Brighton Peer Mentors – Paul’s Story
I had a number of reservations about the peer mentoring scheme at first as I couldn’t picture the environment I would be working in, I wasn’t sure what to expect and therefore felt some resistance to starting.
David Royce, the Chief Executive, came in on the first day to welcome us to the organisation and this had a big impact on me. The message he gave was to be the best you could be, always to remember why you came into this field and never to offer a second rate service to service users. This set the scene for me.
All my initial anxieties were proven to be unnecessary as the training fully equipped me with ways to be appropriate and assertive in supporting other service users.
One of my fears was that I might be judgemental or intolerant of people who are chaotic and still using substances, but the training equipped me with ways to understand the stages that people are at and how best to support them through it.
The support of the group was important to me and developed as time went by. One area I had to work on was making the distinction between the Fellowship, which I am a part of, and other approaches to supporting people with substance misuse problems.
I had to practice being open-minded and not to be governed by my previous experiences of formal education in classroom settings which had been negative.
Amongst other things the key learning I took away from the Accredited Programme was an understanding of Motivational Interviewing techniques and the Learning Cycle, styles and barriers. I learned that I am a pragmatist which explains why I am most comfortable learning when I know why I am doing it and how it will help me to achieve my goals.
Everything that I was worried about was covered, even dealing with aggressive behaviour, which was an anxiety. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a situation which led to conflict.
Once the course was completed I started my placement at the Drug Intervention Programme in Brighton. I still had anxieties but was reassured that I needn’t worry and would be supported and so I went to the project to co-facilitate a peer led aftercare support group. Again this was a steep learning curve but I was able to apply the learning I had done from the course. It was challenging because there were changes happening in the service and the group was unstable. But I had learned how to facilitate putting in place boundaries, ground rules and creating structure. One of my goals was to encourage the formation of an independent on-going peer support group, which has now started last week.
I have now started the DAAT run City and Guilds Progression Award at Chichester College and continue in my peer mentoring placement. In a nutshell I have got the following from the project: the beginnings of a career path, and the feeling that I have become an independent, autonomous decision maker with direction and control over my future.
