Hello and welcome! Louise, Cup-O-T’s Peer Support Worker here! I just wanted to share with you a couple of the things I’ve been doing recently.
I have been spending some of my time contacting organisations trying to connect and find out more about their projects and how they are supporting their clients and communities. I’ve really enjoyed hearing about what they have going on and chatting to them about what Cup-O-T is doing.
Safe to say it’s a pretty busy time for lots of us!
It has been really helpful learning about others’ roles and their experiences. And I’ve really enjoyed talking to individuals who are extremely dedicated to their profession and the joy and passion they have for their work is amazing.
Another reason for contacting organisations was to get in touch with anyone using their own lived experience to support others. As the only peer support worker at Cup-O-T I was really keen to make connections with others doing the same.
Through these discussions the idea of putting together a space where anyone using their lived experience could get together and support each other came about. My aim is to have a space where we can chat about our roles, learn from each other, create networking opportunities and talk about our wellbeing and how we support it.
And last week we held our first peer support worker forum!
It was really great getting together with other people who are using their lived experience to support others. I got to meet some really interesting people who showed so much joy and excitement for their roles.
As this was our first forum, it was about getting to know each other. Going forward I will aim to bring in an element every week for learning or discussion and I want to get everyone coming along involved with this and sharing as well. We’re already getting new people signing up to come along to the next one which is really amazing!
If you’d like to get involved with the peer support worker forum just fill in the form here and I’ll send you all the details about how to join. Our next forum is on Tuesday the 12th September at 10am.
It doesn’t matter where you are in the UK as the meets are all online!
I feel extremely lucky in the job that I do and I absolutely love it. But I remember the first group I was involved in when I was new to my role. I was so nervous! It’s definitely become easier over time and my confidence has grown. There are things that have really supported me to develop my skills and confidence, firstly the amazing team that I work with, supervisions between me and Catherine and the training that I received.
I’m really thankful for the training I received from Catherine at Cup-O-T when I started. The training really supported me to think about my motivation for wanting the role and how it would feel using my own experiences when talking to and supporting others. It was the first training that I have ever done that really helped me focus on myself, how would I support my own wellbeing? Where can I turn for support?
In the first week the focus was on us as a group and how we were going to work together. We had lots of discussions around;
- What do you want to get out of the course?
- How do you want to work together as a group to feel safe and comfortable?
- What do you need from the facilitator to feel safe and comfortable?
- What are the roles and responsibilities of a Peer?
- What values should underpin Peer work?
- What are the key skills?
The other thing I found really useful was how to use supervisions appropriately. Especially how to have my own voice during supervisions and how to prepare for them.
I had a really great cohort during the training, everyone was so supportive and I learnt so much from each of them. There is so much opportunity for discussions and I found it such a great way to learn. During the training we were all paired with a ‘buddy’ and we supported each other to identify goals for the training and manage our wellbeing. We talked about how we could apply what we’d learnt in our work and checked in with each other between sessions.
I would really love to hear about your experiences of any training you have received, so please get in touch with me at louise.fox@cup-o-t.co.uk
If you are interested in hearing more about our upcoming peer support worker training please get in touch with me at louise.fox@cup-o-t.co.uk or
And if you’d like to join the Peer Support Worker Forum – get in touch here and I’ll send through the details:
Look forward to hearing from you!
Louise
