Our publications about peer support
Peer Hub CIC's Peer Support Implementation Guide combines knowledge from user-led, grassroots peer support with expertise in implementing programmes in statutory sectors. It provides an introduction to the key workstreams and requirements for building a best practice, values-based peer support programme in organisations that provide peer support in statutory or corporate sectors.
Featuring Peer Hub's 8 Pillars of Peer Support Professionalisation, the guide introduces the areas that mental health providers should consider when introducing a peer workforce. Its simple and accessible format will support peer leadership, service designers, policy writers and other decision makers to implement peer support in way that holds fidelity to its roots in grassroots communities and human rights movements.
Peer Support: Resources
Our guide to good resources on peer support from the rich knowledge base of grassroots communities and user-led research.
Coming Soon...QuickGuides
Coming soon to our Peer Hub resource guide, our Peer Support QuickGuides that offer quick overviews of elements peer support practice, including:
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Myths and Legends about Peer Workforces
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Employers Guide to Safe and Ethical Workplaces
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Peer Support Role Profiles and Career Structures
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Peer Leadership and Other Lived Experience Leadership Roles
Resources from Other Sources
Seminal Works
User-led Guidance on Peer Support
Resources from the UK
National Survivor User Network (website)
A selection of resources ranging from online peer support to partnership working with user-led organisations
Inclusion Barnett: Peer Support in Practice (Implementation Guide)
A user-led implementation guide based on qualitative research with peer supporters and their colleagues
Ahluwalia, A. (2018) Peer Support in Practice (Implementation Guide), Inclusion Barnett: Available here
Together UK have produced a range of publications on peer support, some commissioned by other organisations or written in partnership, including:
Basset, T., Faulkner, F., Repper, J. and Stamou, E. (2010) Lived Experience Leading The Way Peer Support in Mental Health
Faulkner A (2012) ‘The Freedom to be, the Chance to Dream’: Preserving User-led Peer Support in Mental Health
http://www.tokatu.org.nz/tokatu/pdf/Faulkner-Peer-Support.pdf
Peer 2 Peer (Scottish Recovery Network)
Co-produced resources for peer support
https://www.scottishrecovery.net/peer-support/
Resources from Around the World
Intentional Peer Support
A user-led organisation originating from the psychiatric survivor movement, IPS has a range of resources that have been instrumental in developing peer support resources and perspectives
https://www.intentionalpeersupport.org/resources/?v=79cba1185463
Based in New Zealand, Peer Zone is an international organisation with a wealth of resources for peer support
Engaging Women in Trauma Informed Peer Support
A guidebook on developing trauma informed peer support for women
Blanch, A., Filson, B., Penney, D. (2012) Engaging Women in Trauma Informed Peer Support: Available here
Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network
A range of resources from the long-established peer network in Georgia, USA
Formerly the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community, the Wildflower Alliance is an established user-led organisation in the USA with a range of resources and trainings available
https://wildfloweralliance.org
Peer Respite Manuals:
Peer Respite Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Supporting and Building Peer Respites
Davidow, Sera. Peer Respite Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Developing and Supporting Peer Respites. Western Mass Recovery Learning community. Denver: Outskirts Press, 2017. Available to purchase here
Stepping Stone Crisis Respite Training Manual: A Guide For A Consumer Directed And Operated Service Alternative. Burlington, VT: Trinity College of Vermont, Center for Community Change through Housing and Support.
Peer Support Professionalisation
Resources exploring professional roles for peer support
Faulkner, Alison & Basset, Thurstine. (2012). A long and honourable history. Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, The. 7. 53-59. 10.1108/17556221211236448. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242023277_A_long_and_honourable_history
Gillard, S. (2019) Peer support in mental health services: where is the research taking us, and do we want to go there?, Journal of Mental Health,28:4, 341-344, DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2019.1608935
Daniels, A., Grant, E., Filson, B., Powell, I., Fricks, L., Goodale, L. (Ed) (2010) Pillars of Peer Support: Transforming Mental Health Systems of Care Through Peer Support Services findings of the Carter Centre Peer Support Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, US available from https://power2u.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PillarsOfPeerSupportServiceReport.pdf
Penney, D (2018) Defining “Peer Support”: Implications for Policy, Practice, and Research, Advocates for Human Potential https://www.ahpnet.com/AHPNet/media/AHPNetMediaLibrary/White%20Papers/DPenney_Defining_peer_support_2018_Final.pdf
Penney, D., & Prescott, L. (2016). The co-optation of survivor knowledge: The danger of substituted values and voice. In J. Russo & A. Sweeney (Eds.), Searching for a rose garden: Challenging psychiatry, fostering mad studies (p. 35–45). PCCS Books.https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-09162-005
Recovery in the Bin
Hart, A (2020) NSUN Response to the Competency Framework for Mental Health Peer Support Workers NSUN website: https://www.nsun.org.uk/news/response-to-competence-framework-for-mh-psws
Repper, J. (2013) Peer Support Workers: Theory and Practice Centre for Mental Health and Mental Health Network, NHS Confederation 2013. Available from the ImROC website: https://imroc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/5ImROC-Peer-Support-Workers-Theory-and-Practice.pdf
Peer Support Practice
Including collectively agreed values, principles or frameworks
User-led approach to peer support groups including group charter and training provider.
https://www.hearing-voices.org
User-led approach to peer support with fidelity framework including principles & tasks, training, competencies and co-reflection guidance.
https://www.intentionalpeersupport.org
Alternatives to Suicide
User-led approach to peer support groups including training.
https://wildfloweralliance.org
Recovery Focussed Peer Support
Co-produced framework for peer support including values and training materials.
