ANZSIPS Network – making a difference!

ANZSIPS (Australian New Zealand Spinal Injured Peer Support) Network meet to share ideas and solve common problems related to offering peer support to people with a spinal cord injury both in hospital settings and in the community.  They first met eight years ago during the discipline meeting time slot at ANZSCoS conferences.  Because various peer support services were together in one place, it provided a great opportunity to meet face to face.  In 2012 they set up a Facebook group and members kept in touch through that.  They met once again in September 2019 prior to the ANZSCoS Conference in Melbourne and it was a big turnout. During the meeting, members shared their achievements and challenges.  Some common challenges were identified and they agreed to continue to meet via video conferencing (before COVID-19 was a thing!) to see if they could develop some solutions. The key issues they decided rather ambitiously to tackle were:

1. How to curate and make easily accessible all the great ideas and information shared on the various social media sites, chat rooms and blog sites that peer services support.
2. Develop strategies for connecting in with younger people with SCI.
3. Supporting people in rural and isolated communities.

Initially setting out to meet once per quarter, with recent events they have decided to meet every couple of months.  They have noticed that since the Melbourne  conference (probably even  starting at ISCoS) it feels like peer support and involving people with lived experience has really come into prominence.  Their membership has grown as more people with lived experience are starting to work in the space and they are getting to know each other more, particularly the new people.  A silver lining to the current pandemic circumstances is that they are developing skills in methods such as video conferencing that will serve their consumers long after COVID-19 becomes a memory.

In summary, the aim or the group is:

• to network
• to share information, ideas and skills
• to address common problems together
• to find ways to improve our outreach to people living with a spinal cord injury

Despite the increasing recognition of the value of peer support, people who live with disability still at times encounter resistance from healthcare workers.  ANZSIPS would like to share an invitation to recognise the benefit and potential that people with lived experience bring to the health care setting. People with lived experience can make a huge difference in the lives of people with new injuries through sharing their authentic experience and working in partnership with therapists and researchers to develop and deliver great outcomes for patients/consumers. Peer Support Services aim to support the great work of healthcare providers while also supporting people with new injuries to engage and get the most out of their time in the care of health professionals. They encourage all healthcare providers to talk to their local peer support service and work with them to develop approaches and programs that will maximise the benefit for their patients/consumers.