An inventory of peer support projects in Europe
conducted by the Correlation Peer Support Working Group

Why have I received this questionnaire?
You have received this questionnaire because we have been told that you or your organisation is involved in peer support projects.If any of your work has an element of peer support, please complete the questionnaire.

Please read the following answers to some questions you may have about this project, and then take the time (15 minutes) to complete the questionnaire. For further information, contact administration@correlation-net.org



What is Correlation?
Correlation is the European network for social inclusion and health, funded by the European Union and the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (http://www.correlation-net.org/). The overall aim of Correlation is to tackle health inequalities among vulnerable and high risk populations, such as drug users, socially excluded young people, undocumented migrants and sex workers.

Correlation uses a multi-disciplinary approach that bridges the gap between research, practice and policy. Correlation works with more than 70 partners in Europe and its neighbouring countries.


What is the Correlation Peer Support Working Group?
Correlation’s Peer Support Working Group comprises about 20 people from different European countries. We all have experience of peer support initiatives, some as peer supporters, some as project managers and others as researchers. We aim to describe and collate these experiences, good practices and lessons learned, and produce a manual on peer support.

All the working group members - except the coordinator - participate on a voluntary basis.

What is peer support?
Our working definition of peer support is:

…a method by which members from the target group are included in health promotion activities and communicate a preventive message (knowledge, insight, skills and attitude) with other members of the target group. The method requires active participation of the peers, both in formulation of the message and the way in which these will be communicated with fellow peers. (Trimbos Instituut, 2002)

However, we know there are other definitions of peer support. If your project does not fit the above description, but you think it should be included in our inventory, please complete the questionnaire.


What will happen after I return the questionnaire?
To ensure the manual can be used as a powerful source of information and inspiration, it will integrate many different experiences of peer support. This questionnaire is the first phase of data collection, to get a general overview of peer support projects in Europe. In the second phase, we will contact some peer support projects to collect more in-depth information.

The information gathered in the questionnaire will be treated confidentially and will be used for purposes of this survey only. E-mail addresses provided by respondents for feedback on the project’s main results will only be used for that purpose. Publications based on the data you provide will never contain information that can identify individual respondents or individual institutions without explicit agreement.