Focus of peer support
Peer support can take many different forms. How peer support sessions look can vary greatly depending on the project and the setting.
Deciding the focus
The term ‘focus’ describes the primary activity of a peer support project. It refers to what people actually do when they come to peer support.
The focus of your project will depend on your specific aims and what suits the peers in your project best. For example, the following forms of peer support will look very different:
- Meeting together to socialise in a public café
- Meeting in a confidential space to share mental health experiences
- Meeting to do an activity together, like cooking or gardening
You can choose to build your peer support around 1 area of activity. For example, by running a gardening group that meets once a week. You can also have multiple focuses at the same time. You could:
- Rotate what happens in your peer support from week to week (for example, knitting one week and an educational workshop the next)
- Set up peer support that includes different types of activities in the same overarching project (for example, a gardening group, a social group, and an educational course happening on different days of the week)
Social focus
Peer support with a social focus has an emphasis on informal socialising among peers, such as having a chat over a cup of tea. It allows people to come together with others who have similar experiences of mental health difficulties or social and emotional distress, without emphasising the active sharing of those experiences.
Mental health might come up as a topic of conversation from time to time, but the peer support sessions are not structured around discussing mental health. Some peers might prefer the informal and non-structured nature of this type of peer support. It can reduce isolation and provide an opportunity for meeting other peers without the pressure of having to share.
Some types of peer support with a social focus may avoid using mental health language completely, although they can still provide an opportunity for peers to talk about their experiences of social and emotional distress using other language, for example that of ‘stress’.
"It gives you an opportunity to get out of the house, I guess, to stop being isolated."
Activity focus
Peer support with an activity focus brings peers together by involving them in an activity they can do together. This can include a wide range of activities such as:
- gardening
- running/walking
- music
- cooking
- knitting
- poetry
- gaming
- sports
Activity-based peer support provides a similar non-pressured environment for sharing personal experience of social and emotional distress. In contrast to peer support that focuses on socialising, activity-based peer support allows peers to focus on doing an activity and can reduce anxiety about having conversations with people they may not know well. This can be especially helpful for new members just joining peer support.
Activities can also provide an incentive for peers who might be anxious about getting involved, but may be attracted to peer support that includes their hobbies and interests.
Focus on sharing experiences of mental health
This type of peer support has a focus on peers coming together to share their experiences of social and emotional distress, normally by explicitly using mental health language rather than speaking about wellbeing or stress.
This can include discussion of:
- specific diagnoses
- effects of medication
- experiences of using services
- tips and coping mechanisms.
Peer support with this focus is usually run in a structured way – such as speaking one by one around the circle in the case of groups or allowing peer support pairs equal amounts of time to speak. This supports a balance between more vocal and less vocal members, and helps to ensure peers have equal opportunities to give and receive peer support.
"I don’t have a network of people to support me, as such. So it’s good I can go and interact with people."
Educational focus
Peer support with an educational focus has an emphasis on giving peers knowledge and information about mental health and a range of other issues that may impact on their wellbeing. A peer support project can have an educational focus as its primary aim or it can include occasional educational sessions within a broader framework of peer support.
You could develop a structured course with a designated number of sessions focused on particular mental health issues or particular skills related to managing social and emotional distress (for example, a course on managing anxiety). Alternatively, you could include one-off educational sessions on mental health in your peer support. Peer support with an educational focus can also address other issues that have an impact on the wellbeing of peers, such as physical health or benefits advice.
"There are different types of peer support; you have got your activity groups, the ongoing support groups and the social groups. These are more chances to check in every week with the same group of people to see how you are getting on. Whereas the courses and workshops are more about something looked at by one group for an amount of time."
Reflective questions
- What are the aims of our peer support? For example, reducing social isolation, increasing peers’ understanding of mental health difficulties, giving peers an opportunity to openly discuss their experiences?
- How do we communicate the aims of our peer support to others?
- How comfortable do peers feel about openly discussing their mental health with others? What would make people feel more comfortable doing this?
- Do peers share any common interests?
- Do we have the skills needed for running a particular type of peer support?
- Can anyone within our organisational or peer team deliver educational courses, run particular activities, or facilitate discussions where peers may be discussing distressing experiences?
- How can we help people share their talents?
- Do we have resources to upskill people to be able to do this?
- What kind of venues do we have access to? Are these appropriate for the activities we want to do? For example, peer support with a focus on sharing mental health experiences will need a more confidential space than a social group.
- What is our budget? Can we link up with other groups to get access to venues, activities or expertise for free?
