What do you talk about in peer support groups? Take a look at some of the following experiences:
You might find it useful to set an agenda that you share with the group members to help steer discussions. This might be especially useful if you find you are running out of things to talk about. As an example, at the start of the session you could suggest that you will cover the following topics:
- What has worked for you this month
- What hasn’t worked
- Particular issues that have come up
- Positive changes that have been made.
You might not follow the agenda rigidly if discussion is flowing naturally. Alternatively, you might find that setting an agenda at all is a distraction. Remember that each group is different.
Whilst setting the agenda, you might want to think about many peer support sessions you will run. It might be that you set up a fixed length such as one session a month for six months. Or, you may run an open group if you are happy to leave your commitment open. For more information on open and closed groups, please see the page here.
For further ideas on agenda items, please see the ‘Content’ section here where we go over this topic in detail.