The Scottish Recovery Network developed the ‘Peer Values Framework’, a set of six values which underpin the peer relationship:

• Hope
• Experience
• Authenticity
• Responsility
• Mutality
• Empowerment

Why develop a Values Framework?

The Values Framework aims to support and promote peer working, with the aim of:

• Ensuring the role remains true to the peer support ethos.
• Clarifying the role and identity of peer workers.
• Creating a basis for the further development of peer worker roles and services.
• Improving understanding of peer working.

Introduction to the six values

Hope: We believe in the reality of recovery for all and that:

• Peer workers are powerful role models and evidence of the reality of recovery.
• We are all unique individuals, with hopes, dreams and aspirations with the potential to be all that we can be.
• The peer relationship offers a unique healing environment and powerful way of promoting hope and optimism.
• It is possible to learn and grow from challenges and setbacks.

Experience: We believe recovery is a unique and individual experience and that:

• We are all experts in our own experience.
• There are many roads to recovery and different ways of nderstanding and interpreting experiences.
• The sharing of experiences can be a powerful catalyst for personal change and growth.
• Peer workers use their lived experience intentionally to encourage and support recovery.

Authenticity: We believe being authentic is about being true to ourselves and that:

• Empathy and compassion are at the heart of the peer relationship.
• Authentic relationships are open, honest and mutual.
• Peer support is about building connections that enable people to trust and to share their wisdom.
• Having compassion for others is grounded in being compassionate towards yourself.

Responsibility: We believe wellness and recovery involves taking responsibility and that:

• Supporting people to make changes is achieved through ‘being with’ rather than ‘doing for’.
• Peer workers have a responsibility to ensure that the values of peer support are nurtured and developed.
• Peer workers should take responsibility for their learning and development.
• Peer workers have a responsibility to challenge stigma and discrimination encountered in their role.

Mutuality: We believe that mutuality is core to peer working and that:

• We are interdependent and all have something to contribute.
• Mutuality is developed through respectfully sharing ideas, learning and experiences.
• Mutuality develops through discussion and negotiation of what is helpful in the relationship.
• Everyone involved in the relationship has a responsibility for making it work

Empowerment: We believe empowerment means being in the driving seat and that:

• Recovery is the job of each individual and the peer relationship is based on learning together.
• Empowerment happens as we draw on our strengths and abilities both individually and collectively.
• Taking risks, trying new things and moving beyond our comfort zone are essential to personal growth and change.
• Having power and control comes from identifying our own needs, making choices and taking responsibility for finding solutions.