Skip to main content

What is family peer support?

What is family peer support?

  1. A family peer is an expert by experience and provides support grounded in mutual understanding, shared experience and non-judgemental practice. Family peer supporters provide one to one family peer support. One to one family peer support includes emotional support, practical coping skills, information and advice around how to navigate the service and link with appropriate community resources. We work with family members from a strength based recovery focus ethos meeting the person where they are at in their own recovery journey.
  2. Family peer supporters also provide opportunities for families of people with mental health difficulties to meet through organising wellness days, group work and information evenings. This is because the evidence in terms of family recovery shows that families who reach out meet others in the same situation and educate themselves do better in terms of their own recovery, wellness and reduced sense of stigma.
  3. The family peers supporters advocate for change in the service to encourage family friendly practice. This is in line with numerous studies which show that communication between service providers in mental health and families need improving.