View Issue: Peer Support

What is peer support?

Peer support is social/emotional support, frequently coupled with material support - e.g., financial resources or housing - that is mutually offered or provided by persons who have psychiatric disabilities to others who have similar conditions to bring about a desired social or personal change.

What are concrete examples of peer support?

Peer support is generally thought of as being provided through self-help groups.
There are diverse self-help groups for a variety of problems. These include groups developed under such organizations as Schizophrenics Anonymous; Recovery, Inc.; the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (formerly the National Depressive & Manic Depressive Association); GROW; and Alcoholics Anonymous. There are also Double Trouble groups (for people with both psychiatric disabilities and substance abuse disorders). In addition, there are many groups that are not connected with any of these organizations.
Self-help groups are defined as voluntary small group structures for mutual aid in the accomplishment of a specific purpose.
Generally, these groups are formed by peers who get together to satisfy a specific need, overcome a specific problem, and/or bring about personal or social change.

Today there is an expanded definition of peer support, which includes peer-delivered services and peer-run or -operated services.

What are peer-delivered services?

Peer-delivered services are services provided by individuals who identify themselves as having mental illnesses, are receiving or have received mental health services for their mental illnesses, and deliver services for the primary purpose of helping others with mental illnesses.
Examples of peer-run services are drop-in centers, crisis services, and employment services.
Peer-run or -operated services are services that are planned, operated, managed by people with psychiatric disorders.
Peer-delivered services may also include partnering with non-peers, but peers still maintain control of the service. These may be called peer-partnership services.
Peer employees are individuals who identify as peers and are hired by non-peer agencies, e.g., community mental health centers. Peers may be hired into designated peer positions or traditional clinical positions.
Peers serve as case managers, outreach workers, and mobile crisis workers, among other possibilities.

Are peer-support services effective?

Most effectiveness studies of self-help groups have found positive outcomes for participants. The results for persons with severe psychiatric diagnoses are somewhat more tentative, only because there is less research and because the existing research is based on uncontrolled studies.

There is limited rigorous research on peer-operated services, but what research there is seems to indicate that they have the potential for being effective. For example, the few experimental studies that have been conducted indicate that peer-provided services are as effective as non-peer-provided services.

When peers are added to teams of mental health providers or when peer-provided services are coupled with traditional mental health services, the outcomes for recipients are enhanced.

The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health identified peer-operated services as an emerging best practice, as there is not enough research to support them as an evidence-based practice.

How is peer support related to community integration of persons with severe mental illnesses?

Peer support offers positive role models for persons with severe mental illnesses.
Peer support is a means to assist persons with severe mental illnesses to combat negative self-images or self-stigma.
With more positive self-images, persons with severe mental illnesses are more likely to engage in productive roles as a part of the larger community, rather than isolating themselves.
Peer support is a way to fight societal stigma, by providing support to other peers to advocate for changes and by offering positive images of peers to non-peers. Peer employees can impact negative attitudes of mental health providers.

Explore some of these links for further information about peer support:

http://www.mhselfhelp.org/self.html

http://www.peersupport.org

http://www.nasmhpd.org/general_files/publications/ntac_pubs/reports/peer support practices final.pdf

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