Lived experience, shared strength
Bringing lived experience into the heart of how services are designed, delivered, researched and evaluated
Increase your reach, impact and connection with the people you want to support
The pandemic underlined the challenges of loneliness, stigma and disconnection for everyone.
Many of our traditional health interventions have had limited impact on these.
Peer support is an approach that has been overwhelmingly proven to increase feelings of hope, connection and belonging.
“The relationship built with the peer researchers, and supporting us to strengthen our ability to work with peer researchers. As an organisation we have been upskilled, which is so invaluable. ”
What is Peer and Lived Experience work?
Peer work involves people supporting, researching and shaping services alongside others who share similar experiences of health and social challenges. It covers peer support roles, peer research and evaluation, and lived experience engagement and leadership at every level of an organisation.
What makes this work excellent is using people's lived experience as the foundation, whether they are supporting someone one to one, leading a focus group or helping set a national strategy.
How we can assist you
No matter what stage of a project life cycle your organisation is in, we can provide you with customised support that focuses on your organisation's needs and requirements.
Examples:
Support to launch a programme or project involving peer workers, for any organisation type.
Quality assurance and evaluation of peer services and peer roles.
Recruiting, training and mentoring peer researchers to lead research and evaluation with the communities you serve.
Lived experience engagement and co-production, from community listening sessions to lived experience advisory groups.
Sustainability planning to increase peer staff retention and quality of service delivery.
Recruitment and hiring consultation, ensuring high quality peer workers.
Bespoke training and peer leadership development, designed with you to suit your organisation.
The benefits of high-quality peer support services for organisations
Meet the needs of disconnected communities.
Improve the sustainability of activities.
Increase capacity of community to help themselves.
Create meaningful employment and voluntary opportunities for the community served.
Smoother transitions for people moving on from NHS services.
Greater retention of peer support staff.
Better team working and improved workplace readiness.
Government
Build peer support into national and regional strategy.
Services shaped by the people who use them.
Evidence to guide investment and scaling.
Stronger trust with communities that services find hard to reach.
“Although they helped us to successfully apply for significant funding, it is the personal and management support, peer leadership, co-development and mentoring, that has stood out most for me. The value of that in our new and developing project has been huge.”
As international experts in peer support programmes and lived experience work, we have significant experience supporting organisations to launch, develop, research and evaluate peer and lived experience approaches in the following sectors:
Addictions / substance use / harm reduction
Mental health (hospital/clinics/community)
Youth services
Human trafficking and sexual exploitation
Housing and homelessness
Violence against women and girls
Disability
Immigrants and refugees
Justice and crime
LGBTQI+
Older people
Suicide prevention
The benefits of high-quality peer support
Increased knowledge, skills, and confidence
Feelings of hope, empowerment and connection
Improved quality of life and emotional resilience
Increased sense of connection and less loneliness
Self-reported greater levels of recovery
Paid roles and skills that value lived experience as expertise
Reduced impact from substance use
Less self-stigma
Greater self-esteem and confidence through making a positive impact on others
More feelings of equality in relationships
Gaining helpful knowledge from other peers
Access to an International Network
Hundreds of peer workers, peer researchers and lived experience leaders are part of the Habitus network, including through the International Peer Leadership Network.
“Every story a peer shares is like sending a lifeboat out into the ocean
to all those people that are struggling in silence.
Peer support pulls them into the boat and helps
them realise that they are not alone.”
— Peer Leader