Trauma Informed Peer Support for Mental Health Systems
User-led approach to peer support in statutory services with fidelity framework including relational values, training, competencies, supervision and policy guidance.
User-led, collectively agreed values developed by the Sussex Partnership and NSUN
https://recovery-partners.co.uk/resources/
Research & Service Evaluations
Gillard S, Edwards C, Gibson S, et al. New ways of working in mental health services: a qualitative, comparative case study assessing and informing the emergence of new peer worker roles in mental health services in England. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2014 Jul. (Health Services and Delivery Research, No. 2.19.) Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK373837/doi: 10.3310/hsdr02190
Gillard, S. G., Edwards, C., Gibson, S. L., Owen, K., & Wright, C. (2013). Introducing peer worker roles into UK mental health service teams: a qualitative analysis of the organisational benefits and challenges. BMC health services research, 13, 188. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-188
Gillard, S., Holley, J., Gibson, S., Larsen, J., Lucock, M., Oborn, E., Rinaldi, M., & Stamou, E. (2015). Introducing New Peer Worker Roles into Mental Health Services in England: Comparative Case Study Research Across a Range of Organisational Contexts. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 42(6), 682-694. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-014-0603-z
Kemp, V., & Henderson, A. R. (2012). Challenges faced by mental health peer support workers: Peer support from the peer supporter's point of view. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 35(4), 337–340. https://doi.org/10.2975/35.4.2012.337.340
McClean, J, Biggs, H, Pratt, R, Maxwell, W (Unknown) Evaluations of the Delivering for Mental Health Peer Support Worker Pilot Scheme
Scottish Government https://recoverydevon.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Peer_Support_Evaluation_Scotland.pdf
National Voices: Peer Support - What Is It And Does It Work
RAND: Evaluation of the peer worker programme at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/documented_briefings/2012/RAND_DB651.pdf
Recovery Partners: A Place of Calm Evaluation
https://recovery-partners.co.uk/mailouts/Anna/PlaceofCalmFinalReport.pdf
Discussion, Blogs & Opinion
Websites hosting blogs and articles with critical discussion about mental health, including lived experience writing and items about peer support:
National Survivor User Network (NSUN) member blogs:
https://www.nsun.org.uk/Pages/Category/members-blogs?Take=48
Mad in America
Recovery in the Bin
Asylum Magazine
Mad Covid
https://madcovid.wordpress.com
Critical testimonies from peer supporters employed in the UK:
Anonymous blogs from Recovery in the Bin: "Mental Health Peer Workers: Our Lived Experience"
https://recoveryinthebin.org/2018/11/07/mental-health-peer-workers-our-lived-experience-part-1/
https://recoveryinthebin.org/2018/11/09/mental-health-peer-workers-our-lived-experience-part-2/
Personal testimony from Lorna Collins "Assault and Exploitation: My Peer Worker Experience" published by Mad in America:
https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/03/assault-exploitation-peer-worker-experience/
Personal testimony from Hollie Berrigan "Back from the Brink" published on her blog The Main Offender.
https://themainoffenderblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/17/back-from-the-brink/
A selection of publications discussing peer support implemention and practice:
Deegan, P. E. (1992). The independent living movement and people with psychiatric disabilities: Taking back control over our own lives. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 15(3), 3–19.
Faulkner, A. and Basset, T. (2012), A helping hand: taking peer support into the 21st century, Mental Health and Social Inclusion, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 41-47. https://doi.org/10.1108/20428301211205892
Faulkner, Alison & Basset, Thurstine. (2012). A long and honourable history. Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, The. 7. 53-59. 10.1108/17556221211236448. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242023277_A_long_and_honourable_history
Gillard, S. (2019) Peer support in mental health services: where is the research taking us, and do we want to go there?, Journal of Mental Health,28:4, 341-344, DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2019.1608935
Penney, D (2018) Defining “Peer Support”: Implications for Policy, Practice, and Research, Advocates for Human Potential https://www.ahpnet.com/AHPNet/media/AHPNetMediaLibrary/White%20Papers/DPenney_Defining_peer_support_2018_Final.pdf
Penney, D., & Prescott, L. (2016). The co-optation of survivor knowledge: The danger of substituted values and voice. In J. Russo & A. Sweeney (Eds.), Searching for a rose garden: Challenging psychiatry, fostering mad studies (p. 35–45). PCCS Books.https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-09162-005
MacNeil, C. and Mead S (2005), A Narrative Approach to Developing Standards for Trauma-Informed Peer Support, American Journal of Evaluation https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1098214005275633
O’Hagan, M., McKee, H., & Priest, R. (2009). Consumer survivor initiatives in Ontario: Building for an equitable future. Toronto: Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health & Addiction Programs.