WomenCAN Australia & Peer Support Evidence + Research + Care = Success
WomenCAN Australia’s peer-support program, The Placement Circle (TPC), is based on more than 40 years of research.
This research has emerged from the deinstitutionalisation of the mental-health sector, driven by the global human rights movement.
It shows that women need three things to get back into the workforce:
To reskill for free through registered training organisations close to home and aligned to the local employment market.
Safe and properly paid jobs.
To be supported by women in their community with shared lived experience.
Advocates and academics including Shery Mead have taken a leading role in the development of peer support as a successful training and employment intervention, producing a hefty work exploring the evidence-based benefits: Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach (2014). This was developed in the UK by McEnhill et al: The Work Foundation: Part of Lancaster University Disability Rights, (May 2016).
TPC draws on these and the many other thinkers who have established peer support as an effective part of returning to the workforce.
Peer support has key elements:
- Our staff serve as non-peer mentors and facilitators, while women support each other in acquiring skills and education.
- The participating women take responsibility for their own practices, support their peers, and take on leadership roles.
Part of the academic research informing peer-support programs was Learning by Doing, a guide to Teaching and Learning Methods (Gibbs G, 2013, Further Educational Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford.)
The international body of work gives us epistemological frameworks and, crucially, practical ways to provide the right conditions for success.
Such knowledge has extended into an increasing range of workplaces and led exploration into good work practices for general populations.
TPC is buttressed by evidence of what works, and by an understanding of why it works.
We understand that individuals learn in a variety of ways and have different work and study experiences, hence the mixed offering in peer support.
Many of our trainees have been carers for their children and other family members for many years and have not participated in formal education beyond school or employment.
Others are not long out of school. Still others are making mid-career changes.
Our mixed peer-support strategy has been developed to assist the trainees successfully complete the course and get a job.
The first element is completion of an Initial Needs Assessment (Identification). From that point, trainees with assistance of staff chart their journey, and gain knowledge about the various available supports.
WomenCAN Australia always seeks to evaluate how well the Placement Circle is working and iteratively improve it. We learn from what works best and then do more of it, using our experience to leverage the research.
