Peer Support Groups – A Journey through the Pandemic Shamin Malik, Peer Support Development Worker and the Peer Support Volunteer Team Our face-to-face peer support groups, in common with other services across the country, had a huge challenge in how to adjust to the lockdown restrictions in March 2020. I had just started my role prior to lockdown and rapidly became aware that we had to maintain some level of contact, as well as find alternative ways to deliver the groups. A first priority was to make contact with the people involved in the groups to check in with them. The pandemic had left many people feeling anxious. Volunteers initially felt left without a purpose as there was no delivery. However we worked as a team to explore ways in which we could still offer a service; do we just offer groups remotely or was there a possibility of offering one-to-one support? We eventually settled with offering groups over Zoom, once it was clear how we could do this safely. I checked who within our existing group members was interested in the online groups and in May 2020 we were able to start our online delivery. The online delivery has been a journey of learning together, in which technical obstacles have been embraced and overcome. New skills have been developed by all! Some volunteers and members have moved on and new people have joined. Annual Review 2020-21
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