Experiences of peer support workers' journey and role (version 1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A qualitative investigation into mental health peer support workers' professional developmental journey and role: Peer support worker and non-peer colleague perspectives.
IRAS ID
146257
Contact name
Joanna Smith
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Peer Support Workers (PSWs) are a new feature of the mental health landscape: people with lived experience and expertise of mental health issues are being recruited in to teams as part of the Improving Recovery through Organisational Change (ImROC) national programme. Using a qualitative methodology, this study aims to explore how the peer support workers' professional developmental journey and role within mental health services is experienced in teams, which hitherto have been defined solely in terms of 'experts by education', whereas peer workers are often described as 'experts by experience'.
Little is known about how PSWs find their journey into working with the NHS in services or how non-peer colleagues experience this role within the existing team. Participants would include 1) PSWs employed in Adult Community Teams in Nofolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust for atleast 3 months and 2) non peer colleagues in the MDT who have shared atleast one joint clinical piece of work with a PSW. PSWs and non-peer colleagues will take part in a semi strucutred 1:1 interview about their experiences. Interview data would be analysed anonymously using thematic analysis. The study is expected to run until March 2016 and the findings would be written up locally and for the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England funding this research. It is hoped that understanding how this journey and role is experienced in mental health teams would allow future PSWs experiences of recruitment and deployment at a local level to be improved in future - for the benefit of all concerned. Identifying and resolving challenges experienced by PSWs and non-peer colelagues in particular may assist with recruitment and retention of PSWs and enhance effective delivery of PSW activity and that of the wider team within which they operate.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0220
Date of REC Opinion
19 May 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion