Understanding the key components of peer support

Thanks for sharing your experience Mandy.
Reflecting on our experiences needs to be done in a way that enables us to feel safe to be vulnerable and open, so I guess that not only do we need to be ready to undertake that journey ourselves, but also the provision needs to be there to support us as we take those steps.

Your comment has also made me consider that, as we reflect on our own experience and maybe consider how things could have been different, how do we ensure that we don't try to 'fix' these things by trying to prevent them happening for others?

Thanks Zoe.
I guess they have to be in the right place, ready to do that exploration?
How do you recruit volunteers with that in mind?

That's really interesting Rachel. Thank you for sharing your insights.
I guess it depends on the reason the person needs support.
I imagine that effective support from someone with lived experience may be very different to the support provided by someone without though. The question may be, does that matter?
It makes me wonder what it is about lived experience that has an effect by itself, aside from anything else.
I also wonder if the reason volunteers seek out the volunteer opportunity is different? Do you explore that at all in your recruitment or training?

That's really interesting Shelley. Thanks for your comments.
I agree that there's huge value for the volunteers in being able to explore their own experiences in a holistic way.
I assume that recruitment is an essential part of the volunteer programme. Do the volunteers need to be open to this self-exploration or can they develop that during training? What do you do if you realise that a volunteer, part way through training, is struggling with this or has problems with parts of their own experience? How do you manage that?

I am very interested in the question 'what is a peer?' and you have really made me think about that. I guess I had thought that as a parent peer supporter, you must be a parent, but as you say there may be other 'peer' aspects of the relationship which may be more relevant.

How do you assess what a parent needs in order to match them?

Hi Natalie - thanks for your response. Yes - definitely recruitment, recruitment, recruitment! We have found it to be such a key element to the the success of the programme. The beauty of recruiting for a voluntary peer support role is that you are not restricted to typical recruitment requirements such as minimum education, experience etc - we can very much recruit for specific qualities which are essential - such as communication, empathy, non-judgmental etc. We use a 4 week taster course to provide an opportunity for volunteers to get to know the programme and equally for us to learn a little more about them. The whole programme is based upon the ethos of open honest relationships and volunteers do need to be open to this style - however it takes a little time for the trust to develop fully in order to be able to do this properly, which is understandable when people are sharing their vulnerabilities etc. This is part of the reason why our training is 26 weeks long in order for sufficient time to build trust and reflect on personal experiences etc. We have clear pathways for volunteers and we are really open about what skills we need to see demonstrated before we can match.
we provide opportunity for community support which would involve shadowing experienced staff or volunteers - and we are strict about not matching for 1-1 support unless a volunteer is the right place and are not afraid to have open, strengths based conversations around this. Quite often the volunteers will recognise this themselves through reflection and plans can be put in place to support with development. We also provide options for volunteers to take steps back if need to whilst remaining in touch with the programme - community champions, this allows them to be honest with us without 'letting the programme' down - if that makes sense?

We offer a range of support services and community ones such as coffee morning or hospital based peer support aren't assessed on individual needs. However for 1-1 support an in-depth assessment is undertaken by 2 co-o-ordinators, preferably within the parents homes (via telephone during covid). The beauty of having a staff team who are also trained peer supporters allows the peer support skills to be used from the outset, so whilst the assesment is thorough & in depth, it does not feel like a typical assessment to the parents. We record an initial score around key topics, and re-visit these during the support for evaluation.

With regard to the 'peer' element - as I said each parent is individual and sometime a parent can have a lot of 'parental peers' around them, within the family or socially (friends or siblings with babies etc)- however they aren't providing the right support they need at that point on their parenting journey.

Hope all of this helps & makes sense!

Love the idea of Mamma Champions ❤️ Definitely agree with your comments re training also.

Yes, I like the Mamma Champions too. That sounds like a great way to value that support, but to understand that it is different to peer support.

I like what you have said there too Aayesha, that "your empathy comes from a place of truly knowing". I think that really identifies the essence of peer support.

In your experience Aayesha, do you find that volunteers are always able to explore their own experiences? Have you encountered a situation where they are not ready to do that with certain aspects of their experience? If so, how did you manage that?

Generally speaking, I think our course and the ongoing mentorship that peer supporters get allows them to explore their experiences in detail. Some may not feel comfortable talking about some aspects of their experience in a group setting, so trainers delivering the course will ensure they provide lots of opportunities for 1-1 support. The majority of the mums who trained with us were supported in their breastfeeding journey at some point by our organisation, so we have a good idea of their background and their birth/feeding story before they begin training.

Generally speaking, I think our course and the ongoing mentorship that peer supporters get allows them to explore their experiences in detail. Some may not feel comfortable talking about some aspects of their experience in a group setting, so trainers delivering the course will ensure they provide lots of opportunities for 1-1 support. The majority of the mums who trained with us were supported in their breastfeeding journey at some point by our organisation, so we have a good idea of their background and their birth/feeding story before they begin training.

Thanks Terina.

Thanks Emma, that's really interesting. It's got me thinking a lot!

It's great to hear that your volunteers have such a positive experience themselves, which surely reflects on the families they support. Do you evaluate the experience of the peer supporters? And if so, in what way?

It's also interesting what you have described about those without lived experience providing support, perhaps in a different way. Do you think those without lived experience can still be described as peer supporters? Does the role of peer supporter require lived experience or is the peer aspect evident in other ways (e.g. ethnicity, cultural experience, etc)?

No problem at all.

Yes we do evaluations before, during and after the 26 weeks of training and then throughout Continued Learning too. We use scales to look at confidence etc and track and record data around volunteers future paths ie university or paid employment. 100% of our staff team began as volunteers for the programme.
We also regularly collate feedback from the team of volunteers and have a neutral post of Volunteer Rep to ensure people can feedback anonymously as well, this helps us to identify where changes might be necessary and allows us to maximise volunteer satisfaction. I always say "volunteering should be something you get out of bed in a morning and look forward to, if it isn't, we as a programme are doing something wrong or need to be offering some additional support".

We do still call our volunteers who aren't parents "peer supporters" as they bring lived experiences in other areas, trauma and loss, mental health or cultural experience for example. Once a family or parent has been assessed we carefully match them to a volunteer so this would be taken into account in the matching process. The lengthy training also allows those without children to hear lots of experiences of those who are so this is really beneficial too.

Thanks Emma, would you be willing/able to share with me the tools/surveys that you use for your volunteer evaluations?

Hi Natalie, as we are an affiliate of Parents 1st, you will find all of our tools in the Guides section on this website. We also provide plenty of opportunities for volunteers to feedback and evaluate freely, so for example, we may ask in a supervision how they are finding things as a volunteer in the pandemic. As a result we have some really powerful qualitative feedback as well as quantitative evaluation data. Hope this helps, we often share feedback on our Facebook page Derby Community Parent Programme so please also feel free to have a nosey on there :-)

Thanks Emma. I will check out the tools on the website.
I'm not on Facebook, but I would love to see some of the feedback if you are comfortable to share it. I'm in the 'recruiting and managing volunteers' group space, so perhaps you can share it there next time too?

Thanks Debbie. It's interesting isn't it, how we may have lived experience as peer supporters, but we don't use it in a way which may influence someone's choices because we're still trying to ensure that we support families to make their own decisions using evidence-based information.

I wonder how we ensure that our own experiences don't 'get in the way'. Do you think that might be about ensuring that training and ongoing supervision offers peer supporters the opportunity to explore their own experiences?
How do we maintain our own peer experience without it negatively influencing information we give?