There are quite a few!  It is essential to build a strong foundation for your service and that involves your team of people working well together and feeling confident before they open the doors to the general public.   Once your group is open to offer support to others, this is when the learning journey begins!  You will have hopefully explored many scenarios whilst setting up your service – these will have hopefully helped you to think about strategies you need to put into place and maybe helped you to store a few contingency plans which you can fall back on should you feel the need.

 

Over the first few months your peer support team of facilitators will undoubtedly encounter some challenges as, the reality is, you never know who will be coming along for support and what characteristics they bring. These experiences will hopefully help your group to reflect, evaluate, make any necessary changes (if appropriate) and will add value to your ‘terms of reference’ and code of ethics.