The Peer Support Group has been running since early May 2022. I wanted to set up the group as I had experienced the positive impact of such a group in a previous placement. I initially approached our Recovery College Lead Gemma to get things in motion and the group has been meeting weekly since then.
The Peer Support Group offers service users a space where they can feel heard and supported by individuals who are experiencing and going through a similar phase within their mental health journey and recovery.
The layout of the sessions start with a brief explanation as to what Peer Support Group is, its benefit to service users and examples as to how they can be used. We then do a ‘Check-In’ whereby, one by one, individuals rate their week with a number ranging from 1 to 10, since when we last met. With this rating the individual explains how their week has been and how they came about that number. This part of the session gives individuals a chance to have a voice and time to share their week’s journey with likeminded individuals whom are willing to listen to both, negatives and positives. This opens the floor for other participant’s to be encouraging and offer advice, information or guidance relating to what an individual has shared.
We then move on to picking an activity (usually interactive games; such as Pictionary, Dobble and The Logo Game). This provides fun interaction between peers, with healthy competition, sportsmanship and encouragement. We hope to engage each other to relax and ease any tensions that may have been built up during the day or week leading up to the Peer Support Group session.
The final part of this session is a ‘Check-Out’, whereby we individually rate our mood from 1 to 10 whilst revisiting our initial ‘Check-In’ numbers and see whether these have changed which is one of the goals. Finally we each share an encouraging word to take forward into the week.
As the co-producer of this group I believe that Peer Support is beneficial on the basis that it is an interactive engaging session, where peers come together to give voice to their individual experiences, collectively as a group. With a main aim to encourage and support each other on our individual journeys through our shared experiences.