Lived experience: The heart of Peer Support
Our entire team at The Road Forward are survivors of sexual harm or trauma. This lived experience is fundamental to our work, and we combine it with extensive clinical training in Purposeful Peer Support, alongside other modalities.
Decades of research has consistently shown that the therapeutic relationship is the single most important aspect of therapy. As Peer Workers, we draw on our own lived experience to form a trusted therapeutic relationship. That lived experience is held and honoured, in the same way that we honour the lived experience of our whaiora, the people we work with.
However, drawing on personal experience can be challenging. Our past has significantly impacted our lives. That’s why our training involves a whole lot of personal work, alongside specific strategies which help us refine our skills to support other people struggling with addiction and other mental health issues.
In 2020, Te Pou, the Mental Health and Addictions Workforce, launched the Consumer, Peer Support and Lived Experience Workforce Development Strategy, followed by an action plan in 2021. In it, Te Pou's Principal Advisor and Service User Lead Caro Swanson described the peer workforce as a place of courage and generosity.
“It takes enormous strength to own our lived experiences and turn them outward, in a world that still sees us as different, potentially dangerous, or stereotyped,” she said. “It takes courage to go back to those places where we were forever changed, which are the root of our own harm and trauma.”
As Peer workers we must remain present and calm, even when feeling triggered ourselves, Caro said. “It takes strength to be present with people who are experiencing some of the hardest times of their lives, when your core being remembers exactly how that feels … Most of all, it takes generosity to turn our hard-won experiences into positive opportunities for others like us, to be effective and responsive to the people we serve.”
Purposeful Peer support is highly effective alongside the professional guidance of Counsellors and Psychologists, because it helps clients to re-establish connection, trust and hope – life skills which they carry with them into other therapy sessions.
Every person is the expert in their own lives – we do not presume to know what is best! Instead, we let our Whaiora, our Peers, guide us. Our Peer Workers come from many different backgrounds, and our stories are not the same. But we are all highly skilled and dedicated practitioners, with a wide set of qualifications. All Road Forward peer staff are Trauma-Informed and have training in somatic approaches and Polyvagal theory.
Check out our staff page to see who we are and what each of us brings to the workforce.