Leadership and facilitation
Peer support can be organised and led in different ways. Leadership can include facilitation. It may also include roles like supporting members individually, administration, fundraising, and promoting the group.
It's helpful to have more than one person involved in these roles, so you're not relying on one person.
Designated leader or collective leadership
You might decide that it's best to have more than one person responsible for making decisions. You could run your peer support on a collective basis, where the majority of activities and decisions are made together. It’s important to find a way for members to voice their opinion if making decisions collectively, so everyone is heard.
The decision of whether or not to have a facilitator will depend on the shape and focus of your peer support. A facilitator could be one person or a small number of members who share the facilitation role.
In more formal groups there may be greater need for facilitation – for example, when someone leads a specific activity, or in an online group where people take turns to talk about their experience. In these situations, there may be a greater need for a named facilitator to ensure the smooth running of the sessions, compared to peer support groups with a more social focus.
There are benefits and drawbacks to consider. Some peers may feel that assigning someone to take on this role goes against the ethos of peer support as a space where people come together as equals. Other people may feel safer with someone taking on responsibility for holding the group space and upholding group rules.
Peer or non-peer leadership
Peer support can be led by peers who have their own experience, which is often in common with other group members. Or peer support can be led by a non-peer.
Peer leaders’ shared experiences of social and emotional distress can help build trust and emotional safety. Peer leaders can also role model active sharing of their mental health experiences for the wider group, which can give confidence to others to share. This can help to strengthen the cohesion of the group and diminish barriers between ‘them’ and ‘us’.
You might also decide that your peer support is led by a non-peer or professional. They can bring in expertise the group don’t have, or lead on an activity that the group don’t feel confident to.
"Everybody is supposed to go there on an equal footing. There aren’t any leaders. We all have to organise stuff and sort things out ourselves."
Working towards peer leadership
Facilitators can emerge from peer support groups as time goes on and people begin to feel confident to undertake different roles. As a facilitator or leader, you can find ways of enabling peers to develop relevant skills and experience, so that they can take on these roles or aspects of these roles. There may be different tasks that people can take on in organising the group, as they begin to share responsibility for the group.
Responsibilities of the facilitator or facilitators may include:
- Practical running of the project, such as booking venues, sending out meeting reminders, and organising refreshments.
- Facilitating individual activities or discussions within sessions – this includes learning group skills.
- Upholding safety guidelines and resolving any potential disagreements among peers.
- Information sharing and signposting to other available support.
In projects without a designated facilitator, different people within the project may take on various organisational roles, so that facilitating and coordinating peer support becomes a collective responsibility.
Paid or voluntary
Paid or voluntary leadership will depend on the financial resources you have, but it should also reflect the nature of your peer support and the types of leadership roles it involves.
People involved in one-to-one peer support might appreciate being supported by people who volunteer to spend time with them, rather than someone doing a job because they are being paid for it.
On the other hand, being over-reliant on volunteers to keep peer support going might make it less sustainable, as volunteers may move on to other opportunities, paid employment, or have other commitments. Having a group with both paid and voluntary roles may help to sustain peer support long term.
Peer support leadership training
Training can help peer support leaders to feel better prepared for their role in peer support. It can help to handle any issues that might come up and make others feel safe. There may be other ways to share knowledge and learn skills by reaching out to other groups.
Training isn’t always available or accessible. Courses that take up a lot of time, or are at inconvenient times in the day can potentially exclude those in full-time employment and those with caring responsibilities. There may be other ways to become more confident and learn skills, for example getting support and advice from other groups.
Reflective questions
Facilitation and leadership
- What decisions need to be made?
- Will we have a designated leader to make decisions, or will we take collective responsibility for decision-making?
- How will we make decisions in the group?
- How will the roles and responsibilities be shared out? How will we decide who does what?
- Does our peer support need designated facilitators?
- What makes a good facilitator for our peer support group?
Peer or non-peer leadership
- Are group members willing and able to take on leadership roles?
- Will the peers in our group respond better to a peer or non-peer leader?
- How can members of the group be supported to feel confident to take on roles in the group?
- What processes do we have in place to support the safety of peers, and who is responsible?
- How will people taking on organisational roles or responsibilities be supported? For example, will they be supported by each other as a team, through links with other groups or facilitators, or by an umbrella organisation?
Training or no training
- What kind of skills are required to run the peer support? Do members already have any of those skills?
- Can we train existing leaders and peers aspiring to become leaders, or do we recruit leaders who already have the necessary skills?
- What resources can we put into training? This includes financial resources as well as skills and capacity to deliver training in-house.
- Who might be able to offer us this training or support?
- Can we connect and learn from other peer support groups?
Paid or voluntary
- What financial resources do we have for staff salaries and volunteer expenses?
- What type of leadership roles do we have in our peer support?
- How much responsibility are we asking people in leadership roles to take on?
- How much time are we expecting people to invest?
- How are the peers in our peer support likely to perceive people in leadership roles who are paid compared to those who volunteer?
- How will people in leadership roles be supported?
