Brian Casey's Blog

In Part 1, I spoke about how although organized peer support teams may be utilized in a crisis, they instead specialize in being attentive to the daily troubles of distressed coworkers.

I have noticed that when you formalize or structure something (move from informal to formal peer support for example), you can lose long-standing helpful traditions. It is hard to make things better and easy to make things worse. One nagging concern I have as roles and resources become formalized is that they will inadvertently replace, undermine, or damage the long-standing organic systems of watching out for each other. Additionally, we do not want non-peer support team coworkers to think they are no longer needed as support for coworkers. Peer support is an additive process, where peer support team members seek out opportunities to provide support, and the whole workgroup elevates its expectation of wellbeing, and distressed coworkers feel encouraged to reach out for help.

 Know that the fundamentals of peer support are not complex and are within reach of all workers. Demonstrating trustworthiness and willingness to help are unquestionably good human qualities that we can seek whether part of an organized peer team or not.

KEY POINTS

■ Workgroups can benefit from an organized and trained peer support team.

■ Meeting people where they are at in real time can be most helpful.

■ Peer support should remain intentionally outside the formal management

structure.

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.

In Part 1, I spoke about how peer support can provide what a person in distress needs the most.

■ Someone they recognize and trust.

■ Someone they do not have to explain the job to.

■ Someone whose core message is, “You are not alone.”

The message “You are not alone” is powerful. Peer support is being a trusted friend and support to a coworker in mental or emotional distress. It is not about treating people, like a doctor or therapist provides treatment to those suffering with mental health problems or disorders, but it can mean being with them in their distress.

Peer support is not therapy, but it can be therapeutic. Yet, therapy is not peer support. Peer support is something of its own domain. So, it’s okay that we do this work as non-professionals, as long as we know our limits. We can do peer support because we are peers. And with some training and access to resources, we become part of a workforce wellness multiplier.

Consider this, when have you provided, experienced, or witnessed informal peer support?

Many workplaces already have informal peer support, meaning coworkers have been watching out for each other, both effectively and ineffectively, for a long time. Advancing formal peer support is adding to this sense of responsibility to watch out for each other, not an attempt to replace it. At the same time, peer supporters who offer good listening and good counsel (practical advice) must know the limits of their ability, such as when a coworker wants or needs professional psychological help.

Peer support can provide what a person in distress needs the most.

■ Someone they recognize and trust.

■ Someone they do not have to explain the job to.

■ Someone whose core message is, “You are not alone.”

A coworker may automatically qualify as someone recognized, but know that their trustworthiness precedes them. As peers, there is theoretically not a hierarchy, unlike a manager or even a therapist.

In Part 1, I spoke about how there is a part of growth and healing, recovery from harm, that is individual and personal, and there is a part that is communal.

True believers of peer support can be powerful people. However, you should take what I say here and compare it to what you know, your observations, your experience, and your study. It is important to make your clarifications, ask your questions, because sometimes we defer too readily to unwise experts, when we are the experts. What I love most about peer support is that it is provided by so-called non-experts or amateurs. People on the factory floor. Simple coworkers.

To build and maintain trust with coworkers, I think it is a good idea to honor their suspicions, even stigma, around mental health issues. It makes sense that a person might be reluctant to talk openly about their distress. At the same time, peer support can provide them with the ease of talking to someone without them writing anything down, without an appointment or record of the meeting.

KEY POINTS

■ As with a trusted friend, peer support offers confidential support.

■ The group can heal and protect.

■ Peer support training can advance our understanding, develop our skills, and encourage us to take action.

Mammals gather and humans talk. Injured or threatened mammals, especially herd animals, tend to gather, or herd-up if you like. Humans, which are mammals, additionally benefit from talking about their distress with those they trust. Gathering and talking can be both healing and a communal protective factor. So, I believe it is fair to say, there are both healing and protective benefits to peer support. There is nothing new here. These are ancient practices that can be summarized in what David Grossman has said, “Pain shared is pain divided; joy shared is joy multiplied.”

There is a part of growth and healing, recovery from harm, that is individual and personal, and there is a part that is communal. Experience makes us not better than others, but better for others. As a group, we are not as strong as our weakest link, we are as strong as whoever is paying attention and ready to help.

In Part 1, I spoke about how peer support team members are coworkers who are specially trained to offer support and are knowledgeable about resources.

The need for peer support is sometimes only recognized after a workplace tragedy or failing. Peer support can be early intervention. With forethought, we can often better plan for, respond to, and prevent unnecessary distress, and in some cases, a crisis. Peer support team members are trained to recognize the limits of their role and refer as appropriate to a higher level of support, intervention or care. While peer support can be utilized to respond to coworkers after a crisis, its primary function is more ordinary as in everyday interactions or encouragement.

A formal peer support team is part of a worker-centric peer support program that is intended to augment existing resources such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and internal or external professional psychological services.

Informal peer support likely already exists at your workplace. The intention of my work in peer support is to embolden workers to fully claim this domain as their important work to do, and to advance team members’ understanding of the peer role and help them develop the skills for effective peer support.

Peer support, as with a trusted friend or neighbor, is someone able and willing to confidentially offer support. It can take the form of listening, which I think of as a generosity of time, where you pause your own activity and thoughts while you try to understand why someone thinks and feels the way they do. Peer support can take place between any two people or members of a group, but because the term is generally associated with the workplace, I tend to refer to them as coworkers. A way to support coworkers is to form peer support teams. Peer support team members are specially trained to offer support and are knowledgeable about resources. They are intentionally not a professional counselor or therapist.

Peer support team members are uniquely qualified because they are coworkers who often understand the stressors of the workplace and demands of the work, and may have had similar experiences on or off the job. Well-trained and skilled peer support teams can elevate a workgroup’s expectation of wellbeing. Peer support is the wellness workforce multiplier.

In part 1 I spoke on how most of my work troubles, malcontent, and sometimes bitter complaining had nothing to do with the job at all, and everything to do with my own internal struggles, maturity, and relationship with my coworkers.

Whether it was the work itself, the workplace, or the coworkers. At our best, supportive coworkers helped multiply the good, divide the bad, and sooth the ugly. Peer support is taking this coworker synergy and making it intentional. What I most like about peer support is that it is essentially provided by lowly co-workers, amateurs in the best sense of the word.

You can think of peer support like this: Imagine you are lost and alone in a big city (or in the woods if you prefer). Your cellphone is dead, and you are late for an important meeting. You have a vague recollection of the place you are supposed to go and know it is within walking distance, but can’t recall the building’s name or address. However, you would recognize the entrance if you saw it. Feeling forlorn and a bit frightened, a local person recognizes that you appear lost and afraid. They offer to walk around with you in hopes you find your way. Together you walk. A friend had this experience and likened it to peer support.

Once in a job interview, I was asked why I was hoping to leave my current job, I said something like, “It was the best place I ever worked and the worst place I ever worked.” And the interview panel all laughed as if they fully understood. I was referencing the ambulance service where I had worked for ten years. In ambulance work, some emergencies are exciting and you feel like a hero, healer, or at least skilled and useful, others, despite your best efforts, are upsetting or depressing as you can imagine, and leave the crew with a sense of powerlessness.

The ups and downs of the job sometimes had nothing to do with death and destruction on the street, and more to do with internal office politics, disagreeable coworkers, seemingly idiotic rule changes, or just bad weather. We also brought our troubles from home to work and vice versa. Significantly, it took years for me to figure out that most of my work troubles, malcontent, and sometimes bitter complaining had nothing to do with the job at all, and everything to do with my own internal struggles, maturity, and relationship with my coworkers.