deprivation in the UK: A meta-ethnography.

In many high‐income countries such as the United Kingdom, inequalities in breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates exist, whereby socio‐economically advantaged mothers are most likely to breastfeed. Breastfeeding peer support interventions are recommended to address this inequality, with non‐profit breastfeeding organisations providing such support in areas of deprivation. As these organisations' roots and membership are often formed of relatively highly resourced women who have different backgrounds and experiences to those living in areas of deprivation, it is important to understand their practices in this context. In order to explore how UK non‐profit organisations practice breastfeeding peer support in areas of socio‐economic deprivation, a systematic review and meta‐ethnography of published and grey literature was undertaken. Sixteen texts were included, and three core themes constructed: (1) ‘changing communities’ reveals practices designed to generate community level change, and (2) ‘enabling one to one support’, explains how proactive working practices enabled individual mothers' access to supportive environments. (3) ‘forging partnerships with health professionals’, describes how embedding peer support within local health services facilitated peer supporters' access to mothers. While few breastfeeding peer support practices were directly linked to the context of socio‐economic deprivation, those described sought to influence community and individual level change. They illuminate the importance of interprofessional working. Further work to consolidate the peer‐professional interface to ensure needs‐led care is required.

Radiologist Well-Being and Professional Fulfillment in the COVID-19 Era: Fostering Posttraumatic Growth.

The acute consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted wellness strategies aimed at mitigating the pre-existing epidemic of burnout in radiology. Specifically, safety measures including social distancing requirements, effective communications, supporting remote and distributed work teams, and newly exposed employment and treatment inequities have challenged many major efforts at fostering professional fulfillment. To get our wellness efforts back on track and to achieve a new and perhaps even a better "normal" will require refocusing and reconsidering ways to foster and build a culture of wellness, implementing practices that improve work efficiencies, and supporting personal health, wellness behaviors, and resilience. Optimizing meaning in work is also critical for well-being and professional fulfillment. In addition to these earlier approaches, organizations and leaders will need to reprioritize efforts to build high-functioning cohesive and connected teams; to train, implement, and manage peer-support practices; and to support posttraumatic growth. This growth represents the positive psychological changes that can occur after highly challenging life circumstances and, when successful, allows individuals to achieve a higher level of functioning by addressing and learning from the precipitating event. Our practices can support this growth through education, emotional regulation, and disclosure, by developing a narrative that reimagines a hoped-for better future and by finding meaning through services that benefit others.

Service Users’ Challenges in Developing Helpful Relationships with Peer Support Workers

This study contributes to the existing literature on peer support and complexities in peer support practices by exploring and describing service users’ perspectives on challenges in developing helpful relationships with peer support workers. Twenty-six service users with mental health and/or substance problems who had collaborated with one or more peer support workers on five or more occasions voluntarily participated across five focus groups. Interviews with these participants were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using the Braun-Clark approach to thematic analysis, resulting in two major themes: (a) embrace the difference and (b) harness the contextual factors. The findings suggest that peer support by sharing lived experiences does not always result in helpful relationships that promote recovery. How and when aspects of lived experience are shared appears to play an important role in characterizing relationships as helpful or not.

The institutionalisation of peer support in France: Development of a social role and roll out of public policies

In France, the practice of peer support is currently developing and becoming institutionalised in health (particularly mental health), social and medico-social sectors. Despite significant shared values, a common background and a universal acceptance of experiential knowledge as the basis of their expertise, there is a diversification in practices. In a context where public health and social policies encourage the development of the social role of peer supporter and where funding is available for a number of salaried posts, some practitioners opt for a voluntary or informal system. This article aims to explore the varied ways in which the role has developed through an analysis of its institutionalisation process. To do this, data from two surveys will be analysed: one based on peer counsellors who set up an association under the law of 1901 and the other on peer-support workers from “Housing First”, an experimental public policy intervention programme. Two different processes of institutionalisation of the peer-support role emerge from the analysis: one which prioritises the development of a social role and the other the roll-out of public policy. Neither is yet sufficiently successful to guarantee the sustainability of the practices, owing to a lack of legitimation process or shortcomings in reciprocal typification. This situation has delayed the professionalisation of the peer-support role. It also raises two questions: that of the links between experiential knowledge and professional knowledge and that of the effects of a meeting of peer supporters who were hitherto isolated in their respective fields (health, mental health, disability, exclusion, addiction, etc.) and within their causes.

Collaborative learning: A next step in the training of peer support providers.

This column explores how peer support provider training is enhanced through collaborative learning. Collaborative learning is an approach that draws upon the "real life" experiences of individual learners and encompasses opportunities to explore varying perspectives and collectively construct solutions that enrich the practice of all participants. This description draws upon published articles and examples of collaborative learning in training and communities of practice of peer support providers. Similar to person-centered practices that enhance the recovery experience of individuals receiving services, collaborative learning enhances the experience of peer support providers as they explore relevant "real world" issues, offer unique contributions, and work together toward improving practice. Three examples of collaborative learning approaches are provided that have resulted in successful collaborative learning opportunities for peer support providers. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reclaiming user leadership in peer support practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore user leadership in peer support practice by reviewing existing evidence and models of delivery, investigating the recently developed term of “authentic” peer support and reflecting on challenges and opportunities for the future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents and discusses views and evidence on peer support policy and practice, found in the current literature, grass roots peer support experts’ presentations and contributions to conferences, a national peer support network, key policy documents and the work of Together for Mental Wellbeing. Findings – Peer support benefits are widely documented as is its history, rooted in user leadership. More recently, peer support is acknowledged in a number of key mental health policy documents as seen to be key in the response to current quality and cost agendas. There has been a simultaneous increase of “formal” peer support as practiced by large service providers and a gradual shift away from its “user led” origins. Against the background of the current economic climate and implications for mental health services, there seems to be a need to pause and reflect on current peer support practice and rethink the way forward. Originality/value – This paper's emphasis on the authenticity of peer support covers new ground in relation to an important topical debate.

Service user involvement, authority and the ‘expert-by-experience’ in mental health

This article re-examines the politics of engagement of the UK mental health service user and survivor movement by focusing upon the mental health ‘expert-by-experience’. Using qualitative data, I illustrate how the service user and survivor movement is able to draw upon an experiential authority that is rooted in practices of self-help and peer-support. I do this by bringing an experimentalist reading of self-help and peer-support practices into dialogue with a model of traditional authority. As such, the personal can be linked up to the political in ways that emphasise the value of self-help and support practices as forms of political participation, while highlighting modes of engagement that are predicated on the capacities, rather than the needs, of the movement.

Care, empowerment and self-determination in the practice of peer support

The concept of ‘care’ has been fraught with negative connotations within the disability movement; the concepts of empowerment, choice and control have been developed as alternatives. The peer-support movement in the mental health sector draws from this tradition, and is uncomfortable with the provision of care. Drawing on the feminist ethic of care, we will argue in this paper that ‘care’ – in the sense of caring about, rather than caring for – should be seen as fundamental within peer support. The practice of peer support evidences a kind of ‘care’ that does involve some interdependence, and taking of ‘responsibility’. The challenge is to make this a ‘responsibility towards’, rather than a ‘responsibility for’. If this is successfully achieved, care can indeed become acknowledged as part of ‘standard peer support’, and the basis for the development of autonomy and self-determination.

The development of peer support in the Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel.

My recent communication and travels related to peer support efforts in The Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel provide a glimpse of the integration of peer support into existing mental health services in these three countries. Country by country, peer support is evolving in unique ways specific to each culture. Based on my communication with peers and colleagues, peer support is fairly well established in The Netherlands, but has not gained as strong a foothold in countries like Brazil and Israel, where governments and mental health authorities have yet to fully embrace the concepts and practice of peer support. Also volunteerism, so essential in the start-up of peer support and self-help groups in the United States in the early 1970s, does not yet exist in Brazil or Israel where there are not as well established nongovernmental (nonprofit) organizations. After speaking with informed advocates of peer support in these three countries, the question, for me, remains whether peer support will take root in countries other than English-speaking countries. Can these voluntary, grass roots, democratic associations have a viable future in countries like the Netherlands, Brazil, and Israel? The hope is that once mental health officials see the success of peer support programs and gain confidence in peer leaders, they will provide the funding and support necessary for peer support programs to grow and thrive.

Constant companions: Instant messaging conversations as sustainable supportive study structures amongst undergraduate peers

Universities are facing severe cuts in funding and a transformation of both the economic model underpinning higher education and the relationship between students, tutors and universities and the traditional forms of support for students' learning may be eroded. At the same time, mobile communications, instant messaging and social networking are now widespread amongst students and offer possible opportunities for developing new models of support. This paper reports on the use of instant messaging amongst peers, as part of a study of digitally-mediated communication and collaborative activities, crossing formal and informal boundaries, amongst campus-based undergraduate students, at a large university in the UK. It is argued that instant messaging conversations offers a means of sustainable peer support for students by demonstrating how they emerge from everyday practices, drawing on existing relationships and shared histories and redrawing the boundaries between formal and informal settings and practices. The importance of time is highlighted, showing how longitudinal, dialogic conversations were important for both practical and empathetic support. The potential of the instant messaging conversations in supporting the co-creation of artefacts, meaning making, motivation and affective support are also demonstrated, drawing on detailed examples of authentic conversations. However, such peer support practices remain largely invisible and therefore need acknowledging, fostering and encouraging, working alongside students to understand and develop these ideas so that peer support in universities can build on the existing practices of students themselves.

‘Having those conversations’: The politics of risk in peer support practice

Peer support is a fast growing type of service provision within the mental health sector. This study draws on interviews with peer supporters and peer support managers to explore the ways that risks of violence, suicide and self-harm are managed within peer support settings in Aotearoa New Zealand. Drawing on Nikolas Rose and other theorists, who define risk thinking as an attempt to ‘discipline uncertainty’, we argue that the philosophy of peer support is in tension with a ‘risk consciousness’ because it sees crisis as a learning opportunity. We contend that peer supporters are pulled towards the ‘risk consciousness’, which pervades the mental health sector, and that they address this by managing risk in various ways. Finally, we show that peer supporters challenge this risk consciousness by working with risk through a philosophy of engagement and relationship. As peer support becomes more integrated into the wider health system, the challenge will be to continue the development of risk practices which work within a strong peer support philosophy.

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AbstractAnnual Summit Promotes Behavioral Health in Health and Wellness ArenaSecond Grading: NAMI Sees Hopeful Signs, but Economy Could Sabotage ProgressACMHA Meeting Addresses Peer Support Practices, InnovationsMore than Half of States see Grade Changes From NAMIACMHA Presents Awards During Annual SummitBriefly NotedState NewsResourcesComing up