Video Spotlight: Mandy, CAPITAL Peer Support Worker on Why Peer Support is Essential

Across mental health services, peer support workers bring something no training or policy can replicate: lived experience.

It is through their presence that services become more human, more hopeful, and more grounded in empathy. Whether it is on wards, in community settings, or behind the scenes shaping policy and practice, peers are the living proof that recovery is possible and that people are more than their diagnoses.

Thank you to the peer support workers who have given so much of themselves to help others feel seen, heard, and understood.

The Power of Peer Support

Lived experience work is rooted in shared experiences and understanding. When someone who is struggling is met by a peer who has walked a similar path, something powerful happens. It is connection. It is the beginning of trust.

Peer support workers help bridge the gap between services and the people they serve. They stand beside those in distress, not as experts with answers, but as equals offering compassion, patience, and the knowledge that things can change.

They do all of this while continuing to navigate their own journeys.

Mandy: Lived Experience in Action

Mandy, one of our peer support workers, recently shared her insights in this video as part of our efforts to raise awareness about the importance of lived experience in mental health services and about our impending funding cuts, affecting almost every aspect of CAPITAL.

Her reflections show the depth of understanding that comes from lived experience and why these roles are so essential to how care is delivered. Mandy, like so many peers, offers a perspective grounded in truth, resilience, and care. Her voice helps shape more compassionate services for everyone.

Under Threat

Many peer support roles are now at risk due to funding cuts and changing service priorities.

Everyone at CAPITAL, an organisation built by and for people with lived experience, have been protesting. Peer support roles within inpatient services, are being decommissioned. CAPITAL face an 80% funding cut and removal of our peer support roles in wards.

On our CAPITAL Impact Solutions blog, “Lived Experience Work Being Decommissioned” we outline the consequences of these cuts.

This is not just about jobs. It is about people. It is about whether we choose to build services that listen, include, and heal.

To Our Peer Support Workers: Thank You

To Mandy, and to every peer support worker who has walked into a ward, sat with someone in crisis, shared their story, challenged stigma, or supported recovery in quiet ways,  thank you.

Your work matters. It has changed lives. It continues to change services.

A Call to Action

To those commissioning and shaping services: lived experience must remain at the heart of mental health care. Peer roles are not extras. They are essential.

We need services that are not only clinically informed, but also compassionately led.

Support peer support. Protect lived experience. Let it lead.

Email us with any enquiries or information about how to support us.