Topic Tuesday // Let’s talk about systemic change: The Victorian Royal Commission // Tues 17th August, 7:00-8.30PM AEST

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@Mex wrote:

i don't know of you have to be crazy to want to be a peer worker, but it seems to be a pre requisite

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That's the point though, right? The whole idea of working as a "peer" is that you kinda get what the people you are working with are going through. Whether or not you call yourself "crazy" is a different matter though - sometimes I think that maybe I am the sane one 😉

Q4: The Royal Commission recommendations prioritise peer support at all levels. What does “peer support everywhere” look and feel like?

For a long time, peer support has often been the last thing you’re offered when you’re struggling. Usually after you’ve tried all the more expensive options – the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and so on.

And yet, there’s good evidence now that peer support is just as effective as those more mainstream offerings, and often cheaper to run.

‘Peer support everywhere’ is my way of saying, let’s build it into every step of the help-seeking path. What if we didn’t just tell people to ‘go see their GP’, but also directed them straight to peer communities like SANE’s peer support offerings and The Big Feels Club?

Q4: The Royal Commission recommendations prioritise peer support at all levels. What does “peer support everywhere” look and feel like? (continued)

Peer support is built into so many other areas of life. Like coffee groups for new parents. We know that being a new parent can be scary and confusing, and we know that support from others in the thick of it can be really helpful. What if this were just as commonplace in mental health?

The Royal Commission has built peer support into its model of community care (Recommendation 5) which is a great start. Primary Health Networks (PHNs) are also starting to do more in this space, so wherever you are in Australia, there’s a chance there will be more peer support offerings in development soon.

Plus, look at these SANE forums! You’re doing peer support right here. So it’s about continuing to support that change.

Q4: The Royal Commission recommendations prioritise peer support at all levels. What does “peer support everywhere” look and feel like? (continued)

Now, to answer @Kermit's question from before about supporting peer workers...

This is me with my consultant hat on – having helped set up and evaluate dozens of peer services across Australia and NZ. You're bang on. As we create more peer support services, we have to make sure they don’t lose what makes them special in the first place.

When you’re working in a clinical system as a peer worker, there are all sorts of pressures (some obvious, some subtle) to get you to work more like a clinician (to focus on symptoms and medications, for instance, rather than sitting with the discomfort of not always having an answer or a fix). The whole point of peer support is it’s different to clinical work, and we need to protect this difference.

So it’s really important we give our peer support workers training and ongoing support that is in line with the values of peer support. See Recommendation 6 in the interim report, which is aiming to enhance workforce support for lived experience workers. (This is actually already underway, and there are other movements in this direction in other states.)

Q5: You have had such a journey in the lived experience workforce @BigFeelsClub to get to where you are. What advice would you give yourself when starting out?

Q5: You have had such a journey in the lived experience workforce @BigFeelsClub to get to where you are. What advice would you give yourself when starting out?

Working in mental health has been some of the hardest work I've ever done, and some of the most meaningful work I've ever done. Often all at once!

I've almost quit mental health half a dozen times, and keep coming back.

What's helped me the most, at every step of my career, has been connecting with my peers. People who, like me, are in there doing the work from a very personal perspective, some days wondering why *they* haven’t quit either.

We talk tactics, we vent. It is supremely important both to my effectiveness in the work, and to my wellbeing.

Hi @little_sparrow,

I hope that it comes as a reassurance to those I support, that I have lived experiences of my own! I personally think it's so important for others to know they're understood and not alone when going through a difficult time. Are you involved in the peer space as well?

from cloudcore

Q5: You have had such a journey in the lived experience workforce @BigFeelsClub to get to where you are. What advice would you give yourself when starting out?

So my advice to my younger self would be: it’s going to be hard sometimes. And it’s going to touch some sore spots. But it will also give you a chance to make meaning from some of the most difficult times in your life. And to contribute to other people going through that same hard stuff.

Just don’t try to do it alone!

If you’re working in mental health (or thinking about it) you don’t need heaps of peers, but one or two can make all the difference.