Peer support as a social movement
Peer Chat with guest Lisa Archibald. The Peer Chat podcast brings you insights from people using their lived experience to support others and develop peer support approaches.
In conversation with Scottish Recovery Network’s Lesley Smith, our guest for episode two is Intentional Peer Support* Coordinator/Trainer Lisa Archibald. In this episode Lesley and Lisa chat about peer support and The power of ‘being with’.
Learn why Lisa is passionate about peer support and advocates for us to remember it’s grassroots within the lived experience movement. Tune in as the podcast explores the importance of not losing sight of peer support as a social movement.
- Download the podcast transcript
Like, this was about a bunch of activists going ‘we’re not just a medical model, we’re not wanting to be pathologised, we’re people and we’re humans and we have experiences and we want to connect with other people who have similar experiences.
And it was never about systems and services, it was about conversations and relationships and also activism and human rights.
Lisa Archibald
A bit about Lisa
Lisa Archibald (she/her) moved back home to Scotland in 2020 after living and learning in New Zealand for 7 years where she supported the growth & development of their Intentional Peer Support Aotearoa New Zealand hub. Lisa first accessed peer support in 1999 as a university student. After graduating she started to facilitate peer support groups then managed peer communities eventually becoming a peer support trainer. Lisa was a UK Winston Churchill fellow in 2013 and a Yale University Let(s) LEAD fellow in New Zealand in 2019. She is currently an MSc Mad Studies student at QMU and works part-time for Intentional Peer Support in the USA. Lisa is a solo adult raising two children and has a kiwi cat called Shadow.
*Intentional Peer Support
Intentional Peer Support (IPS) is about social change. It is a powerful framework for creating relationships where both people learn and grow together. Peers come together around shared experiences and often a desire to change lives. Without a new framework to build upon, people frequently re-enact “help” based on what was done to them. IPS offers a foundation for doing something different. It come from a history of grassroots alternatives that focus on building relationships that are mutual, explorative, and conscious of power.
