Equal Lives
Info and Advice
Peer Support and Peer Supporters
What is Peer Support?
Peer support is an equal relationship between individuals or groups of people who get together to give and receive information, advice and support. It's a chance for people to share their experiences, learn things they would not have known otherwise, and support each other around a particular issue.
Up until now Equal Lives has provided opportunities for people to access peer support through our Member Groups and as part of our project work. For example the Independent Living Groups (ILGs), meet to support each other and share information about personal budgets and other issues concerning living independently. The Moving Forward Project helped people to take a positive and creative approach to perhaps getting back into work and allowed people to share their own experiences, learn from and encourage each other to overcome the barriers to achieving that.
New "Norfolk Peer Support Network" Facebook Page.
Peer Support in Australia
This is what peer support means to some disabled people in Australia! What does it mean to you?
Peer Support Celebration
Equal Lives have formed a working group with a number of other organisations who offer peer support to create an event to celebrate the great work that people do by sharing their experiences in order to support others. The organisations involved so far, include The Matthew Project, The Benjamin Foundation, Carers Matter, Norfolk & Suffolk Mental Health Trust, LGBT Project and Get me Out of the 4 Walls. The work is being supported by Norfolk County Council. We hope other groups, including our member groups, and organisations will get involved in the planning of the next event.
Second Peer Support Event Planning Workshop
Tuesday 4th September
Equal Lives,
Manor Farm Barns,
Fox Rd
NR14 7PZ
We had a very interactive and fun workshop to help us plan the Peer Support event on 28th November. Participants came from the Wellbeing Service, Norwich ILG, The Ehlers Danlos Support group for Norfolk, Carers Matters, The Matthew Project, Equal Lives and Norfolk County Council so we had a good range of experience and expertise in the room. The session was led by Sam from Norwich City council using a method he's developed called 'space, skills and stuff', which can be used by communities as an activity/ project development tool or for event planning. It enables people/groups to identify their individual skills, (eg crafting), stuff, ( craft equipment and materials), and space, (a room for hire, a garden) and shows how we could use them to organise an activity. What the morning quickly highlighted was that when a group of people pool all their resources, we can potentially do so much more. We finished the session arranging our skills under different headings so we could see what potential talks, workshops etc we could do at the event. We are having a second workshop on Tuesday September 4th to work on a detailed programme for the day so watch this space. You can still share your ideas and comments on The Norfolk Peer Support Event Facebook or by emailing Hazel, (email below).
We very much hope that some of our members and member groups will be interested in taking part on the day, keep an eye out for our invitation to participate."
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Contact Equal Lives
Equal Lives, 15 Manor Farm Barns
Fox Road
Call or email
01508 491210 Voice
01508 491215 Textphone
01508 491216 Fax
info@equallives.org.uk