Peer support and recovery: perspectives of peer support workers, patients and non-peer professionals

Birgitte LERBÆK¹, Alice Katrine BURHOLT¹, Kirsten JOHANSEN^1,2, Mike SLADE^3,4, Stynke CASTELEIN^5,6, Rikke JØRGENSEN^1,7

¹Unit for Psychiatric Research, Psychiatry, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark
²Unit for Forensic Research, Mental Health Department Middelfart, Psychiatry Region of Southern Denmark, Middelfart, Denmark
³School of Health Sciences, Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
⁴Nord University, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Health and Community Participation Division, Namsos, Norway
⁵Lentis Research, Lentis Psychiatric Institute, Groningen, Netherlands
⁶Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
⁷Department of Clinical Medicine, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Dominica

In September 2020 peer support workers were employed in eight new FACT teams in mental health services in the North Denmark Region. The peer support workers were all paid workers in permanent positions, employed 20 h pr. week working alongside the non-peer professionals in the teams. As all other newly employed staff, they were appointed a mentor.

Shortly hereafter, a 4-year research program “Peer Support and Recovery 2021 - 2024” was initiated with the overall purpose to investigate peer support and recovery from the perspectives of the peer support workers, non-peer professionals and patients.

The overall design for the research program was exploratory using qualitative and quantitative methods. Research questions within and across perspectives guided the data collection. However, new possibilities for secondary analysis emerged through the coding and analysis of the qualitative data.

This presentation will shortly address the preliminary analysis of the stated research questions across perspectives in the research program and address the emergence of three secondary analysis.

- “The first steps”: to gain insight into how peer support workers, non-peer professionals and FACT managers experienced and handled the initial phase of peer support.

- “Not just something they read in a book”: what is peer support and how is this different from traditional practice? – perspectives from peer support workers, non-peer professionals and patients, that have received peer support.

- “The prism of the “mentor function”: to explore how the “mentor function” is perceived and operationalized in the teams from the perspectives of mentors, peer support workers and non-peer professionals.The emergence of secondary qualitative analysis added new insights on peer support and recovery to the research program.