From April 2017 to May 2018, Q Lab worked with almost 200 Lab participants to explore what it would take for peer support to more widely available to those who needed it, to support their long-term health and wellbeing needs.
Our work together produced new insights, projects and a growing community of people interested in peer support.
Peer support learning, outputs and resources
Learning on peer support
The project uncovered some examples of great work happening in peer support, as well as surfacing some of key challenges and tensions that need to be worked through in order to deliver high quality peer support.
New insights from the UK’s largest peer support survey
Q Lab generated new insights from a large scale survey on how people make decisions in peer support.
Working with YouGov and Dr Christina Pagel from UCL, we unearthed what matters to people when deciding whether to refer to, recommend or use peer support services. The results were presented at HSRUK Conference in July 2018.
Peer Support Evidence Hub
As a result of this project, the Health Foundation awarded a grant to National Voices to develop a new online Evidence Hub for peer support – an idea developed during the Lab process in collaboration with the charities National Voices, Mind and Positively UK. The Peer Support Hub launched in March 2019.
The Hub collates, curates and categorises the best quality information and evidence together in one place – making it easier for people to find useful, high quality peer support resources.
Connections and collaborations
During the project a diverse community of people formed with expertise in peer support who are connecting and collaborating on peer support projects.
Key learning
The Lab also learned a great deal about how to undertake collaborative problem solving – our evaluation methods and approaches yielded invaluable insights, allowing us to understand how and in what ways the Lab is best place to support change.
Stay connected
- Join Q Lab peer support online group. Make new connections and share and discuss ideas on peer support.
- Read more about the Peer Support Evidence Hub and sign-up to the newsletter from National Voices to get involved.