New peer support practice guide: Exploring Safety and Risk
The fourth in a series of four guides with practical tips, based on the experiences of peer supporters, groups and services across Scotland.
Peer support creates spaces where people can speak honestly about what’s going on, including things they may not feel safe saying elsewhere. This openness is a strength. It can also raise questions about safety and risk for both the person and the peer supporter.
In peer support, safety and risk are shaped by relationships and context rather than by something a person ‘is’. This guide explores how we work with safety through presence, honesty and shared responsibility. Peer supporters work across many settings, including community groups, third sector organisations and NHS services. While contexts differ, peer practice is grounded in shared values including lived experience, mutual relationships and a recovery focus.
This Creating Hope with Peer Support practice guide brings together learning from peer supporters around responding to safety concerns in ways that strengthen trust, reduce isolation and help people stay connected during difficult times.
The practice guide series
Developed as part of the Creating Hope with Peer Support project. The practice guides are designed to help build confidence and skills in offering peer support to people affected by suicide. They also work as standalone tools, perfect for anyone involved in mental health peer support groups and services.
Practice guide 4 complements the Creating Hope with Peer Support resource and relates to the Hope stage of the Creating Hope with Peer Support Pathway (Connect, Explore, Hope, Support).
