Safety in peer support
What does safety mean in a peer support context?
The aim of peer support is to create physically and emotionally safe spaces. Ways of doing this include:
- Creating guidelines or ‘ground rules’ to address issues such as confidentiality and how peers can behave respectfully towards each other
- Reviewing meeting locations for privacy and accessibility
- Role modelling the way peers can share (or not share)
- Finding clarity over how peers may discuss particular topics (for example, the level of detail peers give about self-harm)
The knowledge that ‘what is shared in peer support, remains in peer support’ helps to create trust that allows people to express themselves without fear of judgement.
In some forms of peer support, the responsibility for ensuring ground rules are followed may rest with online moderators, group facilitators, or supervisors. In other forms of peer support, everyone collectively takes responsibility for creating a safe space.
Why is safety important in peer support?
We know that feeling safe within peer support is vital. Without the feeling of safety, peers will be unable to share their experiences and engage with the support others can offer. If people don’t feel safe in peer support, they will not use it. We can think about safety in 2 parts:
Being safe. Practical things that are designed to ensure the safety of everyone involved with peer support. These may include:
- decisions about where peer support happens
- decisions about when peer support happens
- a code of conduct around how peers behave towards each other
- guidelines to allow people to share their experiences safely
Feeling safe. How people feel when they’re taking part in peer support. This may include:
- feeling physically safe in the place where peer support happens
- feeling safe to talk about difficult experiences or emotions.
When enough thought goes into how peer support can be made safe, most people will eventually feel safe. However, there may be some people who never feel safe, and people involved in organising peer support should be sensitive to this.
"I think it’s important that everyone is able to trust one another and confidentiality is not broken. Sometimes you can say things that you wouldn’t want the wider community to know about… In this group, I think people can say what they want without the fear of that coming out."
What can safety look like in practice?
- Peer support for women who have experienced abuse from men, taking place in a women’s centre where men are not allowed, or have restricted access.
- Peer support for people who have struggled with alcohol, taking place in a venue where there is no access to alcohol, and which is not located close to a pub or bar.
- Peers holding a meeting to create clear ground rules on how their peer support will be conducted and how people will talk with each other. This could include an agreement on who will be responsible for upholding ground rules (everybody) and what should happen if one of those ground rules is either broken, or it turns out not to work in practice.
- Clear rules on an online forum against posting graphic pictures or text about self-harm.
- Introductions and expectation setting when somebody joins for the first time, to ensure they feel welcome.
Reflective questions
Venues – being safe
- Is the venue easy to get to and find?
- Can we get there using public transport?
- Who else uses the venue? Will people feel comfortable with other people in the venue?
- Is it private enough?
- Is it large enough?
- Is the venue accessible? For example, is there level access for people with disabilities? Are there accessible toilets?
- Is the venue staffed by people who could help if there is a difficulty?
- Is the venue culturally appropriate?
- Does the venue account for specific needs (for example, a women’s centre for women who have experienced domestic violence)?
- Is the platform you’re using secure and confidential?
- Do members have the right resources to join an online group (for example, headphones and webcams)?
Venues – feeling safe
- Does the venue feel welcoming?
- Does the venue feel too clinical?
- Do peers have any individual problems or issues with the venue?
- Is there access to a kitchen or refreshments?
- Is the venue in an area people feel safe accessing?
- Are members aware of how the online platform works?
- Do members have a safe and comfortable space to join an online group?
- Is there a safe space for people to go if they want to take a moment away from the group?
Are there ground rules?
Yes:
- Who wrote them?
- Have all current peers agreed to them, or had an opportunity to talk about them?
- How often are they revisited?
- What happens if someone breaks one of the ground rules?
- Do any of the ground rules need revising? Are they all working as intended?
No:
- Do we want or need ground rules for our peer support?
- What are the advantages of having or not having them?
- Who should be involved in writing them?
- How will we communicate our ground rules to everyone who needs to know about them?
- What will we do if someone breaks the ground rules?