A reflection on the development and delivery of a community peer support service for clients experiencing anxiety and depression

A reflection on the development and delivery of a community peer support service for clients experiencing anxiety and depression Nicky Lidbetter, Nic Seccombe, Ember Girling Rogers, Tina Lee Mental Health and Social Inclusion, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.- The purpose of this paper is to describe the development, implementation, delivery and evolution of a community-led, comprehensive, peer support service, including co-production approaches, peer support worker role development, outcomes, acceptability and lessons learnt over a five-year timeframe. This case study presents a reflection on a charity’s peer support service development along with outcomes to highlight client progress. Improvement in well-being as measured through the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) was evidenced along with demonstrating that the peer support service offers complementary support to Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. There was limited quantitative data, and that which existed was analysed on a service-wide basis as opposed to looking at individual components of the service. This paper demonstrates the value of peer support provision as part of an overall primary care, community-based mental health service, including findings that suggest that for some individuals, where IAPT services did not help them as much, a peer-based service appeared to be more suitable. The peer support servic...
Source: Mental Health and Social Inclusion - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: research