Together celebrate Global Peer Support Day 2019

Global Peer Support Day 2019 was on Thursday 17th of October and was an important day for Together as service user leadership is our core principle and peer support is a big part of our services. We celebrated the day by sharing content that showed how powerful and important lived experience is to support people living with mental distress. That content included an interview with Peer Support Coordinator in our criminal justice team, Christine Pearson who explains the benefits of peer support and her experience of providing that support herself. Read Christine’s interview here. In addition to the interview we also shared our film on the benefits of peer support in supporting people living with mental distress who come into contact with the criminal justice team. You can watch the video below:

In addition to these promotions Together services around the country held their own events to celebrate Global Peer Support Day 2019. Peer supporters from our Norfolk Integrated Housing & Community Support Service in Central Norfolk had tea, coffee & cake & discussed what peer support meant to them & how it had changed lives. They shared this photo of two peer support workers and a volunteer peer supporter meeting:

Peer Support Training Photo - Wymondham 2

Claire Woodcock from our the Norwich Intensive Support team explained how her team had a great 4 day training session which ended with a celebration for Global Peer Support Day. Throughout the 4 days the participants in the training told their stories and explained what they’d learned and Claire shared this great quote when reflecting on the training:

I have a huge respect for my team & wider peer team. They are a real joy to work with & I feel privileged to witness them moving forward in their own journeys

To top off the celebration the team also enjoyed the brilliant looking cake in the image below:

GPS Cake Smaller

Our Tamworth, Lichfield & East Staffordshire Your Way service provides community support and they held a small celebration event for Global Peer Support Day where the team discussed why peer support is so important and two of the participants are shown below with their findings:

Staffordshire Your Way Peer Support Training Image 1 Smaller

Finally for Global Peer Support Day in Great Yarmouth the group met on Wednesday for their usual cake and chat group at Christchurch. They all shared lunch and a large bag of chocolate Heroes to say a huge thank you to all the peer supporters there. Coordinator for the area Amy Ribbans commented that:

It’s been a pleasure to be part of seeing peer support grow here in Great Yarmouth over the last 18 months.

The team also invited people to write down what peer support meant to them or what cake and chat means to them:

Great Yarmouth Peer Support Training Image 1