PEER TO PEER SUPPORT INITIATIVE

Advocates often face stress and trauma, but frequently lack access to mental health professionals and tools to support their wellbeing. A strong body of scientific research shows that P2P – in which peers provide knowledge, experience, and emotional, social and practical support to each other – is one of the most powerful ways to build resilience and mitigate the harmful effects of stress and trauma.

These mutually supportive relationships allow for greater empathy, companionship, and opportunities for peers to learn from one another. Peer support is also relatively inexpensive, accessible, and possible to create in diverse settings.

​In the context of human rights, peer support is especially attractive since it can enhance the cohesion of groups and social movements.

Human rights and social justice activists are at the forefront of  combatting urgent and grave injustices across the globe. In the process, however, they can face significant personal  risks. Many are threatened, abused, and even killed for pursuing their work, and they bear witness to and document  violations.

Their exposure to stress and trauma can harm their mental health, and adverse wellbeing impacts can, in  turn, lead to increased organizational conflict, reduced effectiveness, burnout, and weaker movements for justice. While  NGOs globally are increasingly attempting to address the mental health consequences of human rights work, a recent  major study we conducted found many significant barriers to wellbeing, including a lack of mental health education,  awareness, and research; limited funding for wellbeing initiatives; minimal access to professional psychology support;  and lack of access to mental health programming tailored to the needs of advocates.

In this context, P2P programs are a highly promising initiative. A strong body of  scientific research shows that P2P – in which peers provide knowledge, experience, and emotional, social and practical  support to each other – is one of the most powerful ways to build resilience and mitigate the harmful effects of stress  and trauma. These mutually supportive relationships allow for greater empathy, companionship, and opportunities for  peers to learn from one another.

Peer support is also relatively inexpensive, accessible, and possible to create in diverse  settings. In the context of human rights, peer support is especially attractive since it can enhance the cohesion of groups  and social movements. And in our research, human rights advocates cite peer support as a key strategy used to maintain resilience. However, few human rights groups have formal P2P programming, and our research has shown that  advocates currently lack knowledge about how to design or implement such programs. There is also currently no research into P2P in the context of human rights. 

Our Objectives:

1. Support organizations and movements to design and implement P2P programs, thereby responding to the  desires and needs of human rights advocates for wellbeing tools which can help them to sustain difficult work  and be effective allies for their colleagues; 
2. Research and assess P2P program effectiveness in the human rights field, to build an evidence base for effective  wellbeing programming; and 
3. Share learnings and knowledge about P2P across human rights movements, to contribute to more cohesive and sustainable movements, better able to advocate for justice, equality, and rights for all.