AIBU to question the value of peer support workers in MH?

[Bacardiwithice]

NC.

I have a longstanding and severe MH problem- lots of admissions. When I'm well enough, I work in an area of recruitment.

I can think of four peer support workers I have seen as an inpatient. They were, without exception, awful.

It was as if they had a green light to just offload their stories and experiences on to me as part of their role. It was tedious and managed to combine being boring and borderline traumatic.

I remember once this particular one kept trying to talk to me, I kept moving away and she would follow me.

I ended up on a general ward during that section for something else and had two members of staff with me. One of them just wouldn't stop but I was stuck in bed.

Obviously I could have complained etc, but I was very much not in the right place to do so. And why should I have to bend over backwards to protect myself in the middle of a known crisis?

I later did recruitment screening for a peer support worker in which she majorly overshared and I ended up knowing her full prescription including dosages (that was me steering her AWAY). Obviously didn't recruit her.

I appreciate that six isn't a large sample, but don't think it's incidental.

I just don't understand why these are even a thing? What possible benefits do they offer? I would really like to hear from anyone else involved with this.

I felt really used.

I hear you. My relative has similar experiences. She had suicidal ideation at one point. Some bloke she had never seen before thought she would benefit from his detailed account of his own suicide attempts. I kicked up unholy shit about it when I found out.
Mental health services continue to be dire, and some very dodgy people seem to be attracted to the support side of things.
I'm so sorry you experienced that.

How are you doing now?

Yanbu. Many people are so self-obsessed. In theory, there's 'appropriate self-disclosure' to demonstrate "meeting someone at their own map of the world", but then some just seem to try to shove their own map up your arse!

I work in mental health as a HCP. I think it depends enormously on the person themselves, where in recovery they are and their skills. I've worked with a couple of very good ones who both brought different skills but were ultimately good at engaging people as well as having lived experience. They both didn't share experiences which weren't helpful.

I have known others to be very traumatised by being in a healthcare setting and by the presence of unwell people and MH staff. Some have started peer support roles then relapsed, others have massively overshared or undermined professional advice.

IMO it would be better to imbed lived experience as an asset in all MH roles rather than have a specific PSW role. Many MH staff will have lived experience (I do) but don't feel comfortable sharing it. I think the pure PSW role attracts people who are too vulnerable to do the work.

Yes it really irritates me.

It's another positive expert by experience .model ruined by NHS, the other obvious one being The recovery model.

Peer workers will be paid (but low pay, lowest NHS band) so the people they get will be those that would otherwise be out of work, their 'recovery story' has to match NHS narratives, views and opinions are heavily repressed. They often go alongside 'recovery colleges' also best avoided.

Just politely smile & ignore.

If NHS trusts want genuine co-production there is plenty of expertise & research eg McPin foundation.

A close relative of mine is currently gaining support from an early intervention team, following sectioning due to psychosis. One of his peer workers is amazing. They connect, peer worker totally understands. It’s incredible, how PW is able to reach through him.

@Serencwtch but it's difficult/impossible to smile and ignore when you are very unwell/psychotic and they follow you and keep talking to you.

They just never shut up "me, me, me".
I honestly don't know why people think they are good thing.

When I was an inpatient on a eating disorder ward, we had a lived experience practitioner visit. She was pretty good, but she was definitely fully recovered and had been for many years.

This is what the original intent was when they first appeared many moons back. Peer-to-peer support by a layman with an identical or very similar experience. I've seen many citations from people who were experiencing their first episode or long-term bout of poor mental health who have said it was invaluable for them to be able to grasp that other people had undergone more or less precisely what they were and had come out the other side of it.

I've always thought it is not something that really has any value for people with a degree of insight into their condition, but it's wrong to just write off P2P support entirely. It has it's purpose, but like anything else it has to be in an appropriate setting and circumstance.

If they make it about themselves then they really shouldn't be a peer support worker.

I'm involved with a childhood cancer charity as they helped me in so many ways when my son was diagnosed with cancer in 2024 but I have stayed away from the peer support on the ward until I know without a doubt that I can be there for the family in need and not use it as a therapy session for myself because that isn't what families need and it is the same with MH peer support workers.

Have you ever thought about putting together an Advance Statement?

This is precisely the sort of thing that can be pre-empted.

They’re used because they’re cheap. Just like those mental health recovery workers-people incapable of doing anything other than following a flow chart/reading from a script.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX , thank you for highlighting that.

I'm having my brother put down as health PoA (bit of a faff last time as I wasn't yet divorced from abusive Dh and neither I nor my daughter (21) wanted her to be my NR.). So was holding off an AD for that.

The thing I find so worrying (oh, delicious irony) is that all the support workers had minimal insight into what they were doing.

And what they were doing was damage.

Some of the NHS 'counsellors' are just regular people with a degree 'wanting to help' whilst not bloody helping and telling you their stories 🙄🙄