who we are

This guide has been developed via a three-stage process. Stage One involved a wide range of consultation interviews with two main groups of people: provider organisations with a good reputation for supporting their peer volunteers and people with lived experience of peer volunteering. Via two focus groups, people from the lived experience network of the Revolving Doors Agency, identified the key topic areas for broader consultation and provided invaluable feedback on a prototype of the online survey.

Stage Two comprised an online survey promoted by 92 organisations and completed by 253 peer volunteers. People completing the survey shared their experience of the overall support they received as peer volunteers in addition to specific information about training, help developing skills at work, help finding employment, remuneration and control over the type and amount of voluntary work they undertook. You can download the results of the survey here.

Stage Three was the co-production process where Russell and nine individuals with lived experience jointly developed the contents for this guide.

The project also benefitted from an Advisory Group comprising ten individuals representing the three main stakeholder groups of commissioners, provider organisations and peer volunteers.

You can find the details of the co-production team in the section below.