Most members will be aware that SIAA have been hosting peer support sessions for members for nearly 3 years now. Following our new strategic plan and recent feedback from members SIAA will be rethinking our approach to peer support in 2023, aiming to better reflect the needs and capacity of members across Scotland. We’d like to say a big thank you to members that provided feedback to us about which topics they would be interested in SIAA basing peer support forums around. We had particular interest in forums around ‘learning disabilities and autism’, ‘mental health’ and ‘managers peer support’.
The renewed sessions will be ‘Peer support forums’ that are held with a particular type of independent advocacy or group independent advocacy is provided to, as the common thread. Two or three SIAA hosted sessions will be held per year on each topic. Peer support for managers sessions will continue to be delivered every second month. We are really keen for member to cocreate the sessions with us so they are as useful a resource as possible. This might mean co-facilitating a session with SIAA, discussing or presenting on an area of expertise you have, sharing tools or guidance you use in your work.
We have planned the following ‘Peer support forum’ sessions beginning in April:
- ‘Mental health’ (3 sessions per year)
- ‘Learning disability and autism’ (3 sessions per year)
- ‘Collective advocacy’ (2 sessions per year)
- ‘Citizen advocacy’ (2 sessions per year)
- ‘Children, young people and families’ (2 sessions per year)
- ‘Criminal justice’ (2 sessions per year)
Please do sign up asap so we know likely numbers for the sessions. We would also like to encourage managers to share the information with staff and volunteers across organisations and groups and, where possible, protect time for their attendance.
Furthermore, SIAA’s Peer support for managers session will start in February with 6 sessions for the year.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
