Peer Support

• Shine Lincolnshire work in partnership with Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (LPFT) to deliver Peer Support across the County.

What is a Peer Support Worker (PSW)?

“Mental Health (MH) PSWs give support, companionship and encouragement to people experiencing mental health difficulties. A quality that makes them stand out from other staff is that MH PSWs draw directly on their own lived experiences of mental health difficulties or caring for someone else who is experiencing such difficulties. They do not replace other roles in mental health services; rather, their skill in using their own experience to work collaboratively with someone facing similar mental health difficulties, is a unique one”. – The Competence Framework for Mental Health Peer Support Workers, NHS Health Education England (October 2020).

 A PSW can:

• • • Take a relational approach; not give advice or direction, but listen and explore
    • Help people find their own solutions that work for them
    • Respect individuals’ rights and self-determination
    • Respect confidentiality
    • Support with Wellness plans

 Further information of what a Peers Support Worker is can be found via this link: Peer Support Workers :: Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Trust (lpft.nhs.uk)

How do the Peer Support Workers receive their referrals?

Our Peer Support Workers are aligned to the Integrated Place Based Teams (IPBT).  All referrals go via the local IPBT

The aim of Place Based teams is to improve the care for people experiencing Severe Mental Illness (SMI) by enabling patients to:

• • Access mental health care where and when they need it, and be able to move through the system easily, so that people who need intensive input receive it in the appropriate place, rather than face being discharged to no support.
  • Manage their condition or move towards individualised recovery on their own terms, surrounded by their families, carers and social networks, and supported in their local community.
  • Contribute to, and be participants in, the communities that sustain them, to whatever extent is comfortable to them.

This approach includes:

• • Promoting health and wellbeing
  • Promoting and base interventions on recovery principles
  • Empowering self-care and self-management
  • Enabling individuals to live well in their communities
  • Developing relationships with community partners to inform a range of holistic services which are wrapped around the person
  • Person centred approaches
  • Ensuring carer’s needs are met and care planning collaboratively.

What areas of the County do the Peer Support Workers cover?

We have Peer Support Workers working across the whole of the County, based across 15 Primary Care Networks* (PCNs) in 12 Integrated Place Based Teams.

You can find out more about your local Peer Support Worker on their page.

Further information about Primary Care Networks can be found via the link below:

Home :: Lincolnshire Primary Care Network Alliance (lpcna.nhs.uk)

How are Peer Support Workers managed?

Our Peer Support Workers are employed and managed within Shine by our Senior Peer Support Coordinator, Fiona Monk.

Hello there. My name is Fiona and I am a Senior Peer Support Coordinator for Shine.

I am extremely proud to be part of the wonderful team that makes up this pioneering charity. Like many of my colleagues, this post was quite different for me when I started as I had taught in Lincolnshire & Nottinghamshire Primary Schools since 1993. Having worked with children, families and the wider community, and as a Mum myself, I have come to deeply appreciate the importance of good mental health.

Developing Personal, Social, Health Education continues to be a passion for me as I know it is in all of our interests to keep learning about ways to wellbeing. I believe this is true whether you are two or one hundred and twenty-two.

Our role as peer support workers is all about sharing our lived experiences if it helps someone. We want to encourage others to build on their own strengths & make useful connections in order to live rewarding & healthy lives.

In addition to Fiona, every Peer Support Worker receives clinical supervision within the IPBT.

Can you be a Peer Support Volunteer?

Shine can deliver training to organisations to train their own volunteers to be Peer Support Workers.

In 2023 we will also be launching Shine Peer Support Volunteer opportunities.

To find out more about Peer Support please contact [email protected]