Using Peer Support in Developing Empowering Mental health Services (UPSIDES)

Background

A large number of people with severe mental illness receive no treatment. This treatment gap is largest in low and middle income countries (LMIC), with detrimental effects on individuals (social role, quality of life, stigma) and societies (equity, costs).

Peer support is an established intervention involving a person in recovery from mental illness being employed to offer support to others with mental illness. Peers are an untapped resource in global mental health.

Aims

Primary aim
To replicate and scale-up peer support interventions for people with severe mental illness, generating evidence of sustainable best practice in high-, middle- and low resource settings, through mixed-methods implementation research.
Secondary aim
Peer support will be implemented in the local context. Using a mixed-methods approach, the impact of peer support will be rigorously evaluated at the patient-, peer support worker-, services-, and implementation-levels.
Other aim(s)
Evidence for best practice will be disseminated to local, national and international stakeholders ensuring sustainability and coverage.

Project plan

UPSIDES scales-up peer support interventions for people with severe mental illness in high-, middle- and low-resource settings. It established an international community of practice for peer support including peer support workers, mental health researchers, and other relevant stakeholders in Europe, Africa and Asia. There were 8 study sites in 6 countries including Germany, United Kingdom, Uganda, Tanzania, Israel and India. Peer support was implemented adapted to the local context.

Using a mixed-methods approach, the impact of peer support was rigorously evaluated at the levels of patients, peer support workers, services, and implementation. It explored the essential components necessary to create a peer support model in mental health care, while providing the evidence required to sustain and eventually scale-up the intervention in different cultural, organisational and resource settings.

By actively involving and empowering service users, UPSIDES aimed to move mental health systems toward a recovery orientation, emphasising user-centredness, community participation and the realisation of mental health as a human right.

Impact

The UPSIDES project demonstrated that the peer support intervention is an effective strategy to support mental health services. In 2023, the UPSIDES team published their implementation manual, which demonstrates the successful implementation of UPSIDES peer support across sites in Germany, India, Israel, Uganda, and Tanzania. The manual is designed to guide replication of the UPSIDES Intervention in different contexts.

Publications and output

This project has a related case study Scaling up peer support for mental health recovery globally: The UPSIDES project.

You may visit the project website for more information.