International Peer Leadership Network
A forum for practising peer supporters in mental health and substance use across the world coming together to shape the future of peer leadership
We are excited to host the International Peer Leadership Network, a global first.
Connecting peer supporters from around the world, and most importantly, putting you first.
The I-PLN provides a forum for practising Peer Supporters* in mental health and substance use across the World.
Come together to shape the future of peer leadership*, develop initiatives to continue the spread and adoption of peer support, and develop your leadership skills to mobilise change.
Peer support is now an internationally recognised model of service delivery and community change. As a proven method that achieves lasting improvement in overall health and wellbeing, we want to see it utilised more and continue to grow its legitimacy as a key profession. However, there is lack of international co-operation and leadership skill development.
We aim to close this gap by bringing together people, developing opportunities for engagement and skill mobilisation, and learning from different perspectives. We want the forum to be ambitious and to aim high.
Your thoughts, ideas and practices could help make peer support even better.
*Practising Peer Supporter: A person who utilises their personal experience of mental health or substance use to support others in a paid or voluntary capacity (may have formal or informal training).
*Peer leadership: A Peer Supporter who uses their experiences and has developed skills to successfully guide, shape, and build the future of peer work.
Empowering peer supporters
It’s time to get organised!
At Habitus, we are passionate about peer support. As a proven method that achieves lasting improvement in overall health and wellbeing, we want to see it utilised more and continue to grow its legitimacy as a key profession. The I-PLN is a forum that provides opportunities for you to connect, learn, grow; and your ideas and practices from different perspectives could help make peer support even better.
Learn ‘community organising’ with us
If you’re thinking of attending one our meetings, that’s great! We can’t wait to meet you! All of our meetings are based on the principles of organising. Not sure what that means, that’s not a problem. We believe that when communities work together, the possibilities for change are endless and here at the I-PLN, we want to grow the leadership voice of peer supporters across the world. The following videos outline the initial training sessions on the basics of community organising we completed in the first few meetings we held. There is no need to watch these before joining, but its a great way to get caught up and understand how everything we do relates back to getting organised for change. Each of the videos are between 4 and 9 minutes and you can download the relevant handouts on from the buttons below to begin thinking about how you can become a leader for change.
* Community organising: the work of bringing people together to take action around their common concerns and shift power dynamics. It prioritises personal relationships, membership of institutions rooted within the community and a pragmatic approach to influencing people who hold power in government, business or public life. Community organisers reach out and listen, connect and motivate people to build their collective power. When people are organised, communities get heard and power begins to shift creating real change for good.
Learn Together | Grow Together | Transform Together