Formal Peer Support Team (Part 1)

Formal peer support is provided by thoughtfully selected and trained members of an organized peer support team. Although they may be utilized in a crisis, they instead specialize in being attentive to the daily troubles of distressed coworkers. Many of the issues that trouble people can be managed at the lowest level, meeting people where they are, closest to the action. This is not dissimilar to when factory line workers are given the authority to improve a product or fix problems that appear before them. Supplied with a set of guiding principles, tools, resources and the authority to use them, groups can fix many of their own problems. This can often be applied to mental and emotional distress as well.

Effective peer support is peer-driven, worker-centric, and provided by non-professionals. Peer support is intentionally outside the formal management structure and needs to be free of the control of therapists, lawyers, managers and administrators. Peers can benefit from the support of management and administrative staff, and the advice, insight, and resources of mental health professionals, but they may have conflicting agendas and cannot function as true peers. In most applications, peer support is a voluntary role filled, by definition, by coworkers. Volunteer means you do it willingly and without additional compensation.