Peer support workers: a practical guide to implementation

Julie Repper

29 October 2013

This guide sets out four phases for an organisation looking to introduce peer worker posts: preparation; recruitment; employment; and ongoing development. It advises organisations on the key questions they need to ask, such as: Why do we want to employ peer support workers? What difference they hope they will make? It goes on to address ten common myths and misconceptions about peer workers.

The guide also provides sample documents including peer support worker job descriptions, person specifications, and a disclosure and barring service (DBS) (formally CRB) assessment framework.

This paper follows Peer Support Workers: Theory and Practice, which introduces the concepts and principles of peer support and presents examples from organisations which now have peers in their workforce.

Audience: mental health services, practitioners.