Page 26 - Community Living Magazine 35-3

peer support

Strength in peer power to carry on working with Hicks and the
Over the past 10 years, I’ve been able
group she founded, PFG (People Focused
Group) Doncaster.
It remains the most inspiring thing I am
At the moment he felt most alone, Simon Duffy discovered the involved in, always bringing joy, even
power generated when people come together as equals to when often they have to deal with the
support each other most significant human problems.
Last year, I was able to carry out some
research on behalf of the group and we
published Growing Peer Support (2021),
he early part of my working life was which outlines the power of how PFG
spent focused on trying to solve the Doncaster works.
Tproblem of how to shift power and I can only touch on a few of their
money into the hands of disabled people achievements but, to give you some idea,
and families. we estimated that if the state had tried to
I tried to do this in London in the early do what PFG Doncaster had done it would
1990s, with limited success, then more have cost £3.2 million. However, it
effectively later on with Inclusion Glasgow, received only £65,000 of income during
where we used individual service funds to that period.
help design personalised support to get We also studied an amazing service
people with complex needs out of Lennox they had just started providing – an
Castle Hospital in Glasgow. emergency service for people in crisis.
Later on, I applied this kind of thinking This work has prevented suicide and kept
at local government level and I was very Circle of strength: women are there for each people out of institutional care.
involved in the development of what we other at WomenCentre Looking back on my earlier work, I am
called personal budgets. afraid that I had underestimated the
However, from 2009, my working life the money to create personal budgets. importance of peer support. Sadly, I think
changed radically. I was thought to be Although the women they supported that means I also underestimated people.
too critical of the government-led were often going through hell, Today, most of my time is focused on
implementation of personal budgets and, experiencing a whole array of connected how we continue to build Citizen Network
suddenly and unexpectedly, found myself problems, there was no money to really as a system of peer support.
having to fend for myself. I went from help them. At Citizen Network, we are trying to
having a team of people around me to Instead, WomenCentre used the create systems of peer support to help
being alone. power of peer support – women helping solve some of the gravest problems facing
women. This was found in the relationship the world today.
of equality between the women who For example, we helped set up the UBI
I began to suspect my focus were paid and those who were struggling; Lab Network, an anti-poverty campaign
on a shift in financial power it was also found in the way women with 45 labs around the world, working to
who had come through on the other
advance the case for universal basic
was far too limited. There is side of their torments came back as income to provide economic security
also the power we make when volunteers, mentors and supporters for everyone.
We also founded the Neighbourhood
we come together as equals in WomenCentre. Democracy Movement, which is working
I began to suspect that my focus on a
shift in financial power was far too to help neighbourhoods reclaim their
limited. There is also the power we make power and create welcoming communities
As many have found, in times like those when we come together as equals. This is for everyone.
you quickly find out who your friends are. what WomenCentre created. I am still involved in work to advance
Few of my more recent friends wanted to About the same time, I was also lucky personal budgets globally through the
be associated with me; mostly, it was my to meet Kelly Hicks. Hicks had left her Self-Directed Support Network, which is
old friends, people I’d worked with when secure job as a social worker and set part of Citizen Network.
things were tough, who stuck by me and herself up independently in Doncaster to It is not always easy to change your life
tried to help. try to help people. – or the world – but it’s a lot easier if you
One amazing exception to that pattern have peer support. n
was Clare Hyde. She was a new friend Outside the system l Citizen Network: www.citizen-network.
who was leading work on personalisation From the very beginning, she recognised org
in mental health and had been one of the that the most disempowering thing the
developers of WomenCentre in Halifax. system does is fail to recognise the gifts Further reading
Together, we went on to write the book and talents of people with disabilities and Duffy S. Growing peer support. Peer-led crisis
Women at the Centre (2011) and I learned mental health problems. support in mental health. Sheffield: Centre for
so much from her and all the other She also saw the key to unlocking those Welfare Reform; 2021
Duffy S, Hyde C. Women at the centre.
women she worked with. gifts was not in changing the system but in Sheffield: Centre for Welfare Reform; 2011. Women at the Centre
Critically for me, I learned the power of helping people work together outside the https://citizen-network.org/library/women-at-
peer support. WomenCentre did not have system – through peer support. the-centre.html

26 Vol 35 No 3 | Spring 2022 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk