The Best of Both Worlds”: Experiences of young people attending groups co-facilitated by peer workers and clinicians in a youth mental health service

Peer Support is an emerging discipline within mental health services (Slade et al., 2014), providing opportunities for positive role modelling and peer influence (Faulkner & Basset, 2012).

The embodiment of recovery by peer workers disrupts for service users the “chronicity of their patient role” (p. 884) reinforced by models of care focusing on symptom reduction and illness management (Austin et al., 2014).

Peer support frames the recovery journey as an ongoing and individual process, and enhances this by instilling hope and supporting individual agency (Mead et al., 2001).

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