What do peer workers do: video transcript
Video transcript
A peer worker, so we’re employed on the basis that we’ve got our own lived and living experience of mental health challenges. So we can walk alongside people, you know, that have been in similar situations to us, similar shoes. So, you know, we can build that connection with people in that, you know, we’ve been through these tough times ourselves, we’re now on our mental health recovery journey and that mental wellness is possible. As a peer worker, we are here to listen. We’re here not to judge. We’re wanting to explore what is happening for the person that has accessed the service. And by doing that, we’re trying to connect and build a relationship through similar common lived experiences because it’s all part of life and it’s all normal, and we want to support them so that they can move towards feeling better and a better recovery.
What we’re trying to help with is the strategies involved so that they do feel it’s in their hands again. It’s a partnership between the peer worker and the visitor to try and put together a strategy that works for that visitor so that they can leave this space and feel like they are in control of their destiny. There are many people isolated at home. They don’t want to talk. They feel shame. They think they are alone. No, you are not alone. The way we engage with consumers, clients, visitors is really different. We are not clinical. We have life experience. We can wear the same shoes. We can feel the same skin. We can feel the same pain.
People have to feel safe, they have to be vulnerable. And we have to create a space where they can be vulnerable and open and want to share. And so that usually includes us sharing parts of our own lived experience and some of the hard times that we’ve had to go through but overcome. So as a peer support worker, it is saying to someone what you’re going through is normal. What you’re going through will pass. When you don’t believe in yourself, I’m here to believe in you. I’m not going to pull you along, I’m going to walk beside you. You’re the expert in your life, not me. You’ve got the skills and I’m here just to remind you what they are. So I think it’s about empowering people and giving them the will to live. But we also help people identify what sort of supports do they want? What sort of long-term ideas do they have?
And we help them identify that through our conversations, and we see a lot of people go to GPs, get mental health care plans, have psychology, psychiatrists. We want them to be doing the best and feel like, you know what, I can handle this on my own. I’ve been given the tools, I know what I’m doing. When you have your tools, a good box of tools and you know how you can use this one, how I can use this one, is when you start to build your own toolbox. One time you start to see the light, it’s not only one door that you can knock, it’s a hundred different doors. It’s your choice. I won’t tell you which one you have to choose, but they are a lot. It makes everything I’ve experienced purposeful. So instead of it being these like burdens that I’ve had and these struggles that I’ve had, I can now use these as strengths to share as stories of hope with others and to remind them that it does happen and it doesn’t last like this forever, and we can get through this and it’s just one step at a time.