Specifically, peer support:
- Is informal support and reassurance from another (trained and supervised) parent who has relevant life experience, has active listening skills, and has the personal qualities needed to build and maintain trusting peer relationships with other parents.
- Involves warm, unconditional, and non-judgemental relationships based on mutual trust and respect “as one parent to another”
- Is different from simply being a friend – it is a relationship with a purpose that has clear ground rules and boundaries. Effective peer support requires skills and specific personal qualities that help parents develop self-worth, and choose their own steps forward to overcome any challenges they are facing
- Does not dwell on deficits or problems but seeks to build on and value each parent’s unique strengths, knowledge, experience, cultural background etc.
- Avoids being directive. A peer supporter does not give advice but enables a parent to explore their own situation and is often someone to lean on when struggling to cope.
- Is explicitly non-professional i.e., a peer support role doesn’t replace the role of a professional. Peer support sits alongside professional services and often provides a “bridge” e.g., a peer supporter might accompany a parent to a service that could be of benefit to them
- Involves connecting parents to activities going on in their local community that help parents to feel socially connected with others
- Involves sharing reliable, evidence-based information so that parents can make their own, informed decisions
Peer support is about both giving and receiving
Peer support is not only about helping another parent to feel valued, supported and socially connected, it is also about the peer supporter gaining a sense of personal satisfaction derived from offering empathy drawn from their own life experience. This includes personal development, new social networks, and training opportunities, which may lead to gaining a qualification or pathways to employment.