Photo by Steve Baer | FireDog Photos

Peer support succeeds only when trust is earned, built, and lived every day

I stood in front of a large group of first responders, and asked them, who has a peer support team? Quite a few hands went up. Next question: Who knows who is on their team? Some hands went down. Next question: Who trusts their peer support team? Another wave of hands went down. After these questions were asked, I was left with about one-third of the hands still raised. These were the only ones left in this large group that has a peer support team, has an active team, and trusts their team. That was sobering.

For quite some time now, we have been focusing on first responder wellness and mental health within the job. Initially, the push had a large focus on individual and group talk therapy. While there was some positive response from first responders in that arena, we were still losing more to suicide than in the line of duty.

The social media blitzes began, the flyers went out in the stations, and a few mental health sessions began to be held at first responder conferences, “therapy is safe, therapy is helpful, please go to therapy” was the cry. Yet, first responder mental health continued to struggle. Multiple studies over multiple decades revealed that stigma was still the main issue keeping people from seeking help. We realized that just pushing therapy isn’t working, so let’s try something else.

The Rise of Peer Support Teams

In come peer support teams sprinkled throughout the first responder world. They said, “Hey, if you won’t talk to a therapist, talk to each other.” Peer support has shown to be a significant contributor to building higher morale, more positivity in the workplace overall, and helps create psychological safety in an agency.

When peer support is done well, it doesn’t just improve morale, it improves focus, decision-making, retention, and ultimately the safety of everyone we serve. However, first responder mental health and well-being continue to struggle, despite agencies being able to raise their hands and say, “We have a peer support team, we are doing the thing.” Why is this still the case?

There are always outliers that are doing something extremely well, as in any program. There are agencies that have strong peer support programs, and their members serve as safe, trusted resources sought out by fellow peers. However, that is not the majority of peer support programs. Oftentimes, programs are there in title only, and if you were to ask members of that agency about it, they might say things like, “Oh yeah, I think I saw an email about it, a flyer in the locker room, someone saying something about it sometime when I first started here.”

Where Peer Support Breaks Down

There are other agencies that only experience peer support following what is deemed a critical incident or difficult call. Someone they haven’t talked to or maybe even seen in weeks, months or ever pops up after something critical and says, “How are you?”

Not only is there no connection built in order to create trust in their presence, but everyone knows how to answer that question, since there is only one way to do so in our world: “Fine, good, living the dream.” Or even worse for an agency, when asked about using their peer support teams, the response is, “Oh, hell no, I don’t trust anyone on that team, they are a bunch of talkers, they aren’t safe.”

If your people don’t trust your peer support team, you don’t have a peer support team.

Rebuilding Peer Support the Right Way

So what is an agency to do? Just scrap peer support all together? Absolutely not. It is still an incredibly powerful resource for your first responders, when used well.

What does “well” look like?

Peer support is built on a foundation of trust.

  • If peers in the agency do not trust their peer support members, those members should no longer be doing peer support. Rather than have anyone who submits a memo of interest joining the team, have your agency members nominate who they want on their team. This leads to a team built by those they will serve, and agency members now have buy-in to the program, since they helped build it.
  • Trust is not only built by not gossiping about what is shared between peers and peer support members. Trust is built by connection. Having team members only appear after a critical incident doesn’t build trust, it only reinforces the idea that agency members only matter after something big happens. Show them they matter every day, every shift, every relationship, they all matter. Building connection comes with casual conversations when there is nothing “critical” occurring. It comes when agency members feel like they can talk about their families, struggles at home, shift partners, supervisors, and calls in a casual setting with peer support members. Only then will they feel safe sharing the deeper, more substantial challenges when they come along. Their peer support team members don’t show up only when it’s hard, they have been there throughout, so therefore, they are a safe person to dive deeper with.
  • Trust is earned and not just given simply because of the title of “Peer Support Team” member. Telling people, “Hey, these are your peer supporters, talk to them when you are super depressed or struggling” won’t work. Just as a supervisor earns the respect of those they supervise (it’s not just given due to their title), this works the same way for peer support teams, as well.

Peer support must be present and active.

  • If agency members do not even know who is on the team, that not only means they have built no connection or trust with the team, but it also means that should they ever actually feel like they need extra help from someone, they won’t even know who to go to. When first responders struggle so much to reach out for help as it is, making it even more difficult by not knowing who to call tends to negate the initial urge to reach out for help completely.
  • Many agencies don’t trust that their peer support members are going to be there for the long haul or that they are there only to serve as a stepping stone for team members’ ambitions. This suspicion gets waylaid by peer support teams actually being present and active in the agency in an intentional and consistent manner.
  • Being present means something different for each team depending on their agency’s needs. It can look like: hosting dinners/BBQs, family nights, morale boosting activities/decorations in the control room, monthly newsletters, intentional mental wellness focused gifts, easily accessible resources so seeking help can remain anonymous, providing extra support during holidays, recognizing growth and strength publicly, or sharing the team members’ healing journeys publicly to help reduce stigma and build trust. The list of ways to be active can go on as it just takes active thinking, planning and implementing for a team to make a real difference.

Peer support teams can be an invaluable resource, when they are not used as just another box to check on the first responder wellness to-do list. Our people need us, and they need to be able to trust us and rely on us. That is when the power of peer support truly shines.

Peer support is not a thing to do, it is an active and intentional connection we make with our people. If we build connection, we build trust, if we build trust, we build wellness, and then we build an agency that looks different, not because it has likes on social media, but because it’s healthier.

Peer support isn’t a program we implement — it’s a relationship we build, every single day, through connection, consistency, and trust.