Aims
Competences covered in this unit:
Ability to understand the values that underpin peer support and how they shape the ways in which peer support workers work with and support people.
Ability to understand that the peer support role is rooted in the development of an equal and trusting relationship, characterised by mutuality, reciprocity and respect.
Ability to draw on knowledge that peer support is recovery-focused, strengths-based and non-directive.
Ability to draw on experiential knowledge of the principles on which peer support is based:
- building safe and trusting relationships based on sharing lived experience of mental health difficulties and services
- respecting the diversity of each person’s experience, and their particular background or cultural context
- ensuring that relationships are built on the values of mutuality and reciprocity
- recognising and placing value on peers’ personal experiential knowledge
- enabling people who are supported to exercise choice, to make use of their own strengths, skills and strategies, and to build connections with their families, friends, support networks and wider communities
- working progressively to help people learn from their experience, and working inclusively by understanding the meaning of the person’s experience within the communities they belong to, and helping them to become (re)integrated into them
Underpinning understanding and knowledge for peer support workers
Communication and engagement skills
Working in partnership. Supporting people as a peer support worker
Self-care and support
Optional skills – using psychological approaches to support personal recovery