Meet the Team: Sharon & Alex

Peer Connections, Rethink Mental Illness 

Sharon is a Peer Connections’ peer mentor volunteer. With her warm, friendly nature and commitment to supporting others, Sharon’s work alongside Alex Nelson, Project Officer with Rethink Mental Illness’s Peer Connections & SMI Community and Outreach, helps to transform lives. Together, they bring the power of lived experience and a hard-won understanding of mental health challenges to their roles.

Peer support is a cornerstone of the services provided by Open Mental Health and Peer Connections.  Sharon’s work is an example of what we call the ‘power of peer’. But what exactly is peer support? Alex explains: “Peer support is about offering understanding and empathy from someone who has been there. It’s not about giving advice or telling someone what they should be doing—it’s about listening, being someone they can relate to, and motivating others to help them move forward.”

So, as a peer mentor volunteer, Sharon uses her experience to support people facing similar life experiences. The insights she can share give those she mentors an opportunity to learn from someone further along the path to wellness and recovery.

This approach, where people are supported by someone who has lived through the same challenges they face, creates a unique, empowering and therapeutic bond.

Sharon’s role has many aspects, but her ability to connect with others and achieve a sense of solidarity is at its heart. By understanding the needs of the people she mentors, Sharon can help them move forward with their recovery, feel less alone and, when necessary, guide them toward additional support.

“I do love what I do,” she said. “I worry about those I am working with and want to make sure they’re getting the help they need.”

The Power of Lived Experience

Sharon’s journey into peer support began with her own period of illness. Drawing from these experiences, she offers a level of empathy and understanding that goes beyond textbook knowledge. “I am saying the stuff from the bottom of my heart,” Sharon said, reflecting on the sometimes emotional aspects of her role.

This authenticity adds to the effectiveness of peer support.  The people Sharon mentors know they’re not just another client—she genuinely cares.

Peer Connections is a program designed to link individuals with peer mentors who offer support and guidance based on shared experiences. peer mentoring isn’t about therapy but about creating a supportive network where people learn from each other.

Sharon said, “It’s about being there for someone, not just as a professional, but as someone who understands what they’re going through.”
This understanding can make all the difference for clients who feel isolated in their struggles.

Alex said, “The support we offer is about building trust and creating a space where people feel safe to be open.”

This sense of safety and trust is fundamental to the success of Peer Connections, where the relationship between mentor and mentee is built on mutual respect and shared experiences.

Alex, too, brings the power of lived experience to his work, “I came into it initially from a place where services weren’t good enough. They didn’t understand me. They didn’t want to. I do have a slightly complex and slightly unusual diagnosis, and everyone was trying to fit me in a box.”

At that time, Alex was introduced to a new kind of support. “One day, I was with a fantastic support team recovery worker who took me along to a peer group, and it was very much a case of: ‘you need to get out and do something. I know you don’t like everyone, but you need to do this.’”

Joining the peer support group turned out to be a life-changing moment. “Whilst I was there, I met the most inspirational peer support worker and she told stories about the darkest moment she’d ever experienced in her life with such a smile and a flourish that made us all laugh. And it made us all see there’s hope out there. So that became the focus of my recovery: I want to make a difference and ensure there are fewer people like me in the future.”

Like Alex, Sharon’s motivation comes from her own experience of support. “Through my last stages of illness and my problems, I just decided I wanted to give something back. I felt like I got given more than I deserved. The lady dealing with me said, ‘I think you’ll be good at this, but it’s down to you if you want to do it’ because she knew I wanted to give something back.’

Before starting her role as a peer mentor volunteer with Peer Connections, Sharon completed Peer Foundation Training with WATCH CIC. “I had a lot of good support, and when the training was finished, we had a year’s support online.”

What Happens During Peer Mentoring?

Alex explained the procedure when someone asks for peer mentoring support. “I will be their contact to start with. Over the course of a few phone calls, I will get to know a bit more about them, which will help us understand which mentor they would relate to better. From the outset, I make it evident that we’re not a clinical service. We’re not here to fit people in boxes. And I slowly build a little bit of rapport. I get to understand what they want from this support. This is very much done in the time frame they want; some people might get it all out in an hour. For others, it’ll continue for a few weeks until we build up to that.”

With this initial work done, Alex contacts Sharon and the rest of the peer mentoring team to find a mentor who’s a good match.

Sharon said, “Alex sends a list out. There are no names. It’s just initials, their age, what area they’re in, some details about them, and a good description of what they’re going through, what they would like help with, and what their goals are.”

Alex provides more relevant information to mentors who feel they could connect with someone before arranging an initial meeting between mentor and mentee.

“So, my first call,” Sharon said, “is very much like getting to know each other and finding out what they want from the service. I always explain that I’m not professional. I’m just here with my own life experiences. At our first meeting, I give them a bit of a basic background of myself and my life experience and what I’ve been through without going into too much detail, but enough to give them an idea that they’re not on their own.”

Sharon is flexible and finds the best way to meet with her mentees via Zoom, video call, or in person. She said, “You tend to find a bit more out about them because you’re actually face to face, and they can see that you are human and what have you, and then we go from there. I just build goals with them over the period of six weeks.”

Alex explains that mentoring typically lasts six to eight sessions, but additional support is available if required. “We have a seamless relationship with our physical health and wellbeing navigators who support our SMI Community & Outreach Service.  They can deliver that little bit of extra support if appropriate.  So it’s almost a step-up and a step-down system. If anybody needs to step up to something more targeted, we have the navigators available, and if someone finishes with the navigators and then needs to step down, we have the mentors available.”

The Challenges and Rewards of Being a Peer Mentor

Sharon finds her work rewarding, but there are challenges, too. “It’s tough sometimes,” she acknowledges, “especially when you’re hoping you’re saying the right things. I just hope that what I say helps them in some way.”

However, the positive impact of Sharon’s work is clear. Since completing her peer mentor training, she’s made a difference in the lives of multiple clients. “I’m working with my sixth one, it would be a few more, but I took some time out from mentoring because I went back into a bit of a dark place myself.”

Rediscovering the Outside World

Sharon has enjoyed watching the lives of her mentees transform for the better. “My very first mentee found it difficult to leave the house and was very anxious. I said, just start off with your front garden and then step out a bit more. Each step is a good step. And, by the seventh week, she told me she went into town, had her covid jab, and looked around Boots. And she started volunteering, eventually starting to go most weeks. She always came back with something exciting to tell me about what she’d done. I could have cried because I felt so proud of how much she’d accomplished. It was amazing.”

Sharon’s ability to connect with people on a personal level, combined with her mentoring skills, makes her an invaluable member of the Peer Connections team. “It’s not just a job for me,” she said. “It’s about making sure people don’t feel alone in their struggles.”

Alex said, “It really is an honour to work with the mentor team and support them and what they do.”

Sue Hunter is the Project Manager for these services and says, “Our team of peer mentor volunteers is incredible. Each brings different experiences and challenges, but collectively, their strength and resilience alongside the desire and ability to help others is the foundation of our person-centred support, and we could not do it without them.”

Mentoring support with Peer Connections and Navigator support with Community & Outreach are both available to people 18+ living in Somerset with diagnosed or undiagnosed Serious Mental Illness (SMI): Schizophrenia, Psychoses and Bipolar or Personality Disorders. The service cannot support those in crisis, but if you’re facing a crisis in your mental health, Crisis Safe Space is available for appointments, and you can call Mindline Somerset twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

If you’re interested in learning more about Peer Connections and how a referral or introduction can help you on the journey to good mental health, Alex, Sharon and the rest of the team are always ready to support new clients and lend an ear. As Alex said, “You don’t have to go through it alone. We’re here to help.”

To discover more about the services offered, visit our Peer Connections webpage or email PeerConnections@rethink.org to make a referral.