Empathy - not academic training - is what makes someone effective at supporting another person. Therefore, empathy should be the primary qualification for anyone who provides mental health support. At Peer Collective, we’ve developed a quantifiable method for assessing empathy, and we’re using it to build a new kind of peer support workforce. Our mission is to make excellent support available to everyone who needs it.

Empathy - not academic training - is what makes someone effective at supporting another person. Therefore, empathy should be the primary qualification for anyone who provides mental health support. At Peer Collective, we’ve developed a quantifiable method for assessing empathy, and we’re using it to build a new kind of peer support workforce. Our mission is to make excellent support available to everyone who needs it.

Peer support helps you to:

What makes someone excellent at supporting others is who they are as a person, not their diploma. Peer specialists are highly empathetic people who create helping relationships based on shared experiences. Our peer specialists are chosen for their empathy and are trained by experts in providing support, resources, perspective, and connection to their peers.

Peer support is a helping relationship based on shared experiences. It’s different from therapy, because therapy is a helping relationship based on diagnosing and treating a mental disorder. Some people use peer support alongside therapy because it’s an easy way to receive more support. Others prefer peer support to therapy because they believe that feeling understood and supported is more important than being diagnosed.

If there’s anything about your life that you want to change, or if you’re looking to understand yourself better, peer support can be a great option. While the nature of the relationship is different in peer support compared to therapy, the benefits are very similar. In fact, research suggests people with any type of challenge might benefit from peer support as much as therapy. The question is about the type of relationship you prefer. If you prefer an informal, non-clinical relationship, then peer support might be the choice for you.

In your first session, your peer specialist will seek to understand the challenges you’re facing, the change you’re hoping to see, and the type of support you need to get you there.

Some people want to feel heard and understood. If that’s you, your peer specialist will empathize with you and give you the space to find your own clarity. Other people want new resources and tools for dealing with life challenges. In that case, your peer specialist will share mental health resources that they’ve learned (and most likely used personally) until you find something that works for you. Your peer specialist will work with you to understand the type of support you want.

The chosen few who pass our simulator meet with our training and support team, and receive training in crisis management, privacy, ethics, and peer support skills. After completing their training, they continue to have 24/7 access to the support team for support and guidance.

Our training and support team is led by our CEO and Founder, Tim Desmond. Tim is a licensed therapist, bestselling author, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar in Counseling Psychology at Antioch University-New England. All of our trainers are licensed therapists who have taught at a graduate level.

At Peer Collective, we’ve rigorously vetted all of our peer specialists for emotional intelligence, empathy, and alliance. If someone is on our platform, you can trust they are a special person. However, even the best peer specialists aren’t the perfect match for everyone.

Research shows that the best way to choose someone to support you is to learn about them and trust your intuition. After 1 or 2 sessions, you will know if that person is a great match for you. If not, Peer Collective makes it easy to try a different peer specialist. In fact, many Peer Collective members have ongoing relationships with several peer specialists.

All Peer Collective sessions are over the phone or Zoom. If you’d prefer to text message instead of talking on the phone, that’s possible, but we encourage you to try phone or Zoom.

To be chosen for Peer Collective, you must complete a series of extremely challenging video simulations—tough situations you might face as a peer specialist. We record video of your responses, and they’re graded based on all the qualities & behaviors that we know create positive mental health outcomes. These include empathy, warmth, and alliance. You must score in the “excellent” range in all 7 simulations to be invited onto the platform, which is why only the top 3% are selected. That’s why you know everyone here is exceptional. But don’t believe us—try for yourself.