Peer Support Work: A Brief Introduction

Abstract

Lived experience has increasingly been incorporated into service delivery across health and social care settings. One of the methods used to do this is through the provision of peer support work. While many people will have lived experience of an issue, condition and may even work in services, peers are markedly different insofar as they are employed specifically because they are using this lived experience to explicitly inform their way of providing an intervention. As we will see throughout this book, peers are not a homogenous group; however, they do use some of the same processes to engage and offer support to people with a variety of health and social vulnerabilities. This chapter contextualises these issues before delving into further chapters authored and co-authored by those with lived experience across multiple areas of peer support work.

Citation

Mahon, D. (2024), "Peer Support Work: A Brief Introduction", Mahon, D. (Ed.) Peer Support Work, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-8. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-018-220241001