Did you know that the Leeds Mind’s Peer Support Team uses their 25+ years’ knowledge of Lived Experience/Peer Support services to support other organisations?
Our team are recognised locally and nationally for the delivery of Peer Support training, with extensive experience developing and delivering courses and workshops.
If you are looking to set up a Lived Experience/Peer Support service or you would like to increase the skills of your staff already offering peer support (1-1 or group), we would like to share our expertise.
So far we have facilitated training and groups for student mentors, support staff, mental health first aiders, carers, volunteers, NHS staff and emergency services staff. We have provided our consultancy services to colleges, charities and emergency services.
What is Peer Support?
By ‘peer support’ we mean people like employees, volunteers, members (and others) offering support to one another in a mutual space as part of the organisation. Peer support gives people the chance to talk to others who have a shared experience.
Our peer support model can be adapted for an individual organisation’s support needs (and those of employees/volunteers/members) and our sessions are facilitated by our trained experts with lived experience of mental health.
Benefits of using the peer support model in your organisation include:
- Creating a platform to offer mutual support and understanding
- Increased resilience and improved working environments, which can also help reduce sickness absence and burnout
Organisations can continue their own peer support groups independently (or with flexible support from us) after our initial training has taken place.
Key features of our training:
- Understanding Peer Support Principles
Participants delve into the philosophy of peer support, learning the importance of mutuality, active listening, and fostering a safe, non-judgmental environment.
- Lived Experience as a Strength
The training emphasizes the power of shared experiences. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their own mental health journeys and use these insights to connect authentically with others.
- Core Skills Development
Sessions focus on practical skills such as active listening, setting boundaries, managing group dynamics, and recognizing signs of distress while maintaining a supportive stance.
- Inclusive and Accessible
Our training is open to people from all backgrounds, ensuring that everyone, regardless of prior experience, feels welcome and empowered to contribute.
- Support Beyond Training
Leeds Mind doesn’t stop at the initial training; organisations are offered further ongoing sessions for peer supporters including skills and best practice top-ups and group supervision.
How can we help?
We offer a range of training and support to help organisations develop and sustain peer support which include:
- Consultancy for organisations in the development and implementation of peer support
- Training for employees or volunteers in how to establish and manage 1-1 or group peer support
- Group supervision of your peer support staff
- Lived Experience mental health-related courses and workshops for your staff, members or volunteers
- Facilitation of your peer support group or network, if desired
We can support you from start to finish. We will help you to develop your process and group or 1-to-1 support, point out areas of improvement and things to look out for and advise on policy and procedures. We will also train your staff or volunteers and help you to develop success monitoring strategies.
Our training is modular, which means we can deliver individual sessions to support the development of your staff or volunteer skills and practices, ensuring group or 1-to-1 support quality is consistent, boundaries are respected and group or 1-to-1 safety is prioritised.
What do we offer?
- Developing Peer Group Leadership Skills – 3 hours
Introduction to peer support, situational leadership, and stages of group development to build confidence and lead a group safely and effectively while avoiding negative relationship patterns.
- Developing Group Facilitation Skills – 3 hours
Focus on the responsibilities and skills needed to facilitate a smooth session. Develop skills such as empathic listening and non-verbal communication. Discuss common scenarios and challenges within peer support.
- Developing Peer Group Boundaries – 3 hours
This module explores how to look after yourself as a Peer Support facilitator. It includes explanations of burnout, compassion fatigue and boundaries. You will learn techniques for setting and maintaining boundaries and developing self-care routines.
- Peer Group Facilitation Practice – 2 hours
Practice your facilitation skills with a 20-minute micro-session. Receive feedback and reflect using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle.
- Support Group Training – 3 Hours
Understand what a Support Group is. Learn the ground rules, the importance of the topic list and how to facilitate “Taking Time”.
- 1-1 Peer Support Training – 3 hours
Preparation to support ad-hoc 1-to-1 opportunities. This training covers areas specific to 1-to-1 support such as managing endings, boundaries, knowing your own limits, setting an agenda for a session and goal setting. We also explore different models that could be used in 1-to-1 support.
- Group Supervision – 2 Hours
Our Peer Support staff can facilitate a session with your team who are using peer support which gives them the opportunity to: get together; reflect, discuss difficult conversations; share best practices; go through some live and past cases and discuss challenges and their solutions.
- Peer Support Consultancy
One-off or regular meetings to support you to implement a peer support/lived experience model in your organisation.
If you are interested in discussing peer support training for your workplace or organisation, please get in touch with our training team via peersupporttraining@leedsmind.org.uk
Lived experience informs our sessions
All of our trainers have personal experiences with mental health difficulties and will share these in an appropriate way in the sessions that we offer. Training participants have consistently benefitted from this lived experience approach. When asked “Have you found it helpful that the group facilitators have lived experience of mental health?” previous participants have said:
- It makes the training feel more personal and real. People can relate to the things being spoken about and having someone that understands is very helpful.
- Yes as the groups we will be working with are likely to have some MH issues surrounding their experiences that have brought them to the group and so recognition and understanding is paramount and guide towards specialist-trained support if the peer support triggers a reaction.
- I think it probably enables others to feel comfortable about sharing their own experience.
- Yes it was helpful as it was helpful to see how they relate those lived experiences to professional practice and group facilitation.
- It is helpful as trauma has a huge psychological effect as well as physical injury or illness and so important to understand that in the training.
- Yes, the empathy shown by the facilitator was influential in encouraging the engagement and open participation of the group.
- Yes I found it helped because the explanations used were from real-life experiences and would help the trainees to understand how they can use their own experiences in a similar way.
The feedback around training
- It was really useful and really interesting. It will guide us in starting up peer support in a safe and successful manner and give real guidelines to work with.
Thank you. It was very helpful. In particular, I knew there were some communication issues within our group, but I had been quite unsure about how to address them. I feel a bit more confident about doing this now.
Excellent, well-paced, well-presented and provided in a form that can be applied to real-life situations.
I thoroughly enjoyed the training and it also helped me visit some areas of my own life that still needed healing and the methods discussed were useful for this
Getting started
If you think your workplace could benefit from peer support training, we would love to hear from you. For a no-obligation discussion about our training offering or to book please email peersupporttraining@leedsmind.org.uk.
