What is Peer Support?

As a family sensitive peer support organization, we are dedicated to the improvement of quality of life for those living with early psychosis, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder through education, peer support and advocacy. MSS offers a number of services in Winnipeg and around the Province. Many of our programs are run by people with lived experience or family members who can relate on a personal level to the experiences.

Peer support may be defined as the help and support that people with lived experience of mental illness/problems and recovery are able to give to one another. It may be social, emotional or practical support but it is important that this support is mutually offered and reciprocal, allowing peers to benefit from the support whether they are giving or receiving it.

Key elements of peer support in mental health include the building on shared personal experience and empathy. It focuses on an individual’s strengths, not weaknesses, and works towards the individual’s wellbeing and recovery.