Intentional Peer Support
Featured Belonging Organization 2
Dear City Person,
Ramadan Kareem to all who celebrate!
In this weekly newsletter, I have the third post of each month feature an organization or an event that tackles issues of urban belonging and opportunities to get involved. Today’s newsletter will focus on the work of Intentional Peer Support. I will also provide a brief overview about peer support and a global database of other peer support groups that follow different models. I do not earn any affiliate fees for the paid resources nor on any books I recommend.
Since I am still learning about peer support, I would appreciate it if more knowledgeable readers can help with filling in gaps in my knowledge and with correcting me if I get anything wrong by either replying to this email or commenting on the Substack post. As mentioned before, the purpose of my newsletter is to make my learning about belonging public rather than position myself as an expert on the topic.
If you know about an organization or event that you would like me to feature in a future newsletter, then please feel free to privately reply to this email or you can post a public comment on my Substack post.
Before I dig in, I have two announcements to make and some housekeeping to do…
First Announcement:
My first published academic paper is now publicly available! It is about the implications of global research on loneliness and social isolation for the city of Dubai, UAE. Click here to access it.
Second Announcement:
I am working with a young psychotherapy client on collecting anonymous stories about moving between places and phases of life. She has some questions that she would like participants to answer which I have included in the Google Doc linked here. This is a type of Narrative Therapy approach called “collective documents” where people share their ways of navigating life’s challenges and the values they hold dear. Feel free to contribute or share the Google Doc with anyone you feel would be interested in contributing a story about moving. The document is only accessible to people who have the link and you don’t need to sign into your Google account to contribute.
Housekeeping:
If you are new to this newsletter, check out the About page linked here if you haven’t already and click here to see an archive of previous posts. If you are viewing this from the Substack app and have not already subscribed, you may do so by clicking on the button below:
About Peer Support:
Peer support is a type of mutual social support between people who either have shared experiences or challenges or who have shared backgrounds. Depending on the setting, the support can be emotional or practical and can sometimes be as simple as offering a listening ear. It differs from receiving “professional” support in the sense that there is less power differences between the person “helping” and the one “being helped” and the “help” given is not one-directional.
I say “less power differences” rather than “none” because power dynamics will always to some extent be a part of social interactions. For instance, there can be a power dynamic when one peer has access to a car while the other who is seeking support for transportation to medical appointments does not. If we cannot take away power dynamics in a peer group, then the least we can do is reduce them to the extent possible and try to navigate them.
Some peer support groups (which are different from support groups facilitated by a professional) can involve formal training for the peer facilitators and others do not. Some are in-person, online (whether via virtual calls or discussion forums/message threads), or over the phone. Some people utilize them as an adjunct to professional mental health services. Others use them as a replacement to professional services due to difficulty accessing them or due to having had negative, or even traumatic, experiences with them.
While peer support has been around in every culture since humanity existed, the way it is known in the Western world has roots in disability justice movements. This is often confused with the “disability rights movement” but they are different. Disability justice emerged as a response to the shortcomings of disability rights especially in its lack of intersectionality and meaningful systemic change. I was once recommended to read a key book within disability justice that goes into detail about building and maintaining mutually caring networks. It is called Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice written by activist and artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha which you can find by clicking here.
Peer support in the West later got taken up by medical and mental health establishments but these models can differ significantly from the ways they were originally conceptualized within disability justice movements. Click here for an article from Mad in America that says more about this but keep in mind that it is American-centric.
Here are questions I have for readers before I continue:
Have you ever been a part of a peer-lead support group? If you are comfortable sharing, what was that like for you? What are some things that worked versus didn’t work for you and why?
If you have read Care Work, what are your thoughts on it?
I found out about Intentional Peer Support (IPS) via the Mad in America article I mentioned earlier. What drew me to it is that its model is less about “fixing problems” or even having “problems” become the starting point of the peers connecting with each other. Rather, it focuses more on building relationships where people can grow together towards what they want in life and hold each other accountable. It views peer support as part of social change rather than yet another therapeutic intervention.
Intentional Peer Support offers trainings in building mutually supportive communities globally since the 90s. While the original trainings have portions that are hybrid and portions that are online, they can be flexible in traveling to certain areas to offer the training or in offering it fully online if requested. Even after completing the trainings, you will have access to “refresher” sessions to keep your practice fresh. Click here for more information about their trainings.
Aside from the training programs, IPS also offers free readings on peer support skills that you can find by clicking here as well as free videos that can be accessed here .
For other peer support groups that follow different models, check out this global database set up by Peers for Progress by clicking here.
Next week’s newsletter will highlight peer support resources on MS shared by a reader on her Substack. I will also cover what the author and academic Dr Shahd AlShammari wrote about disability and belonging by reflecting on a few passages from her book Head Above Water which highlights her experience with MS as a Kuwaiti-Palestinian woman. You may get a copy of the book by clicking here.
Congratulations on your published paper!
Great post Reema, as a therapist you will probably be interested in a course of therapy I had last year. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for MS delivered in a group setting. The peer support was a significant part of the process and although it wasn’t peer led, a few of us decided to exchange contact details after the course finished, and we now meet online once a month, with a WhatsApp group for anything in between.