Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, listening, or counseling. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet as equals to give each other support on a reciprocal basis. Peer in this case is taken to imply that each person has no more expertise as a supporter than the other and the relationship is one of equality.
A peer has "been there, done that" and can relate to others who are now in a similar situation. Trained peer support workers are required to obtain Continuing Education Units, like clinical staff.
Read more about Peer Support: Underlying Theory, Peer Support in Mental Health, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words peer and/or support:
“Up a lazy river by the old mill run, that lazy, lazy river in the noonday sun.”
—Sidney Arodin, U.S. songwriter. “Lazy River,” Peer International Corp. (1931)
“She isn’t harassed. She’s busy, and it’s glamorous to be busy. Indeed, the image of the on- the-go working mother is very like the glamorous image of the busy top executive. The scarcity of the working mother’s time seems like the scarcity of the top executive’s time.... The analogy between the busy working mother and the busy top executive obscures the wage gap between them at work, and their different amounts of backstage support at home.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)