New service in planning: Peer work in outpatient psychiatry

Arud is planning a new service where peers will complement psychiatric treatment.

Peer staff know the situation of people with addictions and/or other psychological impairments from their own experience. Their personal recovery path helps them to support and advise other patients. A specific training course ("Experienced Involvement", short Ex-In) enables peers to contribute their own experience in a differentiated way, to approach other people empathetically and as impartially as possible and to support them on their individual path to recovery. The training has also provided them with sound knowledge of both recovery-promoting and recovery-inhibiting processes, so that they can show affected people strategies and approaches for improving their well-being. At the workplace, peers will bring in the perspective of those affected and intercede for patients.

In recent months, an interdisciplinary working group from the three core areas of psychiatry, internal medicine and medical counters has worked together with five EX-IN-trained peers to develop a concept that explains how peer work can be integrated into everyday clinical practice. In the psychiatry teams and in cooperation with the other disciplines, the peers will take over patient consultations in individual settings and, in a next step, support the initiation of self-help groups.

The offer is to start next year.