Youth Work Week 2024: Angus Young People’s Peer Mental Health Support
This week is Youth Work Week 2024, an annual celebration of all things youth work. Each year has a different theme, and this year’s is A right to youth work for all – delivering positive futures for young people.
To mark the campaign, we’re shining a spotlight on our fantastic team of workers at the Angus Young People’s service. The service has four main support areas that work out of the Forfar office. These are Early Intervention and Family Support, Drug and Alcohol Support, Peer Mental Health Support, and Relationship, Sexual Health and Parenthood.
Today we are focussing on our Peer Mental Health Support service to find out more about it and the impact it has.
Peer Mental Health Support
Hillcrest Futures’ Angus Mental Health Peer Support service is made up of a team of two peer workers and a project worker who each have their own lived experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges. They use their own experiences to relate to individuals and provide brief interventions of support to young people aged 11 to 16 who are struggling. These sessions can be delivered in schools and community settings.
Our peer workers can offer a person up to three appointments, giving them a safe space to speak about their mental health struggles, learn coping strategies, and self-manage and resolve problems they may have. The peer workers share tips, tools and coping strategies that they have used themselves in their own mental health journeys. They provide hope to others as they show that it is possible to grow, learn and have a fulfilling life while still coping with significant, and sometimes lifelong, challenges.
Our peer team also runs workshops to provide support to young people throughout Angus. These sessions are extremely interactive and receive high levels of positive feedback from our young people who think that our peer team should be in their classroom every week.
Testimonials
Find out more
If you would like to find out more about the service, email youngpeopleangus@hillcrestfutures.org.uk. Follow the service on Instagram for latest news and updates www.instagram.com/HillcrestYPS.Angus.