Perinatal Peer Support

The first of the perinatal peer support principles concerns balancing robust safeguarding structures with a friendly and welcoming environment that has human relationships at its centre. These are essentially two sides of the same coin: physical and emotional safety, being safe and feeling safe.

Principle two stipulates the need for every service to take proactive steps to increase accessibility for the specific group of women it is aiming to support. It discusses various potential barriers that need to be considered, and stresses that different peer support projects and services should work together collaboratively as the full range of peer support choices on offer will increase accessibility of peer support to individual mothers.

3.  Principle three describes how good perinatal peer support builds upon what makes it unique and distinct from clinical support. It should be holistic and flexible, adapting to the needs of individual families, and peer workers and mothers should decide together what outcomes they would like to achieve. In order for peer support within perinatal services to flourish, peer workers need positive relationships with clinicians in which both approaches are equally valued and respected.

Principle four explains how perinatal peer support should involve people with relevant lived experience in its design and delivery. This means that peer workers and mothers affected by perinatal mental health difficulties should lead decisions about how peer support happens within the service. This includes involvement at project management level and, wherever possible, mothers with lived experience should be skilled up to take on management positions. If this is not possible, they should be involved in the co-production and co-design of peer support work, as well as the service in which it takes place, and treated as equal partners throughout that process.

Principle five explores the ways in which peer workers can benefit from their involvement in peer support. Peer workers are not ‘providers’ of support in the same way that clinicians are and should be able to benefit from peer relationships, although they may not benefit in the same way as the mothers they are supporting. Some benefits peer workers might experience are increased confidence, a sense of purpose, and feeling helpful. Perinatal mental health services must recognise that offering peer support has an impact on peer workers’ own mental health and wellbeing, and take steps to ensure that the impact is a positive one. These steps must include providing adequate training and supervision.