Alison’s story

Alison Wilcox shares her own lived experience of mental distress and the impact peer support had in helping her to manage her mental health. Alison spoke to Together's Senior Communications Officer, Martin Fewster and also described how the peer support group provided a community that then made her decide to become a peer supporter herself and how that process has gone.

The full interview is at the bottom of this page but we’ve also provided some clips to highlight specific insights Alison provided. In the clip below Alison explains mental distress she experienced that meant she accessed peer support and how she found the the process of building that relationship:
In this second clip Alison describes how after using the service and taking part in group sessions she decided she wanted to be more involved and made the transition to providing peer support herself